Entries from July 2007 ↓

By Tracee Sioux

Produce, produce, produce.

My husband and I tend to be workaholics sometimes. I constantly feel like I’m under pressure to get everything done. Especially since having another baby and working from home. I just feel like there is not enough time to do everything I need to be doing. I’m loving the work, and love being fed from this source of energy, but I’m imposing all this pressure to market and make the work profitable right now.

I found myself starting to wonder how long I can keep up this pace. It’s only July and Ainsley isn’t in school until September. My kids are sick of entertaining themselves and bored. Yet, I feel so newly driven, It feels great to be driven by my writing again. It is fantastic to feel passionately and write passionately.

But, it’s the balance that is in question. I started to wonder when I’ll ever get a break. When I’ll ever have a moment to relax and just be.

Yesterday, the sermon was on the Sabbath. I thought, Well duh, the being and the resting is built right in if you would just listen! It’s always been there. You’re the one who has decided to ignore it.

While I am now late in publishing my blogs and haven’t been to work out this morning and feel totally behind in my week. I also feel like stopping the productivity for one day really provided some perspective about balance.

I don’t want my kids to feel so driven that they can’t rest. I want them to understand and value a work ethic, but not at the cost of everything else.

It’s funny how when you’re a kid things like naps feel punitive. My daughter throws a massive fit at the mention of a nap (Zack still loves them). Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy was a big deal in my house growing up. I guess that did feel punitive and restricting to me then.

Now though, it’s like free day, gift from God day, no pressure day, lazy rest day. My favorite day.

By Tracee Sioux

One of the things I wish I had inherited from my own mother was cleanliness and organization. My mother is very clean, neat, tidy, and organized.

At a recent visit to my mother’s house I saw that she had kept the original little people that went with the Little People Bus. All of them in good condition.

I could never have pulled that off. After picking up the same $1 store toy about 5 times I simply rid myself of it by throwing it in the garbage.

Suze Orman, in Women & Money, says that we can never become wealthy if we are not clean and don’t take care of our things.

Let me first state that my home is not filthy. It is simply too small and there is no where to put things away. We’ve simply outgrown the house. There are also two small children running around getting stuff out all day long.

It’s a total fiction that your home is cleaner if you stay-at-home or work-from-home. It is, in reality, much messier. Think about it, if you picked up the house, then left the house all day long it would be clean when you got back. However, if you’re trying to write and there are two children at home all day then the only thing that can result is a messier house. Yes,I know that picture at the top looks bad. But, as I said, I can’t write, keep two children occupied AND keep the house clean. If you can do it – well, good for you. I, myself, have limitations.

My car looks like a freaking garbage dump half the time. Frankly, I didn’t care enough about that hideous old Oldsmobile to clean it. Too, I’m always exhausted when we get home so lots of stuff gets left in the car. Not to mention all the crap my kids are constantly dragging home. Why can’t the school throw away all the drawings and coloring book pages? Why does it have to end up in my car and my house – am I supposed to keep every single thing they ever draw, write, glue or color? I don’t have the space for that.

But, putting away my Shame & Blame as Suze recommends I realize I’ve got to stop making excuses.

But, I admit my attitude about things is getting in the way of better things.

First, obviously this is a good problem to have – not enough room for my stuff means that we’ve got more than enough stuff. We’ve got a plethora of stuff that is ripping the house apart at the seams. That means we are prosperous and should be grateful about our prosperity rather than complaining about it.

Second, I think we’ve got left-over feeling of lack around here. We had to do without lots of stuff for a while. And that translated into accepting every hand-me-down and gift offered. It also translated into us buying stuff we didn’t really love or enjoy because it was “better than nothing.”

Third, we feel like we’re being ungrateful by cleaning out and getting rid of stuff. For instance, there were some lovely people who made Zack some blankets. In fact, so many people made Zack blankets that he never used several of them. I finally got the courage up to take them to the shed to be sold at a garage sale. Obviously not the ones my mother or grandmother made, but the ones the secretary at my husband’s old job. I just don’t have room for it. Likewise, I need to banish my emotional attachment to cute baby clothes that don’t fit the baby anymore.

Fourth, what if it comes back in style? I have clothes I love and have pulled them back out for the second time now. But, really could I live if I had to buy another belt or a another top in 20 years when it came back in style? Is it costing me wealth to keep it around? I certainly don’t have room for new stuff if I’m keeping all that old stuff around. And while we’re talking about clothes I keep my fat clothes around too – just in case fattness overtakes me again. Well, since he got that vasectomy I don’t intend to get fat from pregnancy again. So, maybe I could just commit to not needing the fat clothes again? Besides, it will serve me right to have to go buy some if I end up in size 16 pants ever again.

This is, I think, hanging onto old baggage and old issues. To change the way we feel about money we have to change the way we feel about the things money can buy. Hanging onto things we don’t need anymore is just telling ourselves that we don’t have enough. If we get rid of it, we will miss it. That’s true in some cases, believe me I’ve rid myself of everything I owned several times and I DO miss some stuff.

But, most of the stuff – never thought about it again. Since the 8 qualities of a wealthy woman chapter the Suze Orman book I’ve hauled out 4 giant garbage bags of stuff to the shed to be sold at a garage sale. Money for a down payment on a bigger house.

If I thought I could get away with it, I wouldn’t have told her she had the option of cheerleading. She’s too smart to fall for that kind of crap. Instead, I listed the options.

She gave me a sly smile, knowing I would disapprove, and said, I want to do the cheerleading.

Have you ever wondered why girls should be cheering for boys, but boys don’t cheer for girls? Do you think that’s okay?

Mama, when I went to watch Eric play basketball Emma was cheering for a girls’ basketball team.

Are you sure?

Well, you weren’t there, but they had girls playing basketball and I think Emma was cheering for that team.

Do you think it’s fair that only boys are allowed to play football but girls stand on the side and cheer for them?

I don’t even want to play football, she pointed out.

When Emma took cheerleading, she informed me, they didn’t wear belly shirts, they wore long ones and I don’t think they did anything inappropriate.

My husband didn’t think it was a big deal. My friend thought I was being too extreme. Both pointed out that boys cheer these days too. The difference is, there are not entire scantily clad gangs of boys cheering for the girls’ teams.

In the end, neither argument swayed me in favor of cheerleading. What did sway me is that my particular girl wants to try it. She thinks it will be fun.

I decided it would be more empowering for her to be able to make her own decision about which sport to try than it would be for me to forbid cheerleading on a feminist principle.

She’s just a different kind of girl than I was. She’s more of a girly kind and I was more of a tom-boy. But, I don’t think it would be empowering to make her feel bad about being a girly-girl.

The more I thought about it, I could trace my negative feelings about cheerleading back to the time my parents told me we were moving again to a town with a small enough high school, where I could make it as a cheerleader.

Upset about the umpteenth move, there I stood dressed head-to-toe in black, pale skin, red lipstick totally Mod screaming, “Why would I want to be a cheerleader?” What I really wanted to articulate was, “Have we met? Do you know anything about me at all?”

So, to avoid a similar episode with my daughter, I’ll acknowledge that she is the kind of girl who thinks being a cheerleader is fun. And I’m going to get okay with that.

I did some research and according to the Official Cheerleader’s Handbook, cheerleading was invented at Princeton in the 1860s by men. They didn’t let girls do it until the 1920s when they added gymnastics and tumbling at the University of Minnesota. It was World War II, and no boys being available, that transitioned the sport to where 90% of cheerleaders became female.

By Tracee Sioux

Did you see that complaint free world bracelet on Oprah in March? It’s this bracelet that brings focus to complaining to encourage you to stop.

I immediately ordered several of these bracelets, mostly because I’m sick to death of my daughter’s complaining.

If there is something you don’t like about your children I think if you look closely enough you’ll realize they got it straight from you. Which sucks. Because to fix the problem in your child, you first have to fix yourself. Otherwise you’re just a hypocrite.

Ainsley’s complaining has reached epic proportions. I would say her complaining takes up the majority of the day. She’s either complaining or I am correcting the complaining, suggesting she be happy or punishing the complaining for 50-75% of our interactions in the last month or so.

I’m a masterful and creative complainer and I guess if I really examine it I complain more than the average person. But, I justify it for this reason or that. My complaining doesn’t bother me, it amuses me. I usually amuse other people.

Have I robbed my daughter of a positive outlook and an optimistic perspective with my hobby of complaining? It wouldn’t be worth it then to continue my complaints. Ainsley isn’t a naturally negative soul. She tends to say things like, Zack’s crying sounds like music.

The question is, am I ready to give up complaining to save my daughter’s natural optimism? Giving up complaining feels almost like giving up smoking. I feel like I need the complaining and that perhaps I won’t be able to find ways to cope without it.

Even bigger, could I not complain about Ainsley’s complaining? Would I even be able to have a conversation with her if I wasn’t allowed to correct (read: complain about) her complaining?

Thank goodness the bracelet isn’t here yet. I’m not sure I’m ready to give up my complaining fix yet.