Author: Rebecca Trotter

A mom, writer, thinker, talker, teacher, Christian and odd duck . . . www.theupsidedownworld.com
life, religion

Seed Catalogue Dreaming

This is not what my yard looks like

I have been resisting the temptation to look for a couple of weeks now, but . . . SEED CATALOGUES ARE HERE!  I love seed catalogues.  I can sit and pour through them over and over again during the short days of winter.  But this leads to dreams of turning my scraggly 2 acre yard of reclaimed brush land into a lush garden oasis.  I develop delusions of having a thriving vegetable garden with well planned rows and patches.  Maybe this will be the year that we try our hand at growing giant pumpkins.  Visions of sunny sunflower patches.  Rose bushes!  A koi pond!  Maybe even cluster of blueberry bushes and a few fruit trees at one corner of the yard.  I can just see my children frolicking about the gardens, stopping to pluck a flower to adorn their curly hair while I sit with a glass of iced tea and soak in all the beauty of it.  If only my yard didn’t actually look like it was waiting for a Chevy on cinder blocks to adorn it.  One day.

For years I started seeds in a spare room under lights each spring.  Each morning one of the first things I would do is go into the room to check and see what had sprouted or put up a new leaf overnight.  Frankly I couldn’t even tell you why, but not much makes me happier – especially when it’s snowing in April – than seeing these little green shoots emerging from the soil.  A few years back I had to leave town for a few days in late spring before I was able to plant out that year’s crop.  The qxh, apparently not understanding that my request that he water them daily while I was gone wasn’t really optional, didn’t.  When I got back about a third of my plants were dead.  I’m normally a pretty tough cookie, but I cried for days.  Continue reading “Seed Catalogue Dreaming”

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current events, life

Gabriel Santorum and our Rituals of Grief

Because I am a self-confessed former political junkie in recovery, I sometimes miss stories when they first happen (which, trust me, isn’t really a problem).  Which is why I’m just now hearing about this Santorum, dead-baby deal.  For those of you who like me were fortunate to miss this story as it developed, here’s the brief version:

In 1996, Rick and Karen Santorum lost a child just past 20 weeks gestation.  The baby died 2 hours after birth.  The Santorums held and spent time with their deceased infant.  They took the baby home for their other children to be able to do the same.  They also had a funeral service and burial.  We know all of this because Karen Santorum wrote about it in her book Letters to Gabriel which came out in 1998. 

The reason it is in the news is because two commentators – one real liberal and one token “liberal” hired by Fox News to lose arguments – both made reference to this event on TV recently.  Both spoke of this story as being so strange, distasteful and crazy that voters who heard about it would reject Santorum as a disturbed wack-job.  Controversy ensued.  The Fox news talking head claimed in a tweet to have apologized directly to Rick and Karen Santorum who were brought to tears when asked to comment on these fools’ words.  (They don’t deserve to be named.  Fools is name enough.)  Continue reading “Gabriel Santorum and our Rituals of Grief”

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religion

When a Clown Loves You

Doll by Jolene Nelson, AKA Locket

The room looks and smells not too different from the library in the middle school I attended while growing up.  Walls lined with books.  A floor covered with short, blue looped carpet.  Encouraging posters dominated by animals reading books are pasted to any wall without shelves.  Florescent lights buzz overhead.  The room smells like books do when the humidity from hot Chicago summers seeps into their pages and yellows them.  Missing are any of the trappings one finds in school libraries these days.  No computers or technology of any sort.  A typical, old school library; except this one isn’t in any school building. It’s on the lower level of a juvenile prison. Continue reading “When a Clown Loves You”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
enjoy life, prayer, relationships, religion

The Emotional God

A couple of years ago, I was sitting on my front porch steps after dinner, watching my two oldest daughters playing and complaining to God in my head.  I don’t remember what it was (nothing too serious), but the qxh (quasi-ex-husband) had done something to chap my hide.  As I wound down my complaints and let the whole thing go, I asked God in an almost off-handed way, “do you ever have to deal with people treating you like this?”  At which point I’m pretty sure all of heaven burst into hearty guffaws.  But soon a funny thing started happening: as I dealt with people in my life, often some parallel experience between God and people would pop into my head. 

Sometimes it was something little, like calling someone who did not answer their phone.  How often does God try to reach out to people who ignore or reject the call because they are too busy, inattentive or just don’t feel like it?  I would ask one of my boys to load and run the dishwasher only to discover at dinnertime hours later that we had no clean pots, plates or utensils.  Suppose God ever asks people to do things that don’t get done?  Ocasionally, I would have to deal with someone who insisted on talking over me, refused to listen to my perspective or treat it with respect.  Yeah, I’m sure God never has to deal with stuff like that, right?

By the next summer a variety of calamities, traumas and disappointments had hit my family full force.  As the qxh started to dissemble and then turn on me, these parallels became more pointed and poignant.  Loving someone who is being supremely difficult, unreasonable and hostile turns out to be something that God is intimately familiar with.  Continue reading “The Emotional God”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
being mom, enjoy life, life

Mindfulness and Procrastination

There’s probably nothing guaranteed to make you feel worse on a day-in-day out basis than those unfinished tasks we just keep putting off.   Unsent thankyou notes, unfolded laundry, bills, making that doctor’s appointment.  Whatever.  They just hang over our heads like big neon signs screaming “irresponsible”, “lazy”, “unorganized”.  I know that a lot of people swear by lists, but that has never worked for me.  I am completely unrealistic about what I can get done in a day, I am dissatisfied with anything less than near-perfection and the list thing just puts those two tendencies on a collision course with burn-out and discouragement.  But in my relentless quest to be both healthy and happy – at the same time – I have hit on something that works for disorderly, easily discouraged, unrealistic me.

The way things usually work is that in the back of my mind, I will know there’s something I need to get done.  Sometimes these things will pop into my head at an inopportune time.  And because it’s not done, I just have a gut level reaction to the task which is a combination of guilt and dread.  So I put it off again.  It’s waited this long, right?  Over and over.  Continue reading “Mindfulness and Procrastination”

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current events, enjoy life, politics

A Recovering Political Junkie’s Advice for Campaign 2012

Donuts. . . Mmmmmm

This may come as a shock to people who thought I was a rational human, but I have a confession to make: I was a political junkie.  It’s true.  I followed every twist and turn of our democratic system at play.  Cuz a properly functioning democracy relies on a well informed electorate.  Your granddad used to read the paper front to back every day.  There were psa’s in the middle of my sitcoms telling me to “be informed” when I was growing up.  What can I say? 

For those of you who don’t get the political junkie thing, let me tell you a dirty secret: politics is pretty much just like celebrity watching – only for putatively smart people.  Who’s doing what outrageous thing now?  What’s the strategy going to be on this next vote?  How will the electorate react?  What the hell is wrong with Nebraska?  And above all, what’s your opinion and why? 

But here’s the thing: my opinion doesn’t mean squat.  Continue reading “A Recovering Political Junkie’s Advice for Campaign 2012”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter5 Comments
life

Allowing Rest to Restore

I have said for years that if only I were someone who dealt with stress by throwing myself into work, I could be a gazillionaire by now.  Unfortunately, just the opposite is true; as stress piles on, I just sloooooooow dooooown.  Stress just saps my energy.  Over the years this fact as much as anything has propelled my attempts to find healthy ways of dealing with whatever life throws at me.  I cannot afford to let things stress me out if they don’t have to; if I did I’d never get anything done!

Of course, sometimes life can overwhelm even our best coping mechanisms and I can feel that familiar lack of energy creeping in.  And I fight back the best I can.  I see my doctor and take my medicine and exercise and try not to spend too much time in bed and maybe even drink more water and eat less sugar.  I push myself to keep moving even when I don’t want to.  I make myself talk to people.  I try to be kinder to myself and everyone around me. 

But every once in a blue moon, the stress gets the upper hand and nothing I do helps Continue reading “Allowing Rest to Restore”

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humor, life

Depressed DJ For Hire

I think I did better than a cat

Ok, so don’t ask me how, but some how the only job I have been able to find is working as a wedding dj.  I know, right?  The irony.  It’s actually a cool job – great people watching.  And it’s like the opposite of being a cop: you are seeing people on the best day of their life. 

The problem is that it’s not a job that leaves a lot of room for error.  This is a one-time deal (theoretically) and you have one shot to get it right.  Unfortunately, I blew that shot last night.  I DJ’ed a beautiful, very high end wedding last night (New Year’s Eve) and just screwed up from start to finish.  I won’t go into all of the gory details, but it started with forgetting my cell phone and gas money and ended with me somehow unplugging the entire sound system during the middle of a song.  And that wasn’t even the worst of it.  I mean, I didn’t ruin the evening – people had a lot of fun and several people came over to thank me.  But whenever their wedding reception comes up, they will say, “God, that dj was awful!”  Shockingly, I did not receive a tip. 

I feel like I should send the couple a note apologizing for all of the glitches.  Continue reading “Depressed DJ For Hire”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
enjoy life, life, thoughts

Thinking Makes It So

“There’s nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” – Shakespeare

I picked up this quote back in my senior year in high school while reading Hamlet for class.  When I got to college, I wrote it on a piece of paper and taped it to the wall above my bed.  It’s on my facebook page right now.  

This quote has always spoken to me about the importance of perspective, responsibility and choice.  It says to me that the way I see something – the emotions I associate with it, my analysis of what is going on, the assumptions I make about motivations – is a choice.  If one of my kids says something which is unintentionally rude, I can chose to laugh or be offended.  Sometimes I might have a good reason to be offended, but if I can, I’m going to laugh.  It’s a choice.  And that extends from the biggest things to the smallest things.  I can choose how to view things rather than just go with random gut reactions. Continue reading “Thinking Makes It So”

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being mom, enjoy life, life

A New Year’s Resolution for the Overwhelmed, Forgetful and Easily Distracted

I hate New Year’s resolutions.  Hate them.  The worst part of New Year’s day for me was always when the qxh (quasi-ex-husband) would pull out a piece of paper and write “Trotter Family Resolutions” across the top.  So we could “pull them out at the end of the year and see how we did”.  Great, another completely unrealistic standard to feel bad about not meeting.  Just what I need! 

The other day I read an article which advised that the key to keeping this year’s resolutions was to set up specific targets.  Like “I will exercise 3 times a week and lose 25 lbs by April 1.”  Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha!  Seriously.  That’s what it said.  Like the two are related.  Continue reading “A New Year’s Resolution for the Overwhelmed, Forgetful and Easily Distracted”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments