Laundry: Losing It!

The Laundry, it is winning.

Or, it was winning; let me back up.

We're a big family, and we get our clothes on the cheap, mostly through generous handers-downers, and thrift stores. This can lead to a Say Yes To Everything That Isn't Stained Or Holey policy, which, when you never stop having children, leads to a gigantic mountain of laundry.

You might say, "Launder your mountain, woman!", but why would you? Did you ever stop to think of how strange that sounds? Anyway, I did that. That's when it became a giant mountain of clean laundry on my bed. Here's where we get to the awkward business of folding and putting on hangers and placing into dressers and closets. I have no defense. I have done it, many many many many times, and I will do it, many many many many times, but on this scale, that solution is simply not an option. If the lives of everyone I dearly love depended on me effectively and regularly storing our clean laundry in little configured stacks, there would have been a massive Laszlo family tragedy sometime back in '05, when I became a mother of three, while simultaneously having enough clothing to dress a small army.

Then this little nut came along, with her thing for dresses, triggering everyone's desire to give me new pink flowery laundry.

Game: Over

Here was the scene each night: Geza and I finish watching a movie or TV, and head upstairs to go to sleep, but not before hoisting armful after armful of clean laundry from our bed to the eight, or so, empty laundry baskets, waiting in front of our dresser. When we need clothes throughout the day, we pick up a basket, toss it on the bed and paw through it, repeating if necessary, until we find what we're looking for. By the end of the day, most of the mountain is transferred back to the bed again, ready for another pre-sleep heavy lifting session.

I laugh, to keep from crying.

 I make a duck face, to keep from laughing.

My problem wasn't that I could never get a handle on it. Just that I could never keep the handle. I WAS ALWAYS LOSING THE HANDLE!

Well, not anymore. I got X-treme. I spread a large flat sheet on my living room floor and collected every single bit of laundry, clothing, linens, whathaveyou, and piled it there. The only fabric in the house was either being worn by one of us, used as bedding, hanging from a curtain rod, in the process of being laundered, or part of my magical growing fabric pile, which is a blog post for another day.

I decided, we're going on vacation from this ludicrous way of living, and living in another, completely different, much more ludicrous way, temporarily. For two months we're only wearing a small percentage of our clothing. I "packed" a week or so's worth of clothes for us to use exclusively, put away the rest of what we all really like in giant storage boxes, and gave away the rest. Or tossed it, or reused it, or a little of both.

For sixty days, we'll live off of what I "packed," and after that, we'll go through the stored stuff and see what deserves to stay, and what is getting evicted.

We're about two weeks in and let me tell you, it's heaven. I scoop up much lighter piles of laundry now, and am so much quicker to switch out the loads in the washer and dryer, and fold and hang up and put away.

There's just one glitch, as far as I can tell: we can't find any of our clothes.  Most of them seem to have disappeared. I was looking for pajamas for Mae the other day, dumped a basket of towels and socks on the bed, looked around, looked on the floor, in the closets, in the washer and dryer, and then, started to feel really stupid for hiding all of our clothes from us. I think I need to take another pass at things.

Nevertheless, I feel free.  Sure, I'm sitting here in tights and a trenchcoat, wondering where all my clothes went, and who knows how far into this sixty days it will be before we find a shirt for Henry. This situation might take some tweaking, some getting used to, but I'll take it over living in the shadow of Laundry Mountain. Perhaps, at the end of this little experiment, I'll be in such a state of bliss at having abundant jeans and t-shirts again, I'll lovingly and diligently fold them into little shapes and store them in boxes full of sliding boxes, forever. Anything is possible in this crazy world of ours.

Our Year in Bits and Pieces

The BU is almost a year old! Twelve months of recipes, antics, activities, and churning, newspaper-lined, twisting, twelve-speed, relentless, loud, paint-splattered learning. Learning is more than a school activity, it's an approach to life that never gives up. It's your little way of saying that no matter what comes your way, you will gain something from it. Life becomes a job never finished. If you're like me, you find that rewarding.

In moments like this, I look back on the last little chunk of time and admire how all of the little pieces fit together. Sometimes a few events just seem to flow into each other and, in a moment of reflection, the thing as a whole seems more significant.*

*Here's where some exercise their spiritual side, and find answers in religion or philosophy. We are not officially guided by any belief system, as a family. Each of the students of the BU is free to decide which truths ring truest to them as they grow up.

I'll start with the movie, Wasteland.  It's on Netflix's Instant Watch list. It's not rated. I'd recommend an adult watch it before deciding whether a kid they're in charge of should watch it. It is an uplifting documentary, but the people it follows are living hard lives, and their stories can get gritty.

In it, artist Vik Muniz brings change into the lives of Brazilian dump dwellers, called catadores. Inspired and aided by these people who make their living sorting recyclable materials, he uses his talent to earn money for them, while shining a light on the dignity with which they face each day. He photographs portraits of catadores; images made from the recyclable materials they gather.

 He then sells photographs of these portraits and returns the money to the catadores, along with their own copy of the portrait. This film left lingering notions, in my head, of moving things around, collecting many small simple things into one larger effort. A good idea and a bit of art can go a long way toward making the world a better place.

Not long after that, Japan was hit with an extremely destructive tsunami, and endured weeks of radiation contamination, and looming threat of nuclear disaster. The news was heart-breaking  and my thoughts were often with the people there. An organization called Students Rebuild announced an art project for the people of the world. Paper cranes: fold 'em, send 'em.  Take your sadness, your empathy, your healing, your compassion, your hope and your love and make it into creased little bits of paper and mail them in. Each crane brings them a couple of dollars in donation money, and will be used in an art installation.  Henry and I each made one and mailed them.

We meant to make many more, and did make a few more, but only two actually got mailed before the cut-off date. Just two little cranes, carrying all of our best wishes for the people affected by the disaster.

People everywhere, mostly children, made and sent cranes to Students Rebuild. They received millions of cranes. Then, you guessed it, Vik Muniz got involved!

Using his trademark style, he arranged the cranes into this image, photographed it, and copies of the poster earn more money to help finance the reconstruction efforts.

 His involvement with this project reignited my desire to find more little things to do, either as a gesture, a lesson, a solution to a problem, or all three.

Which brings me to Kiva. Kiva is an organized database of microlenders and their potential borrowers. Somebody with relatively little money ($25 plus a few bucks in fees) can pick a person, read their business plan, and help finance it. All the little bits of money come together to make a real boost in the dreams of someone out there. I decided we'd start cashing in our cans and saving the odd nickel and penny we see here and there, and bring it all together.

 I made this chart to keep track of each dollar we stored in a tin bucket on a high shelf.

It was tempting not to take a five dollar bill and throw it in the jar, just to speed things along. I really wanted to get to that $25 mark by Christmas, but I stayed patient and we gathered the money slowly. Up until a few weeks ago, we were holding steady at $20.  Then, one day, Henry tried on a coat I bought him at a thrift store, put his hand in the pocket and pulled out a five dollar bill. Try that with your "new" "clothes"! We added the money to the jar, deposited it in the bank, and picked our borrower. Good luck Etienne!

And let's not forget our Puppy Adventures, which are mostly over now.

Right before Thanksgiving, with a huge storm blowing, a pregnant young dog found herself suddenly without a home. Our local shelter picked her up and issued a request on Facebook, looking for someone who would foster her through her pregnancy and the weaning of her puppies. It would be a commitment of attention and care for several months. I talked it over with the family and we contacted the shelter.

 She arrived the next day. We named her Holly, and she proceeded to charm our family and fill our Christmas with eight beautiful puppies.For a month, she was in charge of them. After that, she started to feed them less and seem less interested in them. We had hoped she might stay with us, but being in a house with puppies she was no longer feeding seemed to make her restless. We tried hard to make it work, but Holly needed to move on. She went back to the shelter, and has been adopted by a lady in a nearby town. We'll always love her and think of her.

The puppies stayed here,

and grew up so that they could move on to new homes of their own.

When you tell people you're hosting a litter of puppies, people always say, "What a great learning opportunity for the kids! It will be so good for them to be around a litter of puppies!" That's very true, like a lot of things people always say. The puppies also learned a lot, from Mae.

They learned songs. They learned that the little one is the one who makes you wish you never even heard of being picked up. They learned to wun, and wun and wun. In Puppy School, Headmistress Mae ruled with a chubby iron fist, and all puppies did frolic with a diligent pursuit of excellence.

Holly and her puppies brought us innumerable lessons of immeasurable worth. A pregnant dog is science in action. The older two boys collaborated on a paper, outlining the needs of a pregnant dog, complete with correct terminology. They felt Holly's belly, as puppies squirmed and kicked inside of her, giggling with anticipation. We can't wait for you to get here puppies! and the puppies say, "Oh kids, you have no idea how much we can't wait to play with you too." They lived up to that promise. Once they were able, they gave each kid a lesson.

When Holly did go into labor, we gave her space, but Henry watched over my shoulder as one of her puppies slid into the world and drew its first breath. It takes a lot for a modern hip teenage boy to stare agape and whisper "Wow", but that moment did it. When they were bigger and more playful, they taught Thomas a thing or two about being energetic and exuberant, two things he wrote the proverbial book on.

George.

George is a unique kid. He's very smart, and deeply sweet, but he doesn't talk much. As someone who spends a lot of time with kids, I can tell he's not like his older brothers were at this age (6).  I know I could train him to behave more like some people expect him to act, but his marvelous little personality makes me think. Maybe there's not that much around him that makes him feel the way we think we feel about everything. Maybe he knows his family loves him, and that's good. He doesn't need to think about whether he loves us back. He's looking for something more interesting to do.

Enter: the puppies. From the second they arrived, the puppies have been interesting to George. He was always near when we got them out to hold them, and despite the fact that they were wiggly and sometimes scratchy or bitey he kept coming back for more. He loves them. He said so.

As they grew, he was allowed to pick them up and carry them more. He did, and cuddled them for naps, wrote their names, read to them, proclaimed his love for them, talked to them and talked to us about them. He also counted them, and learned to tell which gender they were.

One day, when I was reading in a chair, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked back to see George, smiling at me. I scooped him up onto my lap, hugged him, and thought about how that had never happened before. I believe those puppies inspired him to feel affectionate. They motivated him to keep hugging and holding in spite of their weird wiggling spontaneity. Once he enjoyed sharing warmth with something he loved, he brought that discovery to me, because he loves me and he knows I love him. It was an unforseen benefit to bringing together some of life's little misfits and cast-aways, cleaning up after them, and hoping for the best.

Speaking of unforseen benefits, when I read that Facebook notice, asking for a home for Holly and her puppies, I never could have guessed it would make this friend from forever ago and far away come all the way out here to visit us and take one of the puppies home!

Do you see the icing in this photo? Because it was on the cake. Pure extra fun, hanging out, visiting the dump, and chowing down at the Chalet. It was a big deal for Leah to come to Oregon, she has a family at home in New Mexico. Still, she seemed to agree with me, that Holly was special, and that her first born girl, Judy, might be worth the trip.

We are puppy sisters, because one of the other daughters of Holly is staying here at the BU. We're calling her Zelda and she's a student for life, right here where she was born.

 She fits in well with our family of humans, dogs, cats and pig. We're keeping her away from the chickens for now.

It might be a little late for this confession, but I kind of have no idea what I'm doing here. I didn't decide to pull my kids out of school and start a blog and watch a movie and do some origami and cash in some cans and take in a pregnant dog and call all of it a school year. That would have been crazy. Yet, that's what ended up happening. I liked it and intend to keep it up.

Whatever you want to call it, there's something that compels each of us to see our lives the way we do and make the choices we make. And, though events that unfold don't seem to have our constant happiness in mind, each tiny moment is a whole new chance at life; like a little piece of paper, a discarded aluminum can, or a silly puppy. What you do with these little bits and pieces makes a big difference.

365 TV-Free Activities: Errands

Today, George had to run some errands. You know how it goes, sometimes you have to go to the library, and then after that, you have to stop by the post office*.

 Thomas would make an excellent librarian someday. He delights in the welcoming of a new patron, 

the crafting of their card, 

  and the use of the machine that goes "beep!

On to the post office! 

 Henry cut a cardboard box so that it could function as a post box, 

and crouched behind it like a Bedouin while George pulled the flap door open and filled it with junk mail. Just like in real life! 

*These ideas, Library Fun (#177) and Post Office (#253) were ripped right out of the always amusing 365 TV-Free Activities, by Steve and Ruth Bennett. They bring us to day 239 & 240 of our year-long project. 

We Went West

I remember the day we decided to move to the Oregon Coast.  Geza, Henry and I lived in the lovely town of Stillwater, Oklahoma, where Geza had just finished his doctorate in math, and was in the process of applying for jobs in universities all over the world.  As we received rejection letter after rejection letter, we crossed off daydreams of living in some leafy little college town here and there; so, we decided to look for a future in the world of community colleges. Faced with the prospect of taking on additional jobs that we deemed less-than-glorious, we decided to make our home someplace we did find glorious.

We decided on Oregon, hoping for college work, but ready for anything.  Geza and I were no strangers to restaurant jobs.  Those paid the bills when we were both in school. I began to scour the internet, looking for job listings at community colleges in Oregon, and stumbled upon a position for a math instructor at Oregon Coast Community College, in the dazzling little city of Newport Oregon. 

I gasped, hopped up from the library chair, and ran outside, where Geza and Henry were consorting with the water fowl of Oklahoma State University's picturesque Theta Pond.  I announced, "Oregon COAST Community College" with jazz hands.  His eyes lit up.  That was it.  IT!  We sent in application materials, but we were infected with the idea of living on the Oregon Coast.  Whether Geza got the job or not was becoming less important.  We felt an urgent need to get out there right away.  So, we packed our Corolla full of wooden train set pieces and Blue's Clues VHS tapes, squeezed our almost-three year old in there somewhere, and made a journey of faith.

We figured, they have pizza and burger joints on the Oregon Coast, right? So? Even if we didn't get the job, we'd just rent a cheap apartment and work and spend our free time playing on the beach with our little boy.

 It ended up being a good thing that we moved so quickly.  The job opportunities in Newport boom at the beginning of the summer, and dry up within weeks.  Had we waited to find out that Geza would be granted an interview at OCCC, we would have been doomed to drown, financially, from day one.  He did get the interview, and he did get the job, but it was an adjunct position, with sometimey hours and pay.  We both got service jobs the day we arrived, and secured the aforementioned cheap apartment soon after.

Money was tight, but life was good. We started renting a little house near the ocean and our second son, Thomas, was born during that time.  Geza, always looking for more permanent work in the area, soon heard of a math instructor position at Tillamook Bay Community College.  It was full-time and as permanent as you can hope for, so he went for it, and got it, and here we have been for 8 more years.

And what did we find in almost eleven years of life on the Oregon Coast? Many treasures, some obvious, some unexpected. We knew it would be beautiful, but we could only hope to meet kind people and be given an opportunity to become part of a community.  The people we met in our first jobs at the restaurant and gift store are among our most beloved friends to this day.  I'll never forget how important their help and generosity was in those early days when we had nobody else.

When we moved to Tillamook, we doubled our kid count, with the arrival of one more son and a daughter, and involved ourselves in schools and organizations regularly for years.  Making friends has been easy.  People here are smart, kind, no nonsense, usually creative, and a little weird sometimes, just like I like them.  I don't think a day goes by that I don't feel happy that we made the choice to raise our family here.  As the years pass, we gain more from the people and land, and learn better how to make the kind of lives we want for ourselves.  Here, you can grow, make, catch, gather, and save the elements around you to ensure a relatively comfortable survival. You just need to be willing to learn new things constantly.  Often, I am encountering these skills for the first time, right along with my kids, and those of you who read along with the twists and turns of our learning curve.

Juggling a growing operation such as this one has been an education of its own, and I am ever the struggling pupil. Since the kids left school, Geza and I have worked and thought hard on the education of our family.    There is a lot of animal and plant care in our lives, along with a broad assortment of hobbies, which leads to the need for a lot of materials, tools, supplies, feathers, <fill in the blank with the weirdest thing you can think of, because we'll probably need to buy at least six pounds of it someday.>, paper, etc.

We are now in our thirdish year of Whatever-This-Is-Style homeschooling ,and I need to make a confession.  I have a secret weapon, which serves as therapy, a community builder, supply store, and recycling center.  Plus, it gives me the opportunity to say "I got this at the dump." I just love that. Some call it Cart'm,

  but I call it Xanadu.  

The shakedown from decades of materialism and cheap manufacturing has lead to heaps and heaps of junk, everywhere you look. It's like Wall-E, without the marshmallow people in hoverchairs. I feel like a post-apocalyptic stay-at-home mom, scavenging on the the rusty underbelly of the carcass of our once mighty industrial society.

You might be saying to yourself, "So what? It's a thrift store.", but you are wrong, and talking to yourself, so that's what.  Thrift stores usually strive for all the affectations and accoutrement of a bargain retail store: tags, racks, labels. 

Bins and masking tape, fools!  It's like a thrift store you wear coveralls to.  And I'm not just saying that because I wear coveralls everywhere.

The leavin's are choice.

 And the prices are so low, they're dirty.

 The masking tape does not lie, that chair is solid, and it's $8.

Sometimes we go there to take in our recycling and shop, but most of the time we completely forget to bring the recycling and just come there to browse and buy armfuls of fabric, saw blades, blank books, high end kitchen items, fencing, baskets, leashes, fake eyelashes, and other necessities.  You never know what you're going to need until you go there and look at everything.  For example,

This  is going to get the treatment and will hold CDs for the littles to rock on the accordion case DJ bench.  Two bucks, and it's very sturdy, if not a little tacky.

Every spring, they hold a fabulous party called the Trash Bash, in which people dress up in costumes they make from recyclable materials and trash.  Henry used it as an opportunity to make himself into Baron Von Bon Bon, and, using supplies from our recycling bins and Cart'm, gave himself this rad steampunk mechanical arm.

He's already planning his costume for this year's bash, and I think Thomas will get in on it too.  There is also talk of conspiring with their kids' outreach coordinator to dismantle microwave ovens together with fellow homeschoolers.  Jealous?  Yeah, I know.  The cheerful, helpful Cart'm employees are there because they too love the place.  They juggle a multitude of responsibilities and demands, all while creating a unique culture of fun-loving creativity. 

 Not to mention, the drive there and back is like one of those,  

 well, it's just...

 Let's put it this way, I take a lot of pictures.

 and I'm not just saying that because I 

 take pictures all the time.

 

So, if you make your own journey westward, and if you visit us, and if I try to take you to the dump, it's not because I think you're broke or dirty (not that there's anything wrong with that, goodness!); it's because I want to show you the best time I can, between the hours of 10 am, and 4 pm, Thursday through Sunday, Monday in the summer.  And please, remind me to load the recycling in the car before we leave.

Tails and Tidings: Eight is OUT OF CONTROL!

As we come closer to the end of this year, I spend less time reflecting and remembering, and more time planning the year to come.  There will be birthdays, boring days, surprises, tears, long hugs, fresh corn, headaches, misunderstandings, and forgiveness.  It will go by faster than this year.  And though not every single plan will be executed with utterly successful perfect serenity, a lot will get done, and hopefully nobody has to be cranky for too long before getting the nap they so richly deserve. 

Yeah yeah yeah, just make with the puppies.

Aren't they wonderful? 

The story that began here has progressed.  We named the pregnant dog "Holly" and, based on her behavior before the arrival of the puppies, we were planning to adopt her.  Since the arrival of her puppies, Holly displayed some qualities we hadn't seen before.  We tried working with her, and might have had some success, but these puppies are getting bigger and harder to keep up with everyday.  I saw a bad moment in our future, and decided to keep it from happening.  She must return to the shelter, where she will hopefully catch the eye of some lucky human and be their wonderful dog.  For she is, a very good dog.  

Watching her has been educational. Sometimes, when I'm holding one of the puppies, she'll come to the puppy box, look inside, and immediately look at me. I think she notices one missing and starts looking for it in the most likely spot. Other times, when I'm just staring at them sleep in their box, in sappy-eyed awe, she'll come, look in, and not bother looking for one, because she knows they're all in there.  She may not say, "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight", but I have a feeling she knows what eight puppies looks like, and what it doesn't look like.

Here's what it looks like.

Big things are in store for these little creatures in 2012.  My wish for them, and for anyone reading, is that they are curious, healthy, and treated with kindness in next year.   May your homes be a place of peace, and may your playful times leave you too tired to get into any trouble.