My Summer Notebook

An Evening Daybook Plus More. . .

2012-01-08T20:38:00.000-08:00

Here. This artwork will do until I can get up some photos.

I like it! It's sweet.

Where I am. . .

I’m sitting at the kitchen table. The kitchen is tidy and well-lit as afternoon begins to darken into evening. (Later: At least this is where I was when I started this thing! I’ve been writing the post off and on this evening, between doing other things.)

What I hear. . .

I am listening to the CD Mozart for Morning Coffee. It isn’t morning, and I am not drinking coffee, but the music is light and cheery, matching my mood. The furnace rumbles as it presses warm air through the vent behind me.

I am wearing. . .

Minnetonka moccasins. Blue jeans. A grey tank top under a light-weight, super-comfy grey cardigan with small white polka dots. I received the cardigan as a Christmas gift from Josiah and Aimee, and I get compliments on it every time I wear it. I am wearing the same necklace that I wear every single day. It is a small, simple silver necklace with colored (costume) jewels spaced around it; the necklace is understated and pretty (and I get many compliments on it, too). My grandmother wore this necklace every single day for many years, and she gave it to me as a gift before she died. Now I wear it every day because I love and miss Grammy, and I would love to be just like her!

In my kitchen. . .

I have been eating a lot of “raw” foods (probably more than 75% of my diet), many of them from Mimi Kirk’s book or from her recipe videos on you-tube. I love her raw muesli. I make it routinely, top it with bananas and pomegranate seeds, and pour homemade pumpkin seed milk or almond milk over it. I served this to Melissa when she was here recently, and she loved it, too. Often, I have Mimi’s chia seed “tapioca” for breakfast or for dessert. Actually I am eating it right now, and I really love this stuff. (I keep saying I “love” my food, and I do.) What a great, healthy thing to eat if you’re into chia seeds! (They are super-nutritious and energy-giving.) In my opinion, this really does taste deliciously like tapioca! For awhile now, my early-every-morning alkalinizing drink has been cucumber, lemon juice, and water whizzed in the blender (and then I rub the cucumber peels on my face, leave it for awhile, and rinse!). I still have a green smoothie every day, too, and this always includes kale or spinach. In addition to my almond butter-miso-raw honey spread, I mixed butter with raw honey, Indian chili powder (hot!), and cinnamon to spread over toast, too. I still braise lots of veggies and sometimes roast them, and I eat different kinds of rice bowls with lots of vegetables, too. Oh, I’m eating lots of different things that make me feel healthy, clean, bright, and strong! J

What I’ve been doing. . .

Well, I rode up to Portland for the day with my sister, JoAnne, this past week. We stopped up the highway a ways at the town of another sister of ours to meet her at a coffee shop. She would have joined us for the trip to Portland, but there wasn’t room in the car (drat!). It was really fun to visit with Nancy. From there, we drove north to Portland to the apartment that Aimee and Josiah share with Melissa to pick up JoAnne’s daughter, Alia, who had been visiting the girls for a few days. JoAnne’s gang took off for IKEA, and Melissa and I followed soon after, but we stopped off for lunch at Native Bowl, a great food cart in Portland that serves amazing vegan rice bowls. (The lady who owns/runs it is gorgeous and has this awesome online cooking show.) I ordered the Couch Bowl—pronounced “kooch”—and ate it in the car as Melissa and I headed to IKEA to catch up with the rest of the gang. We really had a lovely talk in the car, and I was thankful to have just a little bit of time with my daughter. We roamed IKEA, and somehow Nicky and I ended up shopping together. I wasn’t going to buy anything, but I walked out of the store with a white serving tray that I liked (I did pay for it!). Before hitting I-5 to go back home, we stopped by one of Portland’s many great food co-ops where there is an excellent smoothie/juice cart outside. Drinks for everyone! But I bought a minneola and a bar of dark chocolate with salted almond instead. We drove away and chatted all the way down the highway and arrived home after dark. It was a fun day.

Okay. I think I got carried away with that one day.

Today was a gorgeous, clear, sunny, chilly Sunday. I went to church and sat with my sister’s family, as usual. The sermon was excellent. After church, I went home with my sister’s gang and printed out my booklist for this next term. Zane and I decided to ride the bus together to the university, but after we stood at the bus stop for a long time and the bus didn’t come and didn’t come, we suddenly remembered that it was Sunday, and the bus schedule is different on Sunday, so we started walking down the sidewalk toward campus because the sunny, cool air felt so nice that we wanted to be outside. We walked about a mile and a half before we saw the bus coming behind us, and we waited for it at the next stop. At the university, Zane and I both bought our books for winter term, and then we sat in the bookstore and waited for JoAnne and Alia to catch up with us. I had a great visit with Zane, both on our walk and at the bookstore. After Alia bought the things she needed, we all went to Trader Joe’s to stock up on food stuff, and then I was dropped off at home.

Okay. I got carried away with this day, too.

What I am reading, listening to, watching. . .

The Hidden Power of Kindness by Lawrence G. Lovasick; Parables of the Christ-Life by Lilias Trotter; Live Raw by Mimi Kirk; Tim Keller sermons on CD;

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink; Mariam’s Kitchen by Elizabeth Ehrlich; you-tube clips from the old What’s My Line? TV show (don’t ask me how I got started with this!); I Love Lucy you-tube clips; Mimi Kirk’s raw food videos (she’s good); various Arvo Part CD’s; Café de Paris Accordion Classics; A Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Eugene Peterson. (I am not delving into anything mind-bendingly deep or challenging.)

How I am taking care of my health. . .

Eating very well and staying hydrated. Going to bed early and sleeping plenty. Exercising routinely. Going outside. Using non-toxic products for home and body care. Making sure I laugh every day (hence the Lucy clips online), which isn’t hard to do around my extended family! Dealing well spiritually with stress and emotions (striving to let go, pray more, and trust God; aiming to contentedly go with the flow of my days and to embrace interruptions and the unexpected).

Plans for the future. . .

Do first things first. Study hard—effectively and efficiently. Don’t waste time. Be a little more giving and attentive in my relationships.

Questions you have asked me recently:

What I am studying. . .

What are my plans for school and after (Michele asked this one)? I don’t really talk much about this, even with my friends because I’m not entirely sure what the future holds! I have a plan, but I tell the Lord all the time that I only want to be in His will. I ask Him to guide me, to open doors, to redirect me whenever He sees fit, and to give me ears to hear and eyes to see so that I will always follow Him. No need to worry about that last bit, though, because He just seems to get us where He wants us when we are seeking His will (in spite of us!). So, unless I am redirected somewhere along the way, I am aiming to finish my BA soon, and I will be applying to grad schools to work toward an MA in counseling. I am considering three schools for my masters degree, but one of them has emerged as a strong favorite, for a number of reasons. With counseling there are a lot of possibilities, and I have quite a few ideas in my mind regarding what I might do that I am juggling and praying about. I definitely like the idea of working in a capacity where I am directly helping others, so counseling appeals to me, plus age is not a detriment when working in this field, and I am no twenty-something student!

Living slowly. . .

Jennie wondered if I might have time to post the second part of my speaking notes on margin or whatever it was that I called it in the post she is referring to. I have looked at those notes again, and they really are sort of in a code that must have made some sense to me in 2005 when I used them to speak to a group of women. But today, they look like a disordered jumble of thoughts and ideas that would take quite a bit of time to reassemble into something coherent. And the thing is, my thinking on this “slow life” thing has developed a bit more since I wrote those notes. It hasn’t changed, but has become clearer and simpler. I actually feel stronger about it now than I did before. I think this world is just way too busy and distracted, and people’s lives seem fragmented, in my opinion (though I don’t mean to thrust that opinion on anyone). My point of view is not a pattern for proper living.

But I am glad that I chose, and still choose, a slow life. There are times when things get busy for me now, like when midterms and finals hit each term, but it is temporary, and I go right back to slow when it’s over. There are just many, many benefits to taking life more slowly than most of the rest of the world does.

For one thing, it is spiritually important, and I think this is vastly undervalued. Pascal said that the whole problem with man is that he can’t sit alone in his own room. I think there is a lot of truth to this! When we stop moving around like crazy (even if we are doing good things), the dust from the swirl of busyness settles and we begin to see more clearly. “Be still and know that I am God.” Be still. In stillness, our hearts and minds are quiet, and we hear better. We see both ourselves and God more clearly: We begin to see ourselves as we are, we begin to understand our struggles, we begin to grasp the mercy and love of God, and we begin to discern the path we should be walking. Stillness and quietness are foundational for gaining knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Slowing things down helps us to stop spinning our wheels and gain some traction. We actually make more/deeper/better progress when we take our time.

Jesus didn’t seem to be hurrying about. Crowds were always demanding of him, always pressing against him, always pursuing him. Jesus met many (not all) of the needs of those around him, and he was tired, but with all of the demands on him (and his real ability to meet each one) he didn’t go into hyper-ministry. He took time out with his disciples (he cooked them fish!). He took time to pray at length—the Bible says that very early in the morning, Jesus went off alone to a solitary place to pray. And when there were demands on him, he was in no hurry and under no sense of pressure to meet them now. He arrived at the home of Mary and Martha, three days after Lazarus died, and they were upset with him because they had called for him to come days ago! Jesus kept things simple. His pace was not frantic. He knew the importance of being quiet and being alone. We can learn from him, just as he says: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

We live in a time when slowing down does not simply mean that we casually choose not to get caught in the speedy flow of our culture, but, increasingly, we must absolutely do battle against speed in order not to get caught up in the flow. And nowadays we have the added pressure placed on us by modern technology to be ever-available and always-distracted. But battling against this is very much worth the fight, in my opinion.

We have a huge, wonderful source of information right at our fingertips. This is amazing, and it can be extremely useful, but it can also really hinder the healthy flow of our real, everyday lives. I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone what amount of technology should be allowed in their lives, but I am constantly rethinking the role I will allow it to play in my life, and I like to keep it to a minimum (whatever that means, right?! and I don’t always succeed, but most of the time I think I do). I don’t want the flow of my physical life to be continually interrupted and disrupted by devices that can get to me, or capture my attention, 24 hours a day.

I will say that living “slowly,” or with margin, is not just about staying home or keeping too-much technology at bay, but it’s also about how we live at home and with finances and with everything! A super-cluttery, always-way-too-messy-out-of-control house and wildly undisciplined living do not make an environment that is conducive to creating a life of margin and peace and ministry.

And now I get to type my favorite Blake quote one last time (!): “All in order, sweet and lovely.” And I’ll quote the Bible, too: “For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.” And why not thrown in Anne Morrow Lindbergh who said that it is only framed in space that beauty blooms? And all of this goes for our whole life; order is not just about the arrangement of our stuff! A beautiful life of margin saves space—uncluttered and unhurried—for the unexpected, for surprise, for serendipity, for spontaneity, for compassion, for instant hospitality, for relationships, and for lots of good things to happen.

I going to end this part abruptly without having really said what I wish I could say, but it’s time to put up the post and move along because I have a FAFSA to fill out before I go to bed! (And I sort of cringe that I'm posting another sorta-sloppy, incomplete message!)

Well, that’s all. I will add a few photos to this post in the next day or two because I don’t want the opening post of my blog to be all text, but I won’t write any more posts. I will likely return to the comments, though, and respond to some of those. I wanted to do that this evening but have run out of time.

And just so you know, I won’t be popping back in occasionally to put up a note. I need to focus on the things the Lord put on my heart when I felt led to shut down the blog. It’s time for me to be quiet.

I said I would probably never blog again, and I think that might be true. But if I ever do—way down the road—yes, I will put up a note here and at HDH (but don’t expect it), so if you want to keep me in your reader, that’s a good way to find out if a post pops up. But, on the other hand, if I never do put up that post, I’ll just be cluttering up the list of blogs on your reader!

It’s taken me a long time to leave after I told you I would be ending the blog, hasn’t it, but I wanted to give advance notice rather than just abruptly going away.

Thanks so much for being here. I’ve so enjoyed getting to know you and spending time with you these last months. (Gosh, I have a lump in my throat!) And thank you, again, for your sweet, truly encouraging notes to me and for your prayers. If you think of me down the road, please pray for me! I will pray for you when I think of you.

God bless.

A Little Note. . .

2012-01-08T09:31:00.000-08:00

Almost as soon as I set my new IKEA serving tray

in the middle of the table, fruit began to migrate to it.

Updated: Okay, you guys! I'll leave up the post below. :-) I really wondered if anyone would be able to make any sense of it. I'm glad you did. And, eventually, I'll go through it and clean up some of the grammar and mechanics messes in the post.

Judi, I'm glad you saw that really long post about high school below because I am going to remove it from the blog in the next couple of days. (I'm just giving you warning in case you are interested in reading it again.) I can't bear to keep that gigantic, hilarious mess of a post as one of the last things I put up on my blog!

I will put up one more post later today with a random stuff (maybe I'll go out with an evening daybook post or something), and it will include more answers to some of the questions that were asked here.

Thanks for being here, everyone, and for all of your nice comments and encouragement. I've really appreciated you all, and this has been fun!

Answer to Questions About Our High School (Seriously By Far the Longest Post I Have Ever Written). . .

2012-01-06T15:13:00.000-08:00

Here is an example of a project that one of my daughters created
for one of her high school science "courses" (ornithology).
(Above are just a few sample pages from the book.
It's actually fairly long.)
There was a nest box hanging inside my fenced herb garden, and one day this daughter,
who happened to be studying birds and doing a lot of bird-watching,
noticed some bird-activity going on at the nest box. She investigated
and realized that a pair of house wrens were building a nest.
She decided to document the process--from nest-building to babies flying away--
with photographs, artwork, and a journal. This book is her finished product.
The actual book is quite beautiful and interesting.
The photos don't at all do it justice. I treasure this book.
(Sorry the pictures are of such poor quality. They are all I have on hand.)

Well. I must say I have really tried to write concise but thorough answers to the questions that have been asked, and I have struggled to get it done. Today I will attempt to put at least a few notes down for each question. I will admit that when I said to “ask me anything!”, I was just thinking of little light questions, but of course (I should have known), if there’s something you’ve been wanting to know from me for awhile about something I’ve posted in the past, you would ask for a bit more information regarding those things. And I don’t mind at all that you asked, by the way!

I think the reason it has been hard to answer the questions is because it was hard enough for me when I tried before, and when I was posting in the summer I had waaaaay more time on my hands to think about the answers and then to write about them than I do now. Attempting to do this while my mind and attention have been on family and the holidays has been even more difficult than before. Plus, this winter break I’ve tried to create some space between the computer and me because I do so much of my homework and so many assignments on the computer or online during the term. And, like I said, I’ve just been focusing on other things.

But here I go. A few notes that will surely be insufficient:

[Back after writing this post to laugh at myself for saying that! This turned out to be one really long, super-jabbery ramble with quite a lot of redundancy (actually, it's a gigantic mess!) that I hope is not too unwieldy to manage. Now that I am finished, I have skimmed quickly over what I have written, and I don’t know if it will make sense to you, but here’s crossing my fingers that it will make some sense because I don’t have time to edit the post to make it clean and tight (and brief). I guess the other questions I meant to answer will have to be addressed in the next day or two--but not at nearly this length!--because I can’t write any more today! School starts again on Monday, and I won’t be posting any more from then on.]

Here goes. Regarding our high school homeschool:

I need to start by saying that I am not in any way, nor do I want to be, a homeschool “guru.” What was important to me during our high school years does not reflect what seems to matter to many or most other homeschoolers. I highly recommend looking around the web and at recommended books to help you think about your high school years. Definitely don’t follow our pattern. It won’t work for you. Pray, read, think, seek wisdom from many others, and then make your own pattern!

When we homeschooled, there were a number of books available to help homeschoolers navigate the high school years, but there must be so many more out there now. I don’t know what those books were, but I read a lot of Cafi Cohen. I don’t know if she’s still out there, but I gleaned quite a lot from her books regarding how to think about high school transcripts, college, and more.

My absolute favorite book to read (more for fun than actual guidance) just because it focuses on the unorthodox and it rebels against the traditional system is Cool Colleges for the Hyper-Intelligent, Self-Directed, Late Blooming, and Just Plain Different by Donald Asher. Super fun to read if your mind doesn’t like to travel well-worn educational paths. Four years of college on a sailboat? An elite four-year college on a working ranch? Schools that study one subject at a time? Or even traditional colleges? It’s all here, and I think it’s really fun to read!

Another interesting book discusses the huge amount of pressure that is put on high school kids to jump through hoops and exert all of their focus and energy into getting ready to apply to elite colleges. It is Denise Clark Pope’s Doing School.

And for those who feel rebellious about the college hoop-jumping game and who think (about elite schools) “Ivy-Schmivy-Whatever!” but who have super-smart, academically inclined kids: Harvard Schmarvard by Jay Mathews is interesting.

I read these books a long time ago (my kids are ages almost 25, 26, 28, 29 now), and there might be new books available that are as good or better (not that these are necessarily what most people are looking for anyway!). Plus, these books are not so much how-to’s as how-not-to’s or what-else-is-possible. And they are really for those who see the pressure of playing the college game and opt not to.

Anyway.

You might decide you want to put a lot of emphasis on preparation for tests: PSAT, SAT, SAT II’s, ACT, AP, and more. This is a way to get great college scholarships. But I don’t think a test prep book is the best route to take if you want to do well on admissions tests (I’m talking about the SAT or ACT). I think that doing well will come more from the way you approach long-term day-to-day learning and living in your home than from specific test-prep. Has a high level of thinking (partially developed by lots of quality reading, discussing, writing, and doing) been established in your home environment? We can create an intellectual value-system, mindset, and atmosphere in our homes that will allow kids to develop excellence, and this tends to translate very well to testing and college success (keeping in mind that all kids are different and have different inclinations).

But the home and family atmosphere I’m talking about should not be established just so that our kids will do well on tests and in college. For me, it’s really about life. It’s about honoring God by developing the gifts and talents He has given us. But when your kids are in high school, if you want to stress the tests (which I am not going to say is at all wrong!), start looking hard at those tests and consider how you can work to achieve the kind of scores you want. I’m sure there is a lot of information out there about this, so go out and find it if you want it!

We didn’t do that. :-) We didn’t emphasize test prep or tests because we wanted to continue investing our time and energy into the interests, pursuits, and passions the kids were already enjoying. We knew that when our homeschooling days ended, the opportunity to devote our time to these pursuits would never be as free and easy again. And since I was, and am, convinced that interest and passion leads to the best kind of education, why shouldn’t we continue going after it while there was still time?! Those days were relaxed, joyful, disciplined (passion doesn’t mean there isn’t a huge amount of blood, sweat, and tears involved in learning; in fact, there might be more!). I am very happy with the route we chose to take, and I look back at those truly warm, wonderful homeschooling years with a grateful heart.

(Enough with the sentimentality!) What we did was good enough for us. We didn’t focus on test prep, but I did buy a book of real SATs that had been taken in previous years, and the kids tried some of those tests just to get familiar and comfortable with it. Two kids hadn’t done any math for two years when they took the SAT, so I bought a SAT math-prep video course, but it didn’t get used (of course! I should have known this would be the case). Only one of my kids took the three-part SAT that included writing, and she practiced essays from a few online prompts just to get used to the parameters of writing for the test. And we did buy one child a test prep book because she was rusty with math, but I don’t think she looked at it much or found it helpful. She skimmed over her last math book (pre-calculus) and that was good enough for her. That was about it for our “prep.” Pretty much, the kids kept doing what they were doing, and when it came time to take the test, they just went and took it.

And while their scores were not perfect, they were excellent. None of the kids took AP tests, which could have gotten them college credit before ever setting foot on campus. They didn’t do a lot of things other high schoolers do. But you might really want to do those things. They might be just right for your family. By focusing on these tests, you might reduce the number of years it takes to finish college, open doors for admissions to more colleges, and earn great scholarships.

But my kids got terrific academic and leadership scholarships, too, without the focusing on tests (they also did extremely well in college). Their SAT scores were in a range high enough to get them into any college in the US had they wanted to pursue that, but it takes a lot more to get into elite colleges than excellent transcripts and SAT scores. It takes having true passion. It takes being well-rounded. It takes a bit of uniqueness. And it requires logging lots of “service” hours and projects. I think we could have presented a great case that we accomplished all of that. But no matter how you look on paper, there are no guarantees.

In my opinion, college admissions has become a huge, time-consuming game that has become more confusing and overwrought than ever. I’ve watched the process in the last few years (through others), and it strikes me as really ridiculous. If you want to play the game, spend the money, invest the time, and jump through the hoops, do it. I certainly wouldn’t try to talk you out of it. But it surely wasn’t for us, and I would feel even more strongly that way today for us (not for you!). Sorry. I have a hard time holding back my opinion on that one.

At the same time, if your child has an outstanding skill/passion in an area that is really prodigious (not just “mom-and-friends-are-super-impressed”)—in music, arts, sports, writing, involvement, dance, science or tech, math, or anything—the student will very likely be able to get into any school (even the most elite) that is looking for those kinds of students. Many, many perfect SAT scores get rejected at colleges across the country, while kids with passion and special abilities can get in with less than stellar (otherwise) admissions packages.

(Did I say this was going to be brief?! Haha. I’ve bare gotten started and look at me go! And, by the way, don’t take it for granted that I know what I’m talking about. These are just my opinions. Do some reading!)

So, what did my family do in high school? We kept doing what we were doing before high school. The kids continued learning what was interesting to them. We still plugged away at the three basic daily expectations we’d always had—reading, writing, math—but we began to create more of an end-of-the-road strategy. When they approached high school, I sat with each child to talk about what their focus might be. I spent time when the kids were younger reading fairly voraciously about high school and transcripts and what colleges wanted to see on their applications, and I came up with a sort-of plan. I knew I wasn’t going to suddenly start giving assignments to the kids or using curricula (unless they wanted to), so we discussed how we could continue on as we had before and, yet, at the end of high school, be able to create a transcript that reflected an education that colleges would like.

Some unschoolers (though I wouldn’t say we were entirely that) don’t create transcripts. They find other ways to approach college admissions. I, though, believed that we could create transcripts fairly easily and naturally without intruding too awful much into our daily learning rhythms. Plus, it just seemed time to hone in on a goal and end up with a sort or product/record of what had the kids had achieved, and were achieving. And my kids were fine with doing this, though they didn’t look at the transcripts or test scores as saying anything important about their education.

Based on what I read at web-pages and in books, I created a list of course categories and the number of courses that would need to fall under each of these categories in order to create the kind of transcript I wanted to see. It gave us some new direction—a way to home in on a finish—but the path was still pretty loose and free, and it didn’t really alter much as far as our day to day homeschooling rhythm went. We did realize that we would need to include more pointed science studies (two lab courses were minimum requirements at the time). There would need to be a certain number of history courses, English courses, foreign language credits, etc., on the transcripts. (If you have high schoolers and are reading this, be sure to look to see what the expectations are nowadays. I’m not writing everything down, and they also might have changed.)

Instead of me guiding their high school educational journey, the kids and I talked about the inclinations they’d always had in the various subject areas, and we began to think about them in terms of high school credit. In many cases, the kids had already gone well into college-level study in these areas of interest, so this really wasn’t overly challenging. For those not as inclined toward traditional science studies, there are things like botany, ornithology, meteorology, geology, and on and on. And you can turn these into lab sciences, too, without using chemicals, test tubes, and microscopes. Think creatively. (My kids did some pretty cool projects and studies that they loved for their science “labs,” and these were accepted without reservation by all colleges.) If colleges can offer a science course in the geology of national parks or the biology of cancer, why can’t we?! In fact, it was looking at college course offerings that gave me ideas for titles of courses for my kids. We got creative, we made sure the studies were very in-depth, and we had a lot of fun.

My kids got credit in things like Egyptology (and believe me, this one was well, well-deserved!), JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis, Medieval Literature, Classical Mythology, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Jane Austen, 1920's and 1930's America, WWII (my son read literally 100's of books over the years), and so much more. There was something about woman writers (maybe woman poets?) of the 1920’s. The kids had done a lot of reading about the classical world (and actually all periods of history)—history, literature, philosophy, art, etc., so we created courses from those areas that reflected individual interests and emphases. For science there was physics, biology, human physiology, ornithology, botany, and lots more. I’m having trouble remembering what the course names were (there were some unique, good ones!), but hopefully you get the idea.

We read books, did projects, used resources like Teaching Company CDs (whichever ones the kids wanted to use), had endless discussions about books and history and whatever was being learning, connected with experts, went interesting places, and lots more.

Let your imagination run wild. A child doesn’t need to study English I, II, III, and IV. Be creative. What is interesting to your child? Go with it! And for history/social studies? What about a deep study of the impact on culture of social media? Or what about an elective course in dog training? Or a specific area of photography? Or herbalism? Or business? Or geneaology? Or fashion? Or what about a “PE” credit in hiking/climbing mountains? Or skate-boarding or biking? How about spelunking? Or stamp-collecting (whatever it is called)? Or what about culinary arts (for the passionate baker or cook)? Or Edmund Spenser? Or the Brontes? What about the history of nature writing (or anything else)? Or what about a general science credit in nature on your own property or neighborhood (even in a city, which could be very interesting!)? How about hermeneutics or apologetics or any part of the Bible as literature? What about any culture that exists now or existed in history? Or what about virtually anything?! What are your kids interested in? If a student has a deep interest in a tiny or obscure historical time/person/event/philosophy, this is wonderful. Let him have fun becoming an expert on that. Make it a course on the transcript.

One of my kids got a credit for her study of (it seems funny to call it a study!) the Russian Romanovs (can’t remember how we titled that course), but my daughter had developed true expertise, and her deep study of this one thing led to a huge study of the Revolution, the “isms” of those years, reaching back to Marx and forward into the 20s and 30s and well beyond (on both ends of the timeline). All of this was interest-fueled and surprisingly in-depth. It encompassed people, events, social life, philosophy, psychology, economics, politics, art, music, literature, music, fashion, and so much more. Deep learning can’t help but ripple out further and further, with each new interesting thing creating its own ripples. A whole education can develop this way! Passion takes learning so very much beyond what would occur with mom-given assignments. So, the learning grew and grew, and the reading and research that was done led to enough study to create more than one course out of all of this. (And I have not come close to doing justice to the study referred to in this little paragraph!)

This is how we wanted high school education to take place. For us, it was to be a bigger, more sophisticated, deeper and further-reaching exploration and study of the world than I thought we would accomplish with assignments. For us, when learning happened in this “natural” (but there was vision, discipline, work behind it) manner, it happened deeply and with great interest and passion. Again, one interest is not just an isolated thing. It ends up becoming an education. Or it should. And when a child is in control of following his or her nose in this passionate, curiosity-driven, interest-led way, it is a wonderful thing to watch!

Record keeping?

I simply had a notebook for each child where I kept track of what they did during their high school days. The notebooks weren’t journals; there were no descriptions in it, really. I just kept lists (with enough info to remind me of what was happening). They were only for the purpose of listing everything they had done, read, watched, who they had connected with, and where they had gone-- out in the yard or in the bigger world—to learn more.

I didn’t always keep track daily (in fact, I rarely did). Sometimes I would pick up the notebooks and play catch-up. But I kept a casual eye and mind on these lists, looking for trends. When it looked like a particular interest was approaching what might merit a high school credit, I would talk to the kids about what reading or project or type of writing might be good to do in the future. I would look into things, and they would look into things (they tended to do this all along anyway because they were interested in what they were learning), and we would brainstorm. Sometimes they liked my suggestions or ideas, and sometimes the ideas didn’t align well enough with the kids’ internally-driven learning trajectory, so it was ultimately up to them to decide where to take their learning and what to do.

The kids knew they were expected to collect a certain number of credits for their transcript, and this was a much more motivating way for them to do it than for me to say, “Here, do this.” So, there weren’t any battles over this. I should add that, sometimes, we created new courses of study entirely with the transcript in mind, but they were based on the kids’ inclinations and what sounded interesting to them. Some of these were dropped, and some of them were happily pursued. Whatever our initial intentions were for these courses, though, the end product always looked quite different from that, which is as it should be!

This was all pretty low-key and non-stressful, and it worked for us, but, as I write it, I don’t know how this vision would work for anyone else. It might. It might not. It depends on your family lifestyle, the way you (as parents) live your lives in front of your kids, your homeschool style, the atmosphere of your home, the value you place on intellectual life, and your own, individual, wonderful kids.

The transcripts I created were based on a form (or a synthesis of two or three forms) that I found online. I needed something that didn’t list courses in terms and years because a lot of my kids’ credits were earned over the span of four (or more) years. Or maybe two math levels were done in what would normally be one term. So, the form I created listed credits/courses under subject headings rather than under separate semesters.

I didn’t think about grades until I made the transcripts. Then I just assigned them. Who was going to tell me I couldn’t?

You can order beautiful diplomas online if you want one, or if you end up, for some odd reason, needing it. We didn’t. For college, though, you will need a transcript. OR you can send your kids to a local community college, and in two years, they can earn a high school diploma and an AA degree which means they are ready for their final two years at a four-year college. This can save a whole bunch of money! But it wasn’t for us because. . . well. . . I hope I made it clear above how we wanted to spend our high school days learning at home. It wasn’t by doing someone else’s assignments or by preparing for tests.

Let’s see. Anything else? Maybe just a few random notes. We kept up our morning get-together-at-the-table after chores and breakfast because it remained a good jump-start to our days in the high school years. It was time to read the Bible together, to talk about our day, and to do anything we happened to be doing together at the time. Sometimes there were little things we’d do for fun, like for a while, we did a puzzle of the day (we solved them in groups) during that morning time.

The only thing I can think of that we did together for an extended length of time was art history, and it was about as low-key as could be. I had the Cornerstone curriculum and portfolio (the prints are really nice!). We’d keep whatever print we were studying out on display. We learned really just to look quietly and think about the art in our own way, and we were given a very small amount of information/philosophy of the artist and period of art in order to gradually put together a big-picture of art history. It was a very slow-going, easy approach. We had lots of art history books around the house, and we loved visiting art museums when we could. It was the books and museums that contributed the most to the kids’ love of art. And love leads to individual study, which was very much the case with my kids and art history. They all had their little niche of what was interesting and what they loved, and they pursued it on their own.

I think this is quite long enough! Haha. When I think I’m going to be brief, I can’t help be windy and confusing! I hope you can get something out of this post because I really don’t have time to edit it. And I hope it clears some things up and answers some questions regarding our high school homeschool. (Gosh, we had fun!)

An Illustrated Little Roundup of Things That is Actually Pretty Long. . .

2011-12-31T21:04:00.000-08:00

Ah, isn't it cute?!

1. Thrifty. I was at a thrift store with my mom and one of my sisters recently when I spotted this green mug. I held it up in front of the two of them, and they immediately sang out, “Grammy!” Yep. It made us all think of sweet, funny, charming Grammy (we all miss her like crazy). She kept mugs very similar to this one in her kitchen and drank coffee from them every day. So, for 50 cents, I bought the mug, and it is now my new mug of choice when I drink my morning coffee and tea.

Yum. Seriously.

(I cut it in half to show you.)

2. Tasty. I made the best “raw” and “healthy” treats today! I made my usual chocolate truffle recipe, but today I had the bright idea of forming the truffle balls around a smaller ball of peanut butter (the peanut butter is actually not raw, but the rest of the truffle is). I make 1/3 of a batch of the following recipe: 3 c. dried, unsweetened coconut; 1 ½ c. cocoa powder; 1 c. maple syrup; 1/3 c. coconut butter; 1 T. vanilla; ½ t. salt. Stir everything together. The mixture will be wettish, but add a bit more coconut if is just too wet to handle. Shape into a ball. Make an indentation in it, press in the peanut butter, and reshape the chocolate truffle around the peanut butter. Set in a dish dusted with cocoa powder, and when all truffles are shaped sift more cocoa powder over the top. Cover and keep in fridge (they will firm up in the fridge).

3. Good Reading. I am loving the book I am reading right now. It is called Miriam’s Kitchen (by Elizabeth Ehrlich) and was given to me by my daughter Aimée at Christmas two or three years ago. I’ve started to read the book a few different times, and I’ve liked it, but I've gotten sidetracked on every attempt. The book tells the story about how the cooking and kitchen of the author’s mother-in-law draws her back to her own Jewish roots and faith. I don’t know if it’s because I so very much enjoyed my “Jewish Cultures in America” class last term or what, but the book is just the right thing for me to read right now. It is extremely warm, engaging, and well-written, and the book is full of deep observations and insights.

My favorite college player!

If you follow college football, and you don't know who he is yet,

you will.

4. Coming up. The Rose Bowl. January 2. Oregon vs. Wisconsin. Watch it (and root for Oregon, even if you live in Wisconsin)! I’ll definitely be watching (the game, not you).

Update: Yay! What a crazy game. And my favorite player amazed a lot of people.

A humble, but warm (!), room.

This photo was taken the week I moved in.

The towels have now made way for books and flutes and coffee mugs.

5. Where I hang out the most in my house in winter. The bathroom! It’s so warm in there. Actually, I only retreat to the room now and then throughout the day when it’s extra chilly, but on really cold days, I spend quite a bit of time in there. Sometimes books pile up on that bathroom counter, along with little notebooks and pens. I peruse cookbooks and other books there, play my flute (you didn’t know I played the flute, did you? my playing is nothing to jump up and down about, really, but I’ve been enjoying it again), and I talk on the phone. I take my coffee into the room on extra cold mornings and read my Bible and devotional there. It’s the warmest room in the house by far, and the closest I’ll get in this house to having a woodstove. But, hey—I’m not complaining! I'm thankful to live in this wonderful place.

Look at me! I stole one of Kim's pictures without permission!

(Kim, if you are mad at me, I will remove this.)

But I wanted you others to see. It's a magical, wintry photo

and it's just one out of about a million nice ones at Kim's blog. (Click.)

6. Good blog. Have I ever mentioned Kim of Starry Sky Ranch here? If not, I don’t know what has taken me so long. I’ve been reading Kim’s blog for years, and she’s been a steady favorite of mine from the very beginning. She’s got a houseful of kids ranging from very little ones to adults (even though she looks about 25-years-old!). She and her family left their Colorado ranch behind and now live in Germany. Kim’s photos are beautiful, her spirit is clear and refreshing, she lives lovely (but wouldn't want me to publicly lavish praise on her), and she has accumulated lot of wisdom over the years that she doesn’t try to foist off on anyone, so just watch and listen, and you’ll glean much from Kim. (No pressure or anything, Kim!)

7. What I ate today. (I used to do these posts occasionally, for some odd reason, so I thought I’d go out with one last food list because I’m sure you care!) Sprouted grain toast with almond butter-miso-honey spread. A whole quart of green smoothie. Three chocolate-peanut butter truffles. Delicious maple-roasted butternut squash (I ate a whole small squash all by myself—there are perks to living alone). Pomegranate seeds. Cashews. Collard leaf wraps with mango-veggie-slaw and peanut sauce (made with raw almond butter). Normally, I eat a big salad, but it didn’t happen today. I got plenty of greens and vegetables, though.

8. Celebrating. It’s New Year’s Eve, after all, but I’m home alone. I suppose I could make some popcorn or eat another chocolate truffle. For sure I’ll relax and read. I think that makes a great celebration. : : : Later, I'm still here--I hear occasional fireworks going off outside, and it's not even close to midnight. I guess I'm celebrating by attaching photos to this post. : : :

Resolutions? I don’t really do them. I just try to start anew whenever I need to. When I realize I’ve gotten off-track (with exercise and health habits, Bible reading and prayer, or anything else), I try to get right back on. When I fall, I just stand back up, dust myself off, deal with any obstacles or hindrances that are tripping me up or blocking my way, and get moving again. I don’t wait for a new day, a new week, a new month, or a new year to do it. God’s mercies are new every morning, but they are also available every minute of every day.

But still, the end of one year and the start of the next naturally lead most of us to reflect and even rethink some things. It’s a good time to remember, appreciate, reflect, pray, and sharpen the vision. And resolutions should be made by all who find them useful! :-)

9. Another good book. The Hidden Power of Kindness by Lawrence G. Lovasick. Becoming truly kind is not a New Year’s resolution, but it’s a lifelong aim or vision that began when I became serious about this book a few weeks ago. I’ve had the book around for years, and when I first got it I liked it fine, but it struck me like one of those old positive-thinking-be-nice-to-everyone-in-order-to-elevate-yourself-or-become-successful books. It seemed to have some good thoughts in it, but I just didn’t get into the book. But when I picked it up again recently, I began to read the book in my normal fashion: I opened it; browsed through it; skipped to the middle, then to the back, then to the front, and all over the place at random, stopping wherever something struck me; looked at the table of contents for the most compelling parts and read those; began to become engrossed in the book; began to be confronted and challenged by it; began to realize the profundity of it; and began to develop a deep desire to live according to its principles (which are really Biblical principles, but expounded wonderfully). I eventually finished the whole thing. This is a deep, powerful, inspiring book, and I realize that being truly kind (loving well) is a serious, challenging discipline that can only happen by the grace of God in person’s life.

Oh, who are those adorable children?!

10. Super fun. Saving the longest part for the end. Christmas at Michelle’s house was fun. She made homemade cinnamon rolls, not only on Christmas morning, but (per unanimous request) she also made them on Tuesday morning. And we ate them with good coffee! (Yay, Michelle! You are awesome!) The kids, as always, cracked me up. Let me tell you just a few little (gripping!) stories of things they said or did.

Let’s start with Liya. We (adults/women) were in the kitchen chatting, as we like to do, and we heard two-year-old Liya gasping and grunting really loudly. We glanced into the living room, and there she was, sitting neck-high in a round basket, and pulling up on the handles with all of her might. She saw us look her way and sputtered, “I can’t pick myself up! I’m too heavy!”

And just a little while later, six-year-old Roman called from the living room, where he was playing legos with Jayden. “Hey, Momma! Is God just playing play with us? Is he controlling us?” Michelle looked at me, puzzled and sort of amused, and I suggested, “Does he mean in the same way he’s playing with his legos?” Michelle asked him if that’s what he meant, and Roman said, “Yeah, is God just playing with us and moving us around?”

And then there was four-year-old Jayden. Just try reading a book straight through with Jayden. It’s not going to happen because the boy is thinking about everything on every page and has a lot to say about it! Aimee and Josiah gave him One Morning in Maine for Christmas, and we read it together a number of times (I don’t mind; I love Robert McCloskey). First, he was tickled pink that Sal (from Blueberries for Sal, our old favorite read-together book) has grown up a bit and is in this new book! We had to talk about that for quite a long time. Then Jayden started noticing things. Like, on one page, when a fish-hawk was flying with a fish in its mouth to a nest high in a snag beside the water, Jayden wanted to know, “Why is the bird flying that way with the fish when the water is over there?” (The bird was flying from the direction of the woods and not the water.) “Good question, JayJay! Why do you think?” And then we talked about the reasons that might have been. And, on another page, when Sal slipped on seaweed on a rock, a loon on the water was said to “laugh.” Jayden said, “Why did the loon laugh at Sal? That was not very nice!” I told him it was okay because Sal was laughing, too, so they were laughing together.

And I suppose I shouldn’t leave out 11-month-old Avery, who thinks she is one of the big kids. She follows them all over and plays what they play. We had to keep an eye on her because she liked to head for the stairs to attempt an ascent, and we meant to keep her safely downstairs. The three older kids were playing “Super Hero,” all in capes and masks. They had created a little fort with a foam sleeping pad, blankets, and pillows. Aimee noticed Avery was suddenly missing and asked where she was. Jayden called out, “We have her in the Batcave,” and Roman announced that they weren’t letting her escape. I peeked over the side of the cave, and there was Avery, happy as could be in her diaper, wearing a red cape with a lightning bolt on the back. The cape was twice as long as Avery.

~ : ~ : ~ : ~ : ~

Okay. Enough of that. I am working on a post to answer all of the questions that came up in the last several days. It's getting pretty long, and I still have a long ways to go, so I think I'm going to try to cut things way back and be concise(ish--relatively. . .) for once, even if it does mean leaving out a lot.

Happy New Year!

Some of us on Christmas. . .

2011-12-27T20:55:00.000-08:00

Our Gang (most of us), Christmas 2011.
At Michelle's and Monty's place.

(You can click the photo for a better view, if you want.)

I love my family! It was so much fun to get together.

Monty was the photographer,

and I was the one who worked to get the attention of the little ones

so that they would look at the camera.

(I'm not sure how I inspired that look on Jayden's face!)

Hope your Christmas was lovely.

And I hope the rest of the holidays will be, too.

I'll be starting winter term classes on January 9,

and I'll probably put up at least another thing or two or three before then.

For those who asked, I will leave all of my blogs up

and open for reading when I end this one.

Wishing You a Lovely Christmas. . .

2011-12-23T20:58:00.000-08:00

I'm going out of town in the morning to celebrate Christmas with my children and grandchildren. Yay! But I want to wish any stragglers at my blog a truly lovely Christmas/Advent celebration. I think I'll add the wonderful little poem left for me in comments by Rebecca (thank you Rebecca--and everyone else, too--for the comment(s); I'll get back to those when I return):

"Welcome, all wonders in one sight!

...Eternity shut in a span. Summer in winter. Day in night.

Heaven in earth and God in man! Great little one!

Whose all-embracing birth lifts earth to heaven, Stoops heaven to earth."

(Richard Crenshaw, 1648)

I really do appreciate the thoughtful comments very much. Jennie, if you see this, I'm thinking about your request. I don't know if I can actually finish those speaking notes you referred to, but I might write a thought or two before I go. So sorry you were watching for that and that I didn't finish it. I'm not sure I'll get a chance to add more thoughts, so don't count on it! :-)

Adding to this post Saturday morning: I turned on the quiet music of Arvo Part this morning, wishing I had not run out of coffee (!), and sat on the carpet of my peaceful living room floor to open stocking gifts from my mom and my sister. I thought it would be a nice thing to do before leaving town later this morning. As I unwrapped one gift, strong whiffs of coffee wafted out from the paper (yes!). So, I made a French press pot of coffee and sat at the computer with the intention of working my way through the recent comments so that I could pointedly and mindfully pray individually for each and every one of you. And I do pray that God will touch you, bless you and your families, give you wisdom all along your way, direct your steps (even when you don't think you know where you're going--He does!), and fill you with His Love and Light and Hope this Christmas season (and always). I pray you (and I) will increasingly know the Great Joy that is found in Him. Have a beautiful, merry Christmas!

The sun came out today, and, inspired by sunlight coming into the house, I started to snap some photos. I was just getting warmed up when my sister called to see if I wanted to go for a stroll in today's amazing, gorgeous sunshine and blue skies. Of course I was glad to go. So, I had just these few photos, but they will have to do (I'm posting them because thought I'd put up a few "parting shots" in the next post or two before I go away for good):

I think my first photo ever on this blog featured this table in very early

morning light. Oh yeah--there it is up on my header.

This is later-in-the-afternoon light with a

much more cluttered table (it's not always cluttery!)

and more "stuff" on the wall.

I think I took a summer photo from this same angle

when the maple was in full green leaf.

Winter gives a much different look.

O Tannenbaum!

This is my official Christmas tree.

The hutch in winter afternoon light.

Because everyone is dying to know what is attached to my fridge!

Postcards from friends and family.

Roman's picture.

A verse written on a card by Aimee

that she included in a letter she mailed to me.

Various magnets.

"Susywawoozy Woman"

is what my nephew and niece call me.

Or sometimes they call me "Sushi."

They made me the magnet.

It's Time to Move Along. . .

2011-12-20T11:12:00.000-08:00

Well, it’s time to close up shop here. And I don’t really see myself ever blogging again, either. There are a zillion blogs out there. Mine is just putting more noise into the blogosphere, and I’m not inclined to want to do that anymore.

Thank you for being such sweet readers! I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting you through this blog, reading your comments, and visiting your own blogs. It's been a pleasure to "know" you, and when/if I have time, I'll pop in and say hi.

But it's time for me to really jump into the life that God has for me right now.

I don't want to merely pass through this stage. I don't want only to surrender and nod to God’s sovereignty, but I need to dive in, fully embrace each day and each thing as coming from the hand of God, and strive to glorify and honor Him—wholeheartedly and with joy—in all that I do.

When I kept my old High Desert Home blog, I was writing of things I’d been living, thinking about, writing about, speaking about in various groups and organizations, and sharing with both women and men in meetings in my home for years—decades, actually. My writings on that blog were simply a communication of the real life I’d been living for a long time. The posts were easy to write, and it seemed natural to keep a blog.

But then my life turned upside down and everything changed.

At the same time, nothing changed. I still affirm everything I have written on any of my blogs about home and family, creating and learning, relationships and domesticity. I know that no matter how many times I explain the point of my posts about home-life, people are going to misunderstand my meaning, but I can’t worry about that. I can only assert, again, that this is not about being domestic and “home-makey” for its own sake, but it’s about doing what the Bible says a wise woman does: She builds her house.

Home is the most potent force in a child’s life (in all of our lives), and the deep spiritual potential of creating “warm and cozy”—when done with the right vision—is vastly misunderstood and undervalued. Doing this is not an inclination or a hobby—it’s a spiritual calling. But I won’t belabor this point. I’ve done that elsewhere.

As I mentioned, I wrote on that High Desert Home blog about what I had been living for years and years. I had walked through the ups and downs of that life, the trials and challenges, and the heartaches and joys, so my ideas felt tested and somewhat stable. And, while I blogged, I continued to live that same kind of life at home, only now with kids who were grown but were coming home often and bringing their own children along with them.

But my circumstances have changed, and I am now on a path that requires whole-hearted attention and energy. Last summer when I was kicking back and taking things slow and easy, there was room in my life for putting up blog posts at this Summer Notebook blog, but I’ll admit that I never really felt fully engaged in it in spite of regular blog posts. Then summer ended, and I resumed classes at the university. I’ve been back in school for almost two years (and have accumulated so many credits, because of my four years of college back in the 1970s, that my advisor says she is in awe—haha!).

Now my focus is narrowing, and I need to throw of whatever is a distraction or a hindrance to what God is doing in my life. I am walking a new path, and I have no idea where I’m going or what I’ll actually end up doing, but I know that God does, and this is good enough for me! I am exploring uncharted territory, and I’m just beginning to discover a sense of adventure in this.

Plus, I don’t think I need to be writing about what God is doing and teaching me when I’m right in the middle of it. Now is time to settle down, quiet down, and learn from Him. If I am writing about these stories and lessons before I’ve really learned them entirely (though I’m not looking to ever write about them, actually), I disrupt the process. I lose the real, organic flow of the walk.

My one goal right now is not to figure out my life. It is to be faithful. To walk faithfully with God to the end of my days. To walk hand in hand with Him wherever He leads me. To trust. To live quietly. To do whatever little thing He gives me to do. To let Him make me what He wants me to be without trying to figure it out or help Him. I have no designs on doing any big thing or being noticed in my life. Just keep me faithful, dear Lord. Make me a servant. And may my life truly bring honor and glory to You.

P.S. If you have anything you're dying to ask me in the next day or so before I turn out the lights, go right ahead. I'll do my best to answer.

2011-12-10T11:02:00.000-08:00

Coffee making this morning.

A seventeen year ritual.

(Yikes. That's a long time!)

Wow. Time doesn't fly when there's nothing at all pressing to do. I've done about a million things today, I think, and it's just mid-morning. I like this!

I tried to sleep in this morning, but once my eyes popped open they stayed that way. So, I caught up in my Advent reader, prayed, thanked the Lord for His blessings, read my Bible, and climbed out of bed. By then it was 6:00 a.m.

While I lay in bed thinking and reading and praying and thanking God for His blessings, I thought of something that came up in my Judaism class. We were discussing brachots--the blessings Jews recite daily for just about everything they do. They have specific blessings for their food--for each food, a blessing for a rainbow, a blessing for seeing a friend for the first time in a while, blessings for everything--even the toilet! It is a way of being mindful and thankful. Brachots are reminders that, in busyness and distraction, we are not in control. They can remind us that we are blessed and that God is the giver of gifts. The rabbi who taught our class said more than 100 blessings can be given in a day. Wow. That is commitment. I may not recite 100 specific blessings in a day, but I can certainly lift my heart continually in gratitude to God and speak out blessings to those around me instead of holding my appreciation for them inside my heart.

On the other hand, I've also been thinking of the old Orthodox prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner." Like the brachot, this is another thing to be asserted often, at least in my life. When I am fearful or fretting or frustrated, it comes from wanting to control my life. It comes from looking for a sense of security that is derived from my own efforts and abilities. And this fails me every time. So, in the night, when I couldn't quiet my heart, I didn't pray "Lord, help me--please do something about this!" Instead, I prayed, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner," and I meant it, because fear and fretting is anti-faith. Peace does not come from circumstances that are momentarily calm and controlled. It comes from a heart that is yielded entirely to God, and my heart is too often revealed as not yet surrendered and at rest. This is a grace because it continually points me back round to Him. "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner." This is the real story of Advent: Jesus Christ came to earth to die for sinners, and now he extends His grace, mercy, and love to us when we call on Him.

"Silence shatters to pieces the mind's armor."

~Dag Hammarskjold

So, once I was out of bed this morning, I began to clean--the kind of clean that is motivated by eyes that have been opened. Much-to-do can clutter the mind and blind the eye, and this temporary blindness can be a grace when circumstances squeeze me, but when the blessing of ample time is given again, I begin to see the true state of my surroundings, and my heart begins to crave what is truly simple.

"Affected simplicity is refined imposture."

~La Rochefoucauld

I'm not trying to practice voluntary--or involuntary--simplicity. I'm not determined to declutter. I'm not trying to shed materialism. This isn't about participation in any kind of simplicity movement or statement or conscious lifestyle. I just want simple. The kind that comes from way deep in my heart and I don't need or want to understand what or why. I just want to do it. So, I began to remove things from counters, shelves, and corners and put them in boxes to be given away or in cupboards to store. And now the ambience is becoming roomy and airy, and it feels so good. "All in order, sweet and lovely." (I'll keep quoting Blake on that til the end of my days.)

And then I made coffee in my French press, as I do as often as I can. And I used my favorite old round Polish pottery mug. The mug doesn't make me sad anymore. For a long time I didn't want to drink from it because it seemed connected to so much that was lost in my life. It was just like it was the year I was in a dark depression at Christmastime and someone gave me a CD of beautiful classical guitar music. To this day I cannot listen to that CD because it is so connected to that dark time. But the ache of recent years has faded (thank the Lord!), and the mug seems friendly again.

Yep. There it is in all its crazy, tacky, colorful glory!

And then I decided to put out a few Christmas things. Not much, though, because I'm not a gung-ho decorator. Or crafter. Point in case: I made a garland today. Sort of. I was putting a few ornaments in a pretty glass display bowl (because I'm not going to have a tree this year except for that ceramic one on my table), and I got the idea to string some of the ornaments on a line for a garland to hang across my kitchen window. All I could find was kitchen string, and I wasn't motivated to look for something better, so I decided to experiment with that string, and if I liked the garland, I'd change the string later to something more transparent or tasteful. So I quickly (that word--quickly--is a key trait to my crafting projects because I really am not Martha; I prefer to enlist my daughters' to make things for me) tied random ornaments (kinda sloppily) to that thick white piece of kitchen string and strung it across the window just to see if I will enjoy the look. Well, there it still hangs, and I'm pretty sure it's going to continue to hang there just as it is until Christmas is over. I'm sure I could look online and find some amazing ornament garland tutorials to follow, but I don't want to know about them. I'll just enjoy my rustic, simple, thrown-together garland. It is cheerful!

And now I will carry on with my day. Happy Saturday to you!

Briefly, A Good Day. . .

2011-12-08T19:15:00.000-08:00

Up at 4:30 a.m. Decided not to go over my study notes. Just read my Bible and spent some time in prayer. Bundled up in layers of clothing and tramp to the bus stop in icy-cold early morning darkness. Arrived on campus before daylight. Drawn irresistably to beautiful Lillis Hall, all lit up, warm and cozy in that strange light that comes between night and morning. Sat in that nice ambience with a surprising number of other early risers while drinking coffee and looking over my study guide. Then the unusual experience of an almost pleasant, cozy classroom vibe for my early-morning Judaism final. Everyone happy and friendly before class. All went well. Back home by mid-morning. Crunchy steps across a dry-leaf-carpeted yard. Enjoyed the fact that I can leave them there--that last bit of fall color--because I have a gardener who collects the leaves! Into the house for coffee, brief magazine browsing, and a bit of tidying. A surprise drop-by visit from the sister I see least often. Finally time to drag my tired brain into study-mode for my last final. Can't do it yet. So off to the kitchen for homemade biscuits with peach jam. Time to study; time dwindles. Brain full to bursting, but the end is in sight. No thinking about ideas for this final, thank goodness. Just memorize. By noon tomorrow, my brain is mine again. So. . . Studied. Took a break. Checked email: grades trickling in. So far, so good. Chatted with one of my kids on the phone. Drank a green smoothie. Stood in the bathroom over the heater because it's the warmest room in the house. Memorized. Quizzed myself. Paced. Progressed. Took a break. Snuck in a round or two of Spill 'n Spell. Pounded out these words.

It's a good day. I'm so grateful for so much. God is with me. And with you.

Now back to my study guide!

2011-12-03T12:59:00.000-08:00

There it is! My one decoration so far.

The old ceramic Christmas tree.

All lit up for when my grandkids arrive today.

When I climbed out of bed this morning, I intended to clean the house, put up a few Christmas decorations, exercise, and spend the rest of the day typing out answers to the two really-involved study guides I have for my last two finals.

The house was a bit out of sync and not-so-cosy, so putting it in order before studying seemed like a good plan. I brewed a really good pot of French press coffee and turned up the Christmas carols while I made some headway in the clean-and-cosy department. I managed to put out one Christmas decoration (the old ceramic tree) before I was hit by a blizzard of phone calls and text messages, and now my plan has changed.

Aimee and Avery are driving down from Portland this afternoon to spend the weekend with me, and Michelle and her gang are coming to spend the afternoon and evening here as well. Yay, fun! I'll get to those study guides here and there and in between whatever is happening. Family first!

I really think the celebratory atmosphere and ambience we create in our homes is special and powerful in all of our lives, but especially for our children. We shouldn't underestimate the power of the sense of mystery and magic we nurture in the minds and hearts of our children by the environments we create. I really believe it can help open hearts to the mystery and magic of the meaning of Christmas and to God's love. But it's the intrinsic ambience and spirit of a life and of a home that does this much more than the external decorations we put up or the activities we enjoy, though the external can contribute, too.

I don't really decorate for holidays in a big way. I am certainly no Martha Stewart, and neither do I want to be. I like things to be very simple but sweet. And in these past three years, the celebrations of my family have gotten simpler than ever because they've had to. We didn't give gifts to one another last year--not a single thing. And you know what? There was a sort of freedom in it.

We all love to give and receive gifts, but not one of us wished that last Christmas was any different. We bought small things for the children, and we gathered to make a delicious meal and enjoy being together to give thanks for the one gift that really matters: God sent His Son to Earth to be the Savior of the world. The Savior of me. And you.

We likely won't give gifts again this year, but we will, again, be together, and it will certainly be a happy family time. What we give to each other is time and love. They don't cost anything, and these are the best gifts of all.

I was flipping through the pages of Elspeth's Wonderful Weekend Book, and my bookmark landed in the "winter" section. Elspeth begins her winter notes with these simple words:

"As the evenings draw in, I find real satisfaction in simple pleasures such as lighting a wood fire, making the Christmas cake and inviting friends for tea after a brisk wintry walk."

I love that spirit and attitude. And here's from Gladys Taber:

"The smell of pine and spicy hot cider drifts through the house. The buttered popcorn in the old wire popper adds extra fragrance. Outside, snow falls on the old orchard, the dark pond, and the giant maples towering above the roof. The children come in from sledding spangled with flakes."

Well, that certainly matches some of what my family experienced in the high desert, and I think it's lovely. We so enjoyed those snowy, crisp, magical days when we drank hot chocolate together at the table and watched snow pile up around our house, when we took long walks down a lovely, snowy road, and when snow-frozen hands were warmed by the fire.

The chances of snow and sledding where we live now are almost impossibly slim, but that's not the point. It's not about longing for an idealized atmosphere of the season; it's simply, as both Elspeth and Gladys communicate, making my own kind of atmosphere where I am now--one that is simple and magical even in its simplicity--and sharing it with others. This doesn't need to cost a thing except for time and love, and, again, these are the best gifts I can give.

That's what I'm going to give to my family today. I will study for my finals when I can, but I don't get to see my children and grandchildren everyday, so I'm going to make the most of this day with them. Popcorn doesn't cost much. I can make that. And I can certainly create a clean and warm and cosy environment. And I can read stories and play with my grandchildren. I will give the gifts I can and enjoy the gifts God has given me in this season when we are all focused on celebrating the One gift that really matters.

Wishing you a lovely day!

Happy, Happy Things for Today. . .

2011-11-28T19:25:00.000-08:00

For lack of recent photos to post,

let's go back to my High Desert Home
where it snows in the winter!

Don't know if you can see the bottom

night-time picture (if you click on it you can),
but I loved going out in the snow at night!

In the spirit of my grandson JayJay, I'm thanking God for His good gifts:

1. Whatever is happening, God is always so very, very good!

2. It was wonderful to be with my family for Thanksgiving. I have the four most beautiful, talented children (who all cook some mighty fine food!), the two best sons-in-law imaginable, and the four most adorable, fun grandkids on the planet!

3. Christmas music. Yay. It fills the house with a joyful spirit. I can’t take a whole lot of Josh Groban, but I really love his rendition of Ave Maria (love the children’s choir! but, oh, this link doesn't do justice to the beautiful, rich rendition on my CD). I play the song over two or three times in a row when it comes on. My favorite Christmas CD ever? A really long list of songs hand-picked by Melissa and compiled as a gift for Aaron one year—it’s the best!

4. Simple food. My main dish tonight is pureed lemony-garlicky sweet potatoes and celeriac. (Yum. It’s really good!) I know this is really more of a side dish, and I don’t even know what else I’ll eat, but I’ll fill in the nutritional gaps that are left at the end of the day. I’m pretty good about that. By the way, a checker at the university book store told me today that sweet potatoes are really great for helping the brain focus and attend. Well, then. If that’s true, I should be doing prodigiously well in the “focus” department because I consume a lot of sweet potatoes.

5. 18-year-old fellow students who are just so great to this middle-aged woman. One girl actually changed her course schedule to be in my Spanish class again next term (we sit by each other every day and work on lessons together). This morning, I ran into a young man who was in a class with me last year, and he seemed so happy to see me. We talked for a long time, “caught up” on each others' lives, and said we hoped we’d have a class together again this year. It’s just sweet how nice some of these kids can be.

6. God’s goodness in helping me to “let go” of some of the stress and pressure of maintaining unrealistic standards for myself. It feels a bit like a miracle.

7. Peace and joy in spite of very real challenges in my personal life. Another gift from God; another little miracle.

8. The fact that I have a house (for now) that really feels like home to me.

9. Three truly good sisters. One here who keeps track of me and makes me feel connected to both her and others (I feel cared about, and that’s nice when you live alone). One on the coast who is a kindred spirit and an awesome person. And one up the highway who let me stay at her house over Thanksgiving. It was so much fun to be with her and her husband! And also for a really great brother who texted me on Thanksgiving. And now that I’m rolling through the list of mi familia, I have to mention my wonderful mother who is just always there, always listening, always praying, always loving. I am blessed.

10. The term is almost over. I have one paper to turn in, two finals to take this week, and two finals to take next week. I’ve got a lot of work and studying to do, but the end is in sight (one more term down!), and then my time will be my own and I can work on my top-secret Christmas present for my kids.

Hope your days are happy, happy! God is good. I hope you are celebrating His gifts this Advent season.

"Slow Down, Grandma Susy". . .

2011-11-13T12:41:00.000-08:00

Roman, the unhurried one, last Saturday.

“Grandma Susy, you need to slow down.”

Huh? I was in the kitchen, chatting with Roman as he drew and spelled words on paper at the kitchen table. He sounded each word aloud, slowly writing the letters as he decoded them from the sounds he was making. Roman’s spelling was charming, revealing how he heard commonly spoken words, where “have a cat” became “ava cat.” And he was decidedly unhurried and unpressured in what he was doing.

But me? I had decided to put away some dishes and tidy the kitchen while I chatted with Roman, and as I bustled about, Roman stopped, looked at me, and matter-of-factly spoke those words: “Grandma Susy, you need to slow down.”

It took me aback. I didn’t seem to me that I was moving all that quickly, but when I contrasted my demeanor with Roman’s, I realized that I was. And for what? I thought about my recent life, and I realized that I had begun to think always ahead, always forward, always to what needed to be done and how far behind I was beginning to feel. Lately, I’ve felt a great deal of pressure regarding all that I need, or want, to balance in my life—spiritual life, school, family, home, church, maintaining physical health, etc.

But instead of settling in and focusing on each thing, keeping its importance in perspective, I had moved into a very mild and uncharacteristic form of driven-ness. Not driven-ness in the sense of pressing toward some lofty goal but driven-ness in the sense of simply trying to survive it all, to press to get it all done. Driven-ness to survive? Haha. That seems such a lowly aim (so weak, so inept), but for me—for one who thrives on slowness, or for one whose kryptonite is time-pressure—it really became about this.

So, lately, I have found myself becoming rather tightly wound. Where I have always been able to manage stress well—given enough time to keep broad margins, given that there was always something I could cut from my schedule and had no qualms about doing so, and mostly by much prayer and focus on scripture—I suddenly found myself in a position where there is more to do than I can manage comfortably.

It doesn’t help that when I am a bit swamped, I find myself dawdling away time. Wasting time. Maybe this is an unconscious attempt to avoid that awful feeling of too-much-pressure, but ignoring the too-much-to-do list only increases pressure. Who knows why I do what I do?! It's simply true that the recent equation of my life has not added up to peace and calm! :-)

I must say that I have a very low tolerance for busyness and time-pressure. So, while it might seem to someone else that I am really dealing with very little, to me this is challenging, and, for the first time that I can remember, I have found myself in a state of chronic low-level stress (with some surges of high-stress thrown in). All of the self-talk that I’ve always been so good at (telling myself what the Bible says and what really matters), along with prayer, has not availed much. And why? Does prayer fail? Does God not hear? Of course He does! But maybe I simply need to reorient my life, my aims, and my thinking to align with His thoughts and aims for me.

Slow down? When I don’t seem to have enough time to take care of the business of living a balanced, healthy life? Yes, slow down.

So, what to do? How shall I “slow down” as Roman so naturally, easily, and cheerfully exhorted me last Saturday?

That’s what I’m working on now. Letting go of perfect. (Do I really need to maintain my A+ GPA? Perfectionism is not excellence, it is pride. It is self-absorption, which is the opposite of love.) And learning not to dawdle away time, while at the same time not pressing forward, but moving forward, unhurried, with calm discipline. And learning to settle in to get God’s mind for my life. He does not mean for me to be rushed, to feel tightly wound or stressed, or to be distracted.

God says to the wind and the waves, “Peace, be still.” Jesus didn’t hurry.

For years, in my high desert home, I kept a quote on my fridge by Evelyn Underhill, and I lived by it: “On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgement and effort to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure marks of the amateur.”

Lately, I’ve been the amateur. But Roman? No, children don’t hurry. They deal calmly with only the task at hand. Children have not learned to take on the cares of the world. They trust that their parents have their back and that they can carry on with their business. They just do it, and they do it with joy. Joy.

The Bible says to be like a child.

I have so much to learn, and the Lord has given me this opportunity to learn it.

Lord, You do have my back! Help me to let go of the self-absorption of worldly perfectionism and aims. Help me to carry on simply, calmly, steadily, consistently, and joyfully. Help me to learn about peace and stillness in the midst of the wind and the waves. Renew my mind so that I will recognize those waves as small things, and direct my steps so that they are aligned with Yours.

Thank You for speaking to me through my grandson, and make me, again, like a child.

Just a Few Things for an Autumn Saturday. . .

2011-11-12T11:37:00.000-08:00

It’s autumn, and the trees are just beautiful all over town and the university. I’m the one on campus stopped dead in my tracks, blocking the dense flow of pedestrian traffic as I stand staring up at the trees in wonder. The striking, vibrant color that literally surrounds me is at its showy best against that backdrop of strong blue sky that we've had so often lately, especially in angled early morning or late-afternoon light, and so I stand and stare and soak it in because I know this season, like all seasons, year after year, is but for a moment.

Most striking, I think, are those rare days when volatile, blackened, threatening skies mix with sunlight of an almost eery quality so that the whole outdoors appears to be cast in a neon glow. That’s when autumn colors become otherworldly, and it’s even better when windy bluster swirls the leaves so that they skitter along the path and dance into the sky. So many days I’ve wished I had my camera with me and have vowed to return with it the next day. And yet I never have, and now the most colorful trees are sparsely leafed. The photos above do not come close to exhibiting the reds and oranges and unreal autumn colors I see in other parts of town. But, still, I find them lovely.

"An image is an impression of the Truth,

which God has allowed us to glimpse with our sightless eyes."

~Andrei Tarkovsky

My son has long been an admirer of Russian film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky. He often sends me quotes from Tarkovsky’s Sculpting in Time, and I always love these quotes, and I love that Aaron thinks to send them to me. Months ago, Aaron told me about a book containing Polaroid photos taken by Tarkovsky. He even sent me a link so that I could see some of the photos, but I forgot about it until I saw the same link on Heidi Swanson’s 101 Cookbooks blog recently. And now I have the book in hand, and I think it is stunning. The photos look like paintings. Their subject matter is what is most interesting to me and Tarkovsky shoots my favorite kind of light. The photos are sprinkled with quotes and thoughts by Tarkovsky on the meaning of art and life and spirituality. I will definitely read his book, Sculpting in Time.

Poor picture--but love that boy!

Jayden signed my guestbook.

I don't think he can spell anything beyond his name, and he certainly doesn't know how to use a typewriter, but what does that matter? Typing is fun! And incoherent messages produced by little ones I love are as sweet as any others.

Three of my grandkids (and their parents) visited last Saturday. It was soooo much fun to see everyone! We read stories (the boys were gripped by the suspense of The Bears of Hemlock Mountain). We made smoothies (because that’s something we always do when we get together).

And we turned on the kids used-to-be bedtime lullaby CD. I swear this is the best CD ever for bedtime. When Roman was tiny, if he fussed in the car, Michelle would turn on this CD, and in literally seconds, Roman would be silent, and within a minute or so, he would be asleep. It was like a miracle sleeping potion. When I’d babysit the kids when they were younger, toddler Jayden would come to me when he was sleepy, point to the rocking chair, and say, “Veiss, Susy? Veiss.” This meant that he wanted me to rock him to sleep while I either played "Eidelweiss" from the CD or sang it to him myself while we rocked. So, when I put this CD on the player last Saturday, the boys actually got excited (and even a bit sentimental), told me to sit in the rocking chair, and climbed into my lap. For song after song, they laid their heads against me as we rocked and talked quietly. Jayden almost fell asleep.

And some things never change. . .

The other night I was in the living room, focused on whatever it was I was reading, when I took a break and went to the dark kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. Apparently, I had already thought of making tea earlier and had forgotten. Because I found this (yes I’m still at it, and, now, not only am I turning on the wrong burner, but now I am also forgetting that I turned on any burner at all!). . . Yikes.

It's a pretty day here with pretty light and leaves floating around in the breeze. I hope it's lovely where you are!

Autumn Leaves and Spider Webs. . .

2011-10-29T18:51:00.000-07:00

Autumn evening at home.

Autumn out one kitchen window.

Autumn out the other kitchen window.

Impressive work.

Click to see better.

I was standing at the kitchen sink yesterday afternoon watching a spider build a web just outside the window, and I was sort of in awe. The spider's skill is impressive, and his work is tedious. And I have always come along behind him and knocked down his webs with my broom. Poor little spider. (By the way, did you know a spider's web is many times the strength of steel of the same diameter?)

I walked outside to watch more closely. Impressive. Tireless spider. I'm leaving this one alone.

Spiders spend their entire life span capturing and eating other insects (about 2,000 in a year).

He spends his entire lifetime catching insects, via his web, and I keep making him rebuild the thing, which must make it difficult for him to catch his quota of insects. That spider must get pretty hungry sometimes.

Even though spiders do a great deal of good for our environment, spiders are greatly feared by most of the population. Most spiders are killed only because they scare people, not because they are actually dangerous to humans.

Spiders do not attack in herds. Spiders do not lay in wait and attack people. Spiders do not lift the covers at night and crawl into bed to bite people as they are sleeping. Some spiders can jump but they are not intentionally jumping at humans to attack them. A spider generally bites a human because it was scared and bites to defend itself. Spiders generally prefer to live in undisturbed areas such as corners of the house or the eaves or in the garden where they can catch insects in peace.

Well, that's a relief! I think this will be news to my sister, who has an irrational fear of spiders, so I hope she's reading this. (Herds of spiders are not lying in wait to attack you, JoAnne, and that spider running across your floor is as panicked as you are. Haha.)

(Everything in italics above is from the California Poison Control System. I was tempted to do some editing, but kept it "as is.")

Here's a promotion from the UK for "spider love." I'm willing to tolerate spiders, appreciate their contribution to maintaining a healthy ecosystem, and admire their artistry. I'm even willing to co-habitate with a reasonable number of them (unless a brown recluse shows up), but I'm not sure I'm ready to love them:

Spider Love.

All is well! A busy mid-terms week just ended, and I have not expired. God is good in many ways. In every way. I hope your autumn days are as lovely as mine.

A Few "Happy-Happy" Things. . .

2011-10-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

“When my one-year-old grandson Jayden enjoys something,

however mundane and ordinary,

he does a little dance and chants in sing-song,

"Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy..."

His cheerful enjoyment of the simplest things is an admirable trait,

so I will follow suit and make a point to notice and exude

"happy, happy, happiness" about simple, daily, easily overlooked things.”

~taken from my High Desert Home blog

Happy-happy me today. . .

~Friends who travel the world and bring me the best jasmine green tea from Asia (the highest quality, they say—for diplomats. . . and for me, too, apparently). It’s delicious. And when I run out, ultra-cool J-Tea from Eugene sells a mighty fine jasmine green tea themselves. Morning coffee~after dinner tea. Nice.

~A beautiful, warm, sunshiny afternoon on such a lovely campus. Leaves are turning, the sky is vibrant blue, and the air feels crisp-but-just-warm-enough. I sat outside on a bench between classes, and my nephew (a student at the honors college, like his sister) came by, sat down beside me, and we visited. Love my nephew!

~Fun at the football game with mom and gang. It got loud (and I got almost hoarse because I do my part as a fan!), and Oregon won even though our best player was out for the entire game and our quarterback went out with an injury just after half-time (and we were playing against a ranked team). No problem. We are rife with great backups! It’s super-fun to be in Autzen stadium—one of the most intimidating stadiums in the U.S., they say.

~Feeling immensely grateful to God for being able to afford to eat tasty, healthy food. And for what seems like a miraculous stretching of the grocery budget! Today: two pieces of sprouted grain toast with almond butter-miso spread; a loaded green smoothie (romaine, kale, cucumber, apple, lemon juice, banana); a falafel pita sandwich with lots-o-veggies; some dark chocolate; a healthy “raw” bar to get me through the afternoon; green tea; a giant dinner salad with romaine, pineapple, avocado, red bell pepper, and Asian vinaigrette, with curry-cashews on top; a bit more dark chocolate (see why this is so happy-happy?). You know, I just feel so great when I eat well.

And, finally, because I have five little quizzes to take online by midnight (and I need to do the homework first) and I have lots of reading and some short-answer questions to fill out. . . and still want to get to bed at a decent hour. . . The final happy-happy?

~Hijole! I got an A+ on my Spanish test. How did that happen? If you had told me a month ago that, after being in Spanish class for less than ten days, I’d be writing a two-page essay in Spanish on a test, I would have laughed. But, along with a page of questions we had to answer, that’s what we were asked to do, and I’m just so thankful that it went well. I don’t ever feel in total command of what we’re doing for class (in fact, sometimes I feel half-panicked about it), but maybe that’s just the nature of the process of this language-learning thing. (And maybe it’s also the nature of too-perfectionistic me—something I’m truly trying to overcome!)

But, at any rate, God is good! And I’m thankful my life is full of “happy, happy”! I hope yours is, too! (And for a lot of us, it’s all about the way we choose to look at it, isn't it?)

Learning to Love the Treadmill and Killing Many Birds with One Stone. . .

2011-10-10T22:57:00.000-07:00

Not a good picture, sorry.

I took it tonight in bad light.

But there's my study hall!

I have always shunned gyms and workout machines, but it turns out now that I have a little gym of sorts in my own house. My second bedroom. As I’ve mentioned before, I brought my son’s treadmill here to insure that I will get my daily exercise during the school year. I started out jogging on it in the early morning because a treadmill is mind-numblingly boring, and it takes less time to work out at the speed of a jog than at the speed of even a very fast-paced walk. It was jog, jog, jog, stare at the wall, stare at the wall, moving always, but getting nowhere, and time ticks more slowly on a treadmill than anywhere else in the entire world, I’m certain.

And then, to consolidate tasks and provide myself with more free time, I decided to study while working out on the treadmill. But jogging and reading doesn’t work well for me, so I began to walk and study instead. I’d start moderately and gradually build up to a very fast walk, add some steep inclines, level it back out, and walk, walk, walk while I studied. And a funny, wonderful thing happened. Time flew! And I began to remember what I studied better. And all of the endorphins, or whatever they are, from exercise gave me a serious mood lift. And I could feel myself getting in better shape. And stress was released. Wow.

I’m partly a kinesthetic learner, so, of course! This makes total sense. The treadmill is a perfect way for me to study, especially when I am reviewing and memorizing information and ideas. Now I hop on the treadmill more than once each day—sometimes several times--but I don't intend to do exercise overkill. I make sure I get one good workout on the machine, and the other times, I just walk and walk at a pace that feels good and fluid and that allows me to study easily. I can walk and study for an hour, and it seems like time has barely passed. I even really enjoy it. Again, wow.

This is fun. Forget the rocking chair. I have a treadmill!

Here's an article I found when I decided to see if others are doing what I'm doing:

Running While You Study

Some Saturday Notes. . .

2011-10-08T09:55:00.000-07:00

I need to make this fairly quick because I have a lot to do this weekend, and I really should be doing that now instead of this, but, oh well. I can use a mental break, and I’ll get right to it after this. Let’s see, how should I do this? How about a list of things I’ve been doing, thinking about, and enjoying? But first, please forgive me if I have not responded to your email. My inbox is a bit swamped, but after I finish all that I need to do today, I will try to begin answering. I hate to turn that into a vow because the computer might be the last thing I want to look at at the end of the day! :-)

Let's go!

~I have a new morning drink. (Yes, I still drink coffee, but not every single day without fail.) I have read a lot about the nutritional super-powers of chia seeds, most notably in the book Born to Run, and I’ve been enjoying them one way or another ever since. But why not do exactly what those phenomenal, joyful, mega-distance runners—the Tarahumara tribe of Mexico—do? Chia Fresca! (Scroll down a ways to see what this is about, if you don’t already know?) Chia is good for the skin, for regulation of blood sugar, and on and on.

~I was really getting consistent with my morning exercise routine. Walking some days on the treadmill (with lots of fast, steep inclines worked into the workout) and running on other days. I realized, though, that my exercise doesn’t seem to be as effective in the early morning as it is later, and I began to wonder about this, so I investigated online and came up with this article. I still do some early-morning exercise when I know there won’t be time later, but now I am getting on the treadmill later in the day most of the time, and the exercise does indeed seem like it is more beneficial then.

~With school and cooking and cleaning and talking to my kids and riding the bus (which eats up quite a bit of time) and church and on and on, I’m making a point to take time out for other things. Like reading something just for enjoyment. Another thing that I’m making a pointed effort to do every day is to remember to look for beauty. To get up and start counting my blessings and thanking the Lord for them. To notice the change of the seasons. To listen to the sounds around me. To notice how light falls into the rooms of this house differently as the year moves along (and to enjoy it). To continue to bring nature into the house.

“The true cook must have. . . a large dose of general worldly experience.

He is the perfect blend, the only perfect blend, of artist and philosopher.

He knows his worth: he holds in his palm the happiness of mankind,

the welfare of generations yet unborn. . .”

~Norman Douglas,

as quoted in Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David

“If you’re interested in cooking,

you’re also just naturally interested in art, in love, in culture.”

~Madame Jehane Benoit

To pay attention to food. It is beautiful. I’m making effort to move beyond utilitarian cooking to prepare something that is seasonal, healthy, delicious, and even attractive. And I want to take time to fully enjoy the gift of good, delicious food. I don’t know why, but at this time of year, I’m drawn to Deborah Madison. Her food is good, but it’s not just that. Having used this book so much when cooking for my family in the high desert, maybe it’s sentimental. I always open this book when it comes time to cook winter squash and other cozy foods, and this is exactly what I did last night. I baked a spaghetti squash and ate it, a la Deborah Madison, with butter and parmesan. Love this!

~As I’ve mentioned before, I am a mover (but also a quiet, contemplative sort) who likely has what many people might call ADD. This could partly explain why school has always been so distasteful to me. I learn well. Material is not difficult for me to comprehend, but I’m slow at studying, and I have to really structure how I’m going to attack my assignments in order not to feel swamped. I can also get tightly wound when I have a lot of intellectual stuff to do on demand, so I need to keep working to keep my mind settled down or my studying is very ineffective.

One thing that is frustrating about being a different (as opposed to inferior, as experts would sometimes make it seem) kind of learner is that school assignments do not necessarily align with this kind of learning, so it’s necessary to come up with strategies to address the material in my own particular way. The sad thing is that young kids don’t know how to do this and might find themselves so confused by what is expected of them and so overwhelmed by their inability to play the school game that they give up. And then they are labeled. And they learn to hate school. And they might not realize, or believe, how very intelligent (maybe even brilliant) they really are.

Recently, just to acquire some pointers that are geared for people like me, I’ve been doing some reading. A book (it’s sort of vulgar, actually) and an article that have been encouraging and helpful. I have come up with my own strategies, and, so far, they have been super-effective (don’t have time to explain!). One thing that is stressed in the literature is not to procrastinate or let yourself get distracted, so, guess what? Time to get going!

~I’ll end with the following (saving the best for last). My son sent me this excerpt from a book containing some journal writings of Russian film-maker, Andrei Tarkovsky. This is about the purpose of art, and I think it is wonderful and very worth reading. As Aaron said when he sent me this, "Tarkovsky is brilliant.":

"Given the competition with commercial cinema, a director has a

particular responsibility towards his audiences. I mean by this that

because of cinema's unique power to affect an auditorium — in the

identification of the screen with life—the most meaningless, unreal

commercial film can have just the same kind of magical effect on the

uncritical and uneducated cinema-goer as that derived by his

discerning counterpart from a real film. The tragic and crucial

difference is that if art can stimulate emotions and ideas,

mass-appeal cinema, because of its easy, irresistible effect,

extinguishes all traces of thought and feeling irrevocably. People

cease to feel any need for the beautiful or the spiritual, and consume

films like bottles of Coca-Cola.

The contact between film director and audience is unique to cinema in

that it conveys experience imprinted on film in

uncompromisingly affective, and therefore compelling, forms. The

viewer feels a need for such vicarious experience in order to make up

in part for what he himself has lost or missed; he pursues it in a

kind of 'search for lost time'. And how human this newly gained

experience will be depends only on the author. A grave responsibility!

I therefore find it very hard to understand it when artists talk about

absolute creative freedom. I don't understand what is meant by that

sort of freedom, for it seems to me that if you have chosen artistic

work you find yourself bound by chains of necessity, fettered by the

tasks you set yourself and by your own artistic vocation. Everything

is conditioned by necessity of one kind or another; and if it were

actually possible to find a person in conditions of total freedom, he

would be like some deep water fish that had been dragged up to the

surface. It's curious to reflect that the inspired Rublyov worked

within the strictures of the canon! And the longer I live in the West

the more curious and equivocal freedom seems to me. Very few people

are truly free, and our concern is to help more to become so.

In order to be free you simply have to be so, without asking

permission of anybody. You have to have your own hypothesis about what

you are called to do, and follow it, not giving in to circumstances or

complying with them. But that sort of freedom demands powerful inner

resources, a high degree of self-awareness, a consciousness of your

responsibility to yourself and therefore to other people.

Alas, the tragedy is that we do not know how to be free—we demand

freedom for ourselves at the expense of others and don't want to waive

anything of our own for the sake of someone else: that would be an

encroachment upon our own rights and liberties. All of us are infected

today with an extraordinary egoism. And that is not freedom; freedom

means learning to demand first and foremost of oneself, not of life or

of others, and knowing how to give: sacrifice in the name of love.

I don't want the reader to misunderstand me: what I am talking about

is freedom in an ultimate, moral sense. I don't mean to polemicise, or

to cast doubt on the unquestionable values and achievements which

distinguish the European democracies. But the conditions of these

democracies underline the problem of man's spiritual vacuum and

loneliness. It seems to me that in the struggle for political

liberties—important as these are—modern man has lost sight of that

freedom which has been enjoyed in every previous epoch: that of being

able to sacrifice oneself for the sake of

another.

Looking back now at the films I have made so far, it strikes me that I

have always wanted to tell of people possessed of inner freedom

despite being surrounded by others who are inwardly dependent and

unfree; whose apparent weakness is born of moral conviction and a

moral standpoint and in fact is a sign of strength.

The Stalker seems to be weak, but essentially it is he who is

invincible because of his faith and his will to serve others.

Ultimately artists work at their professions not for the sake of

telling someone about something, but as an assertion of their will to

serve people. I am staggered by artists who assume that they freely

create themselves, that it is actually possible to do so; for it is

the lot of the artist to accept that he is created by his time and the

people amongst whom he lives. As Pasternak put it:

Keep awake, keep awake, artist,

Do not give in to sleep . . .

You are eternity's hostage

And prisoner of time.

And I'm convinced that if an artist succeeds in doing something, he

does so only because that is what people need—even if they are not

aware of it at the time. And so it's always the audience who win, who

gain something, while the artist loses, and has to pay out."

2011-10-02T09:31:00.000-07:00

Who loves the rain,

And loves his home,

And looks on life with quiet eyes,

Him will I follow through the storm

And at his hearth-fire keep me warm,

Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise

Who loves the rain,

And loves his home,

And looks on life with quiet eye.

~Frances Shaw

2011-09-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

Loved the soft, pretty light of this morning.

Thankful for excellent insight into how to

organize something I was trying to manage.

Loved running into my niece on campus

(a student of the honors college)

and having a lengthy chat with her in the sunshine.

Loved the story Michelle told me about Roman.

He met a boy who speaks only Spanish.

He said the boy seemed shy and quiet.

So Roman walked up to him,

and in a very friendly six-year-old gesture,

blurted out his entire Spanish vocabulary:

"Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis,

siete, ocho, nueve, diez."

The boy just stared at him with big eyes, Roman said.

And Roman was pleased about being so very bilingual.

Happy Friday!

This Morning. . .

2011-09-28T08:38:00.000-07:00

This is how my life looks now. Some of it, at least.

But don't worry. I won't focus only

on my school books and school if I post here.

Up early. First things first. Coffeee and "Seek ye first the kingdom of God. . ." Then on to the treadmill with some notes to study. I found I can't study while running, but I can while walking, so I mix it up, adding some hills (inclines) to the workout, too. I've almost got the tech-stuff down entirely, so I guess my brain has a bit of flexibility left in it!

I've got some reading to do, then it's off to the laundromat to dry my clothes (my dryer plug does not work in this old house).

But, first, I really liked a story in my devotional this morning. It was about Paganini. He walked in front of an audience and realized he didn't have his own violin. Thinking there was a mix-up, he went backstage to find his own violin but found it had been stolen. He returned to stage and said that he would show the audience that music was not about the instrument itself--he would show them the soul of music, and he played his heart out to wild appreciation from the audience.

Then these words followed: "It is your mission, tested and tried one, to walk out on the stage of this world and reveal to all earth and Heaven that the music is not in conditions, not in the things, not in externals, but the music of your life is in your own soul."

Love that!

Have a lovely Wednesday.

Second Sunday Post--Miso Soup. . .

2011-09-25T16:27:00.000-07:00

This one's for you, Kate.

The other night I was hungry but I didn't have a lot of time to cook, so I made miso soup. Miso soup can be as basic as heating 1 c. of water, pouring it into a mug, and stirring in 1 t. of miso until it is completely blended into the water. The broth is simply drunk from the mug and is a common, comforting, and nourishing way of enjoying miso soup. And there are all kinds of ways you can go from there to make the soup more complex. I'm sure recipes abound online.

There are several colors of miso, starting with white, which is the sweetest and mellowest type, ranging to dark brown, which has a much stronger taste. I've used them all. Currently I have white miso in my fridge. I actually make two miso spreads (one with tahini and one with almond butter) for toast or crackers, too.

When using miso, it's important not to stir it into broth or soup that is very hot because miso is full of beneficial live cultures (I'm sure you know this) that are killed by heat.

The miso soup I made recently was really basic. I heated what was probably about 3 c. of water, dropped in a Rapunzel brand natural vegetable broth cube and stirred to dissolve it. Then I added a big handful or two of chopped cabbage, a sliced carrot, and a sliced 1/2-onion and cooked the vegetables until they were tender. I removed this from the heat and squirted in some lemon juice and maybe some nama shoyu. Then, when the soup had cooled just a bit, I stirred in about 3 barely heaping teaspoons of miso until it was dissolved. That's it. And it was delicious.

In the journal where I keep my made-up recipes, I wrote down instructions for a similar, but slightly more complex, miso soup that I made about 2 years ago. It was the recipe for the exact soup that is pictured in the photo above (taken from my Gathering Up My Comforts blog). That recipe is below. If you can't read my writing after clicking on the photo, just ask, and I am certainly quite willing to type it out! :-)

Autumn Sunday Notes and a Recipe. . .

2011-09-25T14:28:00.000-07:00

Last night’s tasty, healthy, easy dinner:

Tempeh with Veggies, Mixed Rice, and Peanut Sauce.

It also happens to be vegan.

From my brown recipe notebook.

This morning I was up early-ish, but not as early as I like to rise. I drank a glass of water, counted my many blessings, and plopped on the living room floor for some quiet time. I really like sitting on the floor, so I am loving having this new, cushy rug. And my low-slung, antique tea table is perfect for this because when I sit in front of it, it’s the same height as when I sit on a chair at a regular table.

After quiet time, I hopped onto the treadmill. Yes, the treadmill. I adopted it from Aaron yesterday, who wanted it out of his apartment. We brought it here last evening, and then I made the dinner pictured above (the recipe will be at the end of this post; and, by the way, Kate, if you see this, I haven't forgotten the miso soup--I'll add that later today). After eating and cleaning up my mess, I spent the evening puttering around while listening to the Oregon Ducks football game. (Go Ducks! Yay Ducks!)

Oh, but I was talking about the treadmill. Since my fall term schedule is not going to allow me to easily go for a walk during the day, the treadmill might come in handy. Problem is, being on that thing is painfully boring. It’s sort of frustrating to walk and walk and walk and never get anywhere or see anything new! Just the same old walls, and they never get even an inch closer.

So, I am going to attempt to take up jogging again to shorten the amount of time I need to be on that machine. I commenced this morning, and forced myself to jog slowly and stop early in order to fend off feelings of spite for the treadmill and for jogging. I’ll just take my time and build slowly because what’s the hurry?! And we’ll see how it goes. I’m thankful to have a way to move (besides the aerobic routine I do two or three times a week in my living room), but I’ve got to figure out something to do while I’m on the treadmill besides watching the numbers change on the dashboard (or whatever it is called) because that is not exactly inspiring or motivation-building.

Anyway, after drinking my post-treadmill-workout green smoothie and taking a shower, it was off to church. I picked up Aaron, and as we walked down the sidewalk together to the entryway, we were both struck with a happy feeling of autumn. The sky was grey, and a blustery breeze picked up the earliest falling leaves of the season to send them dancing and skittering in the air and along the ground. I got so caught up in the feeling that I wanted to join the leaves! (When my sister came into church, she exclaimed about the nice fall feeling outside, too.)

Church was wonderful today, as usual. And I saw my friend Sue, who said she has been reading my blog, so if you see this, Sue—Hello to you! :-)

My niece and nephew came home with me after church because their mom, brother, sister, and a friend were going to nearby stores and would stop by here to pick the kids up when they finished shopping. I didn’t have much to offer my niece and nephew to eat but a banana. Then I popped the few kernels of popcorn that were left in the jar (must buy more today), and it made enough for a little snack, and that was good enough! (You’ve gotta have some kind of snack to eat when kids are over, you know!)

Soon, the shoppers arrived, and for just a little while, my house was full of people and buzzing chatter. It’s always so nice to have friends and family come by. A home is made for people.

And now it is quiet again, and I’m finishing my cup of coffee. The wind has picked up, and rain has begun to pour. It feels cozy in the house, and Sunday is a good day for being inside and feeling cozy.

I hope your day is as pleasant as mine.

And now, the recipe:

This is really quick and easy to make if you have pre-cooked rice and peanut sauce on hand. If not, it takes 50 minutes to cook whole grain rice and just a few to mix the peanut sauce.

Here are the amounts I used and how I cooked the dish. This made around 3 servings. I would have used more veggies but I’m cutting back to save money, and I can do this for some meals because I get plenty of vegetables over the course of the day:

~1/3 c. red bell pepper, chopped

~½ large head baby bok choy, leaves separated from stem; leaves julienned and stems chopped

~2 shallots, thinly sliced (1/2 medium yellow onion would work)

~1 medium to large carrot, grated

~6-8 oz. tempeh, cut into bite-sized pieces

~1 ½ c. cooked rice (I used a combination of short grain brown rice and black Chinese Forbidden rice

~peanut sauce (recipe follows)

Peanut sauce (use your favorite; mine is a bit tangy because I like it that way; amounts are approximate—I don’t measure): Thoroughly mix 1/3 c. peanut butter, 2-3 T. rice vinegar, 1-2 t garlic-chile sauce, juice of ½ lime, 2 minced cloves garlic, 1 t. toasted sesame oil (or so), 1-2 T maple or agave, 1-2 T. shoyu.

Saute tempeh over medium heat in a neutral tasting oil, browning first one side and then the other, til golden. Salt lightly and remove from heat.

Now add more oil, if needed, and sauté all of the vegetables at once (minus the bok choy leaves) until crisp-tender. When the vegetables are ready, lightly salt them, and then add the bok choy leaves until they begin to wilt. Now add the tempeh, and heat through.) Toss in the cooked rice and, again, fry, stirring, til heated through. Stir in the peanut sauce until it is warmed and the dish is nicely mixed. Serve.

Bon (healthy) appétit!

Five Things for Saturday. . .

2011-09-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

~Right now I’m sipping away at a really, really fine cup of coffee. And this coffee is truly (and literally) a gift! (Thank you to you-who-knows-who-I-mean!) The sun shines and the air is lovely warm, so today’s coffee is happy-coffee rather than cozy-coffee (cozy is what coffee is in early dark morning or when it rains; there’s also meditative-coffee for morning quiet time; and there’s convivial-coffee for drinking with scones and conversation when family gathers). I’ve been out and about town this morning and have conquered a chunk of items on my list. Are you like me? Does it feel really good to cross items off the list or put a check mark in the box beside it? I happen to like making little boxes next to each item on my list and making that satisfying little checkmark.

~I’m really liking my routine of getting up early (usually at or before 6 a.m.), taking some deep breaths and drinking a glass of water (often with lemon juice), opening blinds and windows, sitting on a floor pillow on my living room rug for quiet time, standing up to stretch and move, turning on the music and exercising, making myself a green smoothie, taking a shower, and getting started with my day. (Whew, that was a mouthful.) Until Monday, there’s no real pattern to my day—just bopping through my to-do list, which can be a really pleasant thing if I want it to. It always feels really good to accomplish a lot during a day if I do it with a smile on my face, remember to enjoy all of the people I encounter, and determine not to rush or press through the list just to “get it over with.” We might as well make the effort to relax and enjoy each thing we do, right?

~I have to say, where is my mind? Really. I have that long to-do list for today that I mentioned, but nothing on it is time-consuming or difficult, so it shouldn’t be too tough to accomplish enough of it if I set my mind to it and move along methodically. Problem #1: I am not particularly methodical. Problem #2: It’s me we’re talking about. Problem #3: When I drove away to tackle part of my list, I left my mind at home, in addition to a few other things. After hitting every stop light just as it turned red (there are few things more satisfying than hitting green lights all the way to a destination!) on the way to the university and finally parking my car near the bookstore, I realized I hadn’t brought my student ID with me, and not sure whether or not I would need it, I headed back home. I ran into the house, grabbed my wallet, drove back to the bookstore area, and started looking for a parking spot, when I remembered, “Oh, dang! I took my parking meter quarters out of my bag yesterday!” (Why? I do not know!) So, I parked in the closest non-pay parking spot I could find, which was, of course, a long way from where I was going. I walked into the used bookstore that is a block away from the university bookstore to see if I could buy my course-books there, when I suddenly remembered, “Dang! I left my glasses in the car!” Not wanting to walk all the way to the car and back, I asked an able-bodied bookstore worker to help me because “I can’t read a word without my glasses.” She was cheerfully willing and truly helpful, but I couldn’t get what I needed there, so I went to the university store where an equally cheerfully helper took my list and handed me the books I will be using this term. I walked out into the sunshine with a bag of reaalllly expensive books, thinking how nice people are, and headed back to the car. Parking far away turned out to be actually sort of nice because it was just so perfect and lovely outside that the walk was enjoyable.

Unfortunately, not a great photo.

~You want to know the cookbooks I’ve been looking at most in recent days, don’t you? Well, here they are, from top down. Elizabeth David’s book contains three of her classics in one volume. She was a master cookery writer from England, and this book is literary and enjoyable! It offers a true understanding of food and cooking from cultures around the Mediterranean.

Culinary Artistry is super-nice to have on hand for someone who loves to cook and improvise and make up their own dishes. The book alphabetically arranges most foods that are commonly used in cooking and offers a list of the ingredients that match well with that item. It’s a great resource! I use it all the time.

Vegan Soul Kitchen is an excellent book. The food is delicious, nutritious, and straightforward. Nothing elaborate or complicated here—it’s just good, down-to-earth, healthy cooking.

Super Natural Every Day is a book I don’t use all that often, but everything I’ve made from it has been right up my alley, taste-wise, so I will probably find more and more recipes from this book that become staples in my kitchen.

I think The Food of Spain by Claudia Roden is a masterpiece. I love Claudia’s books for the excellent writing and delicious recipes. She makes me want to cook everything in them and immerse myself in the culture she writes about.

And at the bottom of the pile, see that attractive, thin brown journal? That’s my recipe book. It’s a collection of things I’ve made often from the books of others, but, mostly, it’s stuff I’ve created myself and liked. So, there you have it (and I had the gall to include myself with these other masters of cooking)!

~Three colorful things I like in my kitchen. Vintage potholders, handmade cloth napkins, and vintage dish towels (which are not pictured). I use all of these daily. The potholders are cute, have character and history, and work great. The napkins were made for me by my daughter Michelle as a Christmas gift one year—they are my everyday napkins. Love them! I also love the towels and thought I had a picture of them, but I can’t find it. The towels are kitschy, colorful, fun, souvenir or calendar towels, all made of linen, and they work much better than the cotton towels I used before.

Well, now both the French press and my mug are empty, so it’s time to move along to the next thing. Have a happy Saturday

Hanging on to God in the Dark. . .

2011-09-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

One day last spring, I sat in a college classroom chatting with a fellow student while we waited for class to begin. We’d gotten to know each other over the course of the term, and for some reason she really took to me and began to tell me about her life. On this day, she told me about being diagnosed with cancer a few years earlier and how it plunged her into depression. She said that something really good came out of it, though:

“It finally did away with the last vestiges of the Christian faith I was raised in. I came out of that cancer battle knowing that either God didn’t exist or that He didn’t care about me because I was alone in my suffering! I got through that time, and I learned that I didn’t need that crutch of religion. That I am a strong person who can fight her own battles. It made me free from the oppression of religion, and that is a wonderful thing.”

As she spoke, I knew I would respond, but I wasn’t sure how. I wasn’t about to begin a discussion of apologetics and defend my faith! It seemed silly and unloving to do so when she was sharing her honest heart, and I don’t know how to do that anyway. I wanted to speak to her honestly, in love, of God’s goodness and the reality of His existence. But the teacher was setting up for class, which was scheduled to begin right then, so I didn’t have much time. I was aware that others around us were listening, which meant I was essentially responding to them, too.

All I had time to say (generally, because I can’t remember the exact words) was, “Oh, that’s really interesting because my experience was exactly the opposite! I’ve been through some very painful trials and have suffered hard losses, and while there were certainly some dark, difficult times when I couldn’t sense anything of God and I sometimes had questions and doubts about Him, ultimately, I believed He was there. And as I held on to Him, light eventually came again, and it came brighter than ever. By hanging on to my belief in God through those times, my faith was strengthened. Like you, I was changed by my suffering, but in exactly the opposite way. I became more certain than ever that God is real and loving and good.”

“And,” I whispered, smiling, as the teacher called us to attention, “I’m really happy you don’t have cancer anymore!”

“Wow,” she whispered back. “The contrast of our stories is so interesting.”

We never talked about it again. I could go on about whether or not she ever did really have faith or know the Lord, but that’s really beside the point of what I want to say this morning (and beside the point of anything, really). I got to thinking about faith and trials and darkness when I cheated by reading ahead in my devotional this morning. For tomorrow’s portion, there is a passage by C.H. Spurgeon that says:

“Our faith is the center of the target at which God doth shoot when He tries us; and if any other grace shall escape untried, certainly faith shall not. There is no way of piercing faith to its very marrow like the sticking of the arrow of desertion into it; this finds it out whether it be of the immortals or no. Strip it of its armor of conscious enjoyment, and suffer the terrors of the Lord to set themselves in array against it; and that is faith indeed which can escape unhurt from the midst of the attack. Faith must be tried, and seeming desertion is the furnace, heated seven times, into which it might be thrust. Blest the man who can endure the trial.”

Before going further, I need to respond to that last sentence, “Blest be the man who can endure the trial.” I’ve been through some tough things, but others have suffered much, much more. God knows what we can bear, but He doesn’t leave us alone to bear it. What He really knows is where our faith will break, where we will stop clinging to Him and flee. He is willing and able to get us through anything, but He stops where our faith will fail. We are stretched, but He will not allow the one who looks to Him to be overcome. And the enduring? It comes from Him. It’s not about our own resolve but about the faith He gives us. He will give it to us in abundant measure, but we seem to need to be stretched for it to grow.

Our trials prove whether or not our faith is real. And, for the one who never really did know God, this ends up being something of a gift because it takes away the pretense of faith or the rickety props of mere religion. It strips us of all that (frees us!) so that we are now wide open, unhindered by our religious notions, to seeing who God really is. So I think my classmate was right. She was freed. It was a gift. And I hope that now she’ll find the God who loves her enough to die for her—the one who says, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” And means it.

But I said I wasn’t going to get into that. I don’t know if I would have thought to have related the story of the woman in my class had I not run across some loose papers in a box yesterday bearing some quickly, very messily, scribbled thoughts of mine that coincided with today’s devotional and reminded me of my classroom conversation.

The papers told part of the story of my struggle to hang on when God seemed far away in the midst of my struggles. I want to share those jottings here because we all go through dark times (if you haven’t yet, you will), and we all have our faith stretched and tested, so that, as the Bible says, it can be proved genuine. Have you had times when you doubted or wondered if God was real or if He cared about you? Did you wonder if He really was in control, or if He was powerless to do anything about your situation? Have you doubted He was listening? I have.

Here’s what I wrote. It starts sort of abruptly and reads somewhat stilted throughout because I didn’t initially write this to share with anyone, and I want to leave it unedited:

When the battle begins, I am ready for it. I think I’m surrendered. I proclaim high ideals and trust. And I humbly mean it. I know that my hope is in Him.

And the war comes. And I pray. And I feel so buoyed and strengthened. I praise God. I am hopeful. I know He is victor!

And the fight continues, day after endless day. My feelings of conviction do not strengthen me anymore. I face the hard fact of battle. It is relentless. And God does not keep me floating victoriously above it. I’m in it. He’s there, too, but this is not so easy anymore.

And the battle, the struggle, goes on and on and on. And I become weary, begin to doubt. Where is the victory? Where is the glory? Where is God’s honor? Why do I hurt so?

And the battle goes on. Relentless. Hard. And I grow even more weary. Faith is tested. High spiritual ideals are smashed. All of my “readiness” is long worn away.

Now I am at the bottom. There is no end to this. This is not fun. It is not easy. I do not feel in any way strong, ready, or victorious. I have no battle charge left in me. I do not know what God is doing, and it does not seem to matter.

A choice: Will I trust Him? Will I walk on, believing that, in spite of all appearances, all lack of apparent victory, with no feeling whatsoever of battle-readiness or even battle-willingness, He is God? Even further, do I believe in Him at all? Is He really there? Is He paying attention? Does He care? Does He love? Is He really Sovereign? Even in my situation?

What if it never gets easier? What if this is the 100-year-war—a big one? A hard one? And there are 40 years left of my life? Am I willing? Do I believe? Is there any beauty? Love? Goodness?

Can I have joy in the midst of the war? Victory over my self? Will God do that? Can He develop my faith? Can He give me joy and strength?

Yes.

From the humbled state where all is gone and my faith shakes, when I am reduced to doubt and questions once again, He strengthens and encourages, but it’s not once for all. It’s day by day, minute by minute. . . that’s how He works.

Psalms and coffee. (Dorothy Day: "My strength returns to me with my morning cup of coffee and reading the psalms.”) No joke. My strength returns. Without it, I’m empty. Discouraged. Battle-weary. Unable to fight. Unwilling. Apathetic.

Daily He arms me with strength. Daily, it is Him.

I thank Him for the struggle. I thank Him for the low place. I think I can’t bear more, but I trust Him. Either He is who He says He is, or He isn’t. I will believe Him, and I will trust Him to help me in my unbelief.

It’s all about Him. There is no fight for this battle left in me. No battle-charge. Just a willingness to walk straight into it every day, trusting in His love and goodness. And I can’t even be willing without His help.

Lord, help me!

: : : : :

And here I am now, probably a year and a half or so after I wrote those words, still on a path that is not always easy, that hurts often, that is somewhat lonely at times, and I still sometimes find myself in the dark, but I am also deeply and richly blessed. I have so much! And God has proved Himself to me again and again. Many, many times He has given me an especial, overwhelmingly sweet sense of His love and nearness. This is a gift that is given in the dark.

God is faithful, and He does love us. Amy Carmichael once wrote that God entrusts us with the unexplained. Faith keeps going. Don’t give up. Look to Him! He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

I wish I could make everyone know, make everyone believe. But all I can do is say is what the Bible says, and what I know to be true--that He is there, and He loves you, even in the long, silent dark.

Blessings to you today.

2011-09-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

"My main and constant feeling is that of life.

It is quite difficult to express it in words.

Maybe the closest to that feeling is the word wonder,

the perception of each moment,

each situation as a gift (rather than obvious, evident).

Everything is always new, everything is not simply life,

but encounter with life, and thus a revelation."

~Alexander Schmemann

from The Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann

: : : : :

wherelings whenlings,

(daughters of ifbut offsprings of hopefear

sons of unless and children of almost)

never shall guess the dimension of

him whose

each

foot likes the

here of this earth

whose both

eyes

love

this now of the sky.

~e.e. cummings

Want Creative Kids? Leave 'Em Alone. . .

2011-09-20T09:56:00.000-07:00

Oops. I got sidetracked from what I meant to post today by an article I came across last evening. This is just a bit of opinionatedness coming out, and you are welcome to disagree with me. :-) I suppose all you really need is the title of the post, but here's more, if you're interested:

Take children from their natural "work" of self-directed play and exploration; sit them in a chair and confine them to about four square feet of personal space for much of the day (during the most important developmental years of their lives); ask them not to speak unless they raise their hands and are granted permission; insist that they keep their minds solely and fully on the task that has been assigned to them; teach them always to color within the lines, and correct them that the sky is blue when they veer from this truth; tell them there is one right way to solve a problem and reward them with superlatives and gold stars when they find it; tell them where to sit, where to stand, when to use the bathroom, when to speak, when and where and how to play, and so on and so forth.

Do this, and we will certainly greatly hinder the innate creativity of the children in our care. We may even succeed in suppressing or killing it entirely.

And having achieved this, but never supposing that the loss of creativity has anything to do with children being schooled, we innocently and earnestly scratch our heads and wonder why they have become increasingly less creative as they’ve grown older.

We are astute enough to recognize that creativity is important—that this is what sparks invention, great art, literature, and music, and all kinds of beauty and innovation, as well as an ability to think well and solve challenging problems—so, we put our best adult educational minds together to imagine and devise ways to help our children develop the important skill of creativity.

We study it, analyze it, dissect it, ask how our great thinkers, inventors, creators, and leaders thought and worked, and then we develop exercises that will nudge (or require) our school children to begin to think like those creative minds. We write curricula and develop programs, and--voila!--we have very poorly, ineffectively, and likely incorrectly, attempted to capture what would have been natural had we left children alone.

Children are innately creative. Really, in light of the fact that we are made in the image of our Creator, is this any wonder? We are made to think and act creatively.

Children easily and naturally develop creativity through self-directed play. Children choose to play only at what is interesting to them, and we all know that when something interests us, we are able to apply a great deal of focus and energy to that endeavor. As they play, children solve problems and set challenges for themselves at the perfect level of difficulty. They like to stretch and reach (they are bored otherwise), but the goals they set are also attainable (if they are too difficult, children will simply reset them without grading themselves or feeling like they have failed). Upon success, after a sufficient amount of “practice” at that level, children set the bar higher. Then higher. And higher. And all along, they think critically and trouble-shoot creatively. They develop ideas and new ways of doing things. They think “out of the box” (to use a bit of jargon).They are intensely focused, they are highly motivated, they are having fun, and they are highly successful.

During play, children also learn naturally to appreciate beauty. Their senses are attuned to the world around them—to the wonders of nature, to the strains of a lovely composition in the background, to what is beautiful, interesting, or appealing. They soak it in subtly and constantly and gain a deep appreciation for what is lovely. They begin to develop tastes and preferences that are all their own, and they apply this sensibility to everything they consider and do.

Children behave in play the way we only dream they will behave in school.

All you have to do is look up “play and creativity” on Google or Google Scholar to see that research shows the two to be powerfully linked. But when scholars and educators realize that play is an important key to the development of creativity, they don’t think, “Oh, that’s easy. We’ll let the kids play, just like they did from the minute they were born.” Instead, we say to these school children, “Quit playing around and get back to work!” And, as we speak the words, we are devising strategies to make school more playful and spending huge sums of money on programs that will incorporate (teacher-guided) play into lessons.

Does this strike anyone else as ludicrous? How about this innovative idea instead: Just let kids play. Let them at it! And stay out of it.

When looking up a certain book on the internet last night, I ran across some ideas about creativity that seemed to be presented as eye-opening. I scanned the article for its supposed new insight, but all I found was what parents of kids who spend long hours at unstructured, self-guided play already know. Each of these suggestions seems obvious because they occur naturally within true play, especially in a home environment that is established to encourage play and learning.

In this home atmosphere it doesn’t even occur to us to tell kids to do something creative (as the “Forget Brainstorming” article—linked above—warns against doing) because, when they play, they already are. Likewise, we don’t need to tell them (or lure them) to get moving because, again, they already are. We don’t need to encourage them to take breaks or switch things up because this is how kids roll when they play. All of this research is innate to them. We don’t need to worry about reducing screen time because it has already made sense to us that screen time keeps our kids from many good things, so we’ve addressed that. The part about exploring other cultures? Well, what did creative people do before they could watch a documentary on China? As long as our kids are around a variety of interesting, diverse people and we are listening to their stories and learning about them, I don’t think we need to overstress this. Follow a passion? Well, isn’t that what kids do when they play? And never fear! The interests and passions of childhood become more sophisticated (and look more scholarly) as kids grow older. Ditch the suggestion box? Yeah, well, we never had one of those, either.

You know me. I’m a mostly unschoolish type, so it probably seems natural for me to say “just let a child play and everything will fall into place.” I do think play is powerful, but I don’t think play alone will make everything come together for education or life. (Again, it’s about that atmosphere, and play is part of that—a big part.) I’m also not saying that a child shouldn’t learn to listen well, sit still, pay attention, focus on the task at hand, and finish the work he is given, but a schoolish structure should not overwhelmingly dominate his time. I don’t know about you, but if I were to err, I would err on the side of allowing too much free time because I found that when my kids were deeply engaged in life and play, free time became very serious, creative, and (I cringe to say it) productive, “work.”

Creativity demands time and freedom for a person to play in his own way, from early childhood all the way into old age. I believe that true play is good work, and the development of creativity arises from this.

A Late-Afternoon Improvised Daybook. . .

2011-09-19T17:22:00.000-07:00

What I've Been Doing. . .

Lissy enjoying NC Wyeth's art at Portland Art Museum.

I’ve been to Portland to visit the members of my family who live up there—Aimee and Josiah and their sweet little girl and Melissa. Melissa and I went to the Portland Art Museum together. She was tickled to see an NC Wyeth illustration (The Great Train Robbery) because Wyeth is one of her favorite illustrators (possibly the favorite?). I own a book with the collected correspondence (maybe just with his extended family) of NC Wyeth, which I love to read. This is the book where I got one of my favorite “kindred spirit” quotes: “Canned life is not agreeable to me.” Yep, I’m with you there, NC!

Franciscan Monk in the Garden of Gethsemane.

John Singer Sargent

We all agree that this William Bouguereau portrait subject

looks like a cross between little Liya and Michelle!

Seeing a painting in real life, as you know, is so much more striking and wonderful than seeing even an excellent print of it, so we stood and looked over Wyeth’s oil painting for a long time. Another one we both loved was John Singer Sargent’s Franciscan Monk in the Garden of Gethsemane.

On the way back home, Aaron and I stopped off to see Michelle and her three little ones and were greeted with squeals and hugs, which is always nice. The kids showed us all of the things they’ve been doing and pulled out their favorite books for us to read together. Roman showed us the little “mounting board” (a piece of cardboard) where he has been pinning the insects he collects. I love to see this kind of thing! Michelle was busy with her usual projects. She is one of those people who gets things done! Very creative, artistic, and undaunted by any challenge that presents itself. I love to see what she’s been up to when I visit. Today she had the bookcase she built several years ago lying on its back on the floor. She was removing molding so she can replace it with something that looks more substantial. I’m sure it will be wonderful when she's through with it.

Fading flowers, but they still looked sweet on the kitchen window

sill when I walked in the house today.

I arrived back here early this afternoon, and when I came into the house, I realized that this place really and truly, finally, feels entirely like Home. I stepped in the door, took a deep breath, and smiled, “Ahhhh. . .” as I walked through the house, dropping bags and suitcases in whichever rooms they belonged. I lifted blinds and opened windows to let in today’s really nice fall breeze, admired the feeling early autumn light brings into the house, turned on some music, and enjoyed being back home. The house felt bright and cheerful.

Outside. . .

Breezy, warm weather. Dry leaves are sprinkled across the front lawn. The large maple in the front yard hasn’t changed much, but the green of the leaves isn’t as vibrant and fresh as it once was, and the leaves almost make a crinkling noise as they rub together in the wind. It has been wet and drizzly in Portland the last few days, and I assume it was the same here, but today cleared up entirely to welcome blue, sunny skies. On the drive home, I spotted a flock of geese flying overhead in their migratory v-formation. I wonder if they’ll stop by the area where I used to live? It is a magnificent place to live for birdwatchers.

In the Kitchen. . .

Stray tomatoes on the kitchen counter this afternoon.

In Portland, Aimee—my vegan daughter—oversaw all food and cooking, and the girl can cook! She’s also extremely knowledgeable about nutrition and makes sure she gets everything she needs from her diet. I love eating Aimee’s food! We went to our favorite food cart, Native Bowl, while we were in Portland, and we all had the Alberta Bowl with, as the menu description says, “ grilled tofu (amazingly tasty!), house-made fire breathing dragon sauce (with sesame and sriracha!), jasmine rice, shredded cabbage, carrots, and scallions.”

All I’ve eaten here at home today, so far, has been popcorn! I make popcorn three or four times a week. I always pop it in coconut oil and then toss it with salt and nutritional yeast. At first I wasn’t sure I liked the nutritional yeast on the popcorn, but now I don’t like eating popcorn without it. The taste really grew on me, and Aaron said the same thing happened to him.

Reading. . .

I lounged around for awhile perusing old magazines.

Not much because who wants to read when visiting family (especially when there’s a cute little grandbaby around)?! But I did read Palace Walk every evening. I’m moving slowly, but steadily, through the book. I sort of regret mentioning it here, though, because I’m afraid it could be offensive to a lot of people. I don’t know if this falls in the category of reading, but I picked up a few vintage Better Homes and Gardens magazines to browse this afternoon. Reading through these is quite entertaining because household and cooking tips seem so obvious, silly, or dated, and in the case of the recipes, often extremely unappealing.

In one of the magazines, I casually glanced at an ad of a college girl in her dorm room who was holding something small in her hands, up near her face, and my immediate thought was that she was texting someone. But I immediately laughed because I knew that this was impossible—when the magazine was published, in 1957, there was no such thing as a cell phone. The girl was actually reading a little book, I think, and what a novel idea! This made me realize, once again, that being alone or having quiet times in our days are no longer givens. Solitude is now something we must carve out, make room for, insist upon. What a loss.

A Few Plans for the Week. . .

To finish cleaning and organizing the house before classes start next week. I need to buy my books, figure out the location of my classes, make sure my financial aid is in order, buy some supplies, get that bus sticker I keep meaning to get, check out a (free!) bike on campus for use during the school year, and a few other things.

I need to think forward to the holidays and make some plans because I need to start now if I’m going to get Christmas gifts done.

I also want to measure some unframed prints, pictures, and artwork and start looking at Goodwill for an eclectic collection of frames. I figure this is a good way to go since I can’t afford to have anything framed professionally, and I can’t afford new frames, either. There are plenty of interesting, vintage and modern, frames to choose from at Goodwill if I will just bother to take the time to look for them. I have some of my kids’ artwork to frame and some other things that have never been hung.

And I need to get my food plan set so that I can eat well during fall term.

I’m also intending to enjoy this fall weather! I pointed out to Aaron the formation of geese I saw while driving this morning, and I said that it is a crime not to pay attention to the seasons. There’s so much to see and notice, and it’s all lovely and interesting! There are deep spiritual lessons in the seasons, too, if we are paying attention.

This afternoon I am thankful to God for a safe trip; for truly wonderful, funny, interesting, smart, kind, generous children and grandchildren; for a car; for food on my table; for natural light; for friends who make my day when I open my mailbox; for so much love in my life; and for peace and joy.

I am a blessed woman.

A Few Things. . .

2011-09-16T08:54:00.000-07:00

Late summer fruit--peaches. These weren't as good

as recent peaches (the season ran late here), so I think

the last tasty peach has been eaten. Sad.

Oh, my. The second half of my speaking notes about "margin" are a mess. When I first ran across them, I only skimmed over the notes to get the gist of what I wrote, and I expected them to be clean-ish like the first half, but instead, they are a loose collection of quotes and jottings and too much repetition. I certainly hope that when I spoke at that brunch I was able to clean it all up and make sense of the topic!

I spent some time last night trying to put these too-messy-to-post notes into prose, and I made good progress (I'm nearing the end) but didn't finish. I don't have time to do so this morning, either, because I'm getting ready to head out of town for a few days to see my girls. There will be wi-fi at their house, and, depending on what everyone is doing, I might have a bit of time to post a thing or two (including the notes I'm trying to finish). If not, I'll get them done as soon as I return home.

At any rate, I can't wait to see my girls and do some things around town with them.

I've stayed home for the last three days to take care of some paperwork and get ready to start fall term classes. I've also been gradually gearing my life and home toward the autumn and winter seasons, not consciously, but naturally. For instance, it seemed natural on a recent cool evening to braise cabbage until meltingly tender and eat it with garlicky-lemony mashed sweet potatoes. Definitely delicious, and definitely not summer food. And when I was reading in the living room one evening, I got chilly, and since it's too early in the year to turn on heat, I brought out an afghan to wrap around me. Since I'll likely need the afghan again soon, it made sense to leave it on the couch.

As the seasons shift places, morning light in the house has gradually taken on a new feel. It is warmer, more mellow, and more fleeting. It's a cozy light that makes me want to bake something!

That is one cozy rug!

I snapped the photo when lighting was bad,

but click if you want to see better.

You can see my mess from typing my "margin" notes

on the computer table. And my coffee!

And a dish towel on the back of the chair. (?)

When I moved into this house in early May, these wood floors were cold! I didn't even like to come into the living room then, and since I don't want to spend this coming winter entirely in the kitchen, I've been looking for a really-inexpensive rug. I was hoping to find a sort of plush, light-colored shag. Normally I wouldn't go with a light color but this room is dark, and winter sunlight only touches the very edge of the room for mere minutes in early morning, so the room can use any brightness I can give it. I wanted a rug I could sit on and that my grandkids could play on when they come. So, I was happy when I found this fairly plush, cozy rug for an affordable (super cheap!) price.

Early in the summer, I began reading a book Aaron gave me for Christmas, but I didn't finish it. I've picked up Palace Walk again and am moving along in it really well now. The author won a Nobel prize for this book and the sequels that follow (written in the 1940's, I think). The book wonderfully evokes the atmosphere of its Egyptian setting and powerfully portrays the oppression of women in that religious culture. I love reading fiction, but I don't do enough of it, in spite of the strong encouragement from my son to do so (he thinks fiction is "truer" than non-fiction). :-)

And now I'm going to pack my things and get ready to leave. More soon!

(Hey! Does a new thing happen when you click on photos? It does when I click--it kind of opens up on its own, grey, transparent overlay--and I love how it looks.)

I'm Thankful Today. . .

2011-09-14T17:06:00.000-07:00

Little Missy on the beach. The coast weather was perfect.

A few more photos are below, mostly of the kids.

I shot just a few, and most of them didn't work.

Drat.

1. For a wonderful, large, extended family who knows how to throw a really fun, relaxed party. And grills the best steak and just-caught salmon ever. And makes the "best crab cakes in the world" from just-caught crab (that would be Kim and me--the famous, super-popular tandem team of crab cake-makers). And knows how to relax and enjoy one another. All of this to celebrate a wonderful mother, but it was for each other, too.

2. For a quiet, peaceful home to come back to. Because I was ready for quiet. And it is peaceful here.

3. For a super-comfortable, cozy bed to lie in next to an open window that let in fresh, cool air on a morning when I felt dizzy and headachy and "off."

4. For a stack of good books to read while lying in bed. And I read for hours.

5. For the wonder of a perfectly ripe, so-delicious peach for breakfast. Oh, I love to eat food when it is in season! It makes cooking and eating fun.

6. That after three hours of frustrating attempts to rearrange my fall term schedule, it finally makes sense, and every credit hour now helps to fill a gap in my transcript. Yay!

7. For being part of a lovely group who celebrated the 50th birthday of a friend at a local restaurant. Three hours of delicious food (free! supplied by the husband of the birthday girl), laughter, and light-hearted conversation.

8. For this morning's toast with truly delicious blackberry jelly made this summer by my friend, Laurie. And for the peach jam (my favorite) that was put in the same gift bag with other fun kitchen items!

9. For flowers in vases that brighten the house with autumn color. Cool days portend the coming season and stir up thoughts of cheddar chowder and chocolate chip pumpkin muffins after a late-afternoon fall-leaf walk in crisp, breezy air (I will make this scenario happen, with others, if at all possible).

10. For my years-long (13?) email correspondence with my friend Laura, who is no longer Laura from Manhattan but is now Laura from Torino, Italy. Today I ran across files and files of looonnnnng, printed emails that went back and forth between us about books and home and family and food and cooking and nature and learning and spirituality and simplicity and prayer and everything that I've written about on any of my blogs. Laura is a kindred spirit, extremely intelligent and thoughtful, a deeply caring person, and a wonderful friend. I'm thankful to know her and her family.

Kelp battle between cousins.

Always looking for bugs.

Caught one!

Gone fishin'.

Gone swingin'.

And loved it.

Margin and Living Gracefully. . .

2011-09-14T16:53:00.000-07:00

I've been sorting through papers again today (determined to finish this job before school starts a week from this coming Monday), and I ran across some notes I wrote for a talk I gave at a woman's brunch way back in 2005. The pastor's wife who invited me to speak asked me to talk about the importance of living with margin in our lives, so I did. As I read through these notes, I realize how quickly things continue to change, and while I may have worded my notes differently if I were writing them for this blog, I'll leave them intact (here and there, I did add a few words and sentences to this).

Because I think the message remains important, I'm going to post it as a reflection of my value system, which remains unchanged from when I put these notes together. I love Gift from the Sea, and I believe Anne's words in that book retain their power if we will heed them.

Because it's long, this is divided in half. I'll put up part two tomorrow, and that section could be called "Artfully Decluttering Life." :-)

Feel free to speak up and differ with me in comments! (I hope I didn't post this on my HDH blog! But, if so, it's just a visit to the archives!)

* * * * *

In her book Gift from the Sea Anne Morrow Lindbergh writes of her desire to live a life of integrity, of loving her family well, and of carrying out her obligations to man and the world as a woman, an artist, and a citizen:

I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact—to borrow from the language of the saints—to live ‘in grace’ as much of the time as possible. . .

I am seeking perhaps what Socrates asked for in the prayer from Phaedrus when he said ‘May the outward and inward man be at one.’ I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God.

I mean to lead a simple life, to choose a simple shell I can carry easily—like a hermit crab. But I do not. I find that my frame of life does not foster simplicity. My husband and five children must make their way in the world. The life I have chosen as a wife and mother entertains a whole caravan of complications. It involves a house in the suburbs and either household drudgery or household help which wavers between scarcity and non-existence for most of us. It involves food and shelter, meals, planning, marketing, bills, and making the ends meet in a thousand ways. It involves not only the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, but countless other experts to keep my modern house with its modern ‘simplifications’ (electricity, plumbing, refrigerator, gas-stove, oil-burner, dish-washer, radios, car, and numerous other labor-saving devices) functioning properly. It involves health, doctors, dentists, appointments, medicine, cod-liver oil, vitamins, trips to the drugstore. It involves education, spiritual, intellectual, physical, schools, school conferences, car-pools, extra trips for basketball or orchestra practice, tutoring, camps, camp equipment and transportation. It involves clothes, shopping, laundry, cleaning, mending, letting skirts down and sewing buttons on, or finding someone else to do it. It involves friends, my husband’s, my children’s, my own, and endless arrangements to get together, letters, invitations, telephone calls, and transportation hither and yon.

For life today in America is based on the premise of ever-widening circles of contact and communication. It involves not only family demands, but community demands, national demands, international demands on the good citizen, through social and cultural pressures, through newspapers, through magazines, radio programs, political drives, charitable appeals, and so on. My mind reels with it. What a circus act we women perform every day of our lives. It puts the trapeze artist to shame. Look at us. We run a tight rope daily, balancing piles of books on the head. Baby-carriage, parasol, kitchen chair, still under control. Steady now!

This is not the life of simplicity but the life of multiplicity that the wise men warn us of. It leads not to unification but to fragmentation. It does not bring grace; it destroys the soul.

Wow. Those are strong words. This fragmented life “destroys the soul.” And Lindbergh wrote this in the mid-1950’s. The life she describes almost seems quaint compared to life now, and in ten years, life now might just seem like “the good old days.” Lindbergh didn’t include television in her list, or email, or the internet, or cell phones (whatever is the latest do-it-all iteration of them), or Skype, or fast food, or stores that are open all night, or electronic anything and everything! We are now unable to escape, and we no longer have to wait more than a minute or two for anything! If someone wants us, they can find us. We complain if our fast food takes more than just a few minutes to be rung up and handed to us.

We’re hurrying faster than ever, we have too many choices for everything, emails pile up quickly in our inboxes, our cell phones ring or buzz, and we’re expected to respond instantly no matter where we are or what we are doing. Even at the top of Mt. Everest, it’s possible to conduct business via cell phone.

Our lives are more fragmented now and moving much faster than Lindbergh could have possibly imagined when she wrote Gift From the Sea. Technology has brought us many benefits, but it has also sped up our lives to the point that we can easily lose our bearing. As Christopher Lasch wrote, “The characteristic mood of the times is a baffled sense of drift.”

In 1992, Dr. Richard Swenson—in an attempt to convince people that progress has a threshold and that our “progress” might just be leading us toward an abyss—wrote a book called Margin. Margin, Swenson writes, is “the space between ourselves and our limits” or “the amount allowed beyond which is needed.” Just as a page of a book has margins—blank space around the edges—so we should have margins in all areas of our lives. But instead we often push ourselves clear to the limits, hurrying about, living on the emotional, physical, financial edge, rushing meals and relationships, scheduling too many activities, doing far more than we should be doing and never realizing why we are tired and don’t seem to have time to get the important things done.

I sometimes wonder if we have any idea that we have limits?! Do we feel guilty when stop and truly relax and rest? Are we always thinking in the back of our minds of some pressing thing that needs doing? Do we feel that we can’t or shouldn’t say no if someone needs us? That there’s always someone who needs to be helped or served? Or, perhaps, we like to push ourselves and stay crazy-busy. Maybe we think it’s fun, adventurous, or exciting. Maybe we’re the kind that wants to fill life with all of the living we can because there’s just so much to do and see and enjoy. Maybe we’ve gotten so used to busyness that we feel bored, depressed, guilty, or lazy when we slow down.

But Swenson writes, “We are not infinite. The day does not have more than 24 hours. We do not have an inexhaustible source of human energy. We cannot keep running on empty. Limits are real, and despite what some stoics might think, limits are not even an enemy. Overloading is the enemy.

“Some will respond, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’ Can you? Can you really? Can you fly? Can you go six months without eating? Neither can you live a healthy life if chronically overloaded. God did not intend this verse to represent a negation of life-balance. Jesus did not heal all. He did not minister to all. He did not visit all, and He did not teach all. . . It is God the Creator who made limits, and it is the same God who placed them within us for our protection. We exceed our limits at our peril.”

In his book, Dr. Swenson lists and describes specific ways we are overloaded—activities, changes, choices, commitments, competition, debt, decisions, education, expectations, fatigue, hurry, information, media, ministry, noise, people, pollution, possessions, problems, technology, traffic, waste, work. And this was written before the internet and everything instant and electronic. Technology is developing at such a fast rate that what is new now will be outmoded, or even obsolete, in just a few short months.

Our lives are becoming more complex all the time. Technology has changed our world from one that was family-oriented and community-based to one that is globally-oriented. This can seem exciting because it brings so much that is interesting and possible right to our fingertips, but is this healthy? There’s so much information, news, images, and video footage available to us 24 hours a day that we feel directly connected to those who suffer tragedies or disasters like the Asian tsunami or the London bombings. And while it seems important to have access to all of the latest world news so that we can be informed, pray, donate, or help, how much global news and information can we really handle? Might this “connectedness” to the rest of the world undermine our connectedness to our own places—our homes, our neighborhoods, our communities, our churches? We do have limits.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh addressed this in Gift from the Sea, and, again, this was in 1955, before we had arrived at anything close to the global connectedness we have today:

Today a kind of planetal point of view has burst upon mankind. The world is rumbling and erupting in ever-widening circles around us. The tensions, conflicts, and sufferings, even in the outermost circles touch us all, reverberate in all of us. We cannot avoid these vibrations.

But just how far can we implement this planetal awareness? We are asked today to feel compassionately for everyone in the world; to digest intellectually all the information spread out in public print; and to implement in action every ethical impulse aroused by our hearts and minds. The inter-relatedness of the world links us constantly with more people than our hearts can hold. Or rather—for I believe the heart is infinite—modern communication loads us with more problems than the human frame can carry. It is good, I think, for our hearts, our minds, our imaginations to be stretched; but body, nerve, endurance and life-span are not elastic. My life cannot implement in action the demands of all the people to whom my heart responds.

Environmentalist Alan Thein Durning wrote in his book This Place on Earth that after years of traveling the world as an environmental activist, he realized that the way to make a difference was to plant some local roots—to build a home and to become involved in a community. He discovered that it’s in building relationships in the places where we live that can make a real difference. He made the switch from global activism to local relationship building, believing that this was ultimately the best way to change the planet, and I think he is right.

Richard Swenson in Margin says “a frightful consequence of the dramatic changes of the last few decades is how rapidly and thoroughly the relational life has come unglued. . . Nearly all the indices of the scripturally prescribed relational life have suffered major setbacks over the last three decades. Marriage—worse; parenting—worse; the extended family—worse; the sense of community—worse; and one-another in the church—worse. And it happened seemingly overnight.”

“Margin,” writes Swenson, “exists for relationship.” God created us for relationship with Himself and with others, and lack of margin makes healthy relationships impossible. We’re too frantic to live, as Anne Lindbergh writes, “at grace” with others.

We’re too busy, and there are too many demands on us. Between our commitment at home, at work, volunteering, being involved at church or in Bible studies, shuttling children to sports and other activities, getting food on the table, cleaning house, keeping up with friends, shopping, staying beautiful :-), and all of the other million things we do, how in the world are we supposed to relax? Where’s the margin? Instead of margin, we’ve created fast food and fast service wherever we go. There’s drive-through service for food, for coffee, for getting an oil change, for banking , for pharmacy prescriptions, and on and on! So, with all of this quick service, where is our time going? Why do we rush ever faster?

My sister told me about a family whose children are so involved in sports and other activities that the family doesn’t get home in the evenings until 9 p.m. So, each evening they meet at McDonald's or another fast food restaurant for their family dinner. The dad said, “Well at least we are having dinner together!” And, yes, “at least. . .”, but can this be healthy?

I know how old-fashioned and out of touch it seems to say this, but whatever happened to a relaxed pace of living? Because I really believe that good relationships require leisure. Whatever happened to making time at the end of each day to set the table and sit down together to share good food and to talk over the events of the day or whatever is on the mind of each person at the table? Whatever happened to neighbors knowing each other and taking time to visit or help each other with work? Whatever happened to kids building forts or exploring the outdoors for hours, either in the country or in the suburbs or in a city park? Whatever happened to the long, lazy days of childhood when one could lie in the grass, stare at the sky, and wonder about whatever it was that crossed the mind? Whatever happened to hard work during the day and evenings spent together reading, talking, relaxing, resting from work (of knowing when to say, like God, “it is finished” for the day)? Whatever happened to a quiet Sunday of rest?

Remember when vacations were supposed to be restful and rejuvenating, and now we almost need to recover from them because they are so jam-packed with action? Whatever happened to family time—and not the kind of family time that happens in the car together as we shuttle back and forth between activities and commitments? Whatever happened to saying no? To know when to say “enough”?

I certainly don’t think there’s anything wrong with playing a sport or taking music lessons or eating a quick meal now and then, but I think we’ve gotten into such a habit of fast and furious, living and pushing every part of our lives to the margins, that we’ve lost touch with the most important things. Many parents fill every bit of their child’s time with activities because they are afraid they’ll be bored without them and then maybe they’ll get themselves into trouble. Children no longer learn to work through slow times during the day when they could develop creativity and self-sufficiency. Nowadays, children are often defined by their activities, and parenthood is reduced to shuttling children around and catering to their schedules.

People may say they enjoy their busy lives. Or, possibly, this fast pace has become so much the norm for today, that we may not think our speed is quick. We may not sense that anything is amiss. It may feel just right to us and quite enjoyable, thank you. I don’t know what to say to that except that possibly the pace is just right. I really can’t be the judge of anyone’s life but my own. But I do think that many busy people might not realize what they are missing.

Studies have shown in recent years that kids’ diets have suffered from too much family busyness, they are chronically sleep-deprived, they don’t have enough free playtime and solitude to learn to think creatively, and little ones are not even getting the kind of conversation that will teach them to talk. And if they aren’t getting the kind of conversation in baby and toddler-hood that will help them learn to talk, they probably aren’t getting the kind of conversation as they grow older that will develop deep and meaningful relationships. These are probably not concerns of most homeschooling families, but I believe it is true for everyone that too much structure and activity undermine family health, true togetherness, and peace and order in the home—all factors that profoundly affect our relationships.

In today’s world, creating broad margins is a very difficult task that requires great discernment, determination, and almost ruthless resolve, but I believe it is essential that we keep airy spaces in our lives. Harsh, narrow, and old-fashioned as it may sound, I’m with Anne Morrow Lindbergh—busyness and the constant, instant demands of our electronically-driven lives fragment us, and this does not bring grace, peace, order, or beauty but destroys our souls. And then what happens to our families? And to our communities? And to the world?

Mom. . .

2011-09-09T09:43:00.000-07:00

Mom with her five children. I am the second oldest--

the one to the left of my baby brother,

nestled against Mom's right shoulder.

Later today, I'll be leaving for the coast where my siblings and I and our children, along with other members of the extended family, will gather to celebrate my mother's 75th birthday. I didn't write the following with any intention of posting it here. I simply typed it out as an honest message to put inside my mother's birthday card. But as I read back over it, I knew I wanted to share it here, not because it's a beautiful piece of writing (I wrote it through in one draft, without trying to write well; I simply wanted to communicate to Mom just a glimpse of my heart toward her), but because I have a wonderful, beautiful mother who has not been perfect, but has been faithful. And what more can we do on earth except to remain faithful and loving? My mother has been that, and I thank God for her. She is an example to me, and maybe her example will encourage you.

Dear Mom,

Pablo Picasso said it takes a long time to grow younger, but you have always had a young spirit. Being an artist, maybe he should have rather said that it takes a time to create a masterpiece. The years have not diminished you, Mom, but have only made you more beautiful. You are a masterpiece of a mother, grandmother, friend, and woman. The experiences, gifts, losses, joys, and struggles of your life are the brushstrokes God has used to make you so lovely. Each one counts. Each one illuminates beautifully a part of the picture of your life and reveals to all of us what God can make of one who is yielded to Him.

Thank you for your example to me of being faithful to God. I know you would say that you’ve been too inconsistent, but all I see is a mother who prayed, a mother who knew where to look (up!) when facing uncertainty or pain, a mother who stayed steadfast, looking to God’s word for direction, comfort, hope, guidance, and strength. (Do you have any idea what it means for a child to find her mother often on her knees, face close to the ground, lifting up her needs, her children, her life to God?)

Your example so often lights my way when I wonder what steps to take or how to respond to a certain struggle in my life: Just keep looking to the Lord! He is faithful, and He is loving and good in all He does. Thanks, Mom, for teaching us to laugh at the wind when it blows hard. Thank you for teaching us to embrace the storm and see its beauty.

Thank you for playing with us outside when we were little kids and for playing sports and games with us as we grew older. Thank you for talking with us long. Thank you for so many heartfelt hugs and for shedding tears when we did. Thank you for backrubs and soothing words at night. Thank you for being there, with Dad, at every single sports event we were part of. Thank you for cookies after school and for decorating the house so cheerily at holidays. Thank you for taking us to the beach and for teaching us to absorb its power and beauty as well as having fun playing in the sand and water. Thank you for making a party out of everything—for Walt Disney and root beer floats, for Ma and Pa Kettle and popcorn. Thank you for the adventure of the Hub sales and for maple candy afterward.

Thank you sending us off to school after sit-down breakfasts with the heater in the kitchen and Bible reading and prayer time. And thank you for reading from Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to prayer before school, too. That book played a part in shaping my faith. I treasure owning it now.

Thank you for creating such a wonderful atmosphere in our home because it made growing up so magical. And thank you for great joy and laughter—so much laughter (!)--even when you could have been worrying and fretting. Even when pain was great. You were, and are, so much fun!

You are a mother who has always loved well. Once we grew up, you bit your tongue heroically and let us all carry on with our foibles and missteps because you knew we would learn through them. You knew God would look after us. But you have always been there with an answer when we’ve asked for help.

Thank you for your strength—for showing us that a gentle spirit, a godly woman, does not mean a wimpy woman. Thank you for making us shoulder our load, for expecting us to work hard, for showing us what it means to be strong and feminine at the same time. Without having learned that from you, Mom, I don’t know how I would have carried on in the past two years.

I pray God will make me half the woman you are, Mom. I love you more than I can possibly express. You are my hero and my friend.

Happy, happy, happy birthday!

Love, Susy

This Morning. . .

2011-09-08T10:56:00.000-07:00

The sun rose quietly this morning at 6:43 a.m., and it wasn’t much past that when I walked outside, as I do almost every early morning, to feel crisp air on my skin and to gaze at the sky.

Today, clouds looked like they had been loosely attached to a slate of strange, blue iridescence. I walked about the yard and into the quiet street, peering between rooftops and treetops, craning my neck to see. So interesting, so beautiful, I thought.

I love early morning and late evening when light is slant and the air is still and quiet. The fresh, crisp brightness of early morning reflects the Bible’s promise—“His mercies are new every morning.” And the sad, gentle warmth of evening light speaks of endings and grace and of hope for a beautiful forever.

God does not need to explain or defend Himself because His love is written all across the sky, and this is enough.

“Since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)

I went back inside the house to grab my camera, knowing that I am no photographer and that my little camera—set on “auto”—would not come close to capturing what I was seeing, but I wanted to catch the memory, catch the edges of the beauty, catch even a poor reflection of the sky. I also knew that much of the beauty of the sky was seen from my heart. I love the sky. I love the God who made it.

“The heavens declare the glory of God.”

“He who has eyes to see, let him see. . .”

I could see it this morning. My camera will never tell that story sufficiently, but there will be another evening and another morning.

Time of Wonder: A Book and a Life Lived Slow. . .

2011-09-07T12:18:00.000-07:00

This morning as I tidied my bookshelves, I ran across my favorite children’s picture book, Time of Wonder by Robert McCloskey. This is not my favorite picture book to read aloud to children, necessarily, but it is my favorite one for me. Time of Wonder won the Caldecott award for best children’s book in 1958, the year I was born, so maybe I was destined to love this book. Maybe this book was always meant to be mine.

My first memory of beloved author Robert McCloskey goes back to my fourth grade classroom in a white 1920’s-built school that sat on a country hill near the home where I grew up. Its wood floors, built-in shelves, high ceilings, and wall-length paned windows that reached almost as high as those ceilings gave the rooms a deep warmth and a charm that is rare-to-impossible to find in newly built schools. Outdoors, this old, country school was enwrapped by nature—open fields, blackberry bushes, wildflowers, and leafy trees. I couldn’t have had a better place to spend my early school days.

The charm of my classroom only added to the coziness of the after-lunch read aloud time that was practiced by both my third and fourth grade teachers, Mrs. Johnson and Miss Marshall. Hands-down, these read-aloud times comprise the strongest, most vivid, and best school-time memories I have. What active, outdoor-loving girl actually looks forward to leaving the playground to return to the classroom after lunch? Me! I so looked forward to those story times.

My fourth grade teacher read McCloskey’s Homer Price aloud to our class, and I laughed my way through those magical hours. Later, when I had my own children, I bought every Robert McCloskey book I could find (this was pre-internet, you know) and read them aloud. Even now, Blueberries for Sal is my special book for reading aloud with Jayden.

Robert McCloskey’s stories have been woven into my life, and I hope into my children’s, too. Both his narratives and his beautiful art speak my language—the language of slow living; of long, leisurely days that should be part of childhood; of the wonder and beauty of nature; of the art of paying attention; of the love of family; of the importance of both solitude and relationships. All of this used to take place fairly naturally in the lives of families and children, but things have changed.

We live in an electronic age and can easily be subsumed in a tsunami of distractions, demands, and instant expectations. Even those of us who are determined to avoid getting swept along in the very quick e-pace of the world must stay vigilant. “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” The speed of life increases continuously, and it creeps up on us and absorbs us when we aren’t watching.

I’ve written before about my abundance of physical energy, of my love for pushing myself hard while exercising, of the love of movement and the pleasure it gives me, particularly when I am out in nature. And this could make it seem that I am always going, moving, doing. But I am not. My good, real life friend, Laura, emailed me after I wrote that post and mentioned that her husband, Bob, said, “Yes, but Susan has a contemplative side, too.” Bob is right. I do.

I might love a demanding hike or walk, but even in the midst of it, my spirit is quiet, so while I move, I am quite mindfully taking in all that is around me. The combination of physical exertion, nature, and quiet is what gives me so much joy in movement. And my love for quiet and for absorbing beauty is why I determinedly live a slow everyday life. I thrive in slowness.

I grew up living a blessedly slow childhood where my family stayed home most days, but we took off on adventures often enough, too. It was a good, warm childhood at home, and I loved it because my mother made a great atmosphere for our family. Home was a safe place to settle in, dig down, and do what God made us to do. It was a place where we were loved and where there was ample time.

I find it interesting that my most vivid, most powerful, and most shaping memories are not of exciting adventures, vacations, or excursions, but are of slower times: my life in my family home; playing outdoors with neighborhood children; happy, playful days at my grandparent’s house by the lake a mile down the road; the times I listened to my teachers read aloud in the classroom with my chin set on crossed arms on my desk. Even on our vacations, the times I remember best are the slowed down moments of playing at water’s edge or wading in a creek or watching Grampy cook trout over the fire. Slow time is important for children and for all of us. It allows our experiences, our thoughts, and our conversations to sink in, to take root, to develop into something both unique and meaningful that will last a lifetime.

When I had my own children, they were given a slow childhood, and I am convinced it was just about the best gift they were given because it allowed so many good things to occur in their lives. If I could go back and do it all over again, I’d make the same choice. (Today, this choice might run harder than ever against the flow of the culture around us, but I’m convinced it is still possible.)

My kids were given time to explore, to wander, to wonder, and to contemplate. There was ample time for a unique creativity to develop in each child and for curiosity to arise and expand in its sophistication, which happens, I think, to be a large part of education. In fact, there is a quote, written large in my own hand, that I slipped under the plastic cover of one of my homeschooling notebooks. It says, “Curiosity is the very basis of education, and if you tell me curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly.” (Arnold Edinborough)

Time of Wonder is a beautiful, joyful book about life lived slow. It is about family, community, the profound wonders of nature, and of finding beauty and interest all around us. It is also about paying attention; about enjoying the gift of happy, sunny days and the wonders they bring; about preparing for what is coming and battening down against the storm; about finding joy in our protected places while the winds rage and the rains pelt outside; about hope given in the midst of the storm; and about not being afraid or overcome but being resourceful. After the storm, we look in wonder at what has happened—when everything is cloaked in stillness and peace—and we discover treasures uncovered by the hurricane.

Time of Wonder—the poetic narrative as well as the gorgeous watercolor paintings—provides a picture of slow days, of a rich childhood, and of lovely parenting, and, if you’re looking, the book also offers a rich metaphor for living a spiritual life.

Digging in and living deep happens slowly.

Quiet Tuesday. . .

2011-09-06T13:08:00.000-07:00

This morning, I stepped outside early. I gathered the last few apples that had fallen to the ground and picked the last two on the tree. Now the apples are done, and I have a few on hand for making something good. What shall it be?

After I collecting the apples, I washed off the two (!) new-to-me Weber charcoal grills some garage-saling friends picked up for me. I love that they got me a small one for when I'm grilling alone and a large one for when family and friends eat with me. I'm thankful that thoughtful friends take pains to be kind. Kindness requires thought, care, and effort!

I made coffee, and this morning I noticed that the teakettle has a cute little face. (Black on black does not make for a clear photo! Maybe if you click on the picture, you can see it better.)

I gathered the large stack of books that had collected near my bed and put them back on the shelves. Right now I'm needing things to be simpler. Books are good. They teach, inspire, console, and stretch me, but sometimes I need a reading sabbatical. Sometimes I just need to focus on my Bible. This is one of those times.

This morning while I worked, I listened to Arvo Part--a composer who does not disturb my quiet spirit.

"I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is

beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat,

or a moment of silence, comforts me."

"Silence is the pause in me when I am near to God."

~Arvo Part

I am not a grand, complex, orchestrated piece of music--a symphony or an opera. I am a simple, unnoticed person. A single note in a cacophonous world. I want to step out of the maelstrom and into the quiet. I want my note to be played beautifully by God. I want to stop and kneel, repentant and surrendered, and let silence enhance the music because God is near.

It's a beautiful day with pleasant temperatures and a nice breeze, and I have things to do both inside and outside the house, so off I go! Wishing you a beautiful day, wherever you are.

Monday Daybook. . .

2011-09-05T12:08:00.000-07:00

Most of our family (and Monty's) met to celebrate

Roman's upcoming 6th birthday (more photos below).

Early This Morning. . .

The sun pops above the horizon later and later each day. This morning it was right around 7:00 when the sky lit up all yellow in the east. I opened all blinds and windows and stepped outside to feel the air. It was not as cool this morning as it has been recently, but there was still that coming-autumn crispness. Birds sang in the light breeze, and I could tell it was going to be a warm and pretty day. I started the sprinkler running on the front grass and came back inside to make coffee and read my Bible.

I am Wearing. . .

Bare feet. Reading glasses. Messy, shorter hair after an overzealous stylist cut it last week (but it’s a good cut, and it will grow). Cropped khaki hiking pants. Blue polar fleece jacket (that is just about too warm to wear as the morning heats up).

In My Kitchen. . .

I’m enjoying as much summer fruit as I can before it all goes away. In my kitchen right now are blueberries, strawberries, nectarines, and a watermelon. A whole watermelon. And I’ll eat the entire thing all by myself (because I’m the only one here, and because I love good watermelon). I’ll be making my favorite summer-time watermelon gazpacho recipe, along with my absolutely favorite tomato gazpacho.

I’ve also been mixing a nutritious spread that I like. It’s a blend of sweet miso, raw almond butter, and a bit of raw honey. I scrape it across Akmak crackers or on sprouted grain toast, and I love this stuff! But you have to remember that I love eating healthy, so foods that have begun to taste mighty fine to me might make others pinch their nose and turn their head. It’s sort of like that British spread, Marmite, but I like my spread much better. The British eat Marmite, and it’s quite nutritious, but it’s sort of a love-hate thing. In fact, the Marmite ad campaign actually says, “Love it or Hate it”. Interesting, too, that the Danes have outlawed its sale in their country because they do not allow sale of any food items that are fortified with vitamins—not a bad idea, really! Real food = real nutrients.

I made eggplant masala for dinner last night, using a recipe from Alicia Silverstone’s book. It’s tasty but not close to authentic or over-the-top delicious. I’m accustomed to eating the Bangladeshi curries of my son-in-law’s mother, who is a wonderful cook. Her food is amazing.

I’ve had French toast with raspberry spread for the past two mornings, but since more wheat, flour, and grain is starting to creep into my diet, and since I thrive better when I keep them to a minimum, I’m now making a point to back off.

I’m thinking ahead to when school starts at the end of the month and getting my kitchen/freezer/fridge plan set up for eating simply, frugally, and well. It’s a discipline during school days to make a point of creating good meals for myself. I think it’s important to make an effort to prepare healthy, delicious—even attractive—meals and to sit down, eat them slowly, and enjoy the blessing of food with thanksgiving, whether we live alone or are busy with our growing families.

Reading, Listening, Watching. . .

I’ve been watching Daegu! The world track and field championships. And for University of Oregon track fans, two things stand out. Our young freshman 400 meter runner ran the fastest split at the entire world championships (by any runner from any team in the world) on his semi-final leg of the 4x400 meter relay (43.8—unbelievable!). He didn’t run in the final race, but he won a gold medal for his role in getting the relay team into that final. And our young 1500 meter runner won a bronze medal (third place) when no one thought he would get out of round 1, let alone get out of round 2. And then to place, not just well, but third—the bronze medal!—in the final, was amazing.

Okay. That was fun to watch, and now I have my track fix for the year. . . but cross country is starting soon, and then indoor track, and then spring collegiate track, and then the Olympic trials will be held here in our town, and then there will be the Olympics to watch, so, really, I guess it never ends.

Funny thing, and I think I’ve alluded to this before, but while I really enjoy following these races and the whole track and field scene (I read a few athlete’s blogs), I’m always struck at the same time that this is really just a bunch of highly trained adults chasing each other round and round a circle, fighting for all they’re worth—to the point of pain and utter physical depletion—to be the first one to cross the finish line.

And while I’ll admit that this does sometimes strike me as silly, I am still greatly challenged and inspired by the incredible level of commitment that must be given to do well in this sport. It rightly confronts my own sometimes too-lackadaisical approach to my days and my pursuits. Each day is a gift. It’s wrong not to be fully invested in them, fully alert to the daily leading of God, and determinedly disciplined to throw off hindrances and entanglements so that we can keep our eyes fixed on achieving our daily goals as well as the ultimate goal (Hebrews 12:1-3).

As a lifelong athlete and sports fan, I will in no way oppose James V. Schall, who argues in his book Another Way of Learning that sport is valid and that it, in fact, leads us to the higher things. Sports do not necessarily build character or achieve positive ends in our lives (either as a spectator or as a competitor), but they can. Just as with anything else, it’s how we, personally, approach them, and what we are willing to give and to learn. And, if competition and victory is our ultimate end aim, sports fall short of the Highest Thing. The Highest Thing is to love God and glorify Him forever. Like when Eric Liddell ran and felt God’s pleasure—all the way to an Olympic gold medal. But the medal is beside the point.

I've been listening to Tim Keller. I’ve listened to an old sermon of his on pride about five times since Saturday night. On my first listen to the sermon, a particular section of it smacked me between the eyes literally just an hour or two after I had begun to realize this exact thing was an area of pride in my life. Not coincidentally timely.

And I'm reading “in the beginning.” That’s where I am in my Bible—back in Genesis for another round of reading through the Old Testament. In the New Testament, I’m all over the place so much that I can’t remember where I am in my reading cycle. So, I might start again in Matthew. Or maybe in Acts because I know I’ve read all four gospels this time through.

Vincent's on the left. Mine on the right.

Great minds think alike.
(Just kidding, you know!)

Around the house. . .

With just a little switch of flowers in the vase on the mantle, colors conjuring up the tropics (last week's look) gave way to something that looks like an audition for a Van Gogh painting.

Feeling thankful that I’ve got a great little house for as long as the Lord sees fit to provide the way for me to remain here. It’s cheerful. It’s clean. It’s got wood floors. It’s got lots of windows. It’s in a great part of town. It’s quiet. And I’m blessed.

Pondering. . .

My apathetic view toward going back to school. It struck me this morning that if I believe that this is the path God has me on right now (and He has provided the way via scholarships, etc.), then it is wrong to be apathetic. I need to embrace this to the point that I am enthused and willing to invest myself fully in it. To apply great discipline and effort. Because a Christian is to do all things with all his might to the glory of God.

Blogging, for me, has been a summertime discipline. My posts haven’t ended up being what I thought I’d be posting about, and I haven’t always felt like writing something, but I’ve tried to do it consistently. And while I’ve really enjoyed keeping this blog (it certainly hasn’t been done out of mere duty!), it would have been surprisingly easy to fade away, but I determined when I started that doing this was going to be something of a commitment in a summer when I had few real commitments. I've really enjoyed a sort of reconnection with some of you who used to read my old blog, and it's been fun to become more acquainted with others of you through your comments.

School starts the last week of September. I will keep the blog going until then, and I will try to write several more posts about high school—providing some of the details of how we did it and why—mixed with everyday posts. I’m considering a few possibilities for light blogging during the school year, but I don’t know. . .

Plans for the week. . .

As I mentioned, school resumes soon, so it’s time to start preparing myself for that. I still need to do some paperwork and finalize some things regarding registration. I need to get my city bus pass sticker (free on my student ID card). I need to start looking for work. I need to get organized enough that I won’t feel overwhelmed during the school year by what should have been done during the summer.

At the end of the week is my mother’s 75^th birthday bash. A crowd of us will be staying at a lodge on the coast near my mother’s home for two days of celebrating. Family, food, festivities, fun!

Family Fun. . .

Roman and his other grandma.

Click away on photos if you want a better view.

On Friday, Aaron, Nicky, Zane, and I drove up the highway to a park in a town north of here where about 20 family members gathered to celebrate Roman’s upcoming 6^th birthday. It was a perfectly gorgeous afternoon and evening in a beautiful place, and we had so much fun that it was hard to leave.

When we arrived, and I climbed out of my car, Jayden excitedly sprinted all the way over to me and gave me a great big, long, squeezing hug. It melted my heart. And Monty’s beautiful mother came to hug me, too. I love her and miss her, so it was wonderful to visit and catch up on her life.

I smiled at something Jayden told me. He and I read Blueberries for Sal every single time we get together. It’s our special book. And whenever it comes to the place in the text where the berries are dropped into the pail, I let Jayden make the sounds: “Kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk.” So, when Jayden was strapped into his seat in the car and ready to leave at the end of the birthday party, he said, “Hey, Gramma Susy, you know what? We went blueberry picking, only it wasn’t blueberries. . . it was blackberries. . . and you know what?! They said, “Kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk!” J Later, Michelle told me that when her family first started picking that day (each with their own pail), she called to Jayden, “Hey, listen!” And as she dropped three berries into her pail, she said, “Kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk!” Jayden loved it! (So do I.)

Roman protecting his candles from the wind.

It took a long time to get these lit because they kept getting blown out!

"Do I have chocolate on my face?"

Eating her cupcake.

Always bubbly Michelle.

My oldest with her oldest (and only, so far).
Sweet momma, sweet baby.

Sleepy girl. Another sweet momma.

I swear she stirred for over an hour!

The girl loves to cook and takes her work seriously.

This last is really not a good photo, but I thought Liya was pretty funny in it, so I added it. I took a lot of pictures, and most of them didn't turn out for one reason or another (hence my kids are not equally represented here!), so I just chose some of them that worked adequately.

And the Winning Mug is. . .

2011-09-03T12:31:00.000-07:00

I was looking through my photos this morning, and I noticed how often morning coffee shows up in my pictures. I suppose the cheeriness of sunny mornings with coffee compels me to take out my camera. (Even when I don't blog, I do this, so it's not just for the blog!)

I take my mugs seriously. Each day when I open the cupboard, there's just one mug that feels right for that day, and, even if I try, I can't make myself use any other mug. Sometimes I'll use the same mug for many days, or even weeks, in a row, and other times, I switch continually (like recently). But there are a handful mugs that I use most often. Currently, ranking my most-oft-used mugs in order from #7 to #1, here is my exciting mug countdown:

#7 Mrs. Incredible.

My sister's family gave this mug to me for Christmas several years ago because, they told me, "You are Mrs. Incredible." Inclined to want to believe them, even though they were kidding, I use this mug on days when I am either feeling mighty or need to. Love the large, stretched shape of this thing.

#6 Vintage Yellow.

Mikasa "Provencal" mug on a vintage Franciscan saucer. I like the two together. I found both of these at thrift stores. I have the whole set of Franciscan dishes, but I can't remember the name them. I like the simple lines of this mug. And I love cheery yellow.

#5 Very 1950's.

I found these cute cups in a thrift store, too. It's clear by looking that the cup and saucer (which is not really a saucer) don't go together, but I put them together anyway. They're from the same family--Syracuse--so they belong together.

#4 Hand-painted Polish Pottery.

Can you see it there on the table? I have lots of photos of this mug, but not so many from this house. In my high desert home, I used this round mug almost every day, but not so much any more. I bought it (along with a few other Polish pottery items) one sunny spring day when Melissa and I were poking around at the Eastern Market in Washington DC. If I hadn't had to carry the dishes home in my luggage, I would have purchased a lot more because the price--back then, at least--was most definitely right.

#3 My "Aimee Mug."

I call this my "Aimee mug" because she bought it for me years ago when we lived in the high desert. I'd had a long, hard day and had ended up in the emergency room for something minor, and when Aimee came home that evening, she had a little wrapped gift for me and a sweet note telling me she was sorry my day had gone the way it had. The gift was this mug, so I smile and think of Aimee every time I use it.

#2 The Brown Mug.

It looks like a diner mug. I have two of them (I used to have six that were purchased at a thrift store). I particularly like this mug and always have. I like the color, the weight, the flared-out top, and the feel of it. I also liked that my friend, Laurie, chose it over all of the mugs in my cupboard last week when she and Dave stopped by for a visit.

#1 Yellow Fire-King. (Ta-da!)

I had a hard time deciding whether the brown mug or this one should go first, but since this pageant is a current reflection of the mugs I use most, I had to go with the Fire-King. The brown one is quickly catching up to this mug and should surpass it by the time autumn officially sets in. This is Aaron's favorite mug in my cupboard. And Josiah's, too.

So, there you have it, and I'm sure you were gripped and sitting at the edge of your chair!

Notes on a Mundane Morning and Signs of Approaching Autumn. . .

2011-09-02T09:57:00.000-07:00

My summer notebook is not all about homeschooling, though I am enjoying writing about that; it is about my summer. I’ve meant jot down the notes and activities and thoughts and impressions of my days. And sometimes--because it’s fun years down the road to look at the actual events of a particular day—this means writing about the mundane details, like a blow-by-blow account of what happened on a morning. Take this morning for instance. . .

I walked out the door into the crispy air early this beautiful sunny morning and set out to find the little auto shop where I’m going to have my car’s oil changed and a few minor things done to it. When I left, I didn’t expect to enjoy a drive all over town, but I did, thanks to Google Maps, who sent me waaaay out in the wrong direction. (Or maybe it was that I typed in the wrong address. But, no, it can’t be that!) Whatever the case may be, I was late to my car appointment, but I really enjoyed sipping my coffee in the early morning sunshine as I cut back and forth all over the far western streets of town.

I thought I had left my phone at home, but when I pulled over to check my bag for it, there it was. I called the shop, and the receptionist laughed and gave me the correct directions. So, I headed back across town the way I had come. After all of that driving, the shop was not far from where I live. And what a great place! I don’t think I’ve ever been to a car maintenance shop where every single person working there seemed so nice and friendly. And I realized that they are going to have to do a lot of things wrong to lose my business. Niceness pays.

One of the men in the shop gave me a ride back home (and will pick me up to take me back to the shop when my car is ready), and we chatted, both of us loving the clear sunshine and cool morning temperatures we’ve been having. And as we drove along, talk turned to Oregon football, as it often does in this town. “Are you going to watch the game?” he asked. “Of course!” I answered. (The game? LSU vs. Oregon. Both teams are ranked in the top three in the nation.) And we began to talk football. I always laugh after these conversations. If the fans could coach, we’d never lose a game, you know!

I came back inside my house and was struck that it looked like a hurricane had swept through. Odds and ends were strung across the living room, dishes littered the counter, books sat everywhere, and there was just general untidiness. It struck me how a bit of stagnant mess makes a place seem so much more uninviting. So, I set about tidying the house and let in some light and air, and, sure enough, the entire atmosphere changed. I like my little house! (Thank you, Lord, for this happy place to live.)

I sat down to make a checklist for the day: Go for a nice walk. Buy a few food items. Be home around 1:00 because my niece and nephew will come. Call my kids to give them the latest update on the big birthday bash we’re giving my mom on the coast next week. Be ready to leave town by 2:00 p.m. (with Aaron, my niece, and my nephew) to head up the highway for Roman’s 6^th birthday party—a barbecue at a park!

I can’t wait to see my grandkids—all four of them—today! And Monty’s family, too (I love his mother!). And it will be lovely barbecuing and playing in the park on this pretty autumnal day. I know it isn’t officially autumn yet, and I’m also not willing to give up sunshine and summertime activities because we are certain to have many more days and even weeks of warm or hot weather. But there’s no escaping it. Summer’s grip is beginning to loosen and autumn is seeping in around the edges. Signs of the imminence of fall abound.

Mornings are not just cooler now, but they have the slightest edge of crispness to them. And sunshine isn’t reaching my back patio until after 10 in the morning, whereas it seems less than a month ago I would walk out back to sit in the morning sunshine with my coffee. The apples on my backyard tree are fully grown and ripe, and many of them fall to the ground each day.

And the spider webs! What’s with the spider webs around here?! I have never walked face-first into so many huge spider webs in my entire life. Each time this happens I am sent into a panic, batting at strings of web that cling to me as I dance and screech (where there are webs, there are spiders!). It’s gotten so bad that, now, when I walk anywhere outside, I take an old broom with me, and I hold it straight in front of me and move it up and down and back and forth to take down any webs in my path. I must look a sight to onlooking neighbors!

A friend and I took a walk along a nearby river path last week, and a long section of the trail was lined with blackberry bushes. About half of the berries were ripe and juicy that morning—another sure sign of approaching fall—so we picked and ate some of them before resuming our walk. Last evening, I walked along that trail again and noticed several couples filling buckets with berries. I asked how the picking was and received a cheerful reply: “Great! There are masses of beautiful berries! Grab a bucket and come on out!” And I will in the next day or two because picking berries is such a pleasant autumn activity, and I’d like to make blackberry jam this year.

When I think of autumn days I can’t help but recall our home in the high desert. Autumn there was about insuring a good supply of wood for winter, gathering round the first fire in the woodstove on a chilly—even frosty—morning, enjoying chocolate chip pumpkin muffins, cooking a big pot of cheddar chowder on cold evenings, setting Cinderella pumpkins on the front porch next to our green door, raking up the Ponderosa pine needles that fell and covered our yard.

There wasn’t a deciduous tree in sight on our high desert property, but here in my new home, there is a massive maple right in my front yard, and I’ve already been warned by neighbors that the tree drops an alarming number of leaves. My yard and driveway will be deeply covered in them, I am told. And while I wait for the gardener to clean up the leaves, I can enjoy their color. And maybe I’ll press a few of them. I wonder what other kind of autumn nature I can find around here to bring into the house? I’m eager to find out.

Besides the pumpkin muffins, which I will certainly make (it’s a family tradition, after all!), there will be other changes in the kitchen. Vendors’ tables in the autumn farmers’ market will soon boast beautiful squashes and root vegetables, and I welcome them. Old fall menu favorites will begin to appear on my table: maple-roasted buttercup squash, apple-spice waffles for breakfast and the freezer, oven-puffed apple pancakes for breakfast, butternut squash pizza with goat cheese and sage, chipotle-squash soup, pan-roasted halibut with roasted cherry tomatoes and butternut squash, and on and on. I’m glad, though, that summer produce wanes gradually, so we’ll still enjoy berries, tomatoes, corn, and peaches for awhile.

While fall is pushing her way in, I’m in no hurry to say goodbye to summer activities. Like hiking. Autumn weather is the best of the year for hiking, if you ask me. The mountains, hills, and trees are brightly dressed in autumn garb, and while some days will still be hot, autumn heat is meeker and drier, and the day’s warmth will be ushered in and back out by ever-crisper air. Autumn hiking often requires a warmer layer over a t-shirt or tank top, and even this layering seems cozy.

Why is it that, for some of us at least, fall is such a cozy season? Because after stripping everything to the bare minimum to keep things cool and light and fresh, we’ll gradually bring out the afghans, put on the slippers, slide a cardigan over the shoulders, eat warming foods, light a fire indoors rather than out, and generally begin to re-establish an indoor routine? Fall seems a time to wrap up in a warm blanket on a cool evening with a hot drink at hand to read a book. And what can be nicer and cozier than that?

Do you love fall, too?

And now I must carry on. Have a happy day!

Keep Reading Aloud Through High School. . .

2011-09-01T19:21:00.000-07:00

Today was filled with appointments and lots of waiting. But I didn’t mind. I knew ahead of time what kind of day it was going to be, so I determined to make the best of it. I spent three hours at a coffee shop (indoors while it was cool and outdoors when it got warm) reading and journaling. I also walked outside in the beautiful autumnal air. The weather was nice enough to wear my shorts, flip-flops, and a tank top, but there was just enough of a cool breeze to merit wearing a light-weight cardigan. It felt just wonderful outside, and we’ve definitely tipped toward fall around here. Yay. It was a happy, invigorating feeling.

The reading material I had with me in the coffee shop was a novel and one of my writing notebooks, and in my notebook I ran across a piece of writing—a memory—that I liked. It has to do with the sweetness and power of reading aloud with our children, which I’m sure that probably everybody already does. But I want to encourage you all to keep on reading to your children, even in high school. If you start when your children are young and keep on reading until they leave home, you will find much joy and pleasure, and there are some important relational and educational benefits to doing so as well (though it seems wrong to add utilitarian purposes to this because it’s really more of a beautiful thing than a dutiful one!).

This is just a light, simple post, and I realize I’m preaching to the choir, but bear with me because I like this topic!

Years ago, I was in the kitchen and Aaron was sitting at the dining table. As I cooked and Aaron did whatever it was he was doing, we visited. And somewhere in the course of the conversation Aaron made this pronouncement to me: “If you did only two things right, it was the books and the food.” I hope I did more than two things right, but I got his point. And I liked it!

Books were the biggest part of our family’s educational life and probably the biggest pleasure we shared. I began reading to the kids when they were babies, and we read aloud together through toddlerhood, through the elementary years, and into high school. We read almost every single day, throughout the day. And if we missed the daytime reading, we rarely missed the bedtime reading sessions. We often read before the kids went to bed, and then read again after they were in their beds with prayers said, chatting done, and lights out. Night after night, year after year, I’d sit on the hallway floor outside their bedroom doors to read.

When the kids were young, I couldn’t sit down without a little one throwing a pile of books on my lap and crawling up to hear their favorite stories. The same stories. Over and over and over again. I still know Piggy in the Puddle (toddler Melissa’s favorite story) mostly by heart. Sometimes I was tempted to hide certain books (just for a day or two!), but I knew that this would only result in a desperate child who would enlist me in a search for that book. So, I kept reading them. Sometimes I’d try to skip sentences or paragraphs and do a condensed version, but the kids noticed, and they would correct me and insist that I read it again, the right way. And I thought, “If they have this memorized, why don’t they just look at it and ‘read’ it themselves? Then I can read something else to them.” Most of the time, though, I was happy to read those same books because I sensed joy in my child when I did.

Our children throw their favorite books on our laps because those particular stories bring them great delight, and they love sharing them with us. We connect warmly and deeply over story. Reading together is a powerful relationship builder, so we should never avoid or despise those hours. By investing ourselves in reading aloud, we are saying to our children, “I love you. I like you. I love reading with you. Aren’t stories fun?” We nurture a love of books, and we nurture our relationship with our children. And our influence on the lives of them grows. And the closeness of our entire family grows. Reading together is priceless.

If we will continue to read books together through the years, our children will continue to enjoy it. Here’s the piece of writing I found in my notebook today, written Tuesday, November 11, 2003. It simply reiterates what I just wrote above:

“I’ve spent hundreds—no, it must be thousands—of hours over the years reading to my children. We’ve enjoyed so many books together, and it’s special to all of us to think about these times again and to recognize the real closeness and richness we’ve gained from enjoying books together. For a long time now, my kids have come out of their rooms or from the corner chair or from wherever they have been engrossed in a book to read something aloud to me that made them laugh, moved them, or made them think. I love this.

“Today, while I was cooking dinner, Melissa began to read aloud from her place in Return of the King, and she just kept reading and reading. She was reading aloud to me just like I’ve read aloud to her throughout her entire life. When the phone rang in the middle of Melissa’s reading, I said (just like my kids used to say to me),”Wait! Don’t read any more until I hang up. I don’t want to miss any of this. . . Okay, now start again.” For an hour, Melissa read to me, and she happened to be right at my favorite part of the book. I’ve read this part more than once before, but a good book always seems new and never loses its power. Its truths seem to grow deeper and more profound on subsequent readings. So, while I chopped tomatoes, Melissa read, and tears ran down my face. Melissa’s eyes were full of tears, too. Like I used to, she had to stop reading for a few seconds to collect herself. We talked about the stirring power and beauty of that part of the story and what it means to a Christian—how the scene so beautifully illustrates spiritual truths and stirs up awe and worship toward God.

“This evening I had a sweet glimpse of what it means to be read to. How it makes one feel closer to the one doing the reading. How it draws people together, not just because they’re doing something together but because they are experiencing something together through story. Reading aloud together is a gift!”

I’m so very glad I read to my children. All the way through high school.