Year: 2012 (Page 13 of 51)

Growing old with you

September 7, 2012 / Michele Minehart

Today my baby sister turns 30. She walks across that line that officially marks her old. And of course, she’d do it no other way than pregnant.

Ang is the type of person to accept this marker gracefully. I don’t think she shirks the age; she accepts it and buys boots to match. Her bold confidence goes where my quiet insecurities have never dared to venture.

I’ve spent time reflecting on my fortunate position of having a sibling I love and trust and enjoy spending time with, especially through the bond of sisterhood. I realize not everyone came into the world with family that calls nearly daily to discuss the triviality that makes up our current lives. I live with confidence that the person on the other end does actually care about the consistency of the poop or correct substitution method of eggs.

I told a friend recently that Angie’s love language is research. If something is going on in your life, specifically an ailment of the physical nature, she will look and look until a suggestion can be made on your behalf. Sometimes it seems completely absurd. Sometimes you wonder if such a small adjustment could really make a difference.

But with each and every bit of wisdom and knowledge, you can be confident of this: she wants you to live nothing short of a whole life. Her father’s daughter, Angie doesn’t want someone to miss out on living this great adventure because an option has been left unexplored.

Angie lives with an unconquerable spirit. She’s part of the 20, not the 80, doing the hard work of avoiding complacency. Where most of us say “good enough” Angie challenges, “but why not more?”

I have a sister that sees the world as big, beautiful and full of blessings. She sees the diversity of others’ experiences as a means to expand her options and seek the very best. Common, normal and standard are hurdles for her to jump because she knows that a richness lives on the other side, waiting to be explored. She sifts through the muck in order to find that nugget of beauty.

So, today I celebrate the beautiful woman Angie has become and is becoming. In Hebrew culture, the women would cheer “eshet chayil” (Woman of Valor/Strength/”noble character”) to one another as they met the world head-on and won (sort of a kosher you go girl!). I echo those words of praise

“Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.”

Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord shall be praised.

Honor her for the things she has done and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

School: It’s in the Bag

September 6, 2012 / Michele Minehart

Today I pack H Boy’s bag for preschool. Yes, he’s that old. I’m not really into weepy-mom mode, lamenting how time has flown (though it has). Instead I found myself hung up on the fact that I didn’t buy him the “official” school bag with his name on it for $8.

At the time we initially registered him, I opted out of The Bag because we were already over-justifying what we spend on pre-education education. So the cute blue backpack my mom gave him as a church bag worked perfectly. Also, he loves that bag. He’ll often ask if he can pack his backpack and take it with him when we venture places, like the park or the grocery. (Related: He also has a hard, small blue suitcase that says “Going to Grandma’s” that used to be his father’s. He’ll equally ask to pack that bag and take along. We’re bag packers in this family.)

Then last week at our open house/ Ice Cream Social, the teachers had laid out the Bags that everyone else had ordered. There were approximately as many bags as kids in the room. Minus one. Okay, maybe two, but there are some returning students.

I’m already that mom. And I’m entering that world.

The world where I’m being told what to buy my kids and that what I have isn’t ever good enough. The world where kids begin to judge how they fit in by what they own, where they go and who accompanies them.

Also, it’s the world where I as the parent begin to feel that I’m always one step behind enough. That if I just bought him the bag like everyone else, then he’ll have what he needs.

Welcome to the world of feeling inadequate if we don’t have – or even perhaps don’t want – the very best of everything.

If I’m to be honest – and I do try – I’m not naturally a parent that steps back and says, “is this good enough for my kid(s)?” I wonder if my kids – and myself – don’t need the best of everything.

I recently read a blog of a mom whose greatest summertime stress was which of the local schools she would send her children. Some were better than others for certain reasons, but mainly she wanted it to be good enough for her exceptionally smart kindergartener. I was taken aback by the luxury of choice that we enjoy here; it’s not enough that we get a free education in this country, but now we’ve become consumers of educational systems and providers.

Says the girl sending her 3-year-old to a private preschool because of its Emilio approach with an emphasis on art and nature.

We’re already sending him to a school over-and-above the norm. Do we really need to buy him a bag, too? And my heart and mind cry, “NO” while my ego says, “it’s only $8”.

But preschool is just the orientation. It’s the Intro to School Life 101. And much like the rest of my life, I’m not walking in without considering the greater implications of how we react and interact with what our world is offering us. Do we want to raise our kids thinking that they need everything that others have in order to be happy or successful?

A bag that looks like everyone else’s won’t make him smarter. It won’t build character. It won’t challenge him to do what is right in a difficult situation. A bag won’t remind him to choose truth over winning or ask him to do the hard things of learning.

Yet here I am, lamenting the challenge already. Secretly wondering if I mean it when these words drift out of my mouth. Defensive and concerned. The first day has barely begun and I’m ready to hand over my $8 and join in the rest of the world telling myself that it must work for them. Following the herd is a tried and true method, right?

A little advice from the real world

August 31, 2012 / Michele Minehart

Today could be categorized into what I would call a “learning day.” Full of “lessons.” Life is a “classroom.”

Is anyone else doing the Joey Tribioni “air quotes” on everything today?

First: Customer Service 101

There’s nothing I love more than a good customer service rep who knows that her job is to make me happy. If you hate your job, please work in tech support. But customer service belongs to the chatty, the kind, the concerned and the willing to give me a credit for the inconveniences that caused me to be on the phone with you in the first place.

So after patchy internet connection and a first call, which resulted in a technician appointment, I had to work from Panera today. This is not why I pay $70 for internet and phone. I pay it because my office requires it, because they know how grumpy I get when I have work while watching people stuff their faces with a nine-grain (sliced and toasted) with honey walnut spread – or worse. The Cinnamon Crunch. That “crunch” was the sound of my heart shattering after someone, with their gluten-y filled goodness, took another bite.

All of this carbohydrate-envy-induced anger incited another call to request a a billing adjustment. It only took me about 3 sentences to convince her and a few moments later I have my $16 credit. Which doesn’t sound like much, but she was only able to cover from when I first called to complain until the date of the tech appointment.

Lessons to learn:

Customer service is for the nice people.
Don’t wait to call and complain.

Next: Basic Economics

You make an investment on beautiful – BEAUTIFUL – family pictures, and you call your photographer (because you stalk her like that) to ask if it’s silly to pre-buy the frames because you’re at IKEA and WHAT A STEAL to get these huge frames (because there’s nothing currently hanging on your living room walls, even though you’ve been living there for a year).

Totally hypothetical situation.

But as the discussion pursues about the purchase of the frames, the concern shouldn’t arise over either the pre-buy nature of not having actual pictures yet OR the fact that the frames have completely whacky dimensions. No, those things work themselves out with the aforementioned brilliant photographer.

No, the words that should be spoken – probably from the mother who was accompanying this purchase – is, “doesn’t it seem silly to spend such money on fabulous pictures only to put them in cheapo frames?”

I hear your cheapskate little voices. They’re saying “what’s the difference? A frame’s a frame.”

Let’s put the differences in numerical order (not in sequence because, again, this is a completely imaginative situation).

1. IKEA frames have those little metal tabs allllll the way around the frame that require something firm to flip them up.

1a. No, you cannot just flip up 3 sides of the frame and shimmy the framed work under the forth side. Try as you might, but you’ll end up forgetting the pair of scissors you used as a lever and breaking a nail.

1b. I mean, you could. I’m not saying it’s for sure or that it’s ever happened before to anyone you know.

2. IKEA frames don’t use glass.

3. Instead, IKEA frames use plexiglass and then put a shield on it that is held in place using nothing short of static electricity.

4. You’ll be so anxious to get the picture in the frame that you lay it all out in the middle of the living room floor.

5. You forget that though you just vacuumed yesterday, your dogs shed hair at a rate similar in ratio to which you produce children.

6. Dog hair + static electricity = never good things.

7. Though you relocate to the kitchen table, you have your work cut out for you wiping dog hair off the entire frame.

8. Once you’re 98% free of the dog hair (because, let’s face it, you’ll never get to 100%), you put the frame together only to realize that your fingerprints have covered the edges after trying to get the thing back on the frame.

9. You finally get the thing put together with a satisfactory rating above 80%, though a small black hair is lodged inbetween your husband’s teeth and your two-year-old comes down and plants her hands on the plastic. Which is fine because plexiglass NEVER shows smudges.

10. You still haven’t even attached the metal wire which will hang the frame and the mere thought makes you want to weep. By looking at the hardware involved, it’s going to require that you have to re-up those little black tabs AGAIN.

10a. Tears.

I think it’s clear the lessons we can take away from this speculative case study. You can spend $20 more for a nice frame or you can include “wipe dog hair off the ginormous and beautiful family portraits” on your weekly cleaning list.

Year: 2012 (Page 13 of 51)

Growing old with you

School: It’s in the Bag

A little advice from the real world

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