Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Coming Up for Air

I have discovered a new blog - new to me anyway. It's called At Home with the Farmer's Wife. The entry that I have linked you to was so insiteful - it gave me something to ponder for the entire day. And if you know me at all, I don't ponder on much for more than just a few minutes at a time.

Her friend, Di, in a supportive moment, shared these words with her:

"The effort you have made to heal those scars is now very much a part of your beauty. We all are walking maps of our pain. Some are maps of beauty and depth and some are a mess. It's not just that out of our control, not of our choosing, tornadoes or asteroids hit our maps, it's whether we accept the damage, clean up as best we can and beautify these damaged areas as best we can. This, to me, is what separates the men from the boys, if you will allow the cliché."

I've been struck by a few too many tornadoes and asteroids over the last year, and have had a tendency to dig myself into a hole and not want to come out. I've always taken people at their face value, believing they are who and what they say they are. It's been a hard lesson to learn that a very high percentage of folks are not. They're facades and certainly don't practice what they preach. When these asteroids and tornadoes have touched down on my surface they've left deep scars that have surfaced in lack of trust and anger. I really need to work on beautifying those areas and letting go of that anger in reference to certain people that has created some pretty ugly wrinkles.

After all, at my age, I don't need anymore wrinkles character lines than what Mother Nature has given me.

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I also need to install the word "NO" into my vocabulary. I'm an officer in one of the women's organizations at church. I take care of all the money - isn't that a fun job? Me? Entrusted with money? Anyway, every fall we do a fundraiser - a meatball supper. You know how good all those church suppers are that start up in the fall. Well, this one has become famous around the area and in September folks start asking when it's going to be.

The only problem is that it's all us "old gals" that do all the work. The younger generation doesn't want to be bothered. And as the years have gone by some of those "old gals" have been dying off, leaving fewer and fewer of us younger "old gals" to do the work.

All the women are divided into serving groups. I have 19 in my serving group, some old enough that I would never call on them to work a function, but they've always agreed to bring food. Of those 19, I have 9 that I feel are capable of working. This year my group is in charge of running the kitchen for the meatball supper. I need all 9 of them in order to make things run smoothly. So far 3 have backed out telling me they either can't or don't want to. Now where does that leave me? I'm not Super Woman and can't fly from one position to another.

Ole and Lars have both volunteered to come in and help, but Lars doesn't get off work until late so the supper will be almost over by the time he gets there. I told him we'll put him on the cleanup crew - and he was fine with that. Ole will be in charge of the brand new dishwasher that we had installed a week ago.

Each of the serving groups is supposed to furnish one category of the food to be served; i.e. mashed potatoes, corn, buns, gravy, meatballs. If you're not going to participate in furnishing food you've been asked to donate $20. So we've collected lots of $20 bills, because for some reason folks just aren't into bringing food this year. Well, this is all good and well, but the food still has to somehow magically appear in the kitchen to be served. And if the gals from the other serving groups aren't going to do their part and only furnish money, somebody has to go buy all the food that we're short and prepare it!!

Somehow, that ended up being me!! I offered to help the Chairman - but because her elderly mother has a number of doctor's appointments this week, I got drafted. I met with the Chairman yesterday to determine what we would be short and went to town to buy groceries. I wasn't able to get everything I needed yesterday so back to town I go today to fill in the empty spots.

Then it's over to the church to set up the kitchen for preparation and serving. That's today. Then tomorrow I get to bake some dessert and then on Thursday I have to be there by 11 a.m. to get things going to start serving at 4:30.

On Friday I'm going to fill my bathtub with Calgon and demand that I be taken away.

Oh yeah - one bright spot in the week. The YaYa's meet today. I missed the last two gatherings - we were in Sturgis for one and I was too deep in wedding planning for the other. So I plan to enjoy this afternoon with the YaYa's.

For those of you who don't know who the YaYa's are - other than the movie, I mean. We're the REAL, LIVE YaYa's. There were six girls who started 1st grade together way back in the dark ages when we went to a two room school in our little town. We grew up together and graduated from high school together. Then some of us got married, moved away, raised our families, etc. Over the last years we've all moved back to the area. Some are widowed, some divorced; but about a year ago one of the gals contacted everyone and we now get together on a regular basis to have fun. Just yak and yak for hours on end and never run out of things to talk about. It's so fun.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

A REAL Yaya? Thats totally cool Lena! As a Military Brat we moved round too much (every yr a new schol, new place) to have that. But it sounds so neat. Now, go to Microsoft Word....Type NO in large font (pref 78) print it up and duct tape it your chest!

harrietv said...

My daughter points out that scars are beautiful, because they are signs of survival.

Regarding the ladies at your church, I find myself wondering whether some of the younger generation attends only because their parents are still keeping an eye on them (it happened at my congregation). As soon as the old folks die off, the young ones feel free to abandon the church, where they never participated in the extra activities.

I know it happens, I don't like it, but I have no idea what to do about it. You can't force faith.

Anonymous said...

This sounds like a nightmare Lena! I hope the church makes some good money out of it, at least.

I love the new blog. What good depth. I'm in need of some good blogging depth these days.

Everyone needs a group of YaYas! I had a sort-of Ya Ya gathering last night. Girlfriends are the best!

Anonymous said...

Your YaYas sound like fun, fun, fun.

Good luck with your meatball supper. I feel your pain. The church I used to attend had the same 3 gals (me included) that ended up having to do everything like that. Gets old mighty quick.

StitchinByTheLake said...

I read that same post on the Farmers Wife and spent some time pondering it. I've had those meteors and asteroids hit my planet but I absolutely refuse to let them get the best of me. Being positive is a choice and I choose to embrace it. I have 5 high school girlfriends comeing for the weekend in a couple of weeks - we don't call ourselves YaYas but we have the most wonderful time every year. I've chosen to start backing out of some of the activities at my church because the more you do the more they ask you to do. It's easy to call you when they know you'll say yes every time and it doesn't force others to step up to the plate. There's a blessing in doing the work at church but if I do it all then others miss out on the blessings. :) blessings, marlene

Anonymous said...

My daughter comments that if I lose too much weight my stomach won't look like a smiley face anymore. :)

As for the church dinners, I so which I could fly out and help but I am the one that gets volunteered here.

Last year Sonshines confirmation class did a banquet that was exactly the same as you are mentioning. Hubby, me and one other dad did all the work. At least the kids showed up to serve but it was like rangling cattle as always with 14 yr old. I can't wait till this year and the all girl class. (last years was all boys but 2).

:)