Olympic fever

Note: I’ve updated the Books & Authors page – anybody been reading anything???

I’ve been staying up late to watch the Olympics – probably not the best idea with a 10 month old in the house.  I’ve been lucky so far, but any day now she’s due for a “up every 2-3 hours” night.  Then I’m roasted :)

These people that I’m watching, thier stories are facinating.  Tonight I’m feeling a little bit of let down.  Many of them are much younger than me and have developed the skill and discipline to really go after something in a serious way.  I have so little discipline in me.  The best I can do is commit to getting my house clean (. . .pretty clean) or cook a real dinner tonight, or remember to send a card for my friend’s birthday.  What is that?  On the discipline scale of 1 to 100, that’s got to be at least a 2.7

This year, I focused specifically on Kate.  On purpose.  But I know that it won’t be healthy for me to do that much longer.    I need to give a little more of myself in other areas – honestly, for me, staying at home with her has been too much fun, and has bred a small bit of laziness.  I feel faced with a bit of the same emotion after high school or college, where you feel like making the right decision now will either make or break you.  Why do we always feel like that – “if I don’t choose the right major, I will always regret it and be unhappy the rest of my life…”

How dumb is that?  But still, that feeling creeps in so subtly that I don’t realize until it’s too late.  Definitely the result of watching all these poor 16 year old gymnasts who have to stick their landing or regret it forever.  I can’t even imagine the pressure.  I’ve actually always hated the people who say “soak it in – this is the best time of your life”   How depressing.  If it’s all downhill from this moment on, then hey, how about we put this moment off for a bit – let the anticipation build for a while?

So my main question is, what do I want to do with this time of my life?  I don’t need it to be the BEST, although I have to admit that it’s pretty darn good right now.  But I don’t want it to be the self-absorbed time of my life.  I don’t want it to be the whine about motherhood time of my life.  I don’t want it to be the hole up at home and turn my daughter into a selfish-not-able-to-live-in-the-real-world-only-child-socially-inept-mama’s girl time of my life.  So let me “talk out loud” (as my husband often says) about what I do want.

(Note: I just have to explain this – Scott is a pretty verbal guy and he often wants to “think out loud” to me about different problems or projects he’s working on.  Which totally cracks me up because he says “talk out loud” without realizing it.  The boy is pretty much an open book -his very open, very honest approach towards other people sometimes makes me a little uncomfortable, but is probably why everyone likes him so much.  Perfect example of language communicating personality.  For him, talking and thinking often do go hand in hand)

back to the point – so here are some things I do want from myself right now:

1. main focus on taking care of Kate
2. doing something for someone that is not out of “responsibility” but out of God’s love
3. something along the way that grows me a little – challenges my thinking and forces me to “improve my mind”
4. more good habits than bad – exercise, healthy eating, etc
5. maintain and develop good friendships that are honest and hold me accountable to a higher standard

I think that’s about all I can handle tonight, but your input on when/how your time is best used would be interesting to hear.  For the record, I don’t mean “best used” in the traditional ways of money, success, talent, etc   When are you the most “the person God created you” that you have ever been?

I can totally lose myself in the process of turning a room that is full of choas into order and a room of peace and organization.  I love when things are clean and beautiful and have their place.  I’m not saying that  God made me to be on one of those television shows, but I think he made me to desire order and appreciate the specific value and role that each thing/person plays in life.  So what do I do with that this week?

the force is strong . . .

Scott has made it clear that he thinks we should let Kate’s hair grow long – no cutting, trimming, tweaking, etc.  I understand the sentiment but feel a little bad for her because it’s all in her eyes now.   Yesterday we ran into this photo from Star Wars (you know, the sacred movie).   So much for any chance of a cut.   Hair like Luke you have . . .

fun things to do with your daughter when her gums hurt

1. let her eat a frozen banana all by herself (thanks, Marsha!)
2. run errands until she falls asleep in the back seat and then stop at the park, roll the windows down, read a good book and enjoy the quiet
3. (when she wakes up) swing and watch the big kids at the park
4. go to the dollar store and let her feel the funny ball
5. feed her cheerios
6. give her a bath and let her splash to her heart’s content (this is no small amount of water :)
7. let her pull all of the baby wipes out of the box and then let her feel proud of herself for doing it

my latest read

I just finished “The Maytrees” by Annie Dillard. (a novel)  Interesting. . . not my favorite kind of book, but I kept thinking I was going to put it down when the language would drag me back into it.  It’s basically the story of a family or maybe more accurately, a marriage, and the stages it goes through.  The people are interesting but the language is the best.  Here are a few excerpts that I liked:

“Often she missed infant Petie now gone – his random gapes, his bizarre buttocks.  How besotted they gazed at each other nose-on-nose.  He fit her arms as if they two had invented how to carry a baby.  While she walked he patted her shoulder in time with her steps.  If he stopped patting, she stopped walking.  If his pats speeded up, she stepped lively.  He was driving her; they both died laughing.

Later she washed his filthy hair and admired his vertebrae, jiggled his head in toweling that smelled like his steam.  She needled splinters and sandspur spines from his insteps as long as he let her.  Every one of those  Peties and Petes was gone.  That is who she missed, those boys now overwritten.  Their replacement now sat at the great table wiping crumbs onto his plate.

. . .

How she wished she could see all those displaced Petes and Peties once more!  She imagined joining picnic tables outside by the beach and setting them for 22 Peties and Petes, or 122, or however greedy she was that day and however divisible Pete.  Together the sons at every age and size – scented with diaper, formula on rubber nipples, salt-soaked sand, bike grease, wax crayon, beer, manila, engine oil, fish – waite for dinner.  Who else knew what each liked? It was a hell of a long table.  She gave herself a minute to watch them –Petie after Petie barefoot near his future self and past.  They pinched or teased or shoved one another.  All but the babies ignored the babies.  What mother would not want to see her kids again?”

and

“Well, one time she fell in love; the next minute-in a apparently unrelated event- an unprecedented short person played with a roller skate on the floor.  Without this new one (and presumably his ilk) she had absurdly considered her life full.  When Petie was young, she assumed Petie would make his life around her-were they not miraculously, deliriously as one?  Then the next minute this same one propped his own boggling-new, hitherto-nowhere child in his arms to display to her as if she had never seen such a thing.  Who had?  It was as if the tide came in under the door.”

OK, clearly I’m hung up on the mother in the story, but it is actually more about the marriage.  As long as you don’t mind a slow plot, I recommend taking the time to check this one out.

disaster of choice

Once again, I was taken down by my obsession with the new, the untried.

I hate to admit this, but I am self-destructive in the kitchen.  I have all the needed tools, the knowledge, the experience.  But I just can’t get it together.  About a year ago I determined that I was going to take some time to become a good cook.  I had not been; up to that point.  I was sure that with a little practice and a significant amount of focus, I could become queen of the kitchen.

I’ve been practicing and I’ve been gaining ground.  I’ve learned things that might be intuitive to others but that I need to have reinforced.  Hurry is not your friend in the kitchen.  You can’t multi-task and be a great cook at the same time.  Ingredients are important.  And as much as I want to follow a strict process by which I (one) cook, (two) do the dishes, and then (three) eat, it really is important to sometimes taste things as you go, so that you know how to season them and if it’s going to be worth eating at the end.  Experimenting only works after you’ve mastered the original recipe several times over.

I feel like I’m a respectable presence in the kitchen now.  Not great, but respectable.

Yesterday, out of nowhere, I made the same rookie mistake that has taken me down so many times before.  I needed to whip up a dessert for two different occasions that were happening the next day.   Cookies sounded good and were appropriate for both circumstances, so I pulled out the recipe book.  I have been compiling a notebook with tried and true recipes that I actually like, not the just ones that I have found, but the foods that I have made several times successfully.  I have a great one for oatmeal-raisin cookies that is simple and tasty.

Then I pulled out the oatmeal.  And my brain fizzled.  On the lid, with a pretty picture, was a recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies.  My eyes casually scanned the ingredients.  I pondered the similarities and differences from my recipe.  My mouth watered after I glanced at the picture for the third time.  It was like a drug and I was not going to be able to rest until I tried the new recipe.   It seemed to much simpler.  It couldn’t fail.  It was probably a masterpiece.  They spend a lot of time perfecting these recipes to put on their packaging, right?  It would be careless, even foolish of me to not use the recipe on the box.  It was carefully formulated to be used with these exact oats and it was clear that no other recipe would work as well.

I carefully followed the instructions, creaming, stirring and scraping in all the right places.  I carefully heated the oven to the right temperature and lovingly watched the cookies as the edges lightly browned.

It was a disaster.  By all appearances, the dough was just right.  But once they went in the oven, it was all over.  The end product was average at best, a mediocre homemade cookie by someone who clearly did not cook very often.

I, who had confidently walked into the kitchen earlier that day, went to bed feeling defeated and depressed.   I knew better, but my taste for the unknown, my obsession with trying the new flavor of ice cream, of sampling the latest development in ink pen technology, my willingness to pay a little more for the new BBQ Sour-Ranch Pretzel-Chips had taken me down again.

well, shucks!

Learn something new every day.  My friend gave me some lovely produce from her garden and I looked at one in particular and thought – this zucchini doesn’t look ready yet.   I was surprised because my friend’s son is a wise old farmer (he’s ten, but knows all about growing things).

Turns out they got some yellow zucchinis now.  Just like the green ones only yellow. What will they think of next?

NOTE: I’m sure yellow zucchinis have been around for ages, but pretend with me that they’re relatively new and I’m not a complete idiot.

Isaiah’s got me wondering . . .

*This might reveal my lack of knowledge of the Bible, so feel free to set me right if I need it.

I’ve always been kind of weirded out by the prophets.  Some of the language is cool, but they are rock-the-boat kind of people and I am not.  So I have trouble identifying what they’re all about – I know their “official” role to speak God’s word to the Hebrews, but beyond that, some of their actions & words are not clicking for me.  I started reading Isaiah lately.  Today, this thought struck me:

Would a good understanding of the use of prophet in the Bible be “visionary”?  I mean, there are definitely references to visions, but  I always read that as the holy dreams variety.  But let’s just say that if a prophet (in the same sense of the Old Testament prophet) lived today, he would do the following things:

-study God’s word, pray, be in communication and community with God

-speak honestly to those around him about what God has to say about us as a culture, a people, and our faith

-speak honestly about what will happen to us if we continue to sin in a certain way

-paint a picture of what God wants us to do and wants from us – often on a much grander level than we would come up with on our own

OK- so that fits easily into my definition of a visionary follower of Christ.  But as I read Isaiah, it seems to fit what he is communicating.   Which turns my understanding of OT prophets upside down.

In the New Testament, prophesy is identified as a spiritual gift, but I have trouble with verses like this:

I Corinthians 14:1

Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.

All I could identify with this is crazy, yelling from the street corner people.  (note: if you have a chance, watch Bullhorn by Rob Bell)  And why “especially prophecy”?  If prophets are out of the ordinary, somewhat disruptive, rock-the-boat, preach to everybody and nobody at once people, then why in the world would we want more Christ-followers to be like them?  Wouldn’t that cause confusion?  Disruption?  I would think one at a time is enough.

If the “visionary” definition works, then modern day prophecy makes much more sense to me.   And it helps me to understand the New Testament verse above.  We are always needing reminders of what God’s goal is, reminders to get off the sin bandwagon, reminders to love one another.   The more of us who can be visionaries (of God, not our own stuff), the better off we might be.

I don’t mean to ignore the basic understanding of prophecy, that as Isaiah did which he was talking about Christ (Isaiah 53), sometimes a prophet indicates the future.   But it is still done through a revelation by the Holy Spirit when God desires – I can’t picture this happening without the basis of a relationship with Christ.

And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.  II Peter 1:19-21

I almost think this scripture indicates that we should listen to prophets until we here the Holy Spirit on our own.  (until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. ) Before Christ died, the people had priests to go before God on their behalf; now, we have the opportunity to seek God on our own, through his Son and Spirit.  So, is it possible that in the same way, in the OT, prophets were individuals who God enabled to look forward and see what the consequences of sin would be; while since the resurrection, God has gifted some of us (or all) with the ability to hear from the Holy Spirit where we’re headed and where we need to get back on track with Him?

help me out here – am I twisting anything up?  I suppose most of this has to do with the connotation of the words, but the thought process is helping me sort some ideas out.

for the love

Yesterday we found ourselves at an Indians game through a series of events that prove that we still have some spontanious-ness left in us.  (thank goodness)  The game was pretty sad (final score Toledo 11, Indianapolis 3) but the crowd still remained enthusiastic.

It was packed out with families and kids everywhere.  We got really good seats, but I was only in mine until the 3rd inning.  Can you imagine why?

Kate and I walked and played in the grass and watched jugglers and  drank some juice and played and walked and watched some tipsy college boys and watched some other babies and I changed diapers and tickled toes and played patty cake and peek-a-boo and walked.  Scott and my parents (who were there too) thoroughly enjoyed the game.  Isn’t it funny how a year ago I would have been grumpy and irritated with this circumstance (not being in on the fun)?  Instead, I had just as much fun as they did and count the night as a complete success.  The things you do for the love of a daughter.

“no reading until after dinner”

I love to read.  I mean, I really love it.  I like movies,  like organizing things, like beaches, and I like a good frozen coke.  But I love to read.  In the awkward pre-teen/tween years, my mom enforced the “no reading until after dinner” rule.  I fought it vigorously, suggesting to her that she should be so thankful that she has me – other moms have to make their kids read.  Of course, being a mom, she believed far more in the truth of all things in moderation than she did whatever line I was trying to feed her.

I used to be less picky about what I read, but over time, I’ve become more selective.  I suppose I don’t have as much time to read, so I don’t want to waste it on something that is only mediocre.   So I’m hoping you people out there can help me out.  I’ll take any and all suggestions of authors and books that you love.  And I’ll do my best to try them out.  But don’t give me the average – give me the unique, the special, the ones that have the best story you’ve heard all year.  Or that break your hearts.  I’ll do my best to keep the page updated.

Here’s a short list of why I love books:

• you can “experience” things you might never have the opportunity to experience; and some things that you don’t want to experience
• they remind you that you are not the center of the universe
• they remind you that your problems are merely average, the same ones that women have had since the beginning of time
• books force you to decide if you agree or not – thus awakening a portion of your brain that sometimes you loose track of in the middle of important decisions like which toothpaste will make the most difference in my life? and if I take the south road, it will cut 2 minutes off my time but there are more stoplights so do I really want to mess with that?
• there are as many voices in writing as there are people – some are good, some not so good, but once in a while you find the one whose words are so true that your soul feels clean and light; as if God himself gave you a cool drink of water
• some authors spend most of their lives writing and editing and tearing their hair out to give us the very best of who they are.   I love that gift.

I have an ongoing deal with myself that I will not hoard my books.  Oh, I want to.  I want to mark certain shelves of my bookcase that no one is allowed to touch.  I want to stamp my name in gold on the cover and make it clear that I own this book.  But somewhere in the past, God tapped me on the shoulder and reminded me that they are, after all, just paper and ink.  If I’m truly reading them, their power is not in the paper but in the effect they have on my mind and my soul.  So I loan them out whenever the opportunity comes along.  I give them away when I think someone needs a certain kind of encouragement.  And most of the time I don’t even cringe on the inside.  Sometimes I do.  But I don’t think it shows.  I hope not.  There’s nothing worse than a begrudging giver.  Just know, if I ever give you a book, even if you could care less, that it is my soul that I’m passing over with a carefree smile.

poop on the sidewalk

Recycling is such a trendy thing right now, it almost pains me to write this.  But I am genuinely starting to become impatient with people who can’t be bothered to recycle.   I know all the reasons you don’t do it- I made most of them up.  A small effort and a few years later, here’s the truth.  On a weekly basis, our family of three produces a maximum of one and a half  13-gallon bags of trash.  And that includes a 8 month old who can really go through the diapers.***

Our contacted trash service allows each customer to have up to five 30-gallon bags of trash each week.   That’s 260 bags a year.  Or 7800 “gallons” of trash.  eewww.

Here’s the thing about recycling.  It’s not that hard.  But you have to decide to do it.  And I think that’s where we’ve got a problem.  There are things that fall into the responsibility category and I think that long ago, recycling should have been one of them.  Some things are just understood, expected, required of you as a individual and a human.   Refusing to take responsibility for the trash you create (just because you don’t have to deal with it after it’s carted away) is the equivalent of depositing your poop on the sidewalk and assuming that someone else is expected, no; required to clean up your mess.

Even if you can’t bother to do much – at least designate one trash can or a box somewhere for paper and cardboard, junk mail, and catalogs.  That much alone will accumulate and surprise you.  We’ve worked our way up to plastic, aluminum cans, steel cans, and all kinds of paper.  Now that we have a place for it, it’s not a big deal at all.  (I have to admit, when I first ventured in this direction, my husband was not thrilled with the mess I made in the garage.  I have since learned that a little organization can go a long way in making the “recycling” experiment work.  Now, he’s more adamant about it than I am.)

***In the spirit of honesty, we have to have an open discussion about my use of disposable diapers.  I am sure there are some true environmentalists out there who are deeply pained that I would write this statement and then admit to the use of disposables.  However, from my personal research, there seems to be a split decision on the environmental impact of disposables vs. cloth.  All I can really say is that I have been taking steps towards environmental responsibility and obviously I am not all the way there yet.  What is clear, is that I am spending a lot of time these days with poop.