Category: As A Woman

The 5 Stages of Grief After Finding People on Facebook

On By Tamarah RockwoodIn As A WomanLeave a comment

This article originally appeared on Ravishly.

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The Five Stages Of Grief After Finding People On Facebook

Contributed by Tamarah Rockwood | 06.15.15 4:00am

Don’t say the following: “Maybe they’ll remember me!” “I bet they would love to get a message from me!” “Contacting the popular kids while we are in our 30s is a fantastic idea and doesn’t look desperate at all!”

 

I made the mistake of searching for an old friend on Facebook the other day.

We’ve all been there.  I mean, you spent 4 years with these people in high school…where are they??

I went to high school with this person, and that was about 18 years ago…so you gotta figure that since I haven’t heard from her in that long (and vice versa), we weren’t that close.  But her name popped in my head and I was just wondering what had become of her!  And I had some time to kill while dinner was cooking, so nothing like avoiding doing something actually practical, right?

To my amazement, I found her pretty quickly!  She got married and had kids…pretty normal fare.

But then I recognized one of her friends.  I noticed that she was still friends with people from high school.

Like, with almost everybody we knew  in high school.

Continue reading “The 5 Stages of Grief After Finding People on Facebook” →

Are You Who Your Critics Say You Are? ….Are You Sure?

On By Tamarah RockwoodIn As A Woman2 Comments

There is a blog I follow which I just love.  It is an insight into the business of the dead, which is normally a subject we shy away from.  But Caleb Wilde is a third generation mortician, and he loves his work…and there are things he brings up that I would never think about.  His writings and perspectives of lives and deaths of lives, and the survivors and the whole business around it, is fascinating.

4.6.2014-Caleb-Wilde
Caleb Wilde – Confessions of a Funeral Director

Continue reading “Are You Who Your Critics Say You Are? ….Are You Sure?” →

10 Ways To Rediscover The Kindness of Common Courtesy

On By Tamarah RockwoodIn As A Woman, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Just as any other city, there are a few homeless people who are regulars in my town. 

I have a budget for charity each month, and sometimes I buy them coffee if it’s cold out, or swing by McDonald’s for a warm meal if it’s late (it’s only $8 for a burger, fries and a large coffee…it’s not that much).  But I tend to always reach into the pocket of my backpack with the little cards that say “God loves you,” (because He does) with a dollar bill paperclipped onto it.  I figure it can get pretty lonely sitting on a corner asking for help.  Although I can’t do much for them all, maybe they need to hear that someone loves them once in a while.  Sometimes that alone is worth more than all the nickels and dimes they get.
But more importantly than any of this, I stop my car, look them in the eye and say to them, “Have a nice day.”  Sometimes I ask if there is anything else they need, like blankets or a jacket in the winter, but they have never taken me up on that (yet).

What kills me, if I’m going to be honest, is that every one of them replies with, “Thank you and God bless you.”

Every time.

I always drive away thinking how backwards this is, because they should be the ones simply replying, “Have a nice day,” and I should tell them, “Thank you for your humility, and God bless you in your endeavors.”

I have a home, a loving husband who provides for our large family, a meal to look forward to every day, and a stable future I can depend on.  The least I can do is extend common courtesy to the people around me.

Look them in the eye, smile and say thank you.

The other day I was at the store picking up a few things for dinner.  Spaghetti, tomatoes, french bread…just easy stuff for the night.

The cashier’s name was Amy P. and I looked her in the eye and smiled when she handed me the receipt and I said, “Thank you Amy.”

The woman bagging my spaghetti was Shannon, and I looked her in the eye, smiled and said, “Thank you Shannon, have a good day.”

These are common courtesy behaviors we are drilling into our kids.  Amy P. did not have to find my name on the receipt and say, “Have a good day Mrs. Rockwood,” and Shannon did not have to pack my bags in a way that made them easy to carry.  Yes, they were at work…but this is not some cold, dictatorship country where workers are forced to do things under penalty of death.  People still have the ability to choose their actions and behaviors, and we all know that there are some people who do not take their jobs with a cheerful heart, and they make the experience painful for everyone involved.(insert many colorful anecdotes here)

It is crucial, I think, to extend the same kindness to those who make the effort to extend kindness to you; or even more importantly, to those who don’t know how to do this at all.

Now, this is all small beans compared with giving clean water to underdeveloped countries, or feeding starving children.  But if we can’t be kinder and civilized in our own lives, how can we expect to be of any help to anyone else?

The only way we can change the world…for the better…is to start with ourselves.  Here are some ways to rediscover the kindness of common courtesy in our lives, so we don’t irritate people to the point of insanity!

1. Look them in the eye, smile and say thank you. Do this with your coworkers, your family, nurses, waiters, cashiers…heck, do it with yourself once in a while.

2. Use people’s names.  Real life isn’t the internet, and the people you see aren’t anonymous.  If you know their name or if they have a name badge, say their names.  “Thank you Tamarah” is a lot more personal and kind than “Thank you.”

3. Get off your phone if you are with someone.  I don’t think we need to be ridiculous about phones, but some common courtesy needs to be implemented.  I think talking on the phone in public is not a big deal, but if you are visiting someone’s house and you can’t stop texting someone else, I figure it’s fair game to drag you outside by your ear and kick you in the butt for being so rude.  If someone is giving you their time, do not disrespect them by ignoring them in their house. (obviously it is acceptable to “step outside for a moment” to take an important call, just don’t make a habit of it)

4. Instead of talking about you, ask them about them.  I figure we spend enough time with ourselves as it is, it is probably healthy for a person to find out more about someone else for a change.  It also encourages relationships to be formed, common interests to be found, and you can hear about how they feel or what they think.  This isn’t a “never talk about yourself, ever” tip, but a general courtesy to extend to others.

5. Think about how what you say may impact the people around you. For example, I was part of a mother’s group for a while and we had a birthday coming up so I invited the few other people in the group to the party.  Pretty straightforward stuff.  It’s completely understandable when people can’t make it: everyone has busy schedules, especially with kids.  It is completely a slap in the face when the person explains that her husband didn’t want to come to our house because he didn’t like us, and go on to spend the next 40 minutes talking about the amazing party they went to over the weekend and  name dropping the elders of the church who were there with them the entire time.  It was impressive how offensive this woman was, and how alienated people in that church felt because this kind of behavior was so accepted.  Learn from examples around you, especially if they are dumb examples.

6. Be on time.  This is incredibly difficult for us because we have 14 feet in this house that need shoes, and sometimes it is not as obvious where, exactly, each of these shoes are when it is time to leave.  But if you are expected to be somewhere at a given time and show up late, you are telling the other person/group that their time is not nearly as important as your time.  And there is nothing that irritates me more than having my time wasted, especially by people who are hours (yes, hours) late.  What’s the point?

7. Leave on time. This is a smaller infraction, but it is also just as important to give your hosts a break.  You don’t want to leave to early and have the hosts wonder if they said something wrong, but you also don’t want to stay forever so the hosts try to figure out how to nicely ask you to leave.

8. Dinner Manners Matter, Especially at Home. Dinner time isn’t a highly formal affair at our house, but it isn’t laissez faire either.  Pray together as a family, sit at the table together, talk to each other about their days, enjoy the meal together.  We have a routine where we go through everyone and ask what was the best thing of their day, what was the worst thing, and then what was their (make up topic) thing…like, what was their wettest thing, what was their smelliest thing, was was their bluest thing.  Just to keep it fun 🙂  But people are not allowed to wear costumes to the table, even though that’s a bummer sometimes.  You ask for something by saying, “May I please…” and you say “thank you” if you are given something.  You absolutely thank the person who cooked the meal.  These are all very small ways to make sure everyone has a voice in the family, everyone is respected and it extends loving relationships between people.  And for the love of all that’s good, no TV.  Music, yes.  TV, no.

9. Do not talk about your money matters with people.  Unless it is very close family or extremely close friends, this will only end in strife.  Don’t talk about how much debt you have unless you want to be judged for your debt.  Don’t talk about the endless surplus in your bank account unless you want the other person to feel belittled by your wealth.  This is a very sensitive subject for people, and it is best to use the highest courtesy with the matters of discussing money.

10. Everyone has joys in their lives to some degree, and everyone has struggles.  Be a pal and don’t disregard someone else’s situations in favor of your own.  This is an issue of comparison.  Be happy for them when they are happy, and be empathetic when they are suffering; but never, and I mean really never, reply with, “that is nothing compared to what we went through…”  In the end, people share their happiness and their pain in order to create bonds with each other.  Couples who have children will share the incredible highs and lows of parenting together.  Women who have suffered miscarriages will have a bond of pain together.  People who have suffered from illnesses will understand the struggles of regaining health again.  People in the same industry relate with each other, etc.

Laugh when your friends laugh, cry when they cry, and be stronger for them both in the end.

Here are some books for further reading:

Christmas Shopping For Your Geek

On By Tamarah RockwoodIn As A WomanLeave a comment

 Chances are, in this day and age, you are some percentage of geek.

Honestly, I am pretty low on the percentage, even though my husband is a certified geek and even though we live near Silicon Valley…but I LOVE geek culture. It’s so much more interesting than literary culture (I am actually not even close to being angsty enough to even like to be *around* literature nerds). 

Geeks are inventive, creative, smug (which can be good or bad, depending on your own smug %), and brimming with knowledge. This is where I excel: I know stuff about lots of stuff. If you have ever seen the Hepburn/Tracy movie, “Desk Set,” which is very unlikely….BUT YOU SHOULD WATCH IT….I would love to have Bunny Watson’s career. Her job is to know stuff so other departments can use her as a reference, and she works in the reference library, so she just researches stuff all day. She’s pre-google, I guess.

It’s beautiful. I would love to do that for the rest of my life. But anyway.
So, Christmas is coming up…and the thing about geeks is that they are extremely particular about what they like, and how they like what they like.
If you think you are getting them hardware for Christmas (because they like hardware, don’t they?), you’re making a HUGE mistake. Huge. I guarantee you’ll be getting the wrong thing from the wrong vendor, and it’s the wrong model in the wrong color. 
That’s just the way it is, so don’t even think about getting them anything in this area, UNLESS they have given you the link themselves. For example, that is how I got my husband a very specific sliderule for Christmas last year: from some remote dude in the middle of Germany. There is only one of these in the world, and Ben sent me the link. That worked, and I still wrapped it.
Mostly for me.
So hardware is out, software is probably out…if they wanted software, chances are they already have it, have already ordered it, have it on backorder or is waiting for some special sale/day/discount/the planets to align to buy it already. So software is out.
Geeks are really hard to buy for. Especially on days like Christmas when you genuinely want to show them how much you love them, and give them a gift of gratitude. What on earth do you do?!

Okay, here are the Ten Tinsel ideas I have to help you Christmas shop for your Geek:

1. Gamer Dad T shirts from CafePress
2. You could always go the Think Geek route in their “pamper the Patriarch” theme. You can never go wrong with Think Geek.
3. There is Newegg, but you’re really going to have to do your homework before ordering from this one.
4. You will always score with Arduino kits (http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoStarterKit)
5. Geeks are naturally collectors.  They collect things in series…so find out what they collect (books, journals, figures, dice, cards…?) and add to their collection.  This is a very special and personal gift.  However, if you get them the wrong one, or one they already have, or from the wrong year,etc., you’re going to be up a creek.  So do a ton of homework before you buy anything!
6. There is Geekologie. The functional arcade buttons, alone, are worth checking out. I am already trying to figure out how to replace my doorbell with one of these. Or put one outside my bedroom door. Or in the kitchen and hook the garbage disposal to it. Or put it in the bathroom and wire an airfreshener to it. Heck, what can’t you do with a button??
7. Then there is just the simple Geek Dad site. Ben already has all the Geek Dad books and a Geek Dad shirt, so I have no where to go with this one. But you should check it out.
8. Cards: I don’t know how it is with your Geek, but we aren’t really card people. Now, despite this fact (that we actually just came to realize over a conversation the other night when we finally looked at the list of “5 Languages of Love” that has been going around for years and years, and I’ve just guessed at until we said to each other, “have you actually read the list/book? Ya, me either.” Anyway, we found out we aren’t card-people.) we still get cards for special events. It is a good time to write something epically poetic, and I guarantee you…Ben is a master at flowing words. I looove his cards because they are just so beautiful to read. So, if you are going to get your Geek a card, at least get him something geek-worthy. Zazzle.com is a good option.
9. Video games. I know nothing about this section, so you’re on your own.
10. Finally: make sure you let him know how much you appreciate him as a husband and a father. Let him know you know what he really wants, and ….you know….”show him when the kids go to bed.” (trashy.com ….just putting it out there)

I Like My Mess

On By Tamarah RockwoodIn As A Woman1 Comment

Life has a funny way of making you accept yourself.

Recently, a woman moved two doors down from my house.  She was a part of a homeschooling group,
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If You Homeschool, You Get It. 

which I had been a part of for a few months, in another town.  Small world!  Being the introvert, nee` hermit, I was happy to see her but a little hesitant to bring her housewarming cookies, so to speak.

But she pranced up to my doorstep with great enthusiasm and told me all about her idea of starting a science group on Wednesdays; which was fine with me.  I have kids a little older than hers, and I have more than twice the amount of kids that she does and we have a daily schedule starting with chores, breakfast, school, lunch, school, martial arts, etc.  Our days are pretty packed, but I can rearrange our science times; that is the luxury of homeschooling, after all!

She lent me a few books she intended to use for the class, and once I ordered them for my brood I walked down to her house to return them.

Now, this day…and this doesn’t happen every day…but on this day, during this short walk, I realized myself.  This was a little glaring, since I have 5 Bajillion distractions at home to keep this from happening, but as I was walking down the street by myself, I had nothing keeping it from happening very suddenly.

I realized I was wearing an old, floral, cotton knit halter top maternity dress being pinned together above my breasts by a safety pin.  Under the safety pin was no bra holding the girls up…there was nothing at all.  And was barefoot, which I don’t entirely have a problem with…but I’m also a little on the “granola” side, so I wear shoes out “for social graces, only.”

Normally I encourage the people in my house to get dressed, preferably in normal clothes that match, but we live in the heart of California and it was the middle of August: it was a wee warm out, and my sole purpose in surviving the heat was to wear the least amount of clothes as possible; within the parameters of modesty, and a little dash of self-respect.

I believe I had forgotten that last “dash,” but I was already at her house by this time.  I had to believe that I was simply dropping these books off, and quickly, and she will not have time to notice anything missing.  Like a bra (listen, if I was a smaller lady this wouldn’t be a problem.  But I am a heaping spoonful of woman with noticeable features, and bras make a big difference; especially if they aren’t there).

She came to the door after I had reluctantly knocked upon it, and she was very polite and thanked me for returning the books, further expressing her excitement about the impending science class.

So far so good, just add the common pleasantries to end the conversation and I should be good to go.

And then she said,”would you like to come in?”

I cannot express enough the conflict I have within myself, one side urging me to be more social and enjoying spending idle time with women, and the other side hiding under a thatched hut with flaming spears, blaring music and “Beware of Dog.  And Owner” signs hanging forlornly on the fence.  My personality is about as introverted as you get.  I don’t not like people.  I like people very much.  I like people in scheduled times so I can prepare myself for social interactions, and for somewhat brief amounts of time; some briefer than others.  Church on Sunday lasts about 5 hours, with the mingling, the sermon, the mingling after and typically a social hang out at the local park until mid-afternoon.  That is our normal Sunday schedule, and I am prepared for it.  I am prepared to be around people I like, who give me coffee and lovely conversations, and I am prepared to be exhausted when I get home.

Unexpected visits to another woman’s house is different though.  I don’t know what we’re going to talk about, I don’t know how long I’m staying, I don’t know if she is busy doing something or has to go somewhere soon, I don’t know if I’ve stayed too long.  All this is being calculated in my head as she leads me to the kitchen and offers me a glass of water…when she sits down at the table.

Okay.  I’m a grown woman with a college degree, a fruitful career before having children, and I have studied the art of small talk.  I can talk to a housewife.  Hell, I’m a housewife.  I can do this.

I sit down, and we have a lovely discussion of births and pregnancies and homeschooling.  Pretty general topics that are akin to noting the weather by now.  I’m not terribly fond of discussing my pregnancies and births, mainly because I have discussed them so many times before in similar situations that I believe there must be life beyond these subjects; but it is more important to save my calloused, controversial, ragey conversations for my close friends and be gentle with the rest.

We finish up our water and she gives me a tour of her house.  I am noting the similarities in our houses, and suddenly get this wild idea to invite her over to see my house!

I take this younger mother two doors down and just as I start to open my front door, I remember that realization of myself I had earlier.  That moment when I realized I was not dressed to visit anyone.  A similar moment happens as the door is fully opened, and I see the heaps of clean laundry on the middle of the stairs, and I realize: I should have kept my big, optimistic mouth shut.

We walk past the schoolroom that has construction paper and school books strewn across the desks and oozing onto the paint stained carpet.  I show her into my purple kitchen, which I painted in a frenzied nesting phase during pregnancy #4, which I had also neglected to clean, and turned her to see the darker purple living room with blankets from morning cartoons with the younger unit of children.  We walk through the library which has the computers and the train table that seems to pull odd small toys into and onto it as if like a nebular cloud.  I show her upstairs, as we ignore the clean mountain of clothes, and I have a crashing wave of hostile regret as I realize the 1 year old has been trying to change her diapers again, and the diaper bin had been knocked over and there were dirty diapers strewn in the hallway.

Oh yes.  Diapers everywhere.

I can almost feel her body start to retreat into itself, remembering the good times in her clean home with spotless hardwood floors and closed bins of LEGOs lining a corner of her living room.  The sparking clean, and bare, kitchen counters she has.  The lawn in the backyard that is actually green, and not sprinkled with a tornado of tricycles and dolls.

At this point in my life, I have two options: Option 1 is to apologize for the state of the house, and suggest she visit at another time when we are more prepared for guests (insert laugh here).

Of course I didn’t take this option.  I choose Option 2: ignore the messes, pretend my house is fine and proceed to show her the blazing pink and green walls I had given my kids for their bedrooms, and all the hand painted figures and stencils I placed upon this beautiful paint.  Princesses, unicorns and random African animals for the girls, Tyrannosaurus Rexes, reptiles and cars for the boys.

Hey, let’s go in my room and I can show you the oddly large closet I have!  It used to be my sewing room, it’s so big, but I couldn’t hear the kids downstairs so I had to move my desk.  Still ignoring the ridiculous amount of laundry we are stepping over.

By this time she had fully had enough, and nervously said, “I was going to go to the store, so I have to go.”  Oh look at the time!

Still in my delusional haze, I cheerfully said it was so nice to see her and we should get together again sometime!

It was only after she left that my protective guard finally fell off in a crumbling facade.  I shut the front door after my dazed visitor left, and I was alone again in my old, floral maternity dress.  Still braless, and now with the added burden of realizing that despite my prolific gifts in the arts and creative subjects…I may not be at the top of the class with domestic wizardry.  Which is really what it feels like some days.  How do you do leaf prints in salt-flour clay, math, language arts, spelling, 1/2 hour of reading, German lessons, history, science, cursive, martial arts, sundry outside events which pop up…and keep up with the laundry?  It takes me 3 loads of dishes a day to keep up, and there are quite a few days when I can only muster 2.  The 1 year old got into the raisins while we were doing our lessons, and I keep picking even more off my calloused foot the further I venture into the kitchen.  Although I wiped down the windows and glass doors in the kitchen and living room, I only did the inside, so the other side is still mottled with dog prints, kid prints, mud and oatmeal.

It was about 5 p.m. by then, and the kids were all happily occupied with their projects in the library.  My husband, who works from home, found me sitting outside when he was done with work, sipping a Blue Moon and staring glassy-eyed into the lawn.

“What happened to you?”

I explain what happened, and he cringed in empathy.  It was just one of those days when you don’t invite anyone over, and my albatross of guilt was pretty heavy.

“You just won’t believe how clean her floors were.  Her boys were playing with like, 2 LEGOs.  They had, like, a bookshelf.” (as opposed to our walls flanked with at least 10, and many shelves are double booked).

I couldn’t compare with her.  She won the domestic homefront, and I embarassed her greatly by introducing her to my whirlwind of artistic projects and crazy endeavors.

Slowly, my husband helped me crawl out of the box of domestic shame and remember what we do well.  We do kids well, and we do a lot of kids even better.  We do organizational chaos well.  We have a million projects going at all times, and that means there will be some messes here and there, and there are days when we don’t keep up with the kitchen.  But we always bootstrap up and finish our work, feed our kids, give them a big heaping of education, have numerous social events during the week, and we’re all happy and healthy.  That’s not too bad, now is it?

And I had to realize myself.

I had to not only accept, but like, myself.  I actually really like this floral, halter maternity dress.  It’s very light and flowy and perfect during the summer.  I love being able to go barefoot.  I love all of our projects, and I love seeing what we accomplish.


 I even like my jumping 3 month old black lab foster dog (he’s doing better, even though we’ve lost a few chickens to him playing fetch with them).  

And I really do like the paint stains Stanley Steamer can’t get out of our carpets.  I also like the paintings we created which resulted in the stains.
I like the bazillion homeschool projects we have hanging on the walls; the “5 kingdoms of living things” poster we made of animalia, plantae, fungi, protista and monera.  My sewing machine is still sitting on top of the sewing box, next to the mountain of fabric and projects I was working on the other day.  The library in the next room with the train table, taped up to be a race track; the computers for the kids and the 8 bookshelves heaving books and belching knowledge.  
My desk that has a pile of etsy orders and personal projects to finish, a basket of glue guns and mosaic stones from a craft night I had, and an overworked laptop which holds my infinity loop folder of random ideas; some folders turning into books in the works, some of which are melting into blog entries, and some special few which have gotten published.
The stairs, on the other hand, are holding two loads of clean laundry I didn’t have time to take all the way to my bedroom to join the rest of their comrades laid out in a beautiful chaos that used to be organized baskets; until the fleet of toddlers went looking for their pants this morning.
I love that I had spent half the day on Wednesday cleaning the chicken coop, sweeping up dirt from treasure hunts, replanting flowers and placing seeds into my beautiful garden.  I love the two foot tall marigold flowers that protect my heirloom tomato plants, which sit in the shade of my seedless grapevines that are conquering the fence, and being very good company to the fruit trees I lined the yard with.  
I like all of these things.  I even like the second load of dishes that have been forgotten in the sink, the toys and Legos that are under our couch, and my 4 inch heels on the kitchen counter that my daughters have been playing with all morning, pretending to be mom while sipping water out of coffee mugs in the backyard.
My house is not my neighbor’s house.  It is not garnished with two IKEA chairs and an ottoman in the front room, and a giant bean bag holding her two little kids playing with a few Legos.  My kitchen is not her kitchen, with clean counters you could probably lick if you wanted to (and not taste anything afterward).  My bedroom is not her bedroom with a neatly folded bed and matching curtains.
No, my home holds two capable adults with crazy ideas and wild experiments, who wonder, “What if I painted my entire house purple?” “How do you cook beans from scratch in a pressure cooker?” “Do my kids need more arduino kits?” (yes) “How many sewing projects can I work on at once?  Are 4 bathrobes enough, or should I stock up my etsy store with more infinity scarves/ipad sleeves/hand painted wooden figures?  And Halloween is coming up, I think I’m dressing all the girls up as a hoard of White Queens, so I’ll need to finish sewing those dresses.” And a treadmill next to our washable couch, so I can run off the extra energy that keeps me from sleeping at night.  
My home holds our 5 kids, coop of chickens, 2 friendly dogs and two very cuddly hypoallergenic rat catching cats.
We have painted the walls and drawn on the walls; we have spilled coffee and paint on the carpet which we are getting around to switching to hardwood…once we set aside the funds and stop buying books, arduino kits and art supplies.
We have a messy kitchen which hosts a number of culinary wonders and experiments daily.
We have to make an effort to actually put folded laundry away, instead of escaping to the beach, or woods, or our favorite pub in San Francisco.
When I think about it, when I realize myself…I like me, and I do like my house.  Even when my neighbors come over and look around nervously.

“So, you are the crafty type?”
Definitely crafty.