Camp Cutchshaw

This time next week school will be out for my public school kids.  Sydney and Nicholas are already out.  So, two down, three to go.  I must say my stomach is in knots.  Have you read any of my posts about last summer?  I feel the anxiety building up already.  It is just not fun to live with teenagers.  It ain't no picnic.  Especially if you are poor and live in the middle of nowhere.  If I was rich, I would send them away to summer camp. 

I consider myself to be somewhat creative.  I try to think of wholesome free activities that will entertain a 5 year old as well as a 17 year old.  It's not easy.  And when all seven of us travel in the van together all hell usually breaks loose.  When Adrian is driving, he just takes out his hearing aids and tunes pretty much all of it out.  With a tube in my ear, I can now hear quite well and sometimes their squeaking and complaining sends nerve pain straight to my brain like an abscessed tooth.

So, this summer with the exception of the family beach trip, I am vowing to stay close to home.  We are going to have a "Flintlock Camp Summer." 

Flintlock is where I spent a month every summer as a child for 7 years.  I loved it.  We performed skits.  We sang songs.  We swam in a muddy lake.  We took horseback riding lessons.  We played cards.  We played softball and kickball.  We did arts and crafts.  We learned about nature.  We slept in platform tents in the middle of the woods.  We hiked a lot.  We woke up early and stayed busy until the sun went down.  We stayed outside all the time. 

There was one break in the day called rest hour.  Every day after lunch, we took a nap for one hour.  Even if you didn't sleep, you had to be quiet.  No talking was allowed.  You could read books or write letters.  We ate all of our meals family style.  As children, my sisters and I were all picky eaters, but by golly we ate whatever was served at camp because if you didn't eat it, you went hungry.  I am looking forward to teaching that lesson to my children this summer most of all.  I am already gathering my camp food recipes.  Beginning June 3, we are going on the Flintlock Camp diet. 

With two children who register on the weird-o meter, or in better terms, the Autism Spectrum Disorder, I know all too well about picky eaters.  It's a sensory issue.  However, I don't think back in the pioneer days, folks had sensory integration dysfunction.  If they didn't like the texture of the animal that was turning over a spit fire, or the beans in the crock, or the biscuits mama cut, then they starved and died I guess.  I don't think my children will want to starve, so they are going to have to learn the hard way to eat what is served.  No more Lucky Charms for dinner at the Cutchshaw's house.  I don't care how magically delicious they are.

As picky as I was at eating as a child, I always ate so much at camp.  There were never ending bowls of creamed corn, beans, apple sauce, potatoes, and country fried steak.  There was cream of wheat at breakfast along with corned beef hash.  There were grits, bread pudding, oatmeal, and peanut butter sandwiches with apple jelly.  And we always, always had dessert if we ate our meal.  We had peach cobbler, blueberry cobbler, chocolate cake, or Apple Brown Betty.  We drank bug juice, water, or tea, depending what was in the pitcher.  I am drooling just thinking about it.

All the campers had to help.  Each day, a tent was assigned mess hall duty.  We cleaned the tables.  We set the tables.  We swept and mopped the floor.  Each table had a designate waiter.  There was a pass through from the kitchen and the cook would refill whatever empty bowl the waiter would bring up and she would then carry it back to her table.  We ate and ate until we were full.  And then we did not eat until the next meal.  Period.  There were no snacks.

We all stayed skinny little kids.  If you were chubby, you lost weight while at camp.  It was probably from all the hiking.  Just going from the lake to the barn was quite hike.  And I believe the sunshine made us all happy.  Large doses of good ole vitamin D did us a world of good.  Better than staying inside playing video games.  We didn't even have electricity at camp except in a few buildings like the mess hall.  No TV.  No radios.  No computers.  For an entire month.  It did wonders for our little inner clocks.  It was so good for our brains.

So, I hope my ideas are good enough to help me press forward through any of the resistance I suspect I will get.  I think my little kids will love it but it's those teenagers I worry about.  So, since Jolie will be 17, she's going to be our counselor.  And Sydney who will be 15, she's going to be our cabin girl, or counselor in training.  I will put them in charge of most of the activities. 

I can't wait to sit in the front yard and see talent night performed on our front porch.  I can't wait to see our children put on skits that they make up.  I look forward to camp fires in our back yard bonfire pit and singing all the songs from camp.  We are going to get dirty.  We are going to play in the river.  We are going to swim and ride horses.  We are going to unplug our lives from the computer and television.  I'll update my blog, but I am going to cut myself free from Facebook.  We are going to read books at rest hour.  We might even have chapel in the woods on Sundays by candlelight. And we might just have the best summer ever!

Goodbye Spanx

If you have seen me recently, you may be wondering if we are expecting a new baby soon.  You may be curious if our sixth child is going to be a boy or a girl.  Maybe you wanted to ask me but were afraid.  Maybe you were one of the unfortunate souls who was actually brave enough to reach out and touch my belly.  I look awesome.  Big and full and ripe.  The shape of a mother is beautiful.

Only, that's not why I am in this way. 

I have gained a bunch of weight thanks to some hormone issues.  That and I gave up on dieting and my idea of exercise is twirling my feet while I read books.  My doctor said I have to do something and I am scared to do anything because I am afraid to fail.  It's not like I haven't tried before.  Oprah told me I have to get to the bottom of my problem, which I thought she meant that my bottom was the problem.  But she means that there is a reason I have let myself get fat.  Huh?  I guess I am in denial because I can't figure out my reason.  Maybe I need therapy.  But I need a fat therapist.  I need someone who knows what it is like to get stuck in a dining room chair.  I can't stand taking advice from skinny people.  Which is why I must trust Oprah and get to the bottom of this.

My clothes will not zip.  I am sitting here writing at 11:00 in the morning and I am still wearing pajama pants.  They are the only pants that fit me today.  On Easter, I had to break out my extra large Spanx and I nearly passed out trying to put them on.  I got stuck half way in and half way out.

There I was rolling on the floor trying to decide if it would be easier to keep trying or to pull them off.  I lifted my butt off the floor and started doing the bicycle as I grabbed on with both hands and pulled with all my might.  I finally got them on but I couldn't get up off the floor.  And I couldn't breathe.  And the lower half of my body was deprived of blood flow.

I just laid there.

I couldn't get them off.

I thought about my poor family.  Finding their mother on her floor, dead on Easter.  Mother of five children died from Spanx.  It took 10 paramedics to lift her out of her house.  They tried to revive her but they couldn't cut the Spanx off.  The upper half of her body looked like Violet from Willy Wonka.  A giant swollen blueberry.

Holy, crap, Abigail!  Get off the floor.  You really could die. 

I managed to get those things off and settled for control top panty hose instead.  It gave me a muffin top.  I was spilling out over the top of my skirt.  It looked like I had four boobs.  Like I was a cow.

(sigh)

Such is life.  I am cutting up my Spanx today.  I will make lovely pony tail holders instead.  Which I need.  I buy a package of pony tail holders every few months and they disappear.  Where they go, I do not know.  Probably the same place Adrian's socks go. 

Who needs Spanx any way?  Everyone jiggles.  It's human.  I never liked them any way.  They hurt.  And what is up with the split in the crotch?  Girls, does anyone use that feature?  Can one really go pee through that?  Come on people.  If I could have, I would have thought it was a good idea I guess.  I mean, have you ever been in a 2 x 2 bathroom stall and had to pull your Spanx back up?  One time I was trying and I had to sort of lift my legs up alternatingly and I got so cracked up because all I could think about was that from the bottom of the stall, it must have looked like I was doing a serious hoe down in the bathroom.  I was rendered totally dysfunctional for like 30 minutes. 

1. You cannot put on Spanx while laughing.
2. Laughing that hard will make you pee again.
3. Other people in the bathroom will think you are totally nuts and ask if you are OK.
4. You will have to wait until you calm down to hoist those suckers on again.

I see weight loss success stories on TV and I read about them in books and magazines.  But honestly, I don't personally know anyone who has lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off for more than a few months.  And that is because it is nearly impossible.  It really is.  The odds are stacked against me. 

But one story on Oprah really inspired me.  It was the woman who lost weight by ice skating.  I admit I shy away from activities where I think I might embarrass myself.  My husband loves to repel and used to ask me to join him in his fun.  But there was never any way I would put myself in a harness.  I cringed at just the mere thought of the view from below as my butt would come barrelling toward the poor innocent people waiting their turn.

I need to let go of my fear.  And the only way to do that is to face it.  Goodbye Spanx.  Goodbye.

Omne vivum ex ovo... All life comes from an egg

We all survived and thrived on Easter this year which marked the anniversary of a very sad day.  I can't believe three years have past since I last saw my father.  With each passing day, I miss him more.  My grief does shift and change, though.  I no longer sob like my heart just got ripped out of my chest.  But I still cry for him out of the blue.  Sometimes I just long to hear his voice.  I wish I could hear him tell one of his bad jokes.  I wish I could see him smile.  I wish he could give me advice.  I wish I could see him speed into the driveway in his Cadillac.  And I miss hearing music being played at his house.

Having the anniversary fall on Easter this year made me ponder death and life in a more spiritual way than usual.  We had just celebrated the most sacred holiday in church that morning and Fischer was an acolyte for the first time.  All the children brought flowers into the sanctuary and during the children's sermon, they all stepped forward and placed flowers in a giant cross.  Even Nicholas participated, carrying long stems of orange lilies.  A retired doctor gave his first children's sermon and there were certain things about his mannerisms that reminded me of Daddy.  He told the stories about the pine tree and the dogwood and passed around samples.  It seemed like the kind of sermon Daddy would like to share.

Easter is my favorite holiday.  It is my favorite day period.  I freely admit I have a real thing for Easter egg hunts.  My sisters and I amused ourselves by hiding plastic eggs inside the house for each other all year long.  When it rained, or when we were bored, we had Easter egg hunts.  Mama never filled the eggs and it wasn't until I was an adult and Jolie was going on her first Easter egg hunt that I realized you could put candy inside of them.  It was a whole new ball game.  A revelation.  I don't think we ever had egg hunts at school or church when I was little.  So I never knew.  Perhaps I am just one slow girl.  But from that point on, I made sure I put candy in each one when I hid them for Jolie all year long, on days when it was rainy or when we were bored.  The Easter Bunny can do his thing filling the basket, but the egg job is mine.

After church, we drove to Mama's house and had lunch.  My sisters and their families were there too.  We all swam in the pool afterwards but I was being dumb and doing a flip under water when I messed up the tube in my ear and got really disoriented.  When my husband and my brother-in-law ushered me out as I was in extreme pain and panic and laid down to get the water out of what felt like my brain, I got stung by a freakin' bee.  I went inside and took some Benedryl, and then snuck out the front door while no one was watching and hid six baskets full of eggs for my children, my niece, and my nephew.  Come hell or high water, we were going to have an Easter egg hunt.

Eggs have been a symbol of new life for eons.  Eggs are part of my roots.  See the first picture up there of my Daddy as a baby playing at my great grandfather's chicken hatchery?

"Just as the chick breaks out of an egg, so had Jesus broken free of the tomb of death. Easter eggs remind us that Jesus conquered death and gives us eternal life.” --
www.homeschoolshare.com/legend_of_the_easter_egg.php

"From earliest times, and in most cultures, the egg signified birth and resurrection. The Egyptians buried eggs in their tombs. The Greeks placed eggs atop graves. The Romans coined a proverb: Omne vivum ex ovo, "All life comes from an egg." And legend has it that Simon of Cyrene, who helped carry Christ’s cross to Calvary, was by trade an egg merchant. (Upon returning from the crucifixion to his produce farm, he allegedly discovered that all his hens’ eggs had miraculously turned a rainbow of colors; substantive evidence for this legend is weak.) Thus, when the Church started to celebrate the Resurrection, in the second century, it did not have to search far for a popular and easily recognizable symbol." --www.ideafinder.com/guest/calendar/easter.htm

Who wants to remember the anniversary of the death of a loved one?  Birthdays, maybe, but the day they died would be better to forget.  At least that's what I thought.  But now I have seen the light.  The perfect way to remember Daddy was having that Easter egg hunt.  Watching his grandchildren frolick around the yard finding brightly colored plastic eggs was precious to my eyes.  Let the eggs symbolize birth and rebirth.  Celebrate that Jesus prepared the way for us to be together again someday.  This promise is the only balm for our sorrows. 

Peace be with you.