Home // Music // Parenting

I have been thinking about "home" a lot lately. Where is home? What is home? How much meaning should be put into all those cheesy adages about home being who you're with or where your heart lies or where your hats sit on a closet shelf gathering dust? And where do the lines of Home and Lifestyle connect? Or do they? It's very interesting to me, all the different homes of the world.

I know for me, home is where my yarn is.

After a looooong time of making imaginary plans and talking big about putting out another album, I finally got a friend to help me through the logistics of self-recording and I have started on another album. At last! My last one was put out thirteen years ago. Let's not even talk about how old that makes me feel. The goal is a 10-12 song disc ready by the end of the summer, comprised of mostly originals with a few public domain songs sprinkled throughout. I am really, really optimistic about the end product and SO happy to be recording.

Recording is fun. It's a little bit stressful, but if you can let go of the stress, it's actually pretty magical. Especially laying tracks. You can--as one person--record yourself doing all the things you are able to do, and then put them together to create an original piece of music, performed entirely by YOU. It's like being an octopus!

I have recently (since writing that last line) been considering the title "Annie is Secretly an Octopus" for the album, but up until just that moment ago, I had been thinking of calling it "Home Fires." A lot of the songs--written over a span of about a decade-- touch on the idea of home and comfort and ...well, non-comfort, too, I guess.  The idea of home is so interesting to me. I am a person who doesn't like change. AT ALL. I really don't know how I would do being in a family situation such as the military where you are moved around frequently. I'm not sure I could really handle it. I get very attached to my surroundings--not so much my things-- but, for instance, views while washing the dishes. Unattractive as it is, there is a comfort in standing at the kitchen sink of my current downtown home looking out at the neighbors backyards. I notice when their plants come into bloom or when they've mowed, or what time of day their cat likes to sneak out for a nap on the hood of their car. It's better than some views, that's for sure, and even though it was hard to get used to being back, it is a familiar dish washing view. Familiar, just like the act of washing dishes. Even just the same dish over and over and over again.

Which leads me (abruptly) to the "parenting" part of this post.

So, parenting has been super exhausting for me lately. Really intense. Greta and Elka, cut from the same Cloth of Psycho, have been at each other, nonstop, for weeks. And while Greta is old enough to exhibit some self control and has the added bonus of having some common sense and a tiny glimmer of possible logical and moral thinking, Elka has none of these traits. She has zero self control, zero common sense, is completely illogical and one hundred percent lacking in morals.

Well, okay, she's not that bad. She's just a very average three year old. But it's still frustrating. And I remember feeling this EXACT kind of frustration and exhaustion with Greta when she was a difficult three year old. And now Greta is a tremendously clever and creative little girl who understands right from wrong, and even though she doesn't always act rightly, she UNDERSTANDS.

But Elka!

However, I saw a meme or whatever they're called posted on Facebook on Mothers Day that said, "My plate is full but it's all dessert!" Isn't that the truth? It's something I need to remember more often, because I really do love these days of the girls being little. Love, love, love. And I know that three year olds won't be three year olds forever and that with the difficult days of fit throwing and lying and being generally uncooperative also go the silly games of Baby Seal, the reading all the wonderful picture books we love, and the general fun and charm of three year olds. *sigh*

Pardon my sentiment. *sniffle.* My thoughts all connect somehow, I promise.

Being back in the house where Anja and Greta spent the beginning of their lives is really nice. It's a good, sunny house for raising up little people. It's already super trashy so a little more chia seed pudding smeared on the walls will hardly be noticeable. We've done all the work I've mentioned before to make it more "us" and we have more planned. (Have I mentioned we're planning to put our wood stove in our bedroom?!?) But more than being a nice place to finger paint (and now that Anja and Greta are older, to work out math story problems and read Pippi Longstocking while their little sisters finger paint,) it feels like home to all the girls. They are so happy here. They have a backyard filled with natural and unnatural junk to play with, they have exercise as their main transportation source, they have friends dropping by all the time, AS WELL AS places to grow things and ride their bikes, dig in the dirt, carve with their knives, build forts, climb trees.... they have it all. And if those are the things that make a place home for a kid, then they are definitely at home here.

Ooooh yes. Free pallets are so homey!

This is a good home. But more importantly, it's where my girls are spending their early years, and that is an important time! Family is more important than location and Home can be anywhere. These little sillies aren't going to be little forever, but they are little now, right here. I'd better live it up!

(Apologies if I ever repost pictures from previous posts. I have dumped my phone pictures onto my laptop, but I don't know where they are now. Frown. So I just email myself some every once in awhile from my phone.)