a fireworks-free fourth

I don't like fireworks.

When I was a child, I remember enjoying some 4th of July fireworks. I especially liked the little snakes you could grow on the sidewalk. And sparklers, of course, because I was allowed to hold them. And these fireworks that made Chinese lanterns because I could then hang them in my room.

But even as a child, that was about it. Sometimes we would go to big fireworks displays along the river instead of doing 4th of July at home. I wasn't impressed. Or amazed. Or anything close. I was bored, hot, and rather annoyed with the crowds.

Now, as an adult, I see major drawbacks to fireworks at home. First of all, I have to wonder what is in those fireworks, all made in China as they are. I spend so much time (and money)  trying to improve my soil and our land and grow organically. I obsessively check labels in the store to avoid chemicals in our food, our toiletries and even our cleaning supplies. Do I then want to explode unlabeled bundles of toxic chemicals in our own space?

Um, no.

But even more importantly perhaps, is the total and absolute waste of money that fireworks are. The first year we lived here, we thought how fun it would be to go and buy the fireworks that are legal to shoot off here, but illegal in the state we moved from. My husband had a good and steady income, and we had a little in savings, so we bought a big pack of fireworks and invited some of our friends over.

The fireworks package cost us $175. It took us about an hour to let off $175 worth of fireworks. The children were bored after about 20 minutes. At the end, even we were bored, but we wanted to get through the pack. The smoke smelled horrible and at some point early on, I had to move away from it all with the baby, who kept coughing.

I kept looking at the sky, seeing those bursts of light as dollar bills. We were literally blowing up our money in the sky. I was ashamed. It was a blatant display of Western excess and it was shameful. I vowed I wouldn't let that happen again.

So, this year, we have different plans for the 4th of July. For years, I've wanted to find other ways to make the day special besides fireworks, and finally, I've gathered a few activities that I think will fit the bill.

First on our agenda, we will bake. After all, what is the 4th of July without a flag cake? I remember my sweet grandma making one of these every year. While I could give or take the fireworks, the cake was always eagerly anticipated. Plus, she usually let me help decorate. One berry for the cake, one for me, one for the cake....

Next, we might try this fun little fireworks in a jar experiment that's been circulating lately.

If the children aren't interested in that one, then we might try to build little bug houses for fireflies. They have been wanting to make a firefly nightlight for a long time now. Just for one night, I think that would be okay.

I'm curious to see what would happen if we added a little food coloring to a jar of bubbles. Might they make colored bubbles? We shall see.

If the evening proves cool enough to sit outside, we'll build a little bonfire for making s'mores-in-a-cone. I found a great deal on organic ice cream cones online, so we now have 144 ice cream cones sitting in our pantry. Wait, correction: 132. One full box has already  been enjoyed.

And finally, the crowning glory for my little ones: I have given them my full permission to stay up as late as they wish. No bedtime! May the firefly catching continue until they fall down from sleepy exhaustion and may they rest peacefully in their beds to the loud drone and swift breeze of window fans.

What a lovely summer day that would be! For me, as an adult, it might just be one of the few times I will have enjoyed the 4th of July holiday.

And when I think back to little me, as a child, if you add some beautiful cousins, take away some silly fireworks, these things - baking with grandma, roasting marshmallows over small fires, running after fireflies, letting it all go to the wind of a loud and constant fan - they are what I remember most. Long and lovely summer days.

What other plans besides fireworks do you have for the 4th of July?

local libraries with summer reading programs

In my last post, I listed some local businesses that were giving away prizes and rewards in summer reading programs.

Here, I wanted to list some of the various libraries around town along with their logging requirements and prizes available. This list is for K-6 readers.

Kenton County Public Library - sign up inside a library branch. Log the books you read and after you finish 5 books, return your log for a prize and sign up again.

Cincinnati Public Library - sign up online. You can choose to log minutes or books. There are different "levels" that you reach after reading a certain number of books or logging a certain number of minutes. Each level achieved earns a prize and there are also larger, grand-prize drawings at summer's end. An interesting feature of this program is in its online format. You can choose to review and rate the book, which is a fun learning opportunity for us.

Lawrenceburg Public Library - sign up online and log your minutes to earn prizes. Prizes start at 6 hours or 360 minutes.


Are you participating in any summer reading programs this year? Do your children enjoy them?

local reading logs with prizes

Now that I have a young reader (who is rarely found without a new book at hand, actually), all the cool reading logs we have around us are catching my attention. For my local readers  - anywhere from Cincinnati to Indianapolis to Louisville - here's my handy-dandy list of summer reading programs and prizes for 2012.

If you have a reader like I do, why not grab some prizes for doing what they love anyway? Plus a special bonus: a shopping date with mom to collect the goods.

Half Price Books - for ages 14 and under, offers a $5 gift card for June and a $5 gift card for July for meeting the reading minutes goal outlined on the page.

Barnes and Noble  - for grades 1-6, read any 8 books and get a free book in-store

Scholastic - for ages 12 and under, this one mentions "rewards" and "chance to win prizes." Doesn't sound as straightforward as the others, but if you're reading (and logging) for the other sites anyway, why not?

Pottery Barn Kids - this one is a bit different. You read books from their recommended list, which qualifies you for "a free book" in-store. This is the most restrictive I've found yet.

Of course, our local libraries each have a reading program too.

 It looks like we'll be keeping a little closer track of the time spent reading this summer, so  I'll be recording our times in our homeschooling journals (might come in handy one day), help my little reader win some prizes, and look forward to a late summer shopping trip together.

If you have any summer reading programs to add - for child or adult - please post them in the comments!

do i need to separate you two?

Today has been a day of sibling fighting. Unfortunately, it's coming on the heels of more than a week of my three little girls arguing with, snipping at, and intentionally aggravating one another.

These weeks come in phases, they come and go, they vary in intensity.

And they drive me crazy.

This is why I had my earphones on half the morning.

As I was preparing lunch, I hear the screaming and squealing start on the daybed downstairs. Miss Three Year Old (the instigator) and Miss Nine Year Old (the retaliator) were actually hitting and kicking one another as Miss Nearly Two Year Old was booking it up the staircase as fast as her almost two year old legs could book it, screaming all the while about the terrible fight her sisters were in.

Instead of yelling (my first impulse), I separated them. I did the school teacher's equivalent of seating them across the room. I told them both to go to separate bedrooms and wait until I told them they could come out. And while I didn't yell, I also didn't say it all that nicely. There could have been a lot of jabbing at the air with my index finger to punctuate my instructions.

"Do NOT," jab toward Miss Nine, "leave your bedroom," jab toward Miss Three, " until I say it's OK." Door shut.

Miss Nine has been in timeout before. She went to her bedroom and sulked. Maybe she read a book. Maybe she packed a suitcase so she could run away. Maybe she thought about sneaking out the back window. I'm not sure. I had already put my earphones back on and was planning to follow the one minute per year of age, but based on the minimum common denominator here - three years, three minutes, one song's worth.

Miss Three has never really been in timeout in a room by herself before and I was surprised she was even staying put.

After my song was through, I headed down to the bedrooms trying to figure out how to approach the whole "here's our conversation about what happened so we understand each other and y'all can leave the stinkin' bedrooms" so that we could end on a positive note that had everybody loving one another again. And hopefully acting like loving sisters, too!

"Don't blame any one person," I reminded myself. "Remind them of the rule. Make sure they both know I'm on their 'side' equally. Don't force affection. Remember to find a way they can make it right again."

I open the door to find Miss Nine snuggled behind Miss Three while Three rubbed Nine's elbow for comfort and Nine stroked her hair. Nine looked at me apprehensively.

"She was crying. I know I was supposed to stay in my room, but she was crying and I think she was afraid."

I smiled. I felt a tear brewing - a happy one.  I said nothing. No rules and reminders needed this time.

What's the school teacher's equivalent of that? This is why I love homeschooling.

to my daughters: your calling

Every so often, I think of things that I would like to somehow impart to my daughters. Some life lesson, some been-there-done-that mistake I hope they don't repeat, some realization that I think might help them in their journey from the breathing pulsing beating moving human experience to the other side of eternity. Today I want to tell them about their calling.

It doesn't matter what name you have for it: your calling, your vocation, your destiny, even your specific skill set. If you pick any well-educated, informed and thoughtful person in our society, my loves, they will tell you roughly the same thing in different words.

You must find your calling, they will say.

But your mama is about to tell you that I think they are way off-base, and why I've come to believe that.

My beautiful children, you are special in countless ways. You have all been well-endowed with endless generosity, love, acceptance and kindness. I watch you display it with one another every day. The ways in which you sacrifice your own desires to have your possessions and time (and your mama) all to yourself so you can help one another feel better always surprises me in a way that makes my belly ache from being proud of you. 

You are also each unique and have your own strengths and weaknesses. I could point out specifically what I see those being right here right now, but you are each so young that I will resist my urge to be specific so as not to risk pigeon-holing you into something you might not be.

And as you have unique strengths and weakness, you have unique talents and skills. And you have your own things that would drive you absolutely mad crazy. This is wonderful! This is life, and your generous, sacrificial and very grounded spirits will ensure that you do your best to avoid long-term situations that make you absolutely mad crazy. I am certain of it.

You might be wondering right now, what does this have to do with our callings? (Perhaps she has gotten distracted again, you might say to your sister, what do you think? Probably, she might answer.)

Because, you might wonder, if we each have all this uniqueness, why don't we have a calling?

Well, that's the thing I've been getting around to - you do! You have a calling, and another one, and another one after that. Each of you really does have a certain set of skills, talents, strengths, weaknesses, loves, dislikes, irritations, activities that ground you, activities that bore you, and activities that excite you. And that whole big ball of YOU prepares you for many, many callings.

Let me tell you loves, for as long as I can remember, I have looked for my calling. "What am I on this Earth for?" I've wondered. What grand plan does God have in store for me?

And while I was wondering and waiting for the grand plan to be revealed, I wasted a lot of time doing not much of anything. I ignored and missed all the little callings, keeping my eyes keenly on the horizon for the Big One.

I can pretty much guarantee you that doing nothing as you wait for your calling to be revealed, that is not your calling.

So here is what I want you to remember: you have many callings. You have endless vocations. You might find yourself pursuing three, four, even five of these at any given time. You might find that one has to come before the others, instead of the others, all by itself at one time, while later, you can balance so much more. You might find that what you felt called to do, and genuinely and passionately pursued when you were in your 20s, has no appeal when you are in your 50s. Things change, you change, and needs change. That is the nature of our human experience.

But whatever you do from a place of sacrifice and generosity to further God's Goodness in this world is one of your many callings.

The whole giant ball of uniqueness that makes you you - that is a gift. You must use that gift to promote God's Goodness, as far and wide as you can. It is your responsibility and you must take it very seriously. And then you must sleep easily at night knowing that whatever you have or haven't accomplished that day, week, month, year, decade, you have done this. You must not judge your accomplishments by the world's view of success, but by this alone. Have I used my gifts to promote God's Goodness?

You must live all of your callings, day in and day out.

van gogh-inspired sunflowers

As I mentioned in my last post, we finished up our two-week unit study on All Things French by painting some Van Gogh-inspired sunflowers. I have a larger purpose for the white signs I painted them on - I want to add a little personality and beauty to our homestead here. Sunflowers seemed the perfect choice.

We began growing sunflowers here two years ago and were pleased (and surprised) to find that they thrived on our land with very little effort on our part. How wonderful when we also found out that sunflowers have the rare ability to "cleanse" your land by leaching out the chemicals used by the conventional farmers before you. Now we probably aren't going to want to eat those seeds for a few years, but what an amazing function those beautiful plants provide! Plus, nothing says happy sunshiney sunshine to me like a giant bright yellow sunflower as it lifts its head up to the sky and follows the sun on its westerly path through the day.

I've been looking forward to painting the sunflowers since we started our France study. I don't bring out the paints very often. Okay, we paint next to never. I can easily count our painting sessions at home on one hand. Why do we not do this basic art activity? The mess.

I am pretty relaxed in general about art and what creations the girls come up with. I don't critique it. I encourage them to draw and cut and glue and even tape sometimes (when we have it around! somehow it disappears as fast as Band-aids around here). Creativity is king here, not technique or even talent. Just try. That's what I want to see. Try and try and try again, because I didn't try. I was critiqued somewhere along the line, and so I censored myself, and then I quit trying. You can only freely stretch yourself in one frame of mind, and that is without censorship. I feel like once you internalize the critiques of experts and authority, then you self-censor every piece and that chance for free creative license and learning in the middle of the moment disappears.

But paint? Painting inside my home cannot be free by its very nature. It makes me Type A edgy during the whole activity. What are you doing? Keep it on the paper! Dang it, child, that is going to permanently stain!! Yeah, I am not fun to paint with.

So I was excited about the sunflowers because it's been a loooong time since Sassy and I have painted together, and because I rarely do anything artistic just for the sake of doing it. How fun to try to copy and learn from Van Gogh's style! How unlike anything we ever do!

Well, the results were more than I'd hoped for. We had fun and there was very little mess. Sassy has grown so much since we last tried that she was no problem at all. The babies slept through most of it, but Livvy did wake up when I was on my third flower and I had to paint one-handed for most of that one and some of the last flower. That was difficult, but interesting too how it changed things.

I went off this Van Gogh painting of a close-up sunflower.

As I was painting, I realized how my garden wisdom was helping my painting. I know exactly how the petals of the flower meet the seed head in the middle. I've studied it dozens of times over in my own garden. I know how the seeds in the head are arranged. I know how the sunflower seems to lift its head up to the sun, like a seeker. As I painted, I could almost see my flowers, almost be in my garden.

One of the petals in Van Gogh's painting had a mind of its own. A little wisp out to the side, a petal with flair. Maybe the wind was catching it; maybe it knew it was beautiful and was flaunting it. I wanted my petals to have flair. I want my garden to have flair. My hand wisped the petals out to the side. My hand was the wind, a wispy wind.

I would think that painting your garden, closely, the flowers and plants in your own garden, would make for more beautiful paintings and a more beautiful garden. The close and intimate knowledge you would develop for your garden would shine in your paintings and the process of studying and focusing while you paint would help you build an intuitive understanding of your garden space.

Something about painting is meditative, I found. Who knew? Ha! How I wish I hadn't been so critiqued and censored when I was young. Such focused meditation on a particular subject could surely bring about the mindfulness of being and universal wisdom that helps the immature grow up. Or that helps the self to sacrifice to something (and eventually someone) else. Or that helps the seeker find the ultimate Creator.

I wonder if my second-grade art teacher helped me screw up my life during all of my twenties. Haha! I'm joking, of course. First off, I don't even remember my second-grade art teacher so I have no idea when I was critiqued to the point of making me embarrassed to try. Also, I am wholly responsible for my own life.

But what I won't do is rob my children of a viable avenue for their own artistic, emotional, and especially spiritual growth.

They must try, try hard, try with all their feeling, try with all their senses, without bothering to ask me what I think of it. And the number one rule when putting pen or pencil or brush to paper is this: slow down, look closely, be still.

The gift of it all is in the process. Learning this is the greatest lesson of all.

little french things

We are now wrapping up a two-week unit study on France and all things French.

We started this unit with a documentary about Vincent Van Gogh's paintings. It showed the real-life places in France of Van Gogh's paintings. It wasn't necessarily for the art history major, but a good introduction to both French scenery and Van Gogh's art for a third grader and her non-art-class-taking mama.

This led to us creating French themes everywhere.

Mazzy had her third birthday party. We served up French bread, cream cheese, turkey salad (featuring our very own Thanksgiving turkey), French fries (haha), and a big over-the-top chocolate cake with chocolate-dipped fraises.

Sassy learned how to find and use an online translation dictionary. We did our best on le menu, but my French is way rusty. I was a Spanish girl, but for a short two-year stint in French class. We did get to talk a little about e's with accent marks - backwards and forwards - a's with hats and c's with tails. What were they for? What did they mean?

We decorated the girls' room with a Madeline theme in mind. What little girl doesn't adore Madeline? They love the coziness the new decorations brought.







Sassy wanted to look up Madeline cartoons, so we struck a mutually beneficial deal. We brought back spelling and math worksheets in the morning, and if she finishes them by the time the babies take their naps, she gets to watch Madeline while they sleep.

Sassy read Happy Orpheline in less than a day (go Sassy! yay!) and loved it. Of course, orphans are a favorite reading topic for her, so that worked out.

We watched a few videos. The first was called May Festivals in France. I was more interested than the children in that one. One of the festivals was for real-life gypsies. What an interesting subject. I'd love to explore that one further one day. Another festival did medieval re-enactment, including torture re-enactment. How macabre and, um, strange.

We also watched a cooking video loosely based on the movie Rataouille, starring several famous chefs. They liked the Rachel Ray segment best, as she taught a little boy how to make "chicken toes" - smaller than chicken fingers, she said, so they would call them chicken toes. The girls loved this. Chicken toes, hehe.

During dinner a couple nights, we watched a documentary about castles in France. Turns out, some castles are owned by ordinary people, ordinary families. They pay very little for them, then spend all their money (and then some, I'm sure) fixing them up. One family paid only $60,000 (US dollar equivalent) for an enormous, ancient, beautiful castle. We're talking forty plus rooms here, complete with wood-burning kitchen and servant's quarters below. For ten years, they have been renovating the castle. It still isn't done, but it is amazing. They put their own modern apartment in one "little" section of it (one little section about as big as our whole house), and they live there while they renovate the rest true to period. It is also a bed and breakfast, as most of the castles we learned about seem to be.

On an unseasonably warm January day last week, I re-painted the trim on our barns and sheds, with the intention of finishing them off with little French signs starring sunflowers (our take on Van Gogh's sunflowers) and titles in French. We painted the sunflowers on the signs today while the babies were napping. I still have to paint the words, so pics on those later.

And what was our soundtrack to all this French focus? Why, the French Cafe Radio on Pandora, of course. It provided the perfect backdrop for both inward-focused January in general and all of our activities al francais.

(And on a side note, it made Mama want to find lots more music by Pink Martini.)

I can't speak for Sassy, but I have several take-aways from this study. The most significant came when we did our Van Gogh-inspired sunflowers; more on that in the next post. The other is how badly, badly, very very badly I want to go back to France. And Ireland. It hurts, it is an ache. I want to go, and I want to go now.

But I think the girls would also enjoy it so much, especially when they are a little older. So my pragmatic Europe-bound goal for this year is to get our passports. I'm sure if recent political history is any gauge, then it will only get harder to get a passport with each passing year, so procrastinating in this instance would surely be a fool's slack.

christmas spirit

  

the village

the carol-

ers

the advent wreath

gingerbread cookies

We wrapped up our focus on all things gingery this morning when we finally decorated our gingerbread cookies.

They were delicious. The recipe I used made cookies less in the tangy ginger vein and more in the sweet, spiced cookie vein. They were mild tasting, the dough was easy to work with, and they ended up perfectly crisp - just right for decorating and for dipping in afternoon coffee.

We made ginger tea tonight as well. Sassy said "Umm...too strong for me. Too ginger-tasting." I thought it was pretty good, but was surprised to find it so inviting each time I went back to the fridge tonight. "Maybe just one more sip?" it would whisper to me.

We started the next unit. This week we'll be learning about St. Nicholas. Since she finally realized the Santa Claus gig was a ruse, her interest in St. Nicholas has gained momentum.

I printed off many stories and activities from The St. Nicholas Center. We bound them together at the top with a hole-punch and some yarn to make a little book.

More on St. Nick as the week progresses....

gingerbread characters

Tuesday, we had a run-run-run kind of day. Miss Sassy had some money she had been saving and she was determined to take it to a little store we like to go to. The store is more or less a Big Lots of food, and it's where we get amazing prices on organic food that is a wee bit past its expiration date. The back of the store is a pioneer-loving girl's dreamland. It is stocked to the brim with toys, and since the store is run by an Amish family, there are many interesting finds there we don't see anywhere else.

This was grounds for a wonderful lesson in money. I decided a month or so ago that she needed better basic understanding of money. Okay, I decided she should know how to count money. Period. So I'd been trying to teach it here and there, but getting a little resistance. I suppose it was sinking in because she did quite well.

A little German music box caught her fancy right away, and she marched up to ask how much it was. $35 was the response. She was a bit disappointed, because she quickly realized she would need $19 more dollars than what she had. (She started out with over $20, but gave $5 to her sister so she would have "spending money" and another $1 to a little girl we didn't know who was browsing the toy section with her. Can you say proud mama??)

So instead, she purchased a little farm set for $7, and decided to save the rest until she could add to it and go back to get that music box. What a magical music box it must be!

Wednesday, Sassy and Tiny Mouse got chicken pox.

But Sassy still had enough energy to do an art project. All that gingerbread talk this week inspired this:

Although it might not look like much to our adult eyes, this is actually a play scene. See, each gingerbread character is put onto the house with double-sided tape so that they can move around on the house.

Right now, Sassy is upstairs. Magpie is outside. Mommy is holding baby ("Mommy! Did you notice where the baby is? Hmm? In your arms!!"), and Daddy is on the roof. ("I put Daddy on the roof because I kind of ran out of room, so he's putting up some decorations.")

Yes, Daddy is indeed the only one brave enough to climb onto the roof around here.

Her project inspired a super Christmas gift idea, but mum's the word on that for now.

We are hoping to make real gingerbread cookie dough tomorrow so we can make houses and people and awesome fun cookies.

gingerbread funschooling

We're looking at all things gingerbread this week. What's up with that spicy sweet treat that is so fun to decorate?

Today we made gingerbread garland. Very fun. Here's our take on the project.

This little short story about ginger tea will complete today's activities.

A generally peaceful, rainy little advent day.

a little Christmas joy

I am going to out myself here as a total lover of All Things Christmas.

I am that person who puts on the Christmas station on Pandora in the middle of October. (Just once! I mean, the weather suddenly turned cold and the ground froze over by the morning, so I pulled on a sweater from the back of the closet and stayed warm listening to "I'll Be Home For Christmas." Can you blame me?)

I also love all the Christmas decorations. Decorating my house for Christmas is so worth the joy that I don't even mind the clean-up in January okay, February.

I love the candlelight service on Christmas Eve. It's so hushed, so dim, all those candles passed from one person to another. I love the Candlelight Service so much I still go out of my way to look for Baptist Churches that are holding one so my now Catholic girls and I can go there on Christmas Eve.

And if these aren't proof enough of my love for Christmas (also known to me  as "the only good thing about winter"), I even love Christmas shopping. This year, sadly, I don't have any money to go Christmas shopping, but that's okay. With even twenty dollars in my pocket, I love to go to that bane-of-all-that-is-local-and-fair-trade - the mall. It's really not about the buying. It's about the atmosphere. Christmas music everywhere, jingling bells outside the entry doors, villages where you can pay to tell Santa what you want and have the picture to prove it. I love it!

The only thing that wears on me is that it is a holiday that revolves around gifts these days. Personally, I neither want to buy needless, thoughtless things for myself or others, nor do I have the money to buy for the sake of buying. I think I enjoy the mid-October Christmas music the most of all because the gift buying stress is a long time off. No need to worry over that now, I think. Let's just feel warm and snuggly and happy right now and fool with all that later.

Every year, I tell myself I am going to spend more time on things that I want to do at Christmas and less time on things I feel I have to do. "This year," I will say, "I am really going to enjoy it - all the way through to December 25th."

Well, this year, I believe my dreams will come true -whether I'm ready or not. Two years of underemployment plus one new house plus one rather unexpected bonus baby has taken its toll. Discretionary income is non-existent, the credit cards have reached their limits, and my priorities are pretty clear: food, utilities, and loans (that carry heavy fees and penalties if not paid), pretty much in that order.

So what will this Christmas look like instead? Let's see....

Decorating. We are in a new house with its own, unique characteristics. I can't wait to decorate this house for Christmas. Where will our Christmas village go? How about the tree? How about outside decorations - what can happen there? Anything by the road? It's all so exciting! Finally, we can bring out all the decorations we haven't been able to unpack in smaller spaces and enjoy them.

Pictures. I'm not sure if I will take my girls to a portrait studio this Christmas, but chances are good. I know certain deals are out there for portrait packages as low as $13 with no sitting fees, and I always said once I had more than two children, Christmas would be the occasion for taking family portraits rather than birthdays. Plus, how fun it will be to take pictures of the house after we decorate!

Crafting. I once asked Sydney what she likes to do together, with me. If we had our own Mommy-Sydney time to spend, what would we do? "Crafts," she told me, without missing a beat. "We would have a little craft project and we would sit down together and work on it and each make our own thing." Well, I'm in. I'm not sure just what we will make yet, but I am thinking ornaments, soap, decorations, and a few toys to start. How about some freezer paper stenciling for gifts? We like to peruse the catalogs that come this time of year and think about how we could re-create the things we see in them.

Baking. Of course. We love to bake. Lately I've noticed Sydney seems to not have as much of a grasp on fractions as I think she should by now. This is a lesson begging to be learned in the kitchen.

Candlelight service. Yep. For sure this year. Last year, I waited too long to find one but this year I am keeping my eyes open early.

Now on Christmas morning, of course there will be stockings filled with goodies and packages under the tree. They will be enjoyed for the few hours we will have at home before we head out for the day. But will they be remembered?

Do I play Christmas music in October because of the gifts I received on December 25th?

No. I play Christmas music because of the power it holds to make me feel instantly warmer. It conjures images of villages, trains, lighted trees, a full house: aunts and uncles and cousins.

I see the Christmas tablecloths covering tables set with poinsettia china, gravy boats overfilling, my grandma busily filling the table with more food, smiling, humming Christmas music.

I see my grandpa poking the fire, hauling, arranging, and re-arranging the logs so we can sit on the brick hearth warming our backs.

I see my other grandpa with his wide smile, hugging me as I walk into his house. I hear him patiently answering all my little questions about this and that and the other, making me feel welcome, knowing in my heart he loves me.

I can honestly say that while I remember several of my favorite toys, I don't remember a single Christmas morning of opening anything specific the way I remember that dinner table, that fire, that wide smile.

And I can say also that while I remember the candlelight service being so very special, I don't recall any library "Christmas program" or any planned  "Holiday party" or really, anything at all about what I did with my friends around Christmas. I remember very much what I did with my family, though.

This is important for me to remember when I'm tempted to plan and attend and drive and host and go-go-go. Every four hours spent in commuting to  and attending an enriching program is four hours I have not relaxed with my children. A friend used to call that putzing around the house time "moodling." Without time to moodle, nothing extra gets done. The dishes and counters might stay clean, sure, and everyone is dressed in clean clothes, but that's it. The mind has no time to wander, and the hands have no time to create. Moodling time is absolutely essential.

I have plans to mix some lessons and ideas I want to introduce with some Christmas creations. These ideas come to me on relaxed, at-home days. I have a feeling December will hold much more real-life learning and many fewer workbook pages.

And then there's blogging. Today's post is the end result of a good hour of moodling. Lately, I've been focused so much on writing for a paycheck that I've felt guilty to write for myself. Not only have I felt constraints on my writing time to be spent in pursuit of something financially viable, but I've also felt constraints on my writing style. Certain venues might be a fairly reliable income source, but they are particular in your voice, your subject matter, your point of view.

Then there's my own self-imposed constraints. I know that if I put something on my own blog, I won't be able to sell that for first rights or full rights anymore. At that point, I have self-published. That has been a hard pill to swallow.

But I've begun to realize that when I can't spend time in my own creation, my writing itself suffers. My skills grow in process, while I'm working, in the middle of the essay, in the middle of the thought process. With all those constraints I lose the freedom that allows that growth to happen.

Maybe, just maybe, creating things with the children for Christmas will inspire me enough to take the risk of self-publishing, knowing that although that article can never be sold, it has given me the moodling space in my work that I so desperately need to stay interested - and interesting.

What do you hope to accomplish this Christmas?

God grant me...

Maturity and emotional temperance

Love and acceptance instead of bullying and control

Gentleness in my hands

The desire to listen and understand

And a mouth that uses soft voices to speak kind words

It's been a long time since I've put anything here, and I've been in limbo whether or not to keep this blog up. But occasionally, things ask to be recorded in a more private space than Heirloom Homestead.

As usual, I don't have much time to write again. I thought I was going to get 20 minutes or so, but in come the others from outside already, with their litany of problems they must explain and try to find answers from me.

It's exhausting. It's exhausting and frustrating and overwhelming to my senses to have this constant diatribe thrown on me from all directions. I long for my own space. Some days, I long to drive off into the mountains, leaving the whole lot of them behind. How can one grouchy person change the moods of three other people for a whole day? I don't know.

I do know that I've been coping in rather unhealthy ways. Instead of trying to influence others in the house in a good way, I let myself get caught in the tide of whatever negative comes up. Instead of being proactive to make the home feel safe and secure for our little ones, I've displayed reactive, knee-jerk reactions, the hallmark of my immaturity, in my opinion. Instead of trying to understand why the house feels like a whirlwind of anger and sadness, and how I might help the person trapped in the center, I've tried to blame that person (whichever it may be that day) for causing it all, and tried to bully or manipulate them out of their mood.

At some point, I have to accept that I cannot control my environment right now. I can never control my environment completely, as long as I choose to be in relationship with others. But especially right now, my environment will be a daily crap shoot.

I also can't control others. Assuming that I am choosing to stay in relationship with others (which I am), I can't control anyone else, but have to let them be who they are. Some of us have the hardest time letting this happen with one of our children. For me, it's my spouse.

The night before last, I had rare time for reflection. And I started writing the prayer above. It has motions, actually - roughly the same as those in The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit that we do at church, except ending on the mouth. Prayers, even oft recited ones, seem to stick with me better when a physical component is added.

In our adult formation class the other night, Father Whittington talked about the continuum of virtue versus vice and how they become habit. Essentially, his point was this: your greatest achievement doesn't happen when you struggle with right and wrong, and eventually choose right. This is much more interesting, perhaps, and can indicate growth, but your greatest achievement happens when the "right" becomes habitual. There is no struggle involved because you're firmly planted in doing the right thing already.

My reactions have become habitual. When I become angry with someone in my family - depending on who it is - my thoughts (my reactive, knee-jerk, angry and hateful thoughts) have become completely habitual. I think the exact same hateful thoughts in the exact same order with the same feeling of fury behind them. The only thing that might change is their intensity. Since I keep repeating them to myself, they somehow become less "blowing off steam" and more "let's consider the reality of this for a bit."

My hope for my relationships with those in my family would be that the reactions indicated in the prayer above could one day become the new habit. I know habits are hard to break, and I know they aren't changed overnight.

But I also know that if you don't try to change them, they can - and will - go on indefinitely.

In the Thick of It

There’s only the thick
In the thick of it
Twenty-four seven
Three hundred sixty five
Always on, always with
Never alone
In the thick of it
Early work, evening work
Dinner laundry breakfast lunch
Dinner laundry breakfast lunch
“Mama will you read me a story?”
More stories than time
More babies than laps
In the thick of it
Joyous screeching, angry screaming
Noisy running
Happy giggly noisy chaos
Swirling around and around and around the little house
“Mama watch this!”
In the thick of it
Lessons to plan in the wee night hours
Stealing moments of silence
Tired babies to tuck in
So tired mama can get tired time to be her tired self
And to do the things that should be ready
When the first eye pops open tomorrow
Twenty-four seven
Three hundred sixty five
In the thick of it
There are new friends, old friends, hurt friends, friends hurt
Boyfriends, girlfriends, best friends, not friends
There’s “See you tonight, dear,”
As he heads out the door
And passing in the hall
Is when you see him most of all
In the thick of it
Drivers’ licenses make him stay up now
Papa’s turn to be tired
Spending tired time
Hoping his baby is not too tired
And the other drivers are not too tired
Mind wandering
Pushing away thoughts as fast as they come
In the thick of it
There is a family
In a bubble
And there are babies
Big now
Pushing, pushing against the bubble
Elbow here, fist there, knees everywhere
Pushing, pushing until the bubble that holds them
No longer has smooth round skin
But distorted, lumpy, pushing spots
Where the membrane stretches so thin it becomes nearly transparent until
POP!
There is driving, there is a dorm room, there are classes, there is long highway
There is now a Self
You are both so proud of her
You are both so scared for her
In the thick of it
There is more pushing
There is more stretching
There is POP! POP! POP!
More work
More tired
More highway
More hurry money deadlines now

And then

You are at last alone
In the thin of things
It is quiet
Quiet in the garden
Quiet during movies
Quiet reading novels
Quiet in your chairs
Having quiet conversations
In a quiet house
You are looking at each other
“I love you,” you say
“I love you,” he says,
Quietly
The heavy, deafening quiet throbs in your ears
You look down
You see your lap
You feel your lap
It is empty
It is empty and weightless
The emptiness is crushing
The longing makes your legs hurt

“I WANT TO BE IN THE THICK OF THINGS!” you scream.
I want to be in the thick of things
Twenty-four seven
Three hundred sixty five
Is it feast or famine?

Then I choose feast.

I will eat it up, drink it up, nourished, full
I will feast.

I will choose to feast.

organic coupons

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I've added the link to my sidebar under "Deals and Steals" so you can always easily access it. They also have e-coupons you can print out right now if you don't want to wait.

Mambo Sprouts

screened

Last night, we had a small party where Jeff set off the rest of our fireworks that were rained out on the Fourth. One of his work friends came with his wife and their newborn baby, his 7-year old daughter and her 6-year old daughter. Sassy was thrilled, of course. I thought it was probably a good night to have guests since I was feeling a bit in a funk and figured being forced to “fake it ‘til I make it” was going to be the easiest way to improve my mood.

My dad showed up a few minutes before this other family, and we all sat down on the porch to watch the show. I didn’t have much in the way of snacks, so I set out some dried apple rings from TJ’s and popped up a quick batch of popcorn.

When I came outside with the popcorn, my dad commented on how good the apple rings are. “They were chewy,” he said, “Didn’t expect that. But the flavor was so good it made up for it.”

I teased, “Well, they were dried fruit. What did you expect? Crunchy?”

My snarky joke went way over his head when he nodded and said how he thought they would be like a chip. You know, he said, like those apple chips they sell.

The work-friend’s wife nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, those are so good. That’s what I thought they would be like too.”

I said, “Oh, I see. I figured they’d be chewy like raisins.” (Hint, hint. Raisins = dried grapes.)

“Oh…I never thought of that,” she said.

“Those apple chips are so good, aren’t they?” my dad asked her.

“I wonder if there’s a way to turn chewy dried apples into something more like apple chips,” I mused.

There was a 15-second-ish pause while they seemed to consider this. Then my dad said, “I think it would be easier to just go buy a bag of apple chips.”

Then they both had a big hearty laugh. In fact, this obvious assessment deserved even a rebound laugh on both their parts, where the hilarity started up after it had died down, just thinking about it again.

I was, in fact, not embarrassed or offended that they didn’t want to consider the possibilities of turning chewy apples to crunchy ones. Instead, it gave me a brilliant idea. That’s it! I told myself. A one-question, right-on-the-nose screener to let me know if the person I’m meeting is someone I want to pursue further or someone with whom a relationship would be superficial at best, or plain irritating at worst.

I’ve been thinking through each of my friends and mentally replaying the conversation last night, but inserting them into work-friend wife’s role. There are several of my friends who would have been interested in crunching up chewy apple rings simply for the creative challenge it would provide. “Hmmm….” the conversation might have gone with them. “I suppose you could put them in a dehydrator. Or maybe toss them with oil and cinnamon and nutmeg and put them in a low oven.” Some of these friends might have gone on to other things I could do with chewy apple rings instead of making them crunchy. Apple turnovers, perhaps, or a cheesy-apple-biscuit creation. Yum.

Other friends might have realized that I probably wasn’t going to buy those apple chips even if they were sitting right in front of me because of all the crap I found in the ingredients when I stood in Big Lots reading the label a few weeks ago. From that understanding, they might concur that though I am perhaps stuck with chewy apples versus crunchy, it sure beats putting all that other crud in my body. Yes, indeed.

Still another type of friend might weigh out the options. Well, they might figure, you could just go buy a bag, but then you would have to drive 20 minutes at minimum to do it, drag your two kids into the store, read the label to be sure it’s OK, then come back home. The apple rings are here. But if you try to do something to them, you might ruin them. And that bag probably cost at least $5.00 at TJ’s. I think I would eat them the way they are. Or if you do modify them, make sure it’s not something too risky, unless you absolutely don’t like them the way they are, they might tell me.

A few of my friends would say, “Just go buy a bag.” I still love them, and I still love my dad. That’s not my point. My point is that I now find myself in the middle of farm country where the people around me think an hour away is a “good neighbor,” but my hometown folks see a road trip. So I am, for better or worse, forced to find some more local folks with whom I can pursue friendships.

Past situations have yoked me with some “buy-a-bag” types, and I’m glad to have done so, loving these friends dearly. It’s not necessarily a case of not being able to think outside the box for them. They might be more mainstream thinkers, unable to figure out why anyone wouldn’t choose the easiest route. Or, they might be creative folks that have other things that are far more interesting to them than a bag of apples.

But I am interested in apples. And cooking and nutrition and eliminating driving and shopping and other hassles like these and weighing my financial options and knowing how to improvise and learning tightwaddy skills and making something out of nothing. And I think a screener like this is sure to tell me much of what I’d like to know about you, potential new friend, in five minutes flat.

on my mind

I’ve taken quite a long hiatus lately. It wasn’t intentional, trust me. At first, I couldn’t write because of writer’s block. I powered through, wrote it out, and was over it about a week ago. I was anxious to get back on the horse so to speak, but Magpie has had different ideas about what I do with my time.

So what’s been on my mind? A few things: habitual negative thinking, the evil of plastics, and nature-based learning. Let’s see how far we get.

First up: nature-based learning. I’ve decided to use the Enki curriculum for Sassy next year. I’ve been focused on finding a curriculum to use next year and ultimately decided this one was a strong contender for a good fit. I wanted something that would keep me focused and energized. Something that would allow us both creativity – me as her teacher and her as the student. Something that would teach the teacher new skills, especially more traditional skills. And finally, something that would focus on learning through experience and projects.

Although I can’t say Enki is or isn’t any of this, since I have no first-hand experience, my good friend C does. I trust her judgment implicitly, so I’ve decided if it’s right for her family there’s a very good chance it’s right for ours. Done.

Next: the evil of plastics. This is a baby topic in my head right now, just taking form, but I’m connecting little dots here and there and wondering if the USA – make that the world, the entire world – wouldn’t have taken a completely different direction had plastics never been invented & introduced into our available goods.

Think about it. What if everything we purchased were still made of wood, metal, or some sort of cloth (including leather). How would our lives be different?

Sweatshops in China? Probably gone. Wal-Mart? Definitely gone. Family businesses could stay alive. Woodsmiths, metal workers, seamstresses, all still in business. Landfills would be tiny compared to what they are now. Packaged foods? Difficult to achieve, and more expensive due to their packaging.

Would our woods all be stripped, our mines tapped out, our farmland filled with genetically modified cotton? Or would we have purchased things that were made to last and not purchased again for a long time, never getting a taste for the world of disposables. I suspect the latter.

You would pay $300 for a sewing machine, but then you’d expect to have that machine for the rest of your life.

Can you imagine this world? William Dufty in his book Sugar Blues claimed that the devil couldn’t have created a better food than sugar to cause the nutritional downfall of an entire society. I don’t think the devil could have created a better product than plastic to create a greedy, centralized consumerist culture.

I’ve been dwelling on the old adage “penny-wise, pound-foolish” lately. Jeff and I went through a long period where we made many “pound-foolish” decisions. Lately, I’ve been closely examining those purchasing habits. I’m looking beyond cost to lasting value, not because we can suddenly afford much better, but because the whole plastic-dependent consumer machine pisses me off. Don’t you dare sell me a $100 espresso machine that has a cheap plastic wand so it will break as soon as my 30-day return period is up.

I now have another reason to add to the growing list against using plastic. It’s a rip-off, plain and simple, and it is a major contributor to the destruction of lives, traditional skills, small businesses, and the environment.

So if you have alternatives to common plastic items like Ziploc-type freezer bags, portable storage containers, etc, please let me know.

And finally we’re down to the psychological arena: the habit of negative thinking. I’ve been thinking quite a bit about my pattern of thinking negatively. I’m talking about self-doubt, insecurity, anger, resentment, self-pity, jealousy, envy, irritation, frustration – basically all of them except for true grief. True grief isn’t in the realm of habit. True grief is necessary and allowed and circumstantial.

I’ve been thinking about negative thinking because I just went through a nice little period of slight depression. It’s unusual for me to experience depression, so it made me examine what my brain was doing. I realized my brain was being negative with nearly every thought that popped up and I wondered if I could think of a time in my life when I wasn’t in a pattern of thinking negatively. I couldn’t. I wondered it it might not just be a bad habit, like smoking, or sugar, or caffeine. I wondered if I could more or less re-program my brain to make the first thought positive rather than negative. Turn a natural distrust and cynicism into a natural trust and optimism.

So I’ve been practicing. I’ve told Sassy what I’m trying to do, in a way. For example, I went outside the other day, frustrated, hurried, and found that Jeff had put shoes where I didn’t want shoes.

“Why does Daddy have to do this all the time? I’ve told him!” I started. Then I stopped. “Wait, I want to try again.”

“Daddy is good to us to try to get so much done this morning before work. It’s a shame he forgot his shoes. Let’s put them away for him. It’s hard to break a habit of putting things somewhere after you get used to that spot.”

Well her little face lit right up. “Yeah!” she said. “It is hard. Let’s help Daddy!”

My internal dialogue says, “I am so irritated I’m getting no time of my own to write.”

I change it to, “I’m so happy I have this baby to rock and nurse and cuddle.”

My inner dialogue says, “I hate living in a mobile home that seems to fall apart around me.”

I change it to, “I love not having a big mortgage payment and a little financial wiggle room right now.”

My inner dialogue says, “I wish Jeff would find a better hobby and interest than automobiles.”

I change it to, “Jeff has learned a lot about cars now. It’s good he has such an interest in it because it motivated him to teach himself and save us a lot of money on car repairs.”

I could go on and on and on. My inner dialogue spits these things out all day long so I’m changing it around all day too. I’m shooting for 31 days. If I do it for 31 days, will it be more automatic? Will my inner dialogue internalize the change?

Along with blatantly changing a negative into a positive, I’m also trying to do what I’m calling “assume positive intent.” Sometimes (not always), I assume negative intent with other people when none was intended on their end. I’m not sure why I do this, and it doesn’t particularly matter to me either. I’m sure it’s an evil stepmother, mom dying kind of childhood bullshit that makes me this way, but in the end, knowing why you do something never actually fixes the problem. I think that focusing on why someone ended up the way they did was one of the worst turns the field of psychological therapy ever made. (Cyndi, I’m expecting a comment now.)

So I’ve decided to practice assuming positive intent until proven otherwise. Jeff has been the nearly constant recipient of assumed negative intent, although he probably never knew it. Isn’t that terrible? For a long time, I don’t think I even knew it.

Now I do, I’ve recognized it, and I’m going to work on changing it. I wonder how my marriage will be different after 31 days of assuming positive intent and creating positive thoughts. I’m excited to find out.

be yoked then with your wife

There’s this story in the Bible I was thinking about today. Maybe it wasn’t even a story. Maybe it was more of a commandment (outside the Big Ten). The gist of it is that when you get married, you are then yoked with your new spouse and you are instructed -- commanded, in fact – to leave your birth family and go with your new family.

I’ve been thinking about this today because of a very big argument I got into with my grandmother Friday. Well, to me it was a big argument. To her, perhaps it wasn’t much of anything.

Here’s the background. I’ll be succinct and limit myself to one paragraph.

My mom died when I was 8. My grandmother raised me from that point forward. My other option was to live with my dad and evil (truly evil) stepmother. I wanted to live with my grandparents so they went to court and gained custody. She was the best surrogate mother I could have asked for, always loving, always supportive, always encouraging. When I was a teenager, I rebelled in a fairly normal teenage way, though my attitude was probably over-the-top rude. I moved out at 18 years old, spent the next 8 years in college living on my own, being supported off and on by my grandparents. I quit accepting any financial help from them when I was 26 and just recently began accepting their offers again here and there. She has never forgiven me nor let me forget how rebellious and rude I was between the ages of about 17 - 23. She still finds a way to work it into our conversation every. single. time we see each other. That is the long story very very short.

So on Friday, Jeff had a car accident on his way to work from Sassy’s party. He wasn’t hurt, but his car was broken and he had to fix it the next morning. I had to call my grandma to let her know Sassy’s family party on Saturday morning at our house would have to be cancelled, in case she was planning to come.

She wasn’t.

Since we’ve slowly begun to talk more on the phone and since she is like a mother to me, I told her the sordid details of the accident. You see, we found out after the accident that Jeff didn’t have insurance on his car. Yes, he was driving without insurance. We didn’t even know. When he registered his car, he registered in our new state. When he called our insurance company, they gave him a policy in our new state that was a completely separate policy from the one I was paying on. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a mailbox at our new property at that time, so all bills were returned to sender.

I didn’t realize this was going on. I thought I was paying for all cars on the policy I paid each month.

So all of a sudden, we are now figuring any and all proceeds from our old house, if and when it sells, will have to be handed straight over to the guy he hit. We can’t allow it to go to court at all. Jeff’s job depends on him having a CDL. If he loses his license due to driving without insurance, he’d lose his job, since I would not drive him to work an hour each way with a newborn in tow, and he’d lose his CDL, making it even harder to get another job.

You know why I share any of this with anyone? With my grandma? You know why I point out the worst case scenario first thing? I like to be prepared for the worst case scenario, that’s always my style. Prepare for the worst, be pleasantly surprised by anything better. But even more, I like to conquer. I’ve mentioned this before. All my blog posts follow that same pattern. I present my problem, then I share how I conquer it, or accept it, or view it differently. It’s all about coming out on top, rising victorious, right? That’s probably why I tell my grandma these things. So I can claim victory over them. That, and I like to share. And if I’m going to share, then let’s share worst-case because if I’m going to share, let’s at least be interesting, for crying out loud.

Jeff asked me what was I thinking, how could I not have known to keep that to myself.

Well….I was tired. I was weak. I was too trusting. I was needing a little support. And I was seeking a real connection.

My grandma said to me, “You two have more problems…”

I asked her what she meant by that.

“I don’t know,” she said, “Some people, problems just follow them around. You two, it’s like problems search you out.”

I told her that was a very hurtful thing to say, and it wasn’t even true. I didn’t say a few things I wish I’d thought of at the time, like:

“Well, that just makes me an excellent problem-solver.”

Or, “Yep, we do have major problems, we’re homeless, I’m hooked on heroin and my husband’s in jail.”

Or, “WTF is that supposed to mean you crazy loon?!?!”

OK, not that last one. That’s my emotions talking again.

Honestly, if your “mom” says to you that problems seem to search you out, you and I, all of us, we know what that means. It means, “I think you’re a loser.”

Needless to say, I was pretty hurt. I know her idea of success is very different from mine. Her idea of success involves how big your numbers are on your various investment account statements. My idea of success involves how many children I have and how many acres we live on. Her idea of success involves what title you have at your job. My idea of success involves being able to do what I want, even (especially) if that means not having a career at all.

But still? Will she ever let it go? Sometimes it seems she purposefully hurts me, though I’ve never seen her as mean-spirited.

So I told her it was a very hurtful thing to say, especially coming from her. I told her it only seemed like I had more problems that anyone else because I told her everything, since she was like a mother to me.

To which she said, two days before Mother’s Day, “Not really.”

Ouch. Okay then.

I cried all night Friday night. I wanted to cry all day Saturday. And then all day Sunday too. It still pains me to remember it. So, I’ll move on to the victory part. The realizing and the conquering.

Sunday evening I started thinking maybe the lesson I should learn from this is that I shouldn’t be so dependent on an earthly relationship. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so dependent on the approval of another human being – an imperfect human being. I think the lesson in this is that it isn’t in God’s plan for me to desire my mother’s approval for my whole life. Nor anyone else’s, except those in my immediate family, for any decision I make affects them as well.

If I keep seeking her approval or anyone else’s approval, I will never have the courage to do as God intends me to do, which is to use my inborn gifts for Good. I do not believe that the love of money is Good. It isn’t my path. For example, if I ever must use my investment accounts as a marker of my success, then I will be wildly unsuccessful for the rest of my life. When I seek her approval, I spend too much time upset about my lack of investment accounts and her ensuing disappointment than I do using my gifts for Good.

And as I explained all this to my good friend K on the phone today, that Bible verse struck me and I thought, “A-ha! That is why you must become yoked with your spouse and LEAVE your birth family.” In this modern day and age, is easy driving distance actually LEAVING your birth family? Not really.

I was nervous that this move would put Jeff and I at each other’s throats all the time. We can be prone to arguing, and with no one else around, I was afraid there wouldn’t be enough distraction when we needed it.

It’s actually turned out just the opposite. We argue less, if anything, and we actually cleave to each other. Cleave? Is that the word used in the actual Bible verse? I’d use the internet to find out if I could.

At any rate, it looks like the Bible is right again. It no longer surprises me; rather, I’ve now reached the point where I believe what is written as truth first, then always come to realize it on my own, in my own way, with my own experience later.

stepping out

When we decided to move from the close quarters of suburban America to 15 acres in rural America, one of our goals was to step out of American culture. I know neither Jeff nor I actually iterated this – to each other or to ourselves – but I now know that we both were thinking it in our own ways. The mass consumerism so rampant in our country was psychologically and physically making us sick. We knew there was a hole that needed filled & we knew we were trying to fill it with the same things every other home on our block was using….and we knew it wasn’t working.

Was the hole really there or was it a figment of advertising? Did our consumerist culture create the hole & then offer a convenient, albeit expensive, way to fix it?

I suspect this to be the case. After all, any Marketing 101 class will teach you that the standard tactic in sales is to first point out the problem, then offer your product or service to fix the problem. Turns out, most folks aren’t aware there even is a problem they need to fix with your product or service unless you spell it out for them. There are a few different ways to do this. Playing on strong emotions is by far the most effective, and the top contenders are fear for your family and love for your family. You love your family best when you are not risking terrible things happening to them, things that could easily be prevented with Mr. Widget. Don’t you want happy, healthy puppies and babies like Mr. Widget has? Puppies and babies always sell widgets.

Perhaps my babies will be adorable in clothes from Land’s End, stylish yet rugged, washed in Tide Free, so tender to their skin, fluffed with Downy, rendering them soft as a baby’s own skin when they come out. It’s an easy example. It’s one I could spout a hundred different ways, a hundred different products, a hundred different scenarios. But spouting a simplistic example such as this makes you think if you only avoid the advertising, the slick marketing, the top-educated, top-dollar, top-notch P & G executives, you’re in the clear.

When we decided to move out here, we decided to ditch television. We could always catch our favorite shows on DVD or download them from iTunes. We refused to get sucked into the TV habit again, especially starting the day with PBS cartoons and ending it with Family Guy or Desperate Housewives. We have fifteen acres outside our back door. How on Earth could we justify continuing with our TV habit?

Happily, I ditched the digital receiver box. Happily, I picked up TV shows on DVD from the library and Blockbuster. Happily, I downloaded the latest episode of Desperate Housewives onto my iTunes, popped my popcorn, and watched it.

I loved every minute of those commercial free episodes. Then, afterward, I felt sick.

Turns out, I don’t think it’s the commercials alone that are causing the hole. I think that the hole that can be conveniently filled by Mr. Widget is so pervasive in current American culture, that you would have to actually step out of the culture to recognize the hole for what it is. Or at least step away from video and internet media altogether.

Fringe made me upset at the sadness in this world, especially the sadness of children.

The Office made me cringe at the fact that there are countless folks out there that justify a cubicle existence that they don’t enjoy and never will enjoy because in their heads, it can be funny -- should be funny – like on The Office, you know. So they settle into this $15/hour crap job, happy enough with their window view and their gray-blue half-wall day prison. If they’re not amused and content, then the problem is with them, not the situation. Jim and Pam are perfectly content after all.

If they watch the evening news, then they’re “just happy I have a job at all.”

Big Love made me think I needed a new wardrobe.

Six Feet Under depressed the crap out of me.

Even The Simpsons or Family Guy leaves me spending too much satirical energy and not enough revolutionary energy.

I’ve noticed the old shows – Little House on the Prairie, Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Brady Bunch, Last of the Summer Wines, Keeping Up Appearances – none of these have the same effect. This leads me to believe that it truly is a rather recent change in American culture that leaves us with a big hole waiting to be filled by Mr. Widget. Current American culture really is depressing the crap out of us. And it really is changing us into something so far from what God intended us to be that we are becoming hardly recognizable.

Jeff and I can now see that the suburbs were making us sick and we never knew it. We had become immune to the disgusting shows of spending and the thoughtless wasting of resources around us. We didn’t need a big-screen TV to absorb the messages we were being fed. They are just as loud and just as clear on 13 inches of screen and a big fat window facing the street.

The conspiracy theorist in me wonders how intentional the change in American TV actually is. A country of people who will allow themselves to be sold into slavery to mortgage companies, credit card companies, car loan companies, and banking institutions, all the while feeling “fortunate” and “blessed” to be in that position would have to be brainwashed by messages more prevalent and insidious than 30-second TV commercials and billboards. Wouldn’t it be an intelligent plan to create advertising to promote this attitude, advertising that showed very good-looking and successful people happily and humorously living as these slaves, call it entertainment, and sell it for $1.99 a pop on iTunes? Have a bag of Doritos with it, please, so that your MSG-clogged mind will never wake up.

We are so lucky to live in a society with free communications, aren’t we?

tending the fires

You know what’s fun? Blowing up when you are really mad. It is fun to stomp around, slam doors, throw things, yell & generally blow off steam. Not only is it fun, but it feels really, really good. It feels like a giant release…a big furious sigh, a poo that’s been building for days, finally pushing out the baby. I know how the proverbial tea kettle must feel when it finally gets past the boiling point into the loud, grating whistle. Ahhhhhh…..

In fact, blowing up like this is so fun, and feels so good, that it rather smacks of a lack of self-discipline and, well, immaturity. You expect these blow-ups from a toddler and you accept them to some degree. Children are naturally explosive. Mothers probably should not be.

I’ve known this for a long time, about as long as I’ve had children. Yet, I still do it. Why? Because I enjoy it. But following in the path of cigarettes, weed, long nights drinking and flirting at the bar, this too must give way to a more mature demeanor.

I’ve recently realized that blowing up like this is in fact, extremely irresponsible. As surely as it is my responsibility to cook dinner for my children, to dress them, to comfort them, to teach them, and to hold them when they fall, it is also my responsibility to provide a household that feels secure. Blowing up in anger at them, at Daddy, at myself, at a situation, at the dog – it doesn’t matter – creates a household of insecurity. And although it feels really, really good to do it, it is part of my parental responsibility to not give in to that desire. Pretty simple, actually.

But wait! I hear you saying, It has to go somewhere! You can’t hold it all in!

Or maybe, Sounds great for you, but I just can’t help it – it’s uncontrollable!

Though I used to spout the same arguments, I’m not buying it anymore. How many times have I been stomping around in anger when a business call comes in and I suck it right back in and put on my business phone “smile?”

Or how many times have I been furious about something or other and begun talking to a friend? I might vent to my friend, but I don’t scream at them. In fact, their calmer attitude and sense of humor makes me feel better by the end of the conversation. Wouldn’t the same apply inside my home?

Maybe it’s not about sucking it in or letting it out. Maybe it’s more like a snowball. You can keep it small and let it melt itself out quickly. Or you can let it roll….and roll and roll and roll.

I was burning some of our garbage today and heard all those old adages in my head about fueling the fire and fanning the flames. A temper is a hot thing, a thing that can get out of control quickly like our fire. Or it can be smothered and it will peter itself out in minutes. How big the fire goes is completely the choice of the person tending it.

Would my home not be better served if I make the choice not to let the fires of anger explode? I think so. And I actually think I can do it.