Jul. 27, 2006
Creek or Close?
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Yesterday, while Dynamo and I needed to kill an hour, we checked out homes close to our downtown. We live in a semi-rural community where the majority of us live many minutes from the central area for groceries, classes, doctors, etc., so we can have our privacy and own piece of land. While our family lives in a neighborhood with a number of family friends within a mile, our streets are not safe for bike riding, walking, etc. When the community was built in the 1950s as a golf-course retirement community, no one thought about greenbelts or local retail. We drive in the car EVERYWHERE we go. After three years, I'm still not used to it. Two of the homes we saw looked promising. One in particular, within walking distance of downtown (and the library, imagine!) added another 400 square feet. World economics, large family-extraordinaires and needs vs. wants aside, my sons and soon-to-be teenagers would be thrilled to not have to share their space quite so closely. And after a week of painting over heavy-oak trim, to find a place with wide trim dressed all in white, newly painted and tiled feels like the fulfillment of a dream come true. This morning, I left my usual back deck prayer chair and descended with tea cup in hand to the backyard. Pulling up a chair, I sat and faced our beautiful, year round creek (why in the world do I not do this more often?). HOW would I leave you, dear creek? WHO in suburban California (besides our neighbors, heh, heh) has a mature, tree-lined creek steps away from their back deck? (By the way, Anne of Green Gables, its name is Rattlesnake Creek. Can you help us? Creek-naming contest to be announced soon.) Granted, there's also practicals like interest rates, taxes (though I wonder if we'd save the money in time and gas) and MOVING again. What a life, to live in the Shire and hold such questions in our hearts. Sometimes the magnitude of choices our culture provides us blows my mind. How do tea rooms, burgeoning home businesses and California real estate questions figure in to suffering, ending world poverty and the AIDS crisis? These are the questions I ponder as I sit next to Rattlesnake Creek. Father? And yes, Dad, here's to cooler days...
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Jul. 25, 2006
What I Really Think
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Some say the difference between coffee and tea is a lifestyle. Coffee is realism, friends tell me, as in grabbing a cup of coffee on the go or hooking up to the caffeine I.V. To drink tea means indulgence, relaxation, and a cease from activity. While coffee can travel in stained travel mugs or sheath-covered, lidded dime-a-dozen paper cups, tea requires beauty and time for preparation...the tea pot and cup, for example. Real life, they say, doesn't allow for this. First of all, may I point out that the tea bag is greatly at fault for our disregard for tea. After all, who would want to slow down for a tasteless cuppa over a Caramel Macchiato? Dust and fannings, as they're called, hide in the paper tea bags found in every grocery store and most restaurants. Who wants to make time for this? May I say, still drinking tea from a tea bag is like still drinking Folgers instead of the fair trade roasted beans now available on every corner. If you are a tea drinker or interested in becoming one, be sure to find a quality loose leaf and learn how to brew it correctly. I promise you the difference will change the way one thinks about this beverage forever. The history of tea and its surrounding art forms can be traced back 5000 years. Countries fought wars and invented faster ships just to acquire this coveted beverage. But since the Boston Tea Party (do our school children REALLY understand why dumping all that tea was SUCH a big deal), America seems bent on keeping tea on the sidelines of our coffee drinking society. I'm amazed at the lack of education in America surrounding the second most drunk beverage in the world. For example, health professionals currently cry for us to give up our coffee for green tea. But did you know green tea easily overbrews and ends up tasting like overcooked vegetables? If we're going to recommend green tea to people, lets at least give them options beyond the tea bag at the grocery store and help them know what to do with it. Its like telling dieters their only option is the hamburger patty, cottage cheese and lettuce leaf when they go out to eat. So in conclusion, I want to suggest if we believe grabbing coffee is real life while drinking tea is for the unstressed and elite, it may come from faulty thinking. When Plays with Fire visited Pakistan last December the locals served him "chai" on the side of the mountain as they hiked to earthquake damaged areas. There is always time for tea. Choosing to slow down, take time out of our stressful days and indulge in little rituals that remind us of beauty and goodness is essential to well-being. This can be done with coffee as well, of course, as Professor Baer illustrated in Little Women, but its worth learning what makes tea a world-wide daily activity. Americans think productivity, doing, and going means life holds meaning. Or we think we have no choice but to go, go, go. I say, if drinking coffee on the go instead of taking time for tea feels like real life, take time for a cuppa with your Creator. I think you'll be surprised what he says. |
Jul. 22, 2006
One Week Left...
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Of Summer Break. That Poppins Lady shared the other day she couldn't believe she faced another year of teaching the same children to read. Amen, sister, I feel your pain. Thankfully, SpunkyHomeschool recently shared her experience with her son. I, too, can thank Dr. Moore for planting early seeds in this Mommy's soul. Many of these stories come across my path and each time encourage me to hang in there a little more. OK, my 8-year old, highly auditory Dynamo. I'm putting on my seat belt. Here we go. |
Jul. 20, 2006
Thursday's Blogging Discoveries and Playing Update
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Falling in love with a blogger I found who posts the most beautiful painted pictures almost daily. I must do some research and find out her sources because the tea room must be filled with them (even if it ends up only in my living room around the tea table). Homeliving Helper Today I learned at Wittingshire that according to the Brits traditions I should not have chose Rubrum Lillies to base my bridal bouquet around, as lillies are only meant for funerals. The author admits she still cringes when she sees lillies used at weddings. I knew already it should of been a bouquet of wildflowers reminiscent of Willoughby's bouquet to Marianne tied in a beautiful satin ribbon, but this really confirms it! A Gracious Home posted the Blog of Beauty 2006 awards. Haven't gone through them yet, but last year this is how I found some of the bloggers I read regularly now. Also found the prolific blog of Rod Dreher, Crunchy Con's author this week. Especially enjoyed finding Nina Planck's blog as a result. Its all about REAL food (Mom, you must check it out!). Playing update: Last night our soundtrack included a Footloose moment where I danced with Dynamo and Plays with Fire with Pink Dancer. SpaceKid realized his opportunity and snuck away to the upstairs computer. Unchained Melody played next and the children witnessed their parents pretending they were in seventh grade again (you all know the unimaginative sway). But before that we busted out to The Rocky Theme with Plays with Fire and I trying a combo of swing dance and 70s disco. Quite a sight! Afterwards, one dinner team (Plays with Fire and SpaceKid) challenged the other dinner team (Dynamo and I) to a game of Hearts. Whoever lost would make AND clean-up dinner tonight (we're just not a pizza on paper plates family, either). Guess who lost? The maid. |
Jul. 19, 2006
Ideals, Truth and Reality
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Ideal: No media time before 3 pm. Reality: Mommy doesn't feel much like talking or dealing with spats and you woke up early, yes, you may watch something. Ideal: All storytelling in this home will be the equivalent of summer fruit and whole milk for the mind and soul. Reality: OK, you may watch Little Mermaid II (How did that sneak in again?). Ideal: All chores done before play. Reality: Mom blogs while Pink Dancer plays Beauty Shop, Dynamo draws and SpaceKid reads the sport page surrounded by used french toast dishes and powdered sugar sprinkles. Ideal: I control the quest for perfection. Reality: Balance is the ideal. Ideal: A beautiful tea room business. Reality: Over-scheduled life makes me grumpy. Truth: The maid still hasn't taken care of the dishes! Other truth: I am the maid. |
Jul. 14, 2006
An Unorthodox Homeschooling Mom Moment--A Little Play Perhaps?
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Sorry for the whiplash after yesterday's entry, but here goes: So the children just left for their last morning at the local Vacation Bible School. I hold in my possession three and a half child-free hours. I awoke this morning and donned my painting clothes and know its a laundry day and I could vacuum, cuz it's really has been quite a while. HOWEVER, I sit here drinking my tea, reading blogs and ignore the encroaching breakfast dishes that surround me. To top it off, I turned on my favorite playlist from MusicMatch and am listening to old U2 and Switchfoot. It is the music that absolutely transports me to another place. I go to a place inside of me that dances in the sunshine, used to hang out in dusty backstage corners, and the bliss of dreams of the future instead of living their reality. What IS a rock star's living reality? Even pushing forty, I wish I could take a month and find out. I at least wish I could sit down with Jon and ASK him. I wax eloquently and philosophically blowing him away so much he leaves our interaction and writes a song about it... God knows in heaven this will happen over a guitar playing lesson, that blonde hair being all I see as he patiently shows me the chords to "More Than Fine". How about a surfing lesson for doodah while we're at it?
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Jul. 13, 2006
Is Ignorance Bliss?
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Today I spent several hours beginning to work on a business plan. I began taking a course this week through www.StartaTeaBusiness.com to help our family determine if opening a tea room in this area is really an option. The majority of work today involved asking oneself the tough questions. What are your strengths? What are your serious weaknesses? (NO, I didn't list all Joaquin Phoenix movies!). Why do you want to start a business? Do you possess the qualities (as listed by the SBA) of an entrepreneur? How will this affect your family? Etc., Etc., Etc. I tried to answer the questions as honestly as possible. Truthfully, I think I do possess the POTENTIAL of what it takes to own my own business. Plays with Fire and I work well together for the most part and many places in our family are strong, including the support of two sets of healthy, encouraging grandparents. But when I needed to list the SERIOUS weaknesses, I really wondered. Do we have what it takes? Who really ever knows the answer to this question? Who really starts any venture knowing if they have what it takes? Isn't a certain amount of bliss helpful in any serious commitment? (Just think of marriage and parenthood, folks!). Bottom line, can we choose to move forward in grace and resource even though the serious weaknesses are reality? Cuz guess what? All the weaknesses I listed I've battled since puberty. What if someone asked me this question before I birthed three children, married young ("Even though we ain't got money, I'm so in love with you, honey...) or chose to homeschool? Would I venture forth anyway? All I can say is, despite battles with pain, anxiety, low energy, and consistency, I wouldn't change the life God's brought me to for anything. However, I admit, a little ignorance helped. Can we move forward to another level knowing what we know now? The jury's still out, I'll let you know. P.S. Thanks to all of you who took time to comment on yesterday's entry, both publicly and privately! I think yesterday's entry generated the most response yet. Must be something we all can relate to, yes? Is ignorance bliss in relationships and community, too? |
Jul. 12, 2006
The Mess of Community
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There's a friendship our family's developed since moving here three years ago. Its one of those situations where the FAMILYS match up...kids the same age, similar interests of the husbands and wives, similar values, etc. Entering into the relationship, I exercised caution because I learned the hard way in the past that too much too soon can lead to big trouble and regrets, mainly from unmet expectations. Community always seems to start out that way...early excitement, expectations, then reality. But its been three years and I'm letting my guard down a little more over the past months. Conversation recently has included what I learned in college is the most intimate interpersonal communication, the ability to talk about your relationship (isn't it true in romantic relationships, whether in real life or the movies...once you talk about how you're feeling about each other, the floodgates open up). Lately, my friend exuberantly shared with me about her positive experience in this relationship. I, on the other hand, not so much outwardly, but inwardly thankful for the ease and sense of connectedness. While I still walk in this friendship with a wary eye, I chose to invest a little bit more, share a little bit more, want a little bit more, get excited together a little bit more. And this last week, literally daily, this friend let me down. The first day I patted myself on the back, because I chose to put a boundary up that I wouldn't of in the past by letting her choices not throw the rest of my day to accomodate them. Instead I resisted all the "aw!"s by my children and say, "nope, sorry, we can't stay and play...you showed up over an hour later than we expected and now we need to go home. Yesterday, during an event I hosted, I expected a certain level of appreciation, and really struggled with offense when a cell phone call interrupted it without proper cell phone etiquette (I think I'll restrict cell phones in my tea room somehow). I got huffy, apologized later and internally gyrated over whether I could of handled it better. In other words, I took all the responsibility for the conflict on myself. Then today, something happened that just took the wind out of my AND Plays with Fire's sails involving changing plans that affected both families. And now everything's complicated. Ten years serving in an unhealthy leadership where no one ever talked about what they really thought may have swung me to the other side of the pendullum. I think I need to speak up about this one. When community involves families, conflict between two individuals can quickly multiply to affecting all ten of us. As a mother, I really dislike that complicated adult conflict affects my innocent children. I wish there was another way. "I can't go over it, I can't go under it, I can't go around it, I got to go through it." |
Jul. 11, 2006
The Quandry
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Over the past few weeks, my number of entries dropped for a couple of reasons, including new ventures. I enjoy blogging because I like to write. Its a thrill, too, when someone responds to a post. After all, its only recently that wanna-be writers can receive immediate feedback through blogging. But the reality is, after six months of blogging, my average visits total around fifteen per day, the majority by people I know. Realizing this leaves me in a quandry. There are a number of areas in life I feel passionately about, enough to consider writing about on a daily basis. These topics include the art of tea-taking, homeschooling/purposeful parenting and personal soul care. In fact, these three topics currently motivate the majority of my days. Of the three above mentioned, the area I feel the MOST passionate about is personal soul care, especially because I believe the majority of us are not very good at it, especially in Christian circles. I take my soul care pretty seriously and would love to blog about the process, maybe even inspiring others to start or continue their own journey. So over the last couple of weeks I spent a lot of time thinking about what this could look like, knowing REAL people might read my REAL journey. Can I handle that and still write honestly? Should I abandon this effort all together? Is there ways to write about this inspirationally without letting it all hang out, making people squirm (especially my parents!) in their seats or, as one reader admitted, feeling like they're eavesdropping? I think there is and I'd like to give it a try. Talking to another friend helped me realize my blog's looked more like a column; thought-out vs. a little more hang loose. But the very nature of a blog is its organic nature...always changing and a little messy at times. So lets see how it goes, shall we? |
Jul. 9, 2006
Well?
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Hey, Jen, are you ever going to update your blog? Yup. Oh faithful fifteen daily readers, hang in there! |
Jul. 3, 2006
My first Get Real Monday
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So needing to write. So not wanting to leave my dear readers high and dry. But the reality is, this length of my internal journey involves an hour to hour wrestling with the anti-discipline beast. Minute to minute would turn me into an absolutely frightening mother (possibly like Nanny McPhee, but I haven't seen it yet). Its not pretty. Hence, I've hesitated to write about it. Why I don't want to write about the process of the tough stuff is another entry and another wrestle that currently isn't given my energy. However, I will say that the wrestling, though tiring, means the essays are graded! Yes, my eight Comp and Lit students turned in their final essays on May 10 and I finally mailed them out corrected and graded on June 30th. That in itself is a difficult "Get Real" to admit. I also Painted One Wall this last Saturday, Woohoo! But, Plays with Fire and I still don't like the color (5 samples later). Back to Sherwin-Williams we go. Play the last week's involved swimming, Spades, and moments in the hammock by the stream..ehem..not alone. (My dad reads this blog! Yikes!!). Current reads include: Wuthering Heights (still), Levi's Will and the book that shall not be named. Other than that, its back to wrestling. My children are very aware I am in the middle of writing, drinking tea and not supervising the kitchen clean-up...yes, its amazing how quickly the decibel (how DOES one spell that word) level has risen. Enjoy our country's incredible holiday and be sure to ask me if I played! |
Jun. 29, 2006
Feeding the will
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Parenting isn't easy. Shocking revelation, I know. Tonight after lamenting to Plays with Fire some of the day's details and he held me, I said, "Oh, if parenting only involved reading good literature and eating farm-grown produce, I'd have it made." See, I love feeding my children good, healthy food. I feed our bodies (and our family's touchy nervous systems) with thriving in mind. We treasure beautiful literature, gardens, and classical music. I find it a privilege to feed their mind and senses. I tuck them in at night, ask them what they're thinking and feeling and really listen and teach them through example about friendship. I care a great deal about their hearts. However, so far, I shirk the duty of feeding their wills. And just as if I'd bought oreos, Coke and frozen pizza every week for the last ten years, their wills are weak. I don't think by any means our family is the only one with this struggle. I began reading a book I almost didn't dare order, knowing my tendency towards burdensome high expectations and formula-serving. But the reality is, I need help. Every day a great deal of my emotional energy goes to wrestling with the children completing basic chores, wanting to spend money and complaining there's "nothing to do". Guess what? Everyday I wrestle MYSELF to complete the basic chores, not spend money and end up giving a lot of energy to entertainment. This summer my main prayer for myself involves asking God about what's behind the deep weariness I can feel in my soul. I think understanding some of this shirking is part of his answer. On top of that, He and I need to talk. What did he mean by this passage anyway? It is not my idea of an answer. Any ideas? |
Jun. 27, 2006
Today's Picture Study and Question
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My Great-aunt Alice, Miss Rumphius, is very old now. Her hair is very |
Jun. 22, 2006
The Anatomy of Play
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I tend to tackle problems by feeling the struggle first, talking about them and then taking a good look at the problem, analyzing and turning it over in my mind attempting to figure it out. My current "problem" (well, one of them, anyway) involves analyzing and dissecting the anatomy of play. You see, I don't do it real well. Despite the fact that God in his wisdom plopped me right in the middle of a family where four out of the five of us rank playing with breathing, I've been able to maneuver around my lack as much as possible over the years. Recently, one of the four family members (I'll let you guess which) reminded me that no, thinness, cleanliness, perfect mothering and cooking, and social calendar scheduler-extraordinaire did not touch that place in his heart that longs for a partner who plays. Sigh. Don't long walks analyzing our parenting dynamics, count? What about burying ourselves in the library bookstacks? How about attending the Shakespeare festival every summer and splittling a bottle of Savignon? Huh, huh? You mean driving around looking at real estate and discussing ways we could bring more beauty into our home doesn't do it?? Shoot. The closest I come to playing is at rock concerts (only with deep, philosophical lyrics, of course), tea houses and meditational strolls through gardens. But when the game of squishy monster breaks out, I slink away. Maybe I survive a couple times a month playing board games as a family. During water fights I run around waving my hands and yelling, "Not the windows, not the windows!" And will I ever be found jumping on the trampoline, rock climbing or playing tennis? Forget it. So here's the question. Can a 37-year old find a physical activity of play I can loose myself in and share with my family? I'm trying to remember what they even were as a child. All I remember is pretending to play grown-up life...school, town, Charlie's Angels and chasing the boys. Now I caught one and live it and can't figure out what to play next. Sheesh. |
Jun. 18, 2006
Life with my Father
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The blogs I read regularly are all composing "Where I'm From" poems for Joy in the Morning's writing contest. I have yet to tackle the opportunity. But today, I'm thinking about it. After all, its Father's Day. I fall in love with my father more each year. I don't know why it takes children so long to understand all God gives us in His choice of our earthly parents, but I am really starting to get it. Dad, here's your Top Ten List: The Top Ten of what God's Given Me through My Dad:
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Jun. 16, 2006
Summer Strategy through July
Its taken many years to give myself permission to need soul care. I constantly run into homeschooling mothers who do not practice it. Mothers are by nature, for the most part, unselfish, pouring their lives out to provide their children with the best shot in life. Yet we also feel responsible for world poverty, the health of our local church and the dynamics of our extended families. Why is that? Soul care=Hearing God. Soul care=Tender Wife. Soul care=Healthy, Unstressed Body and Better Sleep Soul care=Kinder, Undriven Mommy Soul care=A gift no one can give me besides myself. |
Jun. 14, 2006
The Latest Passion
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Today our baby turns five. Happy Birthday, Little Lady. I still don't think its a coincidence you were born with the early-morning dawn. Your due date was your Papa's birthday, but you came on Flag Day; A tribute, I believe, to his deep respect and love for our country and our ancestor's involvement in the building of it. You skip and sing yourself into our hearts daily. Our parenting journey ten and a half years ago started like many others, completely ignorant and naive of the costs and depths of emotions and work it would involve. Personally, one of the biggest challenges I experience is the letting go of pursuits I find so "natural" to keep my focus and heart at home. So to help celebrate the baby turning five, I awoke early this morning unable to return to sleep because I was composing a Letter to the Editor of our local paper in my head. Finally, I got up and wrote it. I did good  . I politely, but firmly blasted our planning commission for some recent choices involving the big bad chain stores seeking to take over the family businesses and quaint communities of America, including our little California town.Reading Crunchy Cons this week shifted something deeply internal that is sticking with me each and every day. The chapter topics include descriptions of true conservatism played out in Food choices (check), Education (check), Religion (hope to check), Conservation (oh, yes, I have stereotyped the entire movement by the environmentalist wackos just like "they've" done to the pro-life movement based on a few murdering lunatics. Thank you for the reminder.) and most profoundly, Home. Dreher's points that affected me so greatly involve not only the Home that occurs within walls and property boundaries, but in our local communities. He presents an excellent case for the preservation of older neighborhoods (pre-WWII) and re-establishing communities where we actually know one another, spend time each day walking instead of driving and raising our children as part of a local history. He describes why architecture and aesthetics, as well, are worth conserving versus the prevalence of McMansion communities our current generations are contributing to the landscape. There are about fourteen different entries I could write on this subject, but for now, I wrote a Letter to the Editor and gave you a peek. Now if my children tell you Mommy's been dragging them through downtown neighborhoods looking at old houses for sale, you'll know why. Dad, I think I finally get it. 
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Jun. 11, 2006
Pink Dancer's Birthday Splash
Jun. 9, 2006
Three-dimensional living
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Since returning, I've allowed my heart and mind to become entangled and cluttered. Forgive me. Can life be linear with goals, lists and clear-cut priorities? As I cleaned out paper storage this week, I came across notebook after notebook of planning meals, grocery lists, schedules, chore plans, etc. Seeing it all together showed me the hours spent trying to figure it all out. Yet I'm still trying to figure it all out. The temptation to try again pulls strongly, but somehow I know its only a temporary fix. Two-dimensional. While I know organization can greatly help some, its time for me to move on. Life in God, walking with him, trusting him, communing with him in daily life and moving into the third dimension. This morning while I sit on my back porch listening to the birds and stream and thanking God foxglove grows in the shade, I had to resist the strong pull to get on the internet. Forgive me. Today needs to be about the five of us. Not a growing tea business, friends who build up my ego asking for my counsel, or competing for House Beautiful. The baby is turning five. Parties and gifts help her heart sing. Tomorrow's the party, and my cluttered mind and heart have left the prep to the last minute. Today I need to prepare in the mellowness my husband needs. Do my best without falling into obsessive craziness or financial ruin. Help me. Enable me. Remind me, oh Prince of Peace. |
Jun. 7, 2006
Current reads
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I once heard it recommended to keep three books going at once. I try to always include a one classic, one novel and one non-fiction. I don't know how Mental-multivitamin does it. It isn't easy to limit it to three books, because often I find one I'd rather read in the process and then end up never finishing many, many books. Current classic read:
Current novel read:
This book just bumped:
This book:
I chose to give Blue Like Jazz's author another chance. After all how could all those readers of Donald Miller's best seller be wrong? Laughed out loud reading this book and gained insight into so many friends who also grew up without the father their Father intended. Wanted to wake Plays Like Fire and read it aloud to him, but alas, I take pity on his before 5am wake-up call. But I bumped it for Crunchy Cons. Love it, love it, love it! Want to stand up with each page and yell, Amen! Even among dear friends, I've felt like a Republican with a tail between her legs and only still listen to Rush in the dark of the night feeling like a bad girl. But now, I can drive my Volvo wagon as little as possible, order my CSA produce boxes, limit my children's media influence and read all the smart-growth articles in the Nevada Union with pride. We are a Crunchy Con family! Course this quote cracked me up. "In this way, the computer is TV for intellectual snobs: A time-waster for eggheads who would never throw away an evening watching cable..." |
