All Star Park and Rec Tennis Instructor

 

 

#1 - One of the benefits of co-parenting is that pretty much whenever we get home from a trip or camping, it is time for the girls to go over to their mother's.  Therefore after getting home from camping on Sunday, I didn't have to motivate myself to get groceries.  Michael and I could eat what is leftover in the fridge, freezer or garden. That was the case Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...today I got some groceries and made an actual dinner.

 #2 - I have the most dedicated park and rec tennis instructor imaginable.  His name is Dave, and I'd recommend him to anyone.  On Tuesday it was raining and there was a possibility our lesson would be cancelled.  Dave sent out a text to let us know it was a 50/50 chance of lessons that day.  Dave knows I don't have a cell phone, so he sent me an email saying the same.

 Today he sent this message

 "Hey Tammy,

I just realized I didn't update this email for you. I'm glad you made
it, but I'm sorry for making it a question mark for you."

It had stopped raining, it was dry outside, I went to tennis. TWO DAYS LATER he  thinks to apologize for not updating me.  He teaches FIVE days a week. He probably has 50+ students, and a job and kids!  Really Dave it's not necessary.  He also threw in a comment, which is helpful as I do wonder if I should be in a lower level.

#3 - "It's really cool watching you play singles -- you hit very well and very
defensively when those baseline bombers come after you, eventually
wearing them down :)

-Dave"

He gives this amount of care and attention to everybody! He is a gem in the park and rec land.  (Really he just truly clearly loves tennis.)

#4 - It was good to, for the second time this week, hear thunderstorms and rain with our drought.  Michael went out and cleaned the gutter in the street that was plugged up. And cool air is coming in the windows.

#5 -  Michael is excited about the new scale he is getting. It has lots of measurements and it keeps track of it all.  I am excited that he says he will get rid of the old one, that is what matters to me, not accumulating more things!

 

 

 

#1 -  I forgot to meditate yesterday - I'm trying to do 10 minutes a day for the month of August.  I did 9 days in a row, but forgot yesterday.  So right after I got out of the shower this AM I sat on the bathmat and meditated for 10 minutes.   I really appreciate our upstairs bathroom, and the window faces East so the morning light came in.  It was quite peaceful.

 #2 - I have 15 minutes before I planned to leave, I wasn't feeling prepared, but I'm almost ready.  I am meeting my freshman roommate from college to camp a couple nights.  She had her first of 4 kids right after college so, though I've invited her on occasion to things in the past, this is the first time it has worked out.

#3 - I am going to stop at the hazardous disposal site on the way to drop off some chemicals and batteries we set aside while cleaning things out.

#4 - % Well - the other two I'll have to post in my journal.  Since it is only 9AM, I'm not going to rack my brain too hard to get to five, but I won't be on screens the next couple days.

This Town

#1 - Last night as I was pulling into the driveway I was taken by a song on Radio Heartland. I wrote it down on a scrap of paper - This Town by Robert Vincent and I remembered today to look it up.

#2 - At first I described the song as a lullaby/soothing, I didn't know what it was about but it was giving me energy and excitement.

#3 - Then I looked up the lyrics and a whole new level of appreciation appeared.

#4 - And this made me excited about the small outdoor music festival we plan to attend later this month.  I went for 5 or so years by myself, then finally convinced a friend to join me in 2014.  In 2015 the festival went on hiatus.

 I also met Michael in 2015.  It is very family friendly and I thought he and the girls would really enjoy it, but it remained on hiatus. They tried to bring it back last year but Co-Vid cancelled it.  

 I am less convinced the girls will enjoy it, as they are teenagers now and I doubt the music is their style.  But it is camping in a beautiful setting.  And it is not a mass of people, there is space to go for hikes and be alone too.

#5 - Speaking of groups of people - it is National Night Out and we got invited to two "parties".  We usually go to the one on the street behind us, because there are only a few houses on our block. But we are on a corner and the house across from us invited us too this year.  I think it's important to know your neighbors, and yet mingling is draining for me, so going to two events was a bit overwhelming.  Then one of the events got cancelled today so it will just be one and that feels more manageable.  I just brought over a card table and some folding chairs.  And since I bought a packaged salad for both events now I'll have lots to bring to the one.

Bathrooms

 #1-3 - Bathrooms - I cleaned both bathrooms today.  For some reason I pretty much always clean the bathrooms at the end of the week Thursday-Sunday, so getting them cleaned on a Monday is unusual.   I have also almost used up the 13 pound/6 kg of baking soda that was at my dad's house and was yet another thing I didn't know what to do with.  My friend told me she cleans her toilets with 1/2 cup of baking soda and 1/2 cup of vinegar, so I've been doing that all year and it's almost gone.  (Though I plan to buy another bag and continue cleaning that way.) 

We have 2 bathrooms, which I find to be the perfect number.  I have zero interest in having more bathrooms to clean.  And as we consider moving at some point there are a number of homes with 1 bathroom.  I've become aware of how often 1 of us will go upstairs or downstairs because someone else is using the bathroom.  Though I'd certainly consider a 1 bathroom home, I do wonder at how quickly I'd be frustrated with it. I know when I stay with my aunt and take a bath/shower I feel I need to alert everyone and can't linger in case anyone else needs to use it.  Really there are so many great qualities about this place we rent, and that is just one.

#4 - Co-Vid tests - I went for a jog a week and a half ago on a day the air was smoky from wildfires burning in Canada.  The next few days I had a cough.  I think it mostly went away, but today I've been coughing a bit again so I wondered if I should get a Co-Vid test.  Michael said, "Well you ran yesterday," (which I hadn't done), so maybe that explains it, but it wasn't smoky.

Anyway, I signed up for a Co-Vid test first thing tomorrow, even though I'm vaccinated, I will feel better if I get a test. I'm grateful it is easy to get one, it's easy for me to get there, I have time to do it and it won't cost me anything.

#5 - I was debating about taking this workshop on creating a family storybook next month.  It is a few hours each day Monday - Friday, but I'd have to miss Monday so I didn't know if it would work.  Today I found out it is being postponed so that decided it.  Since I kind of earmarked that space in my mind I started thinking of other options.  I had a friend who had a tough divorce a couple years ago and whom I haven't seen since.  I started wondering if sometime that week maybe we could meet for a quick camping trip or something.  So I plan to call or write her that proposal soon.  If the timing works it is meant to be, if it doesn't I'll see if the energy is redirected elsewhere.

Coming Home

My brother and I went to my father's hometown this weekend - both to visit my aunt and to bury my dad's ashes.  When my niece found out we were going to bury grandpa she wanted to come too.

But then there was a birthday party and so she wasn't going to come.

In the end she came and it was such delight to have her.  Her positivity and ready smile thru-out the weekend was a gift in itself.  Today she started to show the first signs of crabbiness on the ride home, but we were all hot and tired so I could easily understand.  We played hang man and word games on the car ride, listened to a couple upper elementary/middle school age audio books (including George about a transgender child) and stopped to briefly play tennis to split up the drive.

This morning my brother finished dealing with a big hornet (or wasp) nest he found in my aunt's garage, only to discover there were multiple more smaller nests.  The garage is so old it really needs to be torn down, so I can hardly blame the hornets or wasps looking for homes there. But for the time being it stands and thankfully my brother handled it and I had nothing to do with it.

My aunt seems to have fully recovered (as far as I can tell) from her bout of Co-Vid. I expected her to be more tired as she was sick for well over a month. I'm happy she had energy and that we could minimize the meals we ate at her house to be easy guests (only 2).

She showed me the folder where she keeps the cemetery deed (which will hopefully be back where she says it will be in her file cabinet).  She doesn't have children so there is much my brother and I may have to take care of for her at some point.  But this is at least one small thing decided, which I didn't know anything about before last month when I asked about my dad's ashes.

Finally, I usually I do the weekly grocery shopping on Sunday, but when I got home Michael had done it as I'd requested this week.

 

 

 

 

 

Haven't listened to Mraz in a while, but this goes along with this blog

https://youtu.be/WMidk5rnQ0w

Become Part of the Earth

 

 

This photo my cousin took my dad's house (where I grew up) makes me cry.  I know things sometimes look worse before they look better and I know the home is in good hands.  But even now just sharing this imagine on this blog brings tears to my eyes. The house is clearly abandoned, and were it not for the sign in the yard, it would appear uncared for.

 

 Today my brother, thru my cousin, sent a new photo.  With the new windows and door it is starting to look happy again, certainly taken care of.  I will go to the dentist near there at the end of the month and check it out in person, and see what more progress is made.  (There may be raspberries in the backyard at that point, I hope some volunteers will eat them.)

Michael and I had a money talk this AM, going thru how things are allocated/taken care of if one of us dies and if it matches our intentions. Ever since my mom died in 2007, I make sure I put beneficiaries or TOD (transfers on deaths) on everything I can, because the thing I most want is to make things simple.  The last thing we need when we lose a loved one is financial stress and confusion.  Anyway, it is always good to go back and update, because the last time I wrote a summary up was in March of 2020 and at that point I was in the midst of my dad's stuff, so I need to write an updated summary which I've been working on today.

We also made some progress on going thru the pantry in the basement and the tool closet.  Since we rent and hope to own a home at some point, I've asked Michael to work on organizing and getting rid of things we don't need or want.  I don't want to pack and move and then find places for things that we should just get rid of.  So today we made a bit of progress on that.

And finally I was listening to Lewis Howes interview Sadhguru this week, whom I've never heard of.  I just had it in the background not paying too close of attention until minute 50 when he made the exact same point I'd made here in this blog last week!

 "When you bury them, they understand they are part of the earth right?  That also they won't understand, because today they are burying them in a concrete box." Sadhguru

"Creating a boundary around them," Lewis Howes

"Yes, that's the worst thing to do. At least when you die you should become part of the earth." Sadhguru

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK67fAV3zLs

 

What Everyone Wants

My Dad was cremated back in Feb of 2020.  Since then I've had a box of his ashes. I guess we could have buried them in the garden of the home where he lived the last 40 years of his life, but somehow that thought never really occurred to me, and we sold the house in November. The box is small and didn't need to be dealt with anytime soon. In the back of my mind my intention was to bury him in the garden of the house where he grew up, where his sister still resides.

However I did not mention that thought to her, with co-vid I wasn't seeing her anyway, and there were plenty of other things to take care of.

Last month I asked my brother what he thought about burying dad in the garden where he grew up and my brother agreed.

Last week I mentioned it to my aunt as I am planning to visit her soon.  She wasn't pushy about it, but inquired about the cemetery in town.  Thru some discussion it was her preference to put him there.  Her parents bought plots for the whole family when my dad's older sister died as a child.  There is still a fee to "open and close" the grave, even though the digging for ashes is quite a bit smaller than the spot for the casket.  But once again, if it is important to my aunt that is fine.

Going thru this, what seems like a simple final task, brings up differences in myself and others and in what matters. As I was discussing this with Michael today I articulated my wishes.  I do not want to be separated when I die.  Meaning I was born into this separate self named, "Tammy."  When I die that separate self ceases to exist.  I am no longer limited, if "I" even continue to exist. My energy disperses in some unknown way to merge with the rest of life.

Therefore I want the same for my body.  I don't want it kept in a separate box.  I don't want any sort of marker signifying my separate self. We spend our whole lives pretending we are separate from nature, but we are not, and I don't want to pretend after my death.  Until there is a natural burial option, what I would most prefer is to be cremated and have my ashes "planted" along with a tree.  That would make me super happy.  However, I just looked this up and find that although human remains contain nutrients plants require, they are also high in salt and missing other important nutrients which can lead to an imbalance. So maybe I'd need to be scattered with trees.

Anyway, I contacted the cemetery today and arranged for a date in a couple weeks. I wanted something very simple, in a yard with a shovel, a few words, a hole and a few family members.

The cemetery wants a date and time.  I'd like to shovel the soil back on myself?  Can I do that in a cemetery? 

And then in all this it is important to consider what my dad would want. When I was discussing this with Michael it came up how we'd ignored one of my dad's wishes already.  But I came back in tears and said in fact we had not.  My dad did specifically leave a note "No church funeral," even though he was heavily involved with his church.  

But as far as I understood his reason for that was the cost. My father was adamant about spending time and money on people when they are/were alive, not when they were dead.  And I heard him multiple times complain to me about the price of a funeral (after he'd seen a receipt) at his church.

 However at the same time he had written in his health care directive that he wanted his daughter (me) to be in charge of any memorial service.  And that is exactly what I did, though the location didn't honor his wishes, the motive behind his wishes (not spending a bunch of money on him when he's dead) was honored.

Because upon research the service at church was both in fact cheaper and easier than if we'd done it somewhere else.

So my gratitudes today are all the thoughts this process brings up, the deep listening and honoring required to navigate others' wishes while also honoring ones own, and that this was a blog post day so I took the time and space to process them thru my mind and heart and fingers.

Oh and I seemed to have found the document about the ashes that I think the cemetery needs. Well maybe not, they want a "certificate of disposition for burial." I consider myself to be an organized person, with a relatively simple life, and my dad was also an organized person, and yet keeping track of all of this is a bit much.  I found a "certificate of cremation" which is all I was given so we'll see.