My brand new, dropped-down-the-chimney-by-Santa computer was ambushed this week by the soberworm virus. At least that’s what one of the first in a long string of tech support guys suspected. I thought perhaps Mr. Norton had been asleep at the switch, but my techie explained that the soberworm is like a thug on the corner, waiting for some unsuspecting download to assault.
Things are improving. I have been teetering between tears and shrieking madness at increasingly less frequent intervals, and I have restored some of the things I thought were lost forever. I am not a techie in the true sense of the word, but I have been able to teach myself most of what I need to know to become totally dependent on this machine for all my daily information needs. T-man and The Dot observe that I can’t make it through dinner without looking up something on the Internet, but they exaggerate a mite. Sometimes I wait until after the dessert course.
Hubba tries to give me helpful pointers. Next to him, I look like Bill Gates, but he’s in there plugging for me. It must make him mightily uncomfortable to hear the human noises that come from the library when I discover things like my computer and PDA won’t synch. He’s tenderhearted, and would do anything to help me fix the situation. His suggestions, in the form of, “Would it help if you….?” most often result in me explaining to him why that wouldn’t work, and go something like this:
“No, that’s not what this is about. Don’t worry, I’ll figure it out.”
The meta-message, for you linguists in the room, is:
“Leave me alone. I have enough to deal with without giving a lesson in Computer for Dummies.”
Poor Hubba. And he was Santa this year. As soon as I figure out how to get my fonts back, I’m going to give him a hug.
So, this is life in the Midwest for me today. Computers, 800 numbers, tech people, and the Super Highway. There are times I wish we were as backward as the stereotype, when all these time-saving devices didn’t keep me from quilting!
I’ll see you next week – I need to go feed the cybergods now.
Copyright © 2006 Kari E.O. Burns
Maybe Someday...
We mean it this time. We won’t miss them a bit.
Deciding to get married and start a family is often accompanied by complicated discussions. Responsible parties want to be sure all issues are brought to the table, and that there are no major surprises when it comes to where each person stands.
Yeah, right. Like we even knew what we were talking about during those discussions. Hubba and I reviewed everything we could think of before getting married, and we thought we had the kid thing down to a science by the time we started having them. The Dot came first, and we spaced T-man’s arrival according to our master plan. What we couldn’t have understood before we saw them was how completely we would love them, and how important it was to pool our resources to give them the best lives we could.
With two preschoolers we were not hobby parenting, and we could no longer remember when it was just the two of us. We briefly considered a third addition, but a quick count had us realize that we had run out of parents. We were a contented family of four; a mom, a dad, a sister, and a brother.
Everything about family life multiplied as the years progressed. Each school year added new responsibilities. There were new friends and new ideas with which to horrify Mom and Dad, and talents none of us knew we had. Dreams were discussed, hearts were broken, awards awarded, and punishments rendered. School chums stopped in and stayed for dinner or the night, and we sat with other parents at the games and speech contests. It seemed so normal that we didn’t realize how effortlessly we adjusted into each new stage.
Then pffffffft! It was over! Huh? One big party with napkins in school colors, one last trip with the minivan loaded to the gills, and it was back to Hubba and me. No more daily doses of our offspring, no more of their friends, no more parents at school events. It was just plain over.
We recognized the shell-shocked looks on the faces of some of our fellow empty nesters, as we all shook our heads in disbelief.
“That sure didn’t take very long."
“I hear ya. How are you guys doing?”
“We’re thinking of starting over.”
“As a couple?”
“No, we’re thinking about having some more kids.”
The idea had some appeal, but the thought of having kids who could legitimately call us geezers diluted our zeal.
The college years provided many opportunities for the four of us to bond as adults. We were longtime holdouts as cell phone owners, but once everyone was scattered hither and yon, having instamatic phone contact was too good to pass up. For the first few years of the totally empty nest, The Dot and T-man only lived about twenty miles apart. That meant when we saw one, we usually saw both, and we bragged about having frequent family meals together.
There would be an occasional hug from a former classmate on the street, and increasingly meager social contact with some of the other parents, and so without really realizing it, we weaned ourselves from the family-of-four lifestyle within about three years. Hubba and I slowly regained our pre-parental interests, and we discovered our conversations included topics that hadn’t arisen since 1980.
The weaning process included a new phenomenon. We couldn’t identify it immediately, but when the kids were home, we’d get kind of annoyed with them. Hubba certainly thought I made some negative-sounding comments at times, and I heard the same from him. How could that be? Our children were the centers of our universe for so many years, yet now when they were around, they were sort of, well, in the way.
We certainly didn’t love them any less. We still talked about them every day, and when the phone rang, we always hoped it was one of them. I checked my e-mail regularly to see if there was something offspring-like in the inbox, and I kept clean sheets on their beds in case they found time to run home for an overnight. I grimaced at hearing some parents say they were always happy to see their adult children arrive for a visit, and equally happy to see them leave again. Ick. That wasn’t us. We hated to see them leave. It was baffling.
Then it occurred to me: it is difficult for adults to live together. Anyone who has ever been married can tell you how much more we expect of our adult relationships than we expect from our parent/child relationships. Preferences related to the position of the toilet seat, wet towels, dirty clothes, channel-surfing, bed times, and waking hours were now negotiable, not mandated.
The Dot and T-man have been home for a nice holiday visit. It will all end very soon, and they will return to their lives away from the nest. We’ve tried to be good hosts, and have enjoyed having them as guests. This time when they leave, it won’t be so sad. We won’t pine away for them as we did a few years ago, and we’ll adjust back to our empty nest lives without skipping a beat. We mean it this time. We won’t miss them a bit.
If we keep telling ourselves that, maybe someday…
Copyright © Kari E.O. Burns January 2006
Deciding to get married and start a family is often accompanied by complicated discussions. Responsible parties want to be sure all issues are brought to the table, and that there are no major surprises when it comes to where each person stands.
Yeah, right. Like we even knew what we were talking about during those discussions. Hubba and I reviewed everything we could think of before getting married, and we thought we had the kid thing down to a science by the time we started having them. The Dot came first, and we spaced T-man’s arrival according to our master plan. What we couldn’t have understood before we saw them was how completely we would love them, and how important it was to pool our resources to give them the best lives we could.
With two preschoolers we were not hobby parenting, and we could no longer remember when it was just the two of us. We briefly considered a third addition, but a quick count had us realize that we had run out of parents. We were a contented family of four; a mom, a dad, a sister, and a brother.
Everything about family life multiplied as the years progressed. Each school year added new responsibilities. There were new friends and new ideas with which to horrify Mom and Dad, and talents none of us knew we had. Dreams were discussed, hearts were broken, awards awarded, and punishments rendered. School chums stopped in and stayed for dinner or the night, and we sat with other parents at the games and speech contests. It seemed so normal that we didn’t realize how effortlessly we adjusted into each new stage.
Then pffffffft! It was over! Huh? One big party with napkins in school colors, one last trip with the minivan loaded to the gills, and it was back to Hubba and me. No more daily doses of our offspring, no more of their friends, no more parents at school events. It was just plain over.
We recognized the shell-shocked looks on the faces of some of our fellow empty nesters, as we all shook our heads in disbelief.
“That sure didn’t take very long."
“I hear ya. How are you guys doing?”
“We’re thinking of starting over.”
“As a couple?”
“No, we’re thinking about having some more kids.”
The idea had some appeal, but the thought of having kids who could legitimately call us geezers diluted our zeal.
The college years provided many opportunities for the four of us to bond as adults. We were longtime holdouts as cell phone owners, but once everyone was scattered hither and yon, having instamatic phone contact was too good to pass up. For the first few years of the totally empty nest, The Dot and T-man only lived about twenty miles apart. That meant when we saw one, we usually saw both, and we bragged about having frequent family meals together.
There would be an occasional hug from a former classmate on the street, and increasingly meager social contact with some of the other parents, and so without really realizing it, we weaned ourselves from the family-of-four lifestyle within about three years. Hubba and I slowly regained our pre-parental interests, and we discovered our conversations included topics that hadn’t arisen since 1980.
The weaning process included a new phenomenon. We couldn’t identify it immediately, but when the kids were home, we’d get kind of annoyed with them. Hubba certainly thought I made some negative-sounding comments at times, and I heard the same from him. How could that be? Our children were the centers of our universe for so many years, yet now when they were around, they were sort of, well, in the way.
We certainly didn’t love them any less. We still talked about them every day, and when the phone rang, we always hoped it was one of them. I checked my e-mail regularly to see if there was something offspring-like in the inbox, and I kept clean sheets on their beds in case they found time to run home for an overnight. I grimaced at hearing some parents say they were always happy to see their adult children arrive for a visit, and equally happy to see them leave again. Ick. That wasn’t us. We hated to see them leave. It was baffling.
Then it occurred to me: it is difficult for adults to live together. Anyone who has ever been married can tell you how much more we expect of our adult relationships than we expect from our parent/child relationships. Preferences related to the position of the toilet seat, wet towels, dirty clothes, channel-surfing, bed times, and waking hours were now negotiable, not mandated.
The Dot and T-man have been home for a nice holiday visit. It will all end very soon, and they will return to their lives away from the nest. We’ve tried to be good hosts, and have enjoyed having them as guests. This time when they leave, it won’t be so sad. We won’t pine away for them as we did a few years ago, and we’ll adjust back to our empty nest lives without skipping a beat. We mean it this time. We won’t miss them a bit.
If we keep telling ourselves that, maybe someday…
Copyright © Kari E.O. Burns January 2006
In Search of A Happy Medium
Uh-oh.
I had a few minutes to myself yesterday, and even though I had plenty of other things to do, I pulled out a quilt and stitched on it.
I have been denying myself quilting time in recent weeks because I consider the time I spend quilting to be decadent. Subliminally I think it’s one of the ways I reward myself, as is a luscious piece of good cake or a fragrant, warm bath.
The quilt I stitched on isn’t anything artistically special, but it is special. It’s for T-man, and was originally slated to be his high school graduation quilt. I had two other graduation quilts that spring, one for a niece and another for a godson, so I put T’s last on the list. I had the fabric, in a pleasing combination of Coe College-inspired colors, which necessitated a two-color design. I settled on the “T” block, of course! When pieced, the “T” is visible in both the positive and the negative. The muted crimson “T” blocks stand out obviously enough, but on second glance, the soft golden “T’s” appear, slanted towards the other direction in the background. I was able to find some nice homespun fabric in these two colors, as homespun is manlier for a college baseball player.
Not long after we bid him farewell for his first year at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, I took a job as the county tourism director. There was a lot to learn and a lot to do, and I kept myself focused on that task until I was recruited away to another position. That was another year of new stuff to learn, and the soft crimson- and golden-colored T-block fabric remained by the sewing machine, untouched. I took not a single stitch, nor even designed a simple wall-hanging, from September of 2002 to March of 2005. It was like having a limb removed.
I made the decision to release myself from the last position – it really wasn’t a good match for my interests or abilities. The hours were long and arduous, which wouldn’t deter me, but they consisted of activity that failed to enhance any part of my extended life. I was left too depleted to do anything other than work and veg.
I started blogging not long after I turned in my resignation, and I picked up a quilt. The quilt top was completed, and it just needed stitching. As I stitched, I got my “me” back, and I could feel the flow of inspiring relief course through my entire system. Of queen-sized proportions, that quilt took me several weeks to finish, and by the end of it, I was more aware than ever of my core need to keep creatively alive.
My next assignment was the T-block quilt. I played around with the design so the quilt wouldn’t have an “up” or a “down”. It is bordered in a large crimson and gold checkerboard, so I ran another trail of it horizontally, smack dab across the middle of the quilt. As a result, the “T’s” run in both directions on either side of that center checkerboard, which accomplished my mission.
As happens with me once the juices begin to flow, I designed another few quilts and completed one for a special high school graduate. This was closely followed by teaching quilting classes at church, and dealing with the flurry of lint that was stirred up there. A trip to the Pacific Northwest, the launching of my cake-baking business, substitute teaching, holidays, and so on and so on (and so on) left little time for quilting. I complained about there not being enough hours in the day, but I was using the hours I had in creative and fulfilling ways.
There just wasn’t any quilting.
I think I’ve figured out why. I have often said that learning to quilt ruined my life, and once I get started, I don’t want to do anything else! There isn’t a task related to quilting that I don’t enjoy. I love everything from washing the fabric to attaching and laying down the binding. It’s kind of sick, in a non-demented way. You see, I hesitate to start working on a quilt because I’m afraid I’ll never put it down again, and be lost to lint forever.
One of these days I’ll discover A Happy Medium. There must be some way I can schedule in a little quilting time, a little cooking time, a little laundry time, and a little writing time, all in the same day. I will mature out of the “if-a-little-is-good-a-lot-must-be-better” quilting mentality, and downgrade it to something similar to breathing, as opposed to something akin to compulsive gambling. Maybe the solution will dawn on me someday when I’m stitching away. Until then, just kindly leave me alone when I’m quilting, and don’t assume that I will do things like take bathroom breaks or answer the phone. I can’t do everything, you know!
Copyright © January 2006 Kari E.O. Burns
I had a few minutes to myself yesterday, and even though I had plenty of other things to do, I pulled out a quilt and stitched on it.
I have been denying myself quilting time in recent weeks because I consider the time I spend quilting to be decadent. Subliminally I think it’s one of the ways I reward myself, as is a luscious piece of good cake or a fragrant, warm bath.
The quilt I stitched on isn’t anything artistically special, but it is special. It’s for T-man, and was originally slated to be his high school graduation quilt. I had two other graduation quilts that spring, one for a niece and another for a godson, so I put T’s last on the list. I had the fabric, in a pleasing combination of Coe College-inspired colors, which necessitated a two-color design. I settled on the “T” block, of course! When pieced, the “T” is visible in both the positive and the negative. The muted crimson “T” blocks stand out obviously enough, but on second glance, the soft golden “T’s” appear, slanted towards the other direction in the background. I was able to find some nice homespun fabric in these two colors, as homespun is manlier for a college baseball player.
Not long after we bid him farewell for his first year at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, I took a job as the county tourism director. There was a lot to learn and a lot to do, and I kept myself focused on that task until I was recruited away to another position. That was another year of new stuff to learn, and the soft crimson- and golden-colored T-block fabric remained by the sewing machine, untouched. I took not a single stitch, nor even designed a simple wall-hanging, from September of 2002 to March of 2005. It was like having a limb removed.
I made the decision to release myself from the last position – it really wasn’t a good match for my interests or abilities. The hours were long and arduous, which wouldn’t deter me, but they consisted of activity that failed to enhance any part of my extended life. I was left too depleted to do anything other than work and veg.
I started blogging not long after I turned in my resignation, and I picked up a quilt. The quilt top was completed, and it just needed stitching. As I stitched, I got my “me” back, and I could feel the flow of inspiring relief course through my entire system. Of queen-sized proportions, that quilt took me several weeks to finish, and by the end of it, I was more aware than ever of my core need to keep creatively alive.
My next assignment was the T-block quilt. I played around with the design so the quilt wouldn’t have an “up” or a “down”. It is bordered in a large crimson and gold checkerboard, so I ran another trail of it horizontally, smack dab across the middle of the quilt. As a result, the “T’s” run in both directions on either side of that center checkerboard, which accomplished my mission.
As happens with me once the juices begin to flow, I designed another few quilts and completed one for a special high school graduate. This was closely followed by teaching quilting classes at church, and dealing with the flurry of lint that was stirred up there. A trip to the Pacific Northwest, the launching of my cake-baking business, substitute teaching, holidays, and so on and so on (and so on) left little time for quilting. I complained about there not being enough hours in the day, but I was using the hours I had in creative and fulfilling ways.
There just wasn’t any quilting.
I think I’ve figured out why. I have often said that learning to quilt ruined my life, and once I get started, I don’t want to do anything else! There isn’t a task related to quilting that I don’t enjoy. I love everything from washing the fabric to attaching and laying down the binding. It’s kind of sick, in a non-demented way. You see, I hesitate to start working on a quilt because I’m afraid I’ll never put it down again, and be lost to lint forever.
One of these days I’ll discover A Happy Medium. There must be some way I can schedule in a little quilting time, a little cooking time, a little laundry time, and a little writing time, all in the same day. I will mature out of the “if-a-little-is-good-a-lot-must-be-better” quilting mentality, and downgrade it to something similar to breathing, as opposed to something akin to compulsive gambling. Maybe the solution will dawn on me someday when I’m stitching away. Until then, just kindly leave me alone when I’m quilting, and don’t assume that I will do things like take bathroom breaks or answer the phone. I can’t do everything, you know!
Copyright © January 2006 Kari E.O. Burns
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