Happy New Year!

I've meaning to put up a blog post for a while, because I have some big news, but I never did. I'm out of the habit, not sure anyone reads this thing anymore, etc. But then Scottius Maximus re-emerged from his own blogging hiatus, which gave me the impetus I needed to revisit my own blog. However, this post isn't going to be about 2018, but the last big family event of 2017. Our eldest daughter got married!

As you can guess, the wedding had a Halloween theme. Overall, it was very nice. I'm hoping I won't have to deal with any big events in 2018, however, at least not in my immediate family!

Mother's Day 2016

When my daughters were little, Mother's Day had a certain poignancy, a celebration of a mother's love and care for little beings who were too young to take complete care of themselves. Now that my babies are just about all grown up, it's also a time to look at our relationships with each other. We want to try to remain close to each other, even though we are now three individuals who are scarily alike in some ways, but amazingly different in others. We have misunderstandings, and we frustrate each other sometimes, but we don't want disagreements to drive us apart. The girls' father and I have stresses and sufferings and worry because of them, but our daughters are also their now to share in the difficulties that Mr. BTEG and I encounter. I hope I can give my daughters guidance and encouragement and support as long as I am on this earth, and I hope they remember fondly what I have given them, and are able to give to children of their own.

Christmas Gift Sewing

One of the things I love about sewing is being able to make gifts for others. This Christmas, I decided to make an ice skating dress for my niece, who is taking skating lessons. I used a Jalie pattern, because they offer so many active wear patterns in so many sizes. I had already used one of their patterns to make some dance shorts for the Dancer, too. This time, I ordered directly from the company, and bought some patterns as PDFs. Putting all the pieces of this pattern on 8 1/2" x 11" paper together was a pain, but the pattern did sew up wonderfully. We have a large format printer at home; I would love to be able to get patterns that will work on it.

Anyway, here are two pictures of the outfit. My niece loved it, so I'm happy.

Digging Through the Past

Has it been a rainy late spring/early summer where you live? It certainly has been here. Many of the homes in NE Ohio have basements, which can flood easily in these conditions. My mother's basement, in the house I grew up in, floods very easily, water even coming up through the floor. So my two sisters and I, my daughter the Dancer, and my niece, went through my mom's basement on Saturday, cleaning items out in preparation for some new waterproofing. And to rescue items from the damp and mildew. Yuck! (Not to mention two dead mice in a trap. Fortunately, Mr. BTEG was around by that time to dispose of them.)

There were lots of cool things down there, and some things that should have been disposed of long ago. There were also some things that didn't belong in high humidity, like a picture of a family member from around the turn of the century. Some old newspapers headlining the Allies' victory in Europe, and the first moon landing, were saved by being in a cedar chest. My mother found her high school diploma, graduation tassel, and class picture. We also discovered two pairs of wooden shoes and a white Dutch cap from my mother's visits to Holland, Michigan, where they still promote the Netherlands. Several hats belonging to my grandmother, and a pair of my sister's old character shoes, are going to our local high school drama club. My sisters and I also found a lot of things that were ours when we were girls. There was lots of laughing over old times. I don't want to go through all that work again anytime soon, though, especially not in a humid basement!

Of Writing Many Blog Posts, There Is No End

This little paraphrase of King Solomon's words came to me as I was pondering the huge amount of verbiage that spills out of the internet every day. I don't want to become just another "mommy blogger," but I also don't think my niche is simply supplying news links, with a little of my own commentary. There are already a lot of sites out there that do that, some of them very well. I used to enjoy talking about homeschooling, but those days are long gone now. Still, I do get ideas for blog posts, but mostly around 11PM when I'm trying to go to sleep. And even if I write the ideas down, the spark is often gone by the next day. Still, I've always enjoyed writing, and I'd hate to stop doing it. Right now, blogging is the best way for me to work on writing. Plus, it helps me try to organize my thoughts in a coherent fashion. Mr. BTEG or my daughters could tell you how often I spit out some stream of consciousness from my brain that makes little sense to anyone but me. At least when I write, I can go back and correct something that I didn't clarify enough for a reader to understand. Too often I write only a portion of what my brain is processing, so there is no needed context to what I write.

One thing that will be interesting to observe in the future is that, in an agreement between my psychiatrist and myself, I have been completely weaned from one of my bipolar medications. This was largely out of concern for my physical health: a side effect of this drug can be high cholesterol. While I have already found that I'm having negative and self-accusing thoughts again concerning the past, I'm also hoping to combat those using some of the positive thinking I've gained over several years of mental stability. The interesting part is that my brain is not as numb, for lack of a better word, than it was on the medication. Not that I was a zombie before, but I was kind of floating in a sea of calm, thinking very little. I'm wondering if this new medicinal change will help my creativity, while hoping I can retain mental health. We'll see how it goes.

The End of Something

Today was the Musician's last final. Her high school days are over. And you know what? I don't feel too bittersweet about it. High school had too many difficult spells for her, for me to feel sorry that it is over. Looking at it with adult wisdom, I think high school is difficult for everyone, perhaps largely because these are difficult years in general. Teenagers are very often overemotional and immature, leading to a lot of what my youngest calls "teen angst" and creating those who the Musician calls "drama llamas." And high school is their world. If a co-worker was catty, for example, I generally wouldn't have to see her in any context outside of work. High school kids are stuck with each other during the day, for after-school activities, at parties, often even times at their entry-level jobs. Teens have to work out their own growing issues while everyone else around them struggle with theirs, and often clash. Even though my daughter was more popular, made more friends and was involved in more than Mr. BTEG or I did in our time, there's always those that don't like you, and teens can be all too nasty about letting you know.

Of course, having a daughter who's graduating high school can be a reminder to me that I am growing older! I try not to feel too badly about it, because I wouldn't want to be stuck in my 30's with two little girls forever, either. But it's a little bit difficult seeing my mother get depressed as she gets deeper into her twilight years (she will be 80 this year.) I feel concern for her, but I also hope this is not a glimpse into my own future. One of my big fears is outliving my body, so that I'm stuck in a nursing home for years, or even outliving my mind. And even as a Christian, I think death gives us all a pang at times. Even so, my mother can still live on her own, even if she doesn't have as much energy as she used to do, and her mind is intact. There are blessings there.

For the present, I'm going to celebrate my daughter's achievement!

How to Cope

I wasn't and am still not really moved by the death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman. I've never seen any of his movies; I'm not really a big movie watcher. Without a personal connection, he's just another person whose drug use got the better of him. He's just being talked about because he happened to be famous. What moved me to blog about this was when people started talking about his using drugs to cope with his demons, whatever they were, and discussion has since moved on (in other places on the net) to people using drugs to self-medicate for mental issues like bipolar.

I did a little looking around in the internet, and I really can't find anything to go on that this actor had mental illness, or what his demons were. The only thing I found remotely interesting was that Hoffman's father was apparently not around during Hoffman's childhood. Studies have shown children of single parent families are much more likely to use drugs, so that could very well have been a contributing issue, since Hoffman's first go-round with drugs was when he was in college.

It is always sad when children lose their father, and it is also sad for Hoffman's girlfriend and mother of their children, who now is a single parent herself. What bothers me is the people that I feel are almost making excuses for taking drugs or being an alcoholic by pushing the self-medication angle. While I've never felt the urge to self-medicate, and indeed my violent reaction to some painkillers means I'd probably not find relief in drugs, I have felt the urge to be self-destructive in the worst way possible: suicide.

In my case, I would have left behind my loving husband, who would have been torn apart, and my two daughters, who would have had to immediately struggle through their crucial teen years without a mother. The effect on their lives would have been catastrophic. My death would have also affected other family members, in ways I can't say as clearly how. Yet at some times suicide seemed so tempting as a way out of my mental pain. If you haven't been clinically depressed or otherwise mentally ill, I don't know that it can be described. There were bad things going on in my life; there were great things happening in my life. Suicidal ideation goes beyond that. It's not relevant here to try to go into more detail.

The point I want to make is that when someone overdoses like this, there shouldn't be excuses made, or an attempt to explain the drug use. What really needs to be said is that drug use to escape, especially to escape mental illness, is dangerous, and that kind of drug use should be discouraged. Proper medicines for mental illness help you feel normal, able to function. They don't make you high; they don't take you away. It's also good to have other, non-pharmaceutical ways to help you cope, like exercising or knitting.

Sometimes when my mind hasn't worked right, I've had to cling to what I knew was true, even if my mind didn't believe it *at that moment.* Ace says that even if more recreational drugs to become legal, there should still be a message out there that they are bad for you, and it's best not to use them. If there is general strong societal disapproval of these drugs, could someone tempted to use them to cope, convince himself that shooting up would only make things worse, if he had heard it often enough? I don't know. I do believe that sometimes it can help to hear "Don't" until you can believe it for yourself.

Parenthood as an Option

I've been thinking a lot about something the Dancer said to me the other day. We've been talking about the role of marriage and having children in our current society. So many secular couples decide that they absolutely don't want children, or that they'll have them "when they're ready," whatever that means. Even if "when they're ready" gets pushed into their thirties, or even later. At which point they freak about being infertile, but that could be a whole separate post.

Anyway, I think that the Christian couple should definitely have children, if God blesses them with offspring. There are many couples who deal with the pain of infertility; there is a blog out there run by Lutherans for families who deal with this. But there are Christian couples out there who aren't having children at all, and I'm not certain that is the Christian way to do things. Of course, when I really thought about it, "being Christian equals having children," isn't something specifically mandated in the Bible, is it? God tells Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth. Is that just meant for filling the earth? But also, God also talks about how children are a blessing, a heritage, from the Lord. And He talks in the Bible about putting the lonely in families. Despite St. Paul's praise for the single life, it seems like most often the family is God's ideal for how people should live. A man and a woman, joined in holy matrimony, bringing up children in the way they should go.

What the Dancer said, though, was when we were talking about a friend of hers. This friend is one of four kids. Mom has abandoned the family, and Dad is not always a great father. Not bad enough for social services, definitely, but sometimes rather absent with affection and effort. I said perhaps the parents should not have had children at all. The Dancer quickly pointed out that I've previously said people should have children. I did say that. So, what then? I told her, then, that they should have grown up and accepted parental responsibilities. But that doesn't seem like something that is done very often today either. See Wendy Davis as an example. She is running for elected office mainly on her status as a "single mother," when for a lot of time she wasn't even the primary parent because it wasn't "a good time" for to be a mother! Wasn't a good time? The good time to be a mother, is when you have kids.

I keep going back to what the Dancer said to me. All I've ever wanted to do was be a wife and mother, as primary vocation. Should you have a calling to be a parent, or should you do it because it's what God wants? Certainly not everyone is called to marriage.

Being a parent isn't easy, but then neither is being a grown-up. People not only want to put off child-rearing; they want to put off marriage, as I've written about previously. Instead, it's all about you, all the time. Wendy Davis left her kids behind literally for her career and her ambitions. You shouldn't even get married until you have a great career, and you've traveled the world, and done a bunch of other stuff that somehow is necessary to do. And then you shouldn't have kids until you're ready. And then what? Are we going to end up like Japan? A very large percentage of young men and women show no interest in getting married, or even dating. They're too wrapped up in their careers. In other words, themselves.

I'm definitely not perfect at this, but part of being a family is living for something beside the self. Definitely within a marriage, even more so with kids. Spouses, after all, are generally able to care for themselves. Babies need everything done for them, and even as they grow, they still need things like laundry and cooking done for them for many years; money has to be spent for their clothes, toys, school needs. Driving them places seems never-ending. But I'm afraid, as fallen humans, that society won't stop in the pursuit of selfishness until it ends up like the Japanese. A healthy society is one that values marriage and family. Maybe that's because God designed it that way?

Well, That's Awkward

From one of my doll blogs, I thought I had made a new friend in the blogging community. Yesterday, she was following my blog, and linked to my blog from hers. This morning, not only is all of that gone, but she deleted a comment she left on my blog. My only guess is that she saw something she didn't like about me. Maybe she wandered over here? I have no idea, since she chose not to tell me. She's from Europe, so I would hope she would not judge me based on my political views of what is happening in my country, but a lot of Europeans do think we should run things how they do.

I was afraid about linking my doll blogs to this blog, but I would hope I can discuss my hobbies with people and keep politics out of the way. Honestly, I don't want to know a lot about people outside the hobbies I read about on their blogs. I might not like their personalities or beliefs, but I do like seeing pictures and reading reviews and news about things that I am interested in. So I would hope that anyone visiting here from a doll blog would still want to engage me in doll talk. I keep my "identities" separate enough.

As far as this country goes, it seems that we are beyond reasoning and compromise and middle ground. No one outside the far right seems to particularly care that Obamacare, for example, was rammed through without a single piece of conservative input. We've been labeled for all time as evil, stupid, greedy, bad, and there's an end to it. If you don't like me, there's not much I can do about it. I'm not going to change who I am. If you want to engage me on a topic, make sure you bring facts and reasoning. I'm going to keep going and looking out for my top priority, my family.

A Night at Gatsby's

That was the theme for the Homecoming dance last night. Since we're a weird family, we thought it would be fun to actually go with the theme, instead of doing the usual and buying strapless dresses with skirts that barely cover the posterior. The Musician already had the lace dress; we just added some accessories to make it look more Twenties. I made the Dancer's dress out of a pre-ruffled stretch fabric. The headband that the Dancer is wearing was purchased at Claire's and can be worn as a regular headband, so she should get many uses out of it. She just wore it down over her forehead last night for a Twenties look.

We also had fun learning Twenties slang. Not surprising that much of it had to do with alcohol/criminal activity. We did learn that a "jelly bean" is a flapper's boyfriend.

On a side note, why spend money on a pair of shoes that you want to take off before you even get out of the car to go to the dance?

What's in a Name

More Hollyweird stuff! This time it's a Rebecca Romijn, who says eventually she's going to change her last name to her husband's, because she predicts that eventually, her daughters will wonder why they don't all have the same last name (they're four.) Which led to several people in the comments insisting that you don't have to have the same name to be a family, darn it! Yes, it definitely feels good to be all inclusive and open and accepting of everything. But considering that many of these same people are probably also fine with the break-up of the family via divorce, or the aborting of a family member, should we believe them? Or are too many people just parroting the standard phrases of the day because they've been told that's how the "right" people think? After all, is the family stronger overall right now, or weaker? How often have you heard "straights" have already messed up marriage so much, that gay marriage won't damage the institution any more?

I happen to think that the name *does* make a difference. We are the Evil Genius family, and in being so, we are part of something greater than ourselves. By birth, I am linked by blood to all of my female forebears. But I am also tied to all the women who produced the men in my husband's lineage, by name. I am one of a long line of Evil Genius women, and sometimes I am sorry there will be no more Evil Genius women directly after me. But my daughters will take their identities of what the Evil Genius family shares, the things that make us the Evil Genius *family*, and carry that to their new families. They will still be part of their father and I by blood, but part of their new family, the family they create, by name.

Do You Want It All?

What does it mean for a society when children are seen not as gifts, but as a burden, something to avoid? We hear from a DINK, that "Not Having Children Is Letting Us Have It All." If by "all" they mean the material goods of this world, then yes, they have a lot of stuff. Of course, I don't think they'll always be happy with the amount of stuff that they have. There is always a bigger house, a fancier car, new furniture, a pool, a boat, a bigger boat, and then of course there is the curse of more, more places to visit, more clothes to buy, more purses and jewelry and shoes. This woman is very foolish if she thinks that she has it "all." First, because as I just stated, no one can have it all. Secondly, because she really doesn't have it all.

Maybe she and her husband will never appreciate it, but there is nothing like holding your newborn baby, a gift that God enabled you and your spouse to create with love. There is nothing like the special love that a toddler has for her mommy. There is nothing like that brief span of life where Daddy can fix anything. There is nothing like watching your child take her first steps, hug a sibling, learn to read, learn to play an instrument, go en pointe. There is nothing like the joy in the eyes of Mr. BTEG's late grandmother, as she held her newest great-grandchild, the last one she would live to see. That joy is even reflected in the Dancer's eyes.

If you look at the map towards the bottom right of my page, you can see that I have traveled. There are even places I've been that aren't on there, because I haven't figured out how to update the map. I've rafted the New River in West Virginia, been to the French Quarter in New Orleans, hung out on the beach in Costa del Sol, touched the Berlin Wall. I've had *experiences*. But experiences don't last. Since most of the traveling I listed above was done before I was 21, they are becoming dim memories of experiences, at that. I have plenty of photos, but even looking at the same photo can get boring over decades. Sure, I could do more traveling, and I probably will, but again, those are brief moments in the big picture of life. And even traveling can get old after weeks of living out of a suitcase.

For some reason, memories of the people I love never get old in the same way. Not just with my children, but also people like my grandfather or my dear friends. If you are blessed enough to be happily married, do you still like to think fondly of your wedding day? Do you remember sharing an activity with a grandparent, or the road trip you took with your friends in college? We are meant to want to be with people, to have people in our lives that we care about, and who care about us. Not all of us will be blessed with children, and the author above says she is happy she doesn't have any. That may never change; she might be eighty and be glad that she didn't have children. But I think that when I am eighty, I'll have a lot more to show for my life than old W-2s, purchase receipts and travel albums.

Blessings

Before I get into any other kinds of posts, I feel it's important to put up one of thankfulness for the wonderful Christmas that the BTEG family had. There were wonderful gifts, good food, and enjoying being with family. Now we are enjoying being home together, including Mr. BTEG because of the inclement weather. I pray that there have been no great losses due to the blizzard.

Here's a picture of one of the nice gifts that I received, a new bicycle, in pretty blues and pinks. Come spring, I can be walking or bicycling!

Kinda Sorta Here

In my effort to post more, I am here to bring you this short post of Nothing of Any Substance Whatsoever. You see, on Saturday, the Musician got sick. Every member of the family followed. I was the last to get sick, and am just starting to feel better today. I'm hoping we can get back to normal now. Between Christmas and the Musician's birthday, this is the craziest time of the year for me. And even though most of the chaos ends with the holiday season, I then have to prepare for the Dancer's birthday in early February.

Oh, and I also opened up a huge can of World War III with my inlaws over the weekend.

Belated Fourth of July post

I hope all of you that live here in the States enjoyed the Fourth of July celebrations yesterday. I know a lot of us are concerned about losing freedom, but at least we still have a chance to work toward restoring this country as our Founders envisioned it. Or do you think an amicable divorce of the United States might be in the works? Do you think that might be feasible?

How do you celebrate the Fourth? When I was a kid, like Karen's family a carnival came to my hometown, and still does, every year. We would buy the all day wrist string and ride the rides all day long. At night would be the fireworks over Lake Erie. We would sit in the large grassy area across the street from the carnival area with our blankets and chairs and watch the show. Somewhat unenjoyable was the way the loudest fireworks would echo off of the middle school building behind us.

When my own girls were young, my cousin and her kids, about the same age as mine, would come and visit her parents in the Wooster area, and my mom, sisters and families, and my family, would be invited for the Fourth. What was especially nice was that my aunt and uncle lived in a neighborhood with a private lake, and they had a boat, plus we had swimming and playing in the sand with the little ones. I never tried waterskiing or tubing behind the boat, but I did like riding in it. My cousin's husband, formerly in the Navy, was especially fun to ride with. After driving an aircraft carrier, he could make being in my uncle's little boat rather exciting. Now my aunt and uncle have moved to Virginia to be closer to my cousin and her family and those days are just memories. It's a shame my kids can't see their second cousins more, as they are a lot closer in age to them than they are to their first cousins. My Musician and my cousin's oldest son are just a few months apart.

My family has yet to create any new tradition for our Fourth of July celebrations since, but these are the years of flux, as my teens start getting involved in their own activities more and more. I wonder what will develop next!

Worn Out

I've been worrying way too much lately. I'm feeling a lot of responsibility for my daughters, given the state of the world that they are about to enter. On the one hand, they need to start being responsible for themselves. On the other hand, I remember myself at that age. I didn't have a wide knowledge of the world; I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life, and I didn't have enough experience to help me. And looking at an economy that will probably be depressed for a very long time, I'm afraid that there will be little room for my daughters to explore a lot of options or change their minds.

Unfortunately, I can't control everything. (Yes, sometimes I wish that I could.) Whatever comes, we can deal with it together. I'd like to write more, but I really am very physically worn out, and my brain is just not working today! I'm glad the weekend is here.

Slowing It Down

One of the things I'm learning to do in order to achieve my goals is not to get ahead of myself. It's very difficult to cook more, and perhaps even experiment with fancier dishes, when the kitchen is not completely organized. I'm still trying to find room for things; a buffet would be great, but it's not in the budget so I need to work with what we have. In the meantime, I shouldn't feel badly when the best I can do is just getting a dinner on the table for my family.

I also need to pace myself better with regards to sewing. I often look at the project as a whole and get overwhelmed, instead of breaking up into tasks. Maybe one day to find the fabric (because a lot of it is still in boxes.) One day to trace the pattern and cut it out (if it's a big project.) Then get the pieces cut out. Then the sewing. One of the hot ideas in accomplishing goals (at least looking at the Android apps) is simply taking, say, 25 minutes to work on something. That way, you've made progress, but the task doesn't bog you down.

I'll admit it's difficult not to be impatient to get a project done. Especially when there's a deadline you've created for yourself. For example, I really wanted to get the living room cleaned up more before the Musician's birthday party, and before Christmas. We have no attic and no basement in our current abode, so there are lots of boxes with no place to go. However, there was enough room for the Musician's friends to enjoy her party, and enough room for the Christmas tree to go up, and for the family to sit around it. No use beating myself up over it not being better.

Visions of Sugar Plums

Went Christmas shopping on Saturday, including a visit to a Toys R Us. I can totally believe that Christmas spending will be down this year, just based on the state of the economy, but the stores are still busy and traffic is still heavy around here. Maybe people are buying less? Also, many of the people I saw at Toys R Us appeared to be grandparents, with glazed expressions and a list of what the grandkids want clutched in hand. Grandparents will always want to give something to the grandchildren. It just might be something smaller this year. Not that I am happy about this state of affairs, just trying to explain what I am seeing versus predictions. And lots of people out there are hurting economically, just based on the employment numbers and the demand for food stamps, etc.

I was also surprised and a little irritated by the emptiness of some of the store shelves. I've heard that stores are cutting back on how much they have in stock at a time, due to, you guessed it, the slowdown of the economy. I would think for Christmas they would ramp it up just a bit.

Goodbye Sunlight

I may have to up my Vitamin D intake; I really crashed hard today. Mr. BTEG and his sister both suffer from levels of Vitamin D that can get low enough to be dangerous. It may have a bigger impact on our health than we think. It would help explain why people in third world countries don't seem to get autoimmune disorders, if the Vitamin D were a cause and not just a symptom.

Life's Little Oddities

For a desperately needed mental lift for the Evil Genius, three members of the Evil Genius family went to our nearest Winking Lizard restaurant. As we were seated, surrounded by large televisions, I was irked that the baseball game on was between the evil Red Sox and the even eviller Yankees. So we get the game on our TV turned to the Indians. Heaven. So there I am watching the game, eating a delicious Angus burger, jamming to a cool song (it was Pulling Mussels by Squeeze if you must know) and I realize my husband and the Dancer are not really into the game (or the music.) Not only that, but I start watching a preseason football game on another television involving the Evil Team that my husband roots for, and he's not interested in that either. I love Mr. Evil Genius more than anyone else, but not only am I the biggest sports fan in the house, but the man of the house isn't really all that big on sports. Heh.

Oh, and my family really hates it when I jump up and down screaming while one of the Browns runs into the endzone. Yelling and sticking my hands up in the air when an Indians player goes yard is slightly more tolerated.