Sometimes I get it right

Sunny was definitely NOT sunny the other day. She was having black moments throughout the day, characterized by frowns and stomping and backtalk and rude tones of voice. Not a huge deal, but something that I sometimes do not have much patience for, especially since the younger ones are watching and learning from this behavior. Both Sunny and Merry have been going through a phase where they are great most of the time but then we will have a week where every day has black phases and mood swings. I am trying to figure out how to help them turn their attitudes around successfully, to get their hearts right with God and the world, not indulging the behavior or inadvertently rewarding it (with concerned attention) but also not letting it escalate and fill our house with negativity that wears on everyone within hearing range. . . which, since our house is so tiny, means everyone and the neighbors.

Anyway, the other day when Sunny was finally at her breaking point and was arguing with me and yelling and crying because she did not want to stop our afternoon quiet reading time and finish her schoolwork, I got her attention firmly but gently. I told her she was going to write. Sullenly she asked what she was going to write. And I said, a poem. About how you feel right now.

(April is national poetry month, and we have been writing poems, making art to illustrate them, and we are compiling the work into a book to be displayed at the annual Author's Fair this upcoming Sat.)

This is what she wrote (not really a poem, but who cares?):

My Feelings

Right now I am feeling sad. My heart is all a-gloom. Sometimes I am happy, sometimes I am sad. Right now is one of those bad moments: the ones that make you cry. Black and grey and blackish-dark blue: those are the colors of my gloomy thoughts. I feel like a rainy storm at sea: I'm sad and angry at the same time. I want to scream and hit my mom, yet I want to cuddle in her arms.

I don't think I can continue this poem because I am cheering up.

By the time she was finished, she was beaming and so excited she read the whole thing to every person she could corner, including four-year-old Happy. Her favorite part, which she repeated to me several times, was the last part.

I then taught her a new word to go along with her "poem": catharsis.



(Notice all the colons (at least one even used correctly! That's mommy's girl. ; )

Snippet: Etsy ESL

As I have mentioned before, etsy is my mental get-away while nursing at the computer. And since I signed up to receive their email newsletters, about once a day there is an email in my inbox featuring a category of items for sale on the site. Which means I pretty much have a daily etsy habit. Yes, etsy is one of my guilty pleasures. Luckily, I don't have much time to sit looking or much money to spend, so it is a pretty harmless pleasure. ; )

And honestly, at the moment it is also an important consumer resource for our home. It has opened up worlds of clothing design and natural products and green consumer options for me. One of my goals for this year--well, for the rest of our consumer lives, but starting this year--is to buy things made in the U.S. of natural materials, without plastic packaging. From soaps and shampoo bars, to handmade wooden toys, to upcycled clothes, to plastic-free cleaning products to fair-trade gifts. Where do you find a good selection of such things? Well, ideally you can find the things you need locally, at the farmers' market or the occassional artisans' fair. But so far I don't know the best local resources for the things I want to buy--my local readers, I welcome all suggestions! So until I do find these things locally, I totally "heart" etsy. I have not bought much, but I have learned so much about what is available for when I do need to buy.

And it is so, so fun window shopping. The creativity astounds me.

So, there are a lot of things I have been wanting to show you all that I have found on etsy over the past couple of months. I'll slowly get around to them. : ) But in the meantime, I saw this the other night and it gave me a good chuckle. She appears to be a new seller on etsy, and, hailing from China, she is clearly not a native English speaker--and her butchering of the language is so poetic, and so mystifying, and so funny. This one and this one are good too--heck, all her listings are worth checking out.

Yet her clothes seem like they are most likely non-sweatshop, and they look well-made, and they are clearly well-designed. So I am going to check back in a few months to see if her clothes manage to sell despite the indecipherable listings.

"If you wear this dress is more surprised than me."

This Too Shall Pass

Seems like I am always the last to see such things, so if this is old news to you, well, just move along. ; )

This past week we discovered this amazing, fun video of Ok Go and a Rube Goldberg machine:

[I recommend double-clicking to watch it over on youtube (just remember to pause it here if you do, so you don't have two videos playing at once!) so you can bump up the resolution (if your computer speed will allow it) and watch it full screen]




The kids shrieked with laughter the first time they saw it, and then begged to watch it again and again.

But as much fun as that video is, my favorite version of the song itself is in this youtube video. It is just so original and positive, and refreshing.

On a more personal, but also humorous note: last night I was scolding one of the girls for something she did that I have told her not to do about a million times in her life, and as I finished I realized I heard the choir from Ok Go singing in my head "Let it go, this too shall pass. . ." So I think I might advise them that they should consider singing that part of the song whenever I lose my temper with them. . . ; )

Every Day is Earth Day--Change for the Better #1

I'm not late, really--I have been celebrating Earth Day for months now. ; )

And I am honesty psyched about the few little changes we are making.

It started a few months back, when I was thinking about how I could cut down some of our plastic intake and cut out some of the questionable chemicals I have been using on my family. I had heard about other families going "no poo"--shampoo, that is--and was not sure I could make that switch. I have long, thick, but also fine hair and oily skin/scalp. I have traditionally had to wash my hair every day or it would look oily--at the very least if I did not shower I would shampoo my bangs while bending over the bathroom sink, or they would look so limp and gross. I did not think the hardcore "no poo" solution of baking soda and the occassional vinegar rinse would work well--it is so hard to get even shampoo to the scalp through all my hair, and shampoo has chemicals added (similar to teflon--I am not joking) to make it lather and slide through the hair well. How would I work a paste through my hair?

So I had been thinking about this, but not sure what to do, until I saw a post from Stacy over at Moderate Means, in which she extolled the virtues of a shampoo bar she had been using to replace traditional shampoo. She writes about the results of using shampoo bars here and here. Immediately I knew this was the solution for me. So I ordered some, and got some naturally exfoliating face soaps while I was at it, so that when my Clean&Clear runs out I won't need to replace it with another plastic bottle full of chemicals and plastic microbeads.* I was pleased with the soaps from the moment they arrived:

Beautiful, affordable, natural, and they arrived without plastic packaging.

The two loofahs--"Leafas"--I ordered from the same company to use with the soaps were plastic--d'oh! And they are a little too rough to use on skin everyday, and now that I am learning more about plastics, I don't really want to be rubbing them into my skin--BUT these loofas are PERFECT for holding the soaps in the shower so they don't get waterlogged and mushy and half the bar is wasted down the drain. I just hang them by their string loops from one of the shower curtain rings so they are easily reached and the soap dries quickly after each use. And when the loofahs do get soapy, I can choose to use them on my body or even to give the shower walls a quick scrub**, so no soap is wasted.

So how does the shampoo bar work? Really, really well. The lather the bar quickly produces is much thicker and richer than shampoo lather, and it works through my hair easily. I do find that your hair has to be really wet, though--so I stick one side of my head in the water, then immediately work the lather through to the scalp on that side and scrub (as I tell the girls, you are not washing your hair, you are washing your scalp) and then without rinsing, turn and wet the other side and immediately start working lather through to the scalp there. Then without rinsing I wet the crown, etc., and then look downwards and wet the back of my head, etc. etc. Then my whole head is nice and lathery and I can scrub how I see fit.

One benefit I noticed from the shampoo bar right away: normally if my shampoo lather gets a little dry and I try to quickly dash some water on my hair to help work the shampoo through, even that quick splash of water ends up rinsing away the shampoo lather and leaving nothing to work with. So I usually had to wash my hair twice to get all the way through my thick hair to the scalp and make it feel clean. How is that an efficient use of time or money? The shampoo bar lather is so thick and rich that you can give a quick splash of water to build it up and work it through more. It feels great in the hands and on my hair. And when it is time to rinse, I noticed that it rinses out more quickly and easily than shampoo does, at least in my hair. There have been way too many times when I would rinse and rinse and rinse and then turn off the water and get out to dry off--and toss my hair forward and hear all the little bubbles of leftover shampoo popping next to my ears. Arrgggghhhh. That has not happened once since I started using the shampoo bar.

I also had worried that I would not like the feel of my hair after using the shampoo bar--I have never been a fan of bar soap, and can't stand the feeling of a film left on my skin (shudder). I thought I would have to learn to put up with such a feeling, and would have to use an apple cider vinegar rinse every week or so to get rid of soapy build-up. But no, while my hair does not feel stripped like it does after two washes with shampoo, it feels fine. And when it is dry, I REALLY like the way it looks, feels, and hangs now! I think my hair is less prone to static now, and if there is a soap film being left on my hair, it is making my hair look and feel great, so I am fine with it!

But the BEST part--I no longer have to wash my hair every day. I can--and have, ahem--gone three days without washing my hair, and it looks not only fine, but even good. Amazing! Even my bangs!!! This, from what I have learned in my "no poo" research, is because shampoo actually strips your scalp of all its oil, which then makes your oil glands overproduce to compensate, which makes your hair look greasy, which makes you shampoo, which starts the whole cycle of dependency over again. So most people who go "no poo" say that you have to be willing to go through an initial period of greasy hair (seems to last about 2 weeks) while your scalp re-adjusts to life without chemicals and settles down in oil production. But since I have been using the shampoo bar, I have not had such a phase! So I think the shampoo bar is the perfect middle ground.

So here are the PROS of the shampoo bar I have tried:
--better lather, so I am using less than shampoo (more frugal)
--completely natural and biodegradable (more green)
--no plastic packaging (much more green)
--don't have to wash my hair every day (more frugal, more green--less hot water--and more time efficient)

The CONS:
--the particular bar I am using is made in Canada, not the US, so my dollars are not supporting our home industry (but I am sure I can find something local--suggestions, anyone? But it will have to work as well as this one!)
--Ordering online means paying shipping fees, although this company does not charge you for shipping if you order at least 4 bars of soap, which of course I did.
--the only negative about the way my hair feels and handles is that it seems more prone to tangling. So sometimes I use conditioner just on the ends, which seems to solve the problem.

So, there you have it! My first concrete step towards making choices in our home that are better for us and the world!

And it feels so good.

*and would you all please, please, go here to read why we should all work to eliminate from our bathrooms products that use microbeads

**I can't believe I have not yet written about this. It is one of those things I have been meaning to write ever since I started. It is a simple, beautiful, easy, frugal, greener solution to cleaning your shower: the same soap that left scum on the shower walls/door will take it off again. Seriously. So I have not used anything except cheap shampoo and a scrubbie to clean my shower for years. Seriously. It works perfectly, I am not exposing myself or the kids to dangerous chemical residue or fumes, I am not running harmful waste down the drain to enter the water cycle, and since I now scrub for a minute while I am in the shower already--just chosing a different spot to scrub each time--cleaning the shower has become not a chore but a pleasant excuse to stay in the hot water one more minute. ; )

come take a peek into my wardrobe Pt 2.

I said I would finish posting about my new outfits. . . but, really, there is only one more:

tunic/dress by Mudd, from Kohls

Sonoma short sleeved cardigan from Kohls

Except my cardigan is a slightly faded navy blue. And I wear these two pieces with a long sleeved plain white crew neck T underneath (when it warms up I won't need to) and a pair of skinny legged blue jeans.

And it was all on clearance, and then my MIL had a coupon for an extra 15% off that! And she paid for it all, too, but that was not the best part--the best part was that I needed the clothes, I found clothes I liked at good prices, and I found them while with my MIL so we could together channel her desire to show love through buying things in a healthy way.

And there was a moment of shared experience with her, too. While we were quickly wading through all the clearance racks--and there were a LOT of them--a Vera Wang dress of royal blue and black print caught my eye, but I did not need a dress so I did not really look any closer. But my MIL saw it too and insisted I try it on. She said she had bought herself a similar Vera Wang dress from the same store a few weeks back and really liked it. So I tried it on, and showed MIL, who said I must get it. This was the day before Easter. Easter morning when I came to breakfast showered but still in PJ's--I wear dressier clothes when we go to D's parents' church, so I put them on a the last minute--I realized D's mom was wearing her dress that "matched" mine (different color and neckline and waist, but same pattern and fabric and overall look). So when it was time to dress, I decided to wear the new one instead of the outfit I had brought for Easter, and I was so glad I did. I had to borrow black heels from MIL, and black sheer nylons too--how many years since I have worn THOSE?!--but with my hair back in a low twist and a new black 3/4 sleeve cardigan we also got the day before (also on clearance) I looked really nice. Not necessarily like me, if you know what I mean, but very elegant and dare I say pretty (those colors are good on me). : )

But my MIL was so pleased that I wore the new dress she had picked out and bought me for Easter, and that I looked like someone she would be glad to be seen with at church, and I think she secretly liked that we were kind of matching, which is like something you do with a daughter or your BF when you are in middle school. So I did not care that the dress was not really me, or that I was wearing nylons--it was all totally worth it just to bond a little with D's mom.

too small of a pic, I know, but the only one I could find online

of the Simply Vera dress, from Kohls. This is the style of mine, but the color of MIL's

So this was a case in which I did not need the dress, so could bemoan the unnecessary expenditure (although on clearance the dress was less than $20 so not much to moan about there!) or the loss of precious closet real-estate--but while this dress was not a necessary addition to my wardrobe, I think it was a wise one. There are some things more important than $20 and one more hanger in the closet.

a good chuckle

Maybe it is because I have been doing more arts and crafts with my kids, and with the Vintage Homeschool moms/kids this year than I have ever before attempted as a homeschool mom, but this bit of writing from Big Mama was just too funny--if you follow the link, be sure to click on her hyperlinks "blood, sweat and hot glue gun burns." The backstory is funny, but it was her writing in those pieces that made me laugh.

Snippet of the day: memory from Valentine's Day morning

. . . this morning was full of all kinds of ideas and memories and examples of love, in many different forms, and as I sat in the worship gathering this morning listening to the message, I found myself wanting to write about some of them. But with the brief time allotted me this afternoon, I will not even attempt to write anything long and focused, but will just get down a few of the ideas/feelings that are floating around in my brain.

And, knowing me, it will still be long, but unfocused. ; ) . . . .


I found this unfinished, unpublished post this afternoon when I sat down to write a bit. It is from way back before Lent. I must have forgotten to finish it before my Lenten break. And I will not be able to finish it now--I have no idea were I was headed with this! I am sure it would have been a fascinating post--probably one of my best ever! ; ) I for one am intrigued by the "ideas and memories and examples of love" and wish I knew what beautiful raptures of mind and spirit my pre-Lent self was experiencing that morning.


Anyhoo, I won't try to fake it now. But there were two bits of that forgotten post that I was pleased to see and recall--they are worth holding onto, and sharing:

Getting to church, getting the kids settled in their classrooms/nursery, getting into the service a little late, walking through the Abbey coffeelounge (awesome nonprofit located in the church's former "fellowship hall") and seeing my husband in line for coffee, and he says he is buying me a chai (Which I have been doing without on a regular basis in an attempt to be more frugal). I realize the person in front of him in line is my dear Becky. The cashier is ringing up her breakfast purchase. Becky turns to me and without a beat tells the cashier to add "whatever they are having" to her total. I disagree with her, she disagrees back, she says she has missed me, I say I have missed her, we hug, and while we are carrying on in friendship my husband slips in and pays for hers and ours. She realizes, she disagrees, he and I disagree back, laughing, she and I hug again.

One of those tiny moments of life, of laughter, of friendship. It sums up so much of what I hold dear these days.

And then the feeling of warm connectedness continued when we walked back to the overflow room and sat down to watch the video stream of the service happening next door in the main sanctuary. (The overflow room being the Sunday morning haven for nursing moms, parents who have their toddlers with them, people too embarassed to try to find a seat so late in the main gathering, and people eating. Some Sundays I am all of these!) It just so happened this morning Becky's husband Dan was giving the message, the last in an excellent series about experiencing "Shalom" (peace) in our lives, in all its facets. This week the talk was about eternal Shalom.

Becky pulled out her knitting, and we sat contentedly, listening, not distracted (overly much) by the babies in the room crying out or spilling Cheerios. Every now and then one of us would lean over and quietly comment to one another about something Dan had just said. And I had a sudden flash in my mind's eye, of the two of us years upon years down the road, old women sitting companionably together at church, listening, knitting, not distracted (overly much) by the young families around us, putting our wintered heads together every now and again to quietly comment on something just said from the pulpit. . . .


This is one of the things that defines friendship for me: comfortable companionship.

Snippet of the day: come peek into my wardrobe Pt. 1

Way back when, I promised pics of my new outfits, but the pics I took of them hanging in the house were just too dark or washed out with flash. So just tonight I took a few minutes to see if I could find pics of some of the pieces online--and I did!

So here is one of my favorite new pieces, a tunic by Free People:

Image from Nordstrom.com

Except, um, I don't wear it while I'm nekkid. I wear it with jeans and this top:

Image from Zappos.com

The top is by a brand I had not previously heard of, called 3 dots. I really, really like their tops! The local store had an awesome selection of 3/4 length sleeve all cotton tops by this company, and so far they are washing and wearing very well. Very good quality cotton, well made, oh and made in the USA too. I bought this exact same style in fushia too.

Here is the black top also by 3 dots that I bought at the same time (note the different neckline):

Also from Zappos.com

This black top I currenly wear as part of two new outfits--luckily one is for cold weather and one is for warm, so I don't usually need to wear the top more than once a week. But I have been wearing it once a week since I got it! Good thing it is good, quality cotton--I think I will be wearing it out as it is. So for the cold weather look, I wear this top under a purple, short-sleeve cowl-neck, skinny belted tunic sweater (got that?), with black skinny jeans and this awesome necklace of big shiny laquered nuts that Becky brought us as a gift from Hawaii years back:

Image from i.offer.com

The outfit needed. . . something. . . and when inspiration hit I had to dig into the girls' dress up box to locate the necklace. But it is just the right final touch. No, the girls won't get it back for a while.

The sweater and jeans were from my mother-in-law, so the only part of the outfit I purchased is the top. Sweet!

When the weather is warmer, I wear the black top with striped knee socks under this awesome skirt:

Brown Steampunk Curtain Skirt by Onanya

You can cinch up those D-rings, two on the front, two on the back, to give it the most awesome romantic gathers! I only had one long skirt in my wardrobe, so this is a very practical addition.

On etsy, of course, the source for another new top I am really happy with:

Raven Babbydoll Dress Tunic by Deadworry

Worn with rib knit black leggings and a black 3/4 sleeve cardigan. And I bet my new favorite black top would make it even more practical when the weather is still cold. Ok, I have a confession--I have not actually worn this outfit yet. Because the leggings are cropped and so far I have not had warm enough weather AND recently shaved legs at the same time. But I am sure one of these days the heavens will align themselves just right and it will happen and I am really looking forward to that day.

So, these were the new clothing items I bought before Lent. And since I had not seriously shopped for clothes in, well, about 6 years, it was time for them, and I am really enjoying them. It is actually scary--I had been alternating two of the new outfits for church mornings for several weeks and thought I had better wear an "old" outfit for a change--and I could not remember what I used to wear to church before the new clothes came into my wardrobe! I have a horrifying suspicion that I wore the same black sweater (one of my favorites) every Sunday, just rotating what jeans or skirts went with it--the same sweater, over and over, week after week. It makes me shudder. Well, at least no one would think I was too concerned with the things of this world, ha ha!

But I'll bet the word frumpy was not far from their minds either.

Pt. 2 coming another day!

Teatime with Jesus and other Lenten stories

my cup runneth over. . . image from samovarlife.com*

Sorry for the lacklusting posting so far. . . this illness is not all that bad, but is lingering and sapping all my already meager energy and will to do much of anything. Oh, and did I mention the state of my already meager brain cells? But I have started several posts now, so will draw upon my hallelujah-the-kids-are-playing-happily-out-in-the-fresh-air-after-4-days-of-rain-better-make-the-most-of-it burst of energy and try to finish one. The most logical one to start out with. . . so please forgive my borderline coherence, it is all I can manage!)

Lent was, as always, a really good spiritual exercise.

I firmly believe that everybody in the whole world should practice it: giving up something (or things) that has become entrenched in our lives, maybe a good thing that we are doing out of habit and not enjoyment anymore, or a bad thing that we need to see how much we are depending upon. I have some of both, and that is why I give up so much for Lent--I have to strip down, spiritually, to be renewed.

So this year to the list of giving ups I added two of my favorite pleasures, which serve as daily mood bandaids and mini escapes from whatever household chaos is surging around me: tea and blogs/blogging. They were added to the list of my usual give ups: sweets, movies, all pleasure reading except the Bible and books about the life of the spirit.

And it was really good. Not only did I need that break from habits, but I needed to do without so I could reevaluate the role these things have in my daily life, and why. I told myself I was allowed to still use the internet, just not blog. But of course I soon found myself escaping into an even more attractive and potentially dangerous escape: etsy. So right about the time I was feeling convicted that I needed to just stay off the computer during the day, or at least limit my usage more, or at least not visit etsy, or at least--you see how the backpedaling goes when we are resisting what we know is wise!--it seems God had the same idea. And our computer decided to break and so I was cut off cold turkey! I ended up only being allowed to check email once a day--and nothing else, since I was borrowing D's government owned security cleared work laptop and could not endanger national security (or, more to the point, his job) by browsing crochet shrugs handmade in Turkey or a People slideshow of "Can You Believe She Dated Him?"
No, really--I think it truly was Providential and I completely fess up that while I was bummed, I also was relieved because I knew I was being legalistic and was observing the letter of the law (no blogs, blogging) but not the spirit of it (mindless computer use when I should be more fully engaged with my family, my responsibilities, my God) and thusly the temptation was taken from me.

Thanks, God.

I also struggled with the no sweets thing at first. I kept finding myself in situations where there would be something borderline sweet--like homemade pumpkin bread--in front of me, and I would be actually hungry, and I would sit there debating whether or not it was ok for me to eat it, if I was violating my promise to God by doing so. But I feel like God gave me clarity, and humility for my weakness, and I decided early on that if the sweet was actual food then it was fine. My real give-up was sacred sweets--those favorite delectibles that I hoard from the children and eat only when I am escaping with a good book or blogs. . . dark chocolate covered caramels. . . Marianne's bitter chocolate ice cream. . . Trader Joe's mint semi-sweet chocolate chips. . . . So while it would have been healthier to give up all sugar but fruit, which is what I did last year, this year I just stayed away from true desserts--ice cream, candy, and of course dark chocolate.

And the exercise of going without sweets was truly a spiritual, if sometimes humorous one. One of the first days of Lent I had made Ghiradelli dark chocolate brownies--which you then spread natural peanut butter on, ohhhhhhhhhmmmmmm (wiping drool) where was I--for our monthly Old School Monday gathering over in Santa Cruz and I was pleased with myself for not having any, and not having any of the homemade cookies another mom brought, and was timing everything so that we would get home just in time to eat lunch before I completely crashed from low blood sugar, when I arrived home to discover I had left my purse all the way back at church. Ugh. So I grabbed a cheese stick and filled my travel mug with milk, hoping that would get me back to church and home again, but as I was driving on the highway back to SC I realized my hands were shaking and the dairy was not getting into the bloodsteam fast enough. . . and I looked over to the passenger seat where the brownies were sitting, all warm in the sunshine, with the peanut butter jar open because I had given the girls some on their brownies way back when we first left the church parking lot. . . and I asked God what He wanted me to do, and I felt like He chuckled and gently chided me, "Child, look what I have provided for you at this moment. By all means, eat." So I did, and I made sure to enjoy it too. And it was a really good moment of feeling in tune with God my Father, of whom Jesus said,

"Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" (Matthew 7:9-11)

Immediately my mind was off of my own feeble and potentially self-righteous efforts (look how good I am being to not eat those brownies) and back onto the loving God (who is truly the font of all good things).

In a similar way, the one time I ate two homemade chocolate chip cookies because I was low blood sugar and they were the food in front of me, I remembering feeling in tune with God and mentally telling the cookie as I ate it and enjoyed it, "You are yummy, but you have no power over me."

And after talking post-Lent celebration stories with Rosa, I was inspired to plan my first indulgence of tea and chocolate after Lent as a purposeful, spiritual moment: Teatime with Jesus. What better way to end the giving up to God then to share the re-discovery with Him?

Well, that did not work out quite like I had envisioned, since I got sick Easter Sunday and had no taste for either tea or sweets. But this past Sunday I at least was feeling good enough to make some decent tea and have some dark chocolate covered pistacio toffee I had bought just for Teatime with Jesus--and as I ate it, I found myself thinking, "This is good, but nothing as good as You, God."

So I guess on that count my Lenten giving up did exactly what it was supposed to do--give me a little space in my daily world for purposefully connecting with God.



Those of you who practiced Lent this year, I hope it went well for you. Those of you who didn't--well, I encourage you to try it next year! It is not a religious thing as much as a spiritual thing, and even Atheists have a life of the spirit to nurture and grow. (I'm talking to you, Desiree, if you are reading--you were RIGHT to try Lent this year and I'll be right along side you next year, sister, if you are game for another go!) I have already decided to do it all over again next year--and who knows what else will have to go by then?



*and the article that accompanied the pic, about what chocolates and teas go well together, is a yummy read too. . .

Snippet for the day: the view from my computer

Photo I took in the late morning a few weeks back. I thought you all would like it! (It looks even better if you double click on the photo to enlarge it.)

We don't live more than a few blocks from town, but our location feels woodsy and private because of our unique placement along the gulch, where the opposite side is too steep for building. There is a small road high up opposite us, but the trees hide us well from the people driving on it.

My computer desk lives in the living room, right next to a huge antique window overlooking the back deck, which in turn overlooks our little woodsy backyard and then the gulch beyond.



A long time ago there was a small-circulation magazine called "Country," which I remember reading when I worked the quiet daily lunch hour as the campus switchboard operator/Administrative Building receptionist there in rural Upland, Indiana at Taylor University, where I did my undergraduate work. One of the regular features in the magazine was "The View from My Kitchen Sink," and Iowa farm wives and Montana ranch wives and Rocky Mountain cabin wives would mail in their photographs of the most amazing views. If anyone who reads this blog had a good window view (it could be any view you enjoy, it does not have to be spectacular!) from somewhere in your home that you want to share, please do! Post your own pic on your blog and then put the link here in the comments. Or share the old fashioned way and describe it with words. : ) But if you like this topic, I for one would love to see the views that are special to you.

On Being Back

It's funny, I don't know how to start this post!

Hello everyone! is what I started to say, but after being gone for just shy of 40 days, it feels like I am walking into an empty room, and announcing my return to still air. Which is of course ironic, me mentally thinking of this blog as having a physical space that could be empty, when the truth of the virtual realm is that it is always, always full of people who you may not even know are there, and bits and bytes zooming around--and now I am again to the mental picture of the quiet room, but now the air is filled with little glowing, moving numbers ala The Matrix. ; )

All this to say it is weird trying to write after being gone for so long.

(Thank you Rosa and Scottish Twins for helping the room feel occupied by smiling faces for a few moments the other day! And Shera and Rebecca stopping by while I was working on this!)

My bad cold and a really bad night of sleep--Smiley is sick too, poor thing--don't help the brain get back into gear any faster this morning either! I have been sick since Easter and so that's why I have not jumped back into the blogging immediately. But being sick and not wanting to move around much were the perfect excuse to jump back into the blog reading immediately, so that is what I have been doing so far this week--catching up on the lives of those in my blogging community!

And there is so much I have been wanting to share with you all this past month + so I hope to get the momentum back by next week. : ) But until I have the mental ability to do some real writing, I think I will try to post snippets--and get out of my head some of the things that have been floating around in there for the past month!

But for today, I want to share some of the things I have been reading the past couple of days from some of my favorite inspirational blogs. They are all families who have chosen to adopt--well, they would clarify here and say that God has called them to adopt--and not just any kids. They have adopted internationally, multi-racially, and/or--most amazing in my eyes--children with clear emotional/physical/mental baggage like Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Autism, ADHD, Attachment Disorder, etc. Just reading those words makes my heart race--I confess my faith has been so small that I have prayed in the past that God would not give us a child with ADD, which appears in both my and D's family. ADD drives me nuts--it is the lack of cause and effect comprehension that I struggle to have patience with. So to think about purposefully adopting kids who have much, much worse issues. . . and adopting a bunch of them. And then homeschooling them.

Wow. What is so ironic is that I have been struggling this week with yucky behavior in mainly one, but sometimes two of my girls. One of my sweet girls is going through a phase where she fights doing her schoolwork and says things like "NO you can't MAKE me!" and then when she gets a firm hand guiding her to the bedroom for a time out she says "I do NOT give you permission to TOUCH me!" (which is what I have taught the girls to say to anyone who touches them in a way that makes them uncomfortable--ha) And what makes it worse is that Happy is learning this behavior and is starting to copy it and have little rebellious melt downs too.

So here I have three perfectly bright, normal, typically sweet-hearted kids, who sometimes take all my patience and then some. I am finding myself depending on God for strength and perseverence and self-control in my parenting. So that is what makes it even harder to think about doing what these other families are doing--I whine and complain to God about the brief episodes of poor behavior I see around here, while there are parents all over the world who choose to love kids with far, far worse bahavior. It is amazing.

But the most amazing part is that while they struggle, yes, they are families filled with purposeful living, and their hearts are truly in tune with God. And that part I envy. I wish I could say I have gone all out for Jesus. I wish I would have come already to the complete laying down of self that these parents have come to--I am still in the baby stages, still having to make conscious choices to NOT live for myself in any given moment. OK, maybe they do too, but they have chosen a life that makes it almost impossible to indulge their own selfish natures, while my life is full of such opportunities! And I wish I had such joy.

But do I want what it took for them to get to that place of spiritual wisdom? Not at all.

I think I will be entering the beginnings of wisdom when I do want what it takes.

And, would you look at that? Funny how I just meant to post a snippet since I had no words of my own, but then thinking about the things that have inspired me this week inspired my words to start flowing too. ; )

So here are a couple of links to postings by these amazing families that I think you will enjoy, and maybe be inspired/convicted/encouraged/informed by. Please take a moment to read them; not only might you appreciate your family more after reading them, but they also might give you new awareness of the issues some kids face, and more compassion for kids our culture tells us to throw away.

Columbian Brewed writes:

These kids are killing me...

in a dying to self sort of way, that is. You see, they are fleshing out in me an idolatry of self-preservation and self-gratification that comes so naturally to everyone. Loving hurt children who hurt others as a result of their past has been harder than I ever could have imagined. And it has taught me more about my own sin and hurt than I knew existed. (here for more)

Not An Ordinary Life writes:

The discouragement we felt when it was clear that he was not able to comprehend the seriousness of what he did and the reality that he will probably do these types of things over and over again hit us very hard. It is sad to have to face the reality that this boy who is a very gentle and kind young man could try to be cool by acting like he is tough and scary. The law is not going to listen to me when I tell them my son has a disability...the prisons are filled with our FAS kids. (here for more)

Urban Servant writes:

Parenting kids with hidden disabilities is never easy and sometimes I find it's nothing more than a high-stakes guessing game as we try to unravel what can not be easily diagnosed. Last night we had one of those moments when an older child finally found words to describe his world and some of the behaviors that we have seen exhibited for years. (here for more)

These posts highlight some of the tribulations and struggle of adopting kids like these, with needs that may or may not ever be met, issues that may or may not ever be "fixed." But here from another blog, All Are Precious In His Sight, is a glimpse of some of the joys.

My mind, my spirit are stretched when I open my eyes to what God is doing in the lives of such families.

Thanks for coming by, everyone!

He is Risen!

Who believes what we've heard and seen? Who would have thought God's saving power would look like this?

The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.
We've all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong,
on him, on him.

He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn't say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off—
and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten bloody for the sins of my people.
They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he'd never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn't true.

Still, it's what God had in mind all along,
to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he'd see life come from it—life, life, and more life.
And God's plan will deeply prosper through him.

Out of that terrible travail of soul,
he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
will make many "righteous ones,"
as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
Therefore I'll reward him extravagantly—
the best of everything, the highest honors—
Because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch,
because he embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

Isaiah Chapter 53, in The Message