'Twas the night before Christmas...

.... and exhausted parents everywhere were collapsing into beds :)

(yes, I have nothing else to say other than that.  I'm totally in awe of anyone who was able to find time to blog in the last week!  Too many other things took precedence here - like baking, cleaning, baking, last minute shopping, baking...)

(Can you tell I baked *all* day today?)

(Yes, we also did important things, like getting to Confession last night.  In fact, that's probably the most important thing we did this Advent, other than going to Christmas Vigil Mass tonight).

Anyway, from my family to yours - have a holy and blessed Christmas!  See you in 2011!

O-Antiphons Project: for the love of metaphor

The Jesse tree is more than halfway full, and another Advent tradition is about to start.

Thus, I have another "project" to share, but it first requires a confession and an explanation.

Confession: this year I'm finally realizing what a bare-bones, minimalist Catholic I've been in the years since my conversion.  One of the paradoxical drawbacks and yet benefits of being a convert is not being familiar with the thousands of yearly traditions that Catholic culture has to offer.  A drawback, because we often miss (through sheer obliviousness) rich practices that could further deepen our faith, but a benefit, too, because once we do stumble upon these practices, we have the benefit of seeing them with fresh eyes, unsullied by years of half-understood, semi-compulsory performance.

Explanation:  One of the things that made me fall so in love with the Church was her richness in metaphor. I've always tended to understand the world and everything in it best through that language; in my mind, seemingly unrelated objects and events take on an increased significance and become knowable through the way in which they reflect each other.  It's a symbiotic thing, going beyond mere simile ("this is like that") to the deeper, metaphorical, "in some way, this is that."  Not surprisingly (for the essence of metaphor is, at heart, a mystery) it's difficult to explain exactly what I mean.  Suffice it to say that, while I can be logical, and do love rational thought (a college friend once dubbed me the most rational girl he knew), logic always stays on the outside of me.  It may speak to my mind, but metaphor (and what is beyond metaphor is what speaks to my soul.  Hence, it wasn't the rational arguments that brought me into the Church (although I knew them, and they paved the way), but the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.  Not a knowledge of Him; simply Him.

I find such metaphorical significances in my daily life, as well.  It's why breastfeeding is so much more than just feeding for me: it echoes (in an admittedly poor and very simplistic way) the Eucharist, giving my flesh to my child (I'm not saying that it always, or even mostly or often, feels that way; metaphors and sacraments don't have to evoke emotion to be).  And I find that the more that I honor and recognize the language wherein God speaks most clearly to my soul, the better my faith life grows.

This winding preamble is my way of explaining why I became so excited to learn about the O-Antiphons this year.  As I said before, I've been a bare-bones Catholic; I've participated in the essence of Catholicism, the Sacraments, etc.  But I've intentionally or unintentionally skipped most of the optional devotions.  Some don't speak to me (like the Infant of Prague), but there are more that I just don't know much about, or haven't had explained to me in such a way that hasn't felt vaguely superstitious (here my suspicious Protestant upbringing betrays itself).

Back to the Antiphons.  My favorite Advent hymn, really one of my favorite hymns period, is O Come O Come Emmanuel.  The haunting melody is part of it, but mostly I love the recitation of the names and prophecies of Jesus: these metaphors that somehow bespeak who he really is resonate very strongly for me.  Come to find out that there are these O-Antiphons along much the same lines (indeed, the hymn was drawn from them?), which pull from Isaiah (I love Isaiah!  Scripture!  Metaphor!), & I'm hooked.  Even better, they seem to offer a way to stay focused during that last hectic week of Advent, when it is so easy to get distracted.  Plus, as a bonus, they're short.  I have an 18 month old; I need spiritual activities that I can "do on the run," as it were.

So (if you've stayed with me through all that introduction!), here's my project: something to keep these Antiphons around in my life for years to come.  I'd intended to just print them out and post them on the fridge (and do so again and again in future years).  But then an idea appeared in my mailbox.  Remember in my Jesse tree post, how I said that you can't decoupage ink-jet printed paper, but magazine pictures work great?  Imagine my joy, then, when I flipped open our monthly issue of Vermont Catholic (our diocese's magazine) & found the O-Antiphons inside!  And not just printed in a decoupage-friendly fashion (in lovely italics; like Emily of New Moon, I love italics), but with accompanying art: beautiful, stylized stained-glass "windows", depicting a theme appropriate to each antiphon.

One rough wooden plaque from Michael's, a couple of industrial-strength magnets, some decoupage glue and several coats later, I present:

The O-Antiphons, ready to post on our fridge on Friday, and to become part of our yearly tradition.  Metaphors, here I come!

In like manner, I'm looking at other traditions I've previously missed.  Like the New Year's marking of the doorway with blessed chalk, and Candlemass in February, where all the candles for the year are blessed.  I'm finally realizing (with my soul, rather than my intellect) that these aren't superstitions, but metaphor, sacramentals: ways that God makes His grace & presence tangible in our lives, and not to our souls only, but to our bodies as well.  After all, isn't that what the Incarnation, which we'll celebrate next week, is all about: Christ being born into our world as a man, and thus hallowing and redeeming our humanity (spirit and flesh) through His blood shed upon the Cross!

The O-Antiphons, to be prayed Dec. 17th - 23rd, can be found here.  Have a blessed fourth week of Advent!

Hat and Gloves for faraway cousin

One other project that I can share about pre-Christmas, since a) she already knows about it, and b) being in China, she can't read my blog anyway (that whole non-freedom of the press thing, not a lack of Internet access).  The other day I had an email from my cousin, who is spending a year in China.  She's in a pretty remote village, in a house without indoor heat (although they do have a space heater, unlike many others in the village), so when I somewhat jokingly offered to mail her some coffee for Christmas, she quite seriously replied back that what she could use most would be a wool hat and some fingerless gloves.  She's doing music therapy there, so she needs her fingers free for flute/guitar/etc, but these would keep her hands warm at the same time.

Since I just so happened to have some extra yarn on hand, I did a quick Ravelry search (if you're a knitter or crocheter and aren't familiar with Ravelry, you must look into it, and sign up!  It is the best for finding great patterns for free or low cost), and found the perfect pattern for what I was looking for.  It's called "Treads" and can be found at the blog RainDrops.

On size five needles, and with worsted weight (Bartlett's Classic Merino, I believe, in a heathery cream/taupe) yarn, this was a really quick and surprisingly easy knit.  I've done toed socks before, so I was familiar with how to make fingers, but I did get to learn how to do a horizontal braid (easy and very cool).

Here's the project on needles (you could do it on a small circular needle, but I hate circulars.  Give me DPs any day):

Completed fingerless glove:

I like that there is an extra layer of warmth at the wrist and across the knuckles (and it doesn't look as bulky in person); it's nice for those of us with joints that don't like the cold.  I also like the ample wrist length, making it easy to leave it up for extra warmth, or roll it instead.

Here's my helper testing the fit (a bit big on her, but should be perfect for my cousin, I hope):

I also had a hat that I'd made and intended for my brother-in-law, but that I was concerned might be a bit too small.  Since I'd made it in the matching yarn to the gloves, I decided to throw that in as well.  I used The Boyfriend Hat pattern from the blog Stephanie Likes to Knit.  Again, this was a quick and easy knit - a simple knit three, purl two rib, with some neat decreases that maintain the ribs all the way to the top of the hat.  The sizing problem was my own fault; I misread the needle size and knit in a size 5 instead of the suggested 8.  It's very stretchy, so the width would be no problem on most people's heads even with the size 5 but it was just the right length for me, so maybe not quite right on an adult male head.

Having some soft, plush polar fleece in the back of my closet that I'd intended to make pocket diapers with (remember the cloth diaper making fiasco from earlier this year?), I decided to take a stab at making a headband liner inside the hat for a little extra warmth and the extra snugness that it would provide (this is my insurance against the hat being a little too short).  It actually came out pretty well, for my first try at such a thing: I don't usually sew with stretchy fabrics, so I was pleased to find that the zigzag stitch allowed ample stretch, and it all went in just fine:

(The inside of the hat)

(And the outside)

You can see the stitching a little bit, which I guess is unavoidable since it doesn't have a rolled brim.  But I don't think it detracts, overall.  Plus, fleece lined wool: what's going to keep her warmer than that?

The finished gift, ready to be shipped to the other side of the world:

And me enjoying the warmth... I mean, wearing just for photographic documentation purposes:

More project stories to come in a few weeks, along with hopefully other sorts of posts!

Jesse Tree Project

Of the several crafty projects I've been working on or have completed lately, here is one that I can actually share (don't worry, I'm taking pictures of the rest for post-Christmas blogging).  Thus, if anyone ever wonders why I never seem to post anymore, here's a snippet of what I've been busy with (I'll also share one other slightly less involved project tomorrow.)

Making a Jesse Tree:

Several blogs I visit regularly, along with Faith and Family, posted articles about Jesse trees at the beginning of Advent, and this year I finally resolved to incorporate the practice into our budding family traditions.  LW isn't old enough to appreciate or understand yet, but I thought the scriptural aspect (tracing the genealogy and prophecies leading to Jesus) would be fun and spiritually good for Jim and I, and that it would be good to establish the tradition now when I'm not too busy, so that it's in place when LW does begin to understand. Plus, I'm convinced she knows a lot more than we think she does!

However, I wasn't sure exactly how to make this happen, with time and financial resources currently very limited.  I didn't want to spend the money on a Jesse tree kit, and I wanted something substantial enough to last for at least a few years.  Fortunately, over the Thanksgiving holiday I stumbled on a copy of The Catholic Home: Celebrations and Traditions for Holidays, Feast Days, and Every Day at my parents' house.  Along with a ton of other great info for the rest of the year, it had just what I needed for this project: a list of the symbols, along with accompanying Scripture verses to read each day.

I toyed with the idea of decoupaging pictures onto wooden disks, but then remembered that the decoupage glue makes ink jet printed images run, and I knew it would be way too much work to track down all the symbols I needed in magazines (not that we have magazines kicking around the house anyway).  Fimo or Sculpey would work, but I wanted something I didn't have to go to the store for, as I've pretty well exhausted LW's limited patience with the craft store already this holiday season.  Then I remembered the salt dough ornaments my mom helped us make as kids.  A quick Google search located one of the thousands of essentially identical salt dough recipes on the Internet (two parts flour to one part each of salt and water), and pretty soon I was kneading and shaping the little symbols from the book.

Aside from a few interpretation questions ("how the heck do I make a camel/burning bush/river?"), all went smoothly, and I had enough dough leftover to make a few ornaments for LW to decorate for gifts, along with one nice big hand print for her to have as her own ornament.  Here everything is baking in the oven:

Impatient helper peaking at the ornaments (yes, she is pajamas; yes, it is the middle of the day.  Please don't judge me):

Here are some of the baked items, awaiting painting:

 
Snake/apple (Adam and Eve) and oil lamp (Samuel):
 
 



Other items painted and hanging to dry (herein are my interpretations of "river" and "burning bush": 

 



 

Once I completed all the ornaments, I used clear spray paint to "seal" them (hopefully this will work.  I sort of grabbed the wrong stuff at the store.  Husband said, upon seeing it, "what are you going to use the Rustoleum for?")  Regardless, they are shiny and relatively "sealed", and if I have to make more ornaments next year, no big deal, since this was a lot of fun!

 

The last dilemma to solve was what to hang them on.  The craft stores didn't seem to have anything that would really work, but on a last minute inspiration, I tried the dollar store.  Voila!  A little mini tree, covered in glued on "presents and bows", for the perfect price of $1.  The tacky decorations ripped off easily (I left the top one because it was actually kind of pretty), leaving a tree of the perfect size and shape, and with the perfect amount of good strong branches to hang the ornaments on.

 

The end result: the first few days of sealed, finished ornaments, hanging on the tree on our bookshelf (by the shepherd and animals from our newly purchased nativity set, who are waiting for the rest of the company to join them later in the month):

 

 

 

A couple of closeups of ornaments (yes, that is a camel in the second photo):

 

 

 Finally, the rest of the ornaments, layered for easy access in the following days and weeks:



The whole project cost less than $10, and took a sum total of a couple of hours (over a couple of days, due to the drying time for paint and Rustoleum) to complete.  We've been doing Jesse tree readings every night (gratuitous shot of husband and baby, who again, is in her PJ's, but this time it is bedtime so I don't feel as guilty):

 

The whole process, especially the symbology tied to each person in the genealogy and the accompanying Scripture, is definitely a nice addition to our Advent.  Definitely a worthwhile tradition to consider for your own family!

Small Successes (First week of December edition!)

I'm telling myself that any post is better than no post, and just jumping in for a quick update, small successes style.  Many posts are rattling around in my mind just waiting for the time and opportunity to get out, and if I can just find a few seconds, I'll share more about my Jesse tree project (with pictures, I hope!).  But for now, just a few successes from the week:

1)  I don't think I've shared about this one before, but if I have, forgive me; it's late and my brain is very fried these days.  I recently (OK, so it doesn't really count as totally a this week success, but it's on my mind since I did it for the second time ever tonight in the course of dinner preparation) learned how to de-bone and de-skin split chicken breasts!  Since we generally buy the expensive hormone free "natural" chicken at a whopping $5.69/lb, anything that drops my meat into the ~$3/lb category is most welcome.  And it's so easy!  I don't know why I was so afraid to try.  Bonus goes to my Mom who reminded me that I can save the bones/skin etc in a bag in the freezer, and let them accumulate until I have enough to try making chicken soup again.

2)  The aforementioned Jesse tree project: completed, and all for under $10.  I even scored the perfect mini artificial Christmas tree to hang the ornaments on, at the perfect price: $1, at the dollar store.  Once I ripped off the chintzy glued on "presents and bows", what was underneath became a lot more respectable looking.  We started doing readings tonight, and only had one day to make up.

3)  I finally talked myself into spending money on a Nativity set, in celebration of our third married Christmas.  For the past two years, I've looked longingly at them, missed the one I grew up with, missed having one in the house, but have passed them up with a "we can't afford it..." and "maybe next year."  This year, having found one for a reasonable price that was pretty and had the main two features I was looking for (removable baby Jesus, and not-porcelain so less breakable), I finally reasoned that it would be better to spend money on something that draws our minds towards the reason for the season, rather than anything else I might fritter it away on.

And a bonus 4th small success, which isn't really a success (hence I'm allowing myself to go past three) but much more of a small blessing:  I happened to catch my cousin on Skype this morning.  No biggie, you might think, but she's spending a year in China at the moment.  Think it's difficult to find time to get together with a friend for coffee?  Try juggling an eleven hour time difference, and vastly different life circumstances!  She's one of my very best friends in the world, much more like a super close sister than a cousin, and I miss her dreadfully; I've been feeling down and lonely lately, so it was an especially lovely surprise and great way to start the day.  Small blessings = small gifts of love from our Father who knows just what we need at any given moment!

Anyway.  Lord willing, I'll write again soon.  You are all in my thoughts and prayers, and I have many things I'd love to be writing about, but I've realized that I have to keep keeping my primary vocation first and foremost; if that means putting down the computer before I ever get the chance to write (time and again) for my daughter's more pressing needs, than so be it.  I reminded myself tonight, as I thought this over (multitasking, while cooking dinner) that if God wants me to write, then He'll make the time for it.  If He isn't making the time for it at the moment, then it must mean He wants me to focus on my other duties, and let those be enough for me.  So that's the state of things!  In the meantime, all you who do stop by, please say hi!  Comments make my day, as do all of your own posts.  I may not have time to write, but I do mostly still have opportunities to read (probably because I can do the latter much more quickly than the former).  So, have a blessed and holy Advent, all.  Keep writing and praying!

Small Successes!

 

Small, and not so small accomplishments this week:

1)  Today I returned our bathroom sink to a state of full functionality.  It has been draining slower and slower for months, and I finally found the motivation to address the issue.  In the process, I learned a little bit about plumbing, since I found I needed to take off the... (I don't know the real name of it, so I didn't really learn that much) u-shaped section of pipe and clean it out.  The only fitting word (blog appropriate, anyway) for the nastiness inside is what my daughter is currently saying about everything: guck.  Anyway, task accomplished, drain finally actually drains, and I shouldn't have to deal with that kind of guck again anytime soon.  I hope.

2)  We're on track to accomplish my goal of having all the Christmas shopping (or at least everything except for presents for each-other) done by December 1st.  Before you think that I'm either super type-A, or jumping the gun on the season, you have to understand my motivation.  I live in the Northeast (and in one of the snowier parts).  The months of October and November have a fair chance of being relatively snow free; December, on the other hand, does not.  Plus, I hate Christmas shopping.  I like buying gifts for people, but I can't stand trudging around in slush to a multitude of over-packed stores manned by overworked employees.  I hate fighting to find a parking spot, and then spending forever trying to get back out of the mall.  So, once I had an additional reason to try and avoid all of the above (the added complication of dragging a very small third person to stores, which she hates, in a car, which she hates), I finally made a resolution to just get it done earlier.  By taking my time in October and November, I'm able to make December a lot more pleasant and stress free.  And this year, it gave me time to make a substantial percentage of the gifts (which is part of the reason it has been awfully quiet on the blog.  I have lots to share, after the holidays, when I can post pictures of various projects!)

3)  In light of having gone nearly a month without any real sort of post, my third small success of the week is simply having found the time to post my small successes :)  'nough said.

Christ the King Sunday is this weekend!  Here's to the end of the liturgical year; may you all have a blessed beginning of Advent :)

At least I'm blogging *somewhere*...

Daylight savings time has ended, taking sleep with it, and my daughter, with new teeth coming in, wants to nurse non-stop day and night.  The end result of these two things is I'm pushed to the limit just to get my work done each day, without much "extra" time kicking around (trust me: I have projects a-plenty piling up on my craft table; I keep eyeing them longingly but not longingly enough to do them at 10 pm, which is about the only time leftover at the end of the day).  So I haven't been around here much.  But, today I'm not completely silent: you can find me over at Catholic Mothers Online, with my latest guest post, Five Frugal Suggestions From Yesteryear.

I promise I'll try to be back here soon, with thoughts, updates, and hopefully the continuation of my "A Horse and Her Girl" story.

Pumpkin deliciousness

I only have a minute, but I wanted to share a fabulous recipe that I heard about on the radio the other day, and which I made for our dinner tonight.  I try not to post recipes unless they are really dynamite ones - ones that I would make regularly because they are just that good, or ones that have some sort of special significance (like the St. Lucia day bread I'll post a link to in a couple of weeks), but trust me, this pumpkin recipe is worth a try.  It's not for the diet conscious, and is rich enough that you wouldn't want to eat it every week, but it's going into my repertoire for "special fall foods".

Here's the link (and the name really does tell the whole story):

"Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good" (from NPR)

To whet your appetite just a little: think bacon, cheese fondue, and roasted pumpkin, all in one.  Yum.  For bonus points, the whole thing took me less than 20 minutes to throw together, then went in the oven for two hours, at which point I just pulled it out and served it.  Little mess, and less fuss.

I have a theory, which I plan to test at some point, that it would make a fabulous dessert as well, if made sweet instead of savory with cinnamon raisin bread, cranberries, walnuts, and lightly sweetened cream cheese...

It's also a great way to use up leftovers for a cheap and fabulous meal: I used the stale remains of a loaf of french bread (from a spaghetti dinner earlier in the week), half a package of bacon that we'll have with "brinner" on the weekend (which would otherwise sit in the fridge and go bad, because we don't use bacon that much), and the tail end of a brick of cheddar cheese.  Definitely seems like a recipe that would well accommodate many different sorts of leftovers, though.

Anyway, try it!  Bon appetite!

Happy Halloween!

Roasted pumpkin seeds, pumpkin bread, lots of candy, and of course the annual Jack-O'-Lantern family:

Must be Halloween :)

Hope everyone had a great night - have a blessed and holy All Saints Day tomorrow!

Five reasons why raising sheep is bootcamp for parenthood:

When I was pregnant with LW, I used the phrase, "oh, it's just like with the sheep" so many times that my husband joked my daughter might come out as a lamb.   Though he wasn't serious, I meant what I was saying, because I really felt (and feel) that raising animals throughout my childhood and adult years helped prep me for what was ahead.  As it turns out, as I reflect back on the last year and a half of adjusting to being a parent, I can confidently say that I was right.  So here's my top five reasons why raising animals (sheep, in particular) is great for any kid who thinks they might have a vocation to marriage and family.

5)  A crash course in the birds and the bees:

 I continue to be dumbfounded at the number of people out there who don't seem to associate reproduction with.. well.. reproduction!  You see, I grew up with a very mammalian view of sex.  Long before the rushing hormonal surges of adolescence, I already knew what happened when a ram jumped a fence to get in with a ewe (or a stallion escaped and got in with a mare, or our female cat escaped into the night when in heat... these sort of incidents unfortunately happened regularly).  I knew that the phrase "I don't think anything happened," most often resulted in a lamb or two, five months down the line.  Actually, I don't think anyone ever even had "the talk" with me; it wasn't necessary.  I knew where babies came from: baby horses, baby cats, baby dogs, baby sheep, and as a result, though I didn't think about it a whole lot, baby humans as well.  Most importantly, raising a variety of mammals instilled in me an almost visceral understanding of just how easily pregnancy can happen: the only surprise for me has been to realize exactly how difficult it can be for humans to get pregnant as compared to the rest of the animal kingdom.  Having all of this safely in mind before the aforementioned hormonal surges definitely helped me to understand that sex and babies were intrinsically connected, and that I shouldn't engage in one until I was ready for the other.

4)  Bottle lambs: infinitely more realistic than Baby Alive, Flour Babies, or Egg Babies:

My family has often joked that the best way to prevent teenage pregnancy is to give every teenage boy and girl a bottle lamb of their very own to take care of.  A few nights of getting up every two hours with a bottle goes a long way towards fostering an accurate idea of what babies are really like.  Since one or more of these bottle babies appeared at least every couple of years growing up, I got a lot of experience in this department (kids who grew up in families with regularly appearing new babies doubtless could identify).  Bottle lambs are also a great advertisement for breastfeeding, because it immediately becomes clear how much easier it is to be the momma sheep, with milk always at the ready, than to be the surrogate mom, having to mix milk-replacer and sterilize bottles.  Also, to put a more positive spin on the experience, it's pretty easy to bond with a bottle lamb; you get to experience the transformative power of nurturing emotion, without the lifelong commitment.

3)  Patience, patience, patience, with a bit of sneakiness thrown in:

There's nothing like spending years dealing with some of the most dense creatures on earth (there is a really good reason why God describes the stubbornness of Israel with the metaphor of sheep) to work on your patience.  While I'll freely admit that kids (and husbands, and family, and coworkers, and even random people ahead of you in line) force you to exercise the virtue at a whole new level), sheep can really help you to learn how to be patient with someone much stupider, or more stubborn, than you.  They're also a good case study in how best to bribe, lure, and herd someone in the direction that you want.  And, in the tangentially related practical realm of performing disagreeable procedures (tooth brushing, nail clipping, and bathing) gently, firmly, and most importantly quickly, I'm grateful every day that I had a chance to practice on a sheep, before I had to do them for a baby.

2)  Getting past the "yuck" factor:

This is actually a biggie.  Parenthood is messy.  There's just no way around it.  There are all sorts of bodily fluids and secretions, flying food, nothing stays where it is put, not to even mention the messy emotions involved.  I won't say that raising animals is exactly the same; I've never yet seen a sheep capable of quite the sort of whirlwind destruction that my one year old is currently practicing, but by and large, I have to say that sheep pack a bigger punch in the "yuck" department than babies do.  No offense to any of you who have ever had to deal with a diaper incident of epic proportions, but I guarantee I've dealt with worse from the sheep.  I can think of quite a lot of ways in which this is so, but the phrase "fly strike" takes the cake.  If you don't know what it is, consider yourself fortunate.  If you want to know, Google it, but not if you have a weak stomach.  Once a person can handle that sort of "yuck" without batting an eye, parenthood feels like a step in an easier direction.  Plus, with all the random animal injuries I've had to doctor or assist doctoring over the years, I'm able to keep a much cooler head when my daughter gets banged up. 

1)  The business of being born in a barn:

While I definitely mean every single one of the proceeding reasons, this is the one that I feel was by far the most important to me (aside, perhaps, from the "yuck" preparation, which incidentally has its own place in the labor and delivery room).  I can't explain adequately, or strongly enough, how well having delivered quite literally generations of lambs prepared me for giving birth to my own daughter.  I think the line that actually elicited the whole "you're not giving birth to a sheep" response from my husband was when I said that I was pretty sure I could deliver my own baby if I needed to.  You see, from a very young age (I think at least 8 or 9, if not before), I was designated as the one with the "smallest hands," the one who would do the actual work of delivering stuck lambs, sorting out tangled twins, in short, being the obstetrician for our sheep.  Even once my hands were no longer the smallest, I was deemed the most experienced, and so continued being the delivery girl.  Not only did this acquaint me quite well with most of the scientific facts surroundings pregnancy, labor, delivery, colostrum, etc, and with the labor process, with what is normal and what isn't, with the fluids and smells (sorry if this makes anyone squeamish, but it's true - mammalian birth comes with fluids and smells), but it also gave me a strong belief in the ability of the female body to do what comes naturally.  I learned that the best birth, by far, is the untampered with birth; that females do best when allowed to labor undisturbed.  I learned to approach birth with the perspective of a midwife; most importantly, I learned not to be afraid of birth.

 Now, I'll admit, it was hard to keep that perspective when I was pregnant.  What perhaps helped the most was stumbling upon the film The Business of Being Born, which reaffirmed everything that I'd instinctively absorbed growing up, all the timeless truths that were being crowded out of my head by the perspective of a society that sees labor as something wrong with a woman, something that must be managed closely and carefully, and medicated away if possible.  The film jolted me back to all my experiences delivering lambs; of easing slippery, wet babies from their laboring mamas in the quiet of a barn (usually at night, and usually in the middle of the winter; as a side note, this also gave me a great appreciation for what Mary must have gone through in Bethlehem).   Consequently, I wasn't really afraid when I went into labor; I was able to trust my instincts in a way that I don't would have been possible if trusting the progression of labor hadn't become essentially instinctual for me.  I wasn't afraid when my water broke in the middle of the night; the fluid, the scent, the adrenaline kick of "this is it!" brought me back to so many nights of jumping out of bed and then sitting quietly on an overturned grain feeder, and watching a ewe quietly labor from the dim light of a heat lamp.  I knew how the ewes seemed to turn inwards as the contractions deepened, grunting quietly against the pain; I knew that the mammalian body is made to give birth; I knew that they were able to do it, and that I could, too.

 So there you have it.   I'm not necessarily advocating raising sheep (it pretty much can be a huge pain).  But I would wholeheartedly advocate giving your children the chance to interact with other mammals in some way; if possible, at the very least, give your daughters the chance to see other mammals birth and mother their young.  In a world where we as a human race have lost much that we once knew when it comes to our mammalian (i.e. those who bear live young and produce milk with which to feed those young) nature, you'll be giving them a great foundation if and when they have children of their own.

Mountains and Plateaus

Yesterday, as I pulled into our local grocery store, it hit me: motherhood is just like driving standard.

OK, before you dismiss this thought as out of left field, or at best a weird over-generalization, let me explain myself.  I alternate between driving our two cars - one of which is standard, the other is automatic; in the beginning, I made the decision between cars based on whether there were any hills between me and my destination, but now it's whichever car my husband has left home, or which I can get out of the driveway quicker. 

Yesterday, I was in the automatic.  I pulled into the parking lot, and in a reflex move that many veteran standard transmission drivers can relate to, I found myself pushing in a non-existent clutch with my left foot as I hit the brake to stop.  Then, as I entered the store, another reflex had me pulling out a car with a seat to put my daughter in - only to realize that I'd left her at home with her dad.  That's when I realized the strange similarity between these two seemingly disparate pieces of my life.

You see, we bought a standard transmission car right after our daughter was born last year.  If you're like me and didn't learn to drive standard back when you were learning to drive, you'll know that to learn later on is basically tantamount to learning to drive all over again.  All of the easy familiarity you take for granted in say, driving across town, up a hill, and through a few stop signs, suddenly disappears, and everything requires this ridiculous focus, concentration, and energy.  It feels like you'll never be able to master shifting while doing or thinking about anything else; it feels like you'll never be able to really drive again. 

For me, motherhood - bringing a tiny newborn baby home from the hospital - felt exactly the same way.  Everything I'd ever taken for granted in my adult life, such as showering, going to bed, waking up, dressing, eating - all the fundamental basics, as well as a whole lot of tangentials, suddenly became painfully difficult, even occasionally impossible, to accomplish.  I wasn't sure how I'd ever be able to focus on anything else except this all-consuming thing called being a Mom; I wasn't sure if I'd ever feel like I was really living again, and not just checking off the check boxes of what LW needed done for her each day.

And yet, as steep as the learning curve in both areas has been, I feel like in some ways I'm finally seeing how it's possible.  My automatic reactions in the parking lot and store yesterday prove it:  driving a standard has become second nature, and in like manner, so has being a Mom.  I know that whenever we have our next baby, he or she will create a whole new learning experience, and things will be chaotic for a while.  But thank heavens, I never have to bring my first baby home from the hospital again.  The next time around, I'll already know that a time of stability will eventually arrive: that we'll reach the plateau in between mountains, and will eventually learn to re-balance this crazy thing called life.  We're always moving onwards and upwards, and God never gives us too much time in these plateaus, so I'm always so thankful for the gift of realizing when I'm in one: to take time to rest in the feeling that I've at least temporarily mastered most of the tasks required of me on a day to day basis.

What about you all?  What metaphors have you found apt for the transitions and challenges in your lives?  Are you in a plateau, or fighting your way up a mountain?

Chocolate saves the day!

Our lunchtime today had all the makings of a disaster:

1) Friday is the end of the week in our house as far as groceries go, and our fridge was looking rather barren.  

2) LW's food preferences have been growing fewer and more unachievable by the day, and all that I could seem to come up with was an English muffin with cashew butter, a rather overripe plum that she herself had dug out of the fruit basket (and thus that I felt relatively certain she might actually eat), and a pile of shredded mozzarella cheese (Jim and I had somehow managed to finish in four days all the string cheese that I bought "just for her").

3)  The plum went flying after three bites.

4)  The English muffin never even touched her mouth.

5)  If you ever have the brilliant idea to substitute shredded cheese for bite size, don't bother.  After about 3 seconds of patting myself on the back for the neat sensory experience I'd given her, I started kicking myself instead as handfuls of the stuff started flying.  Note to self: shredded cheese isn't particularly easy to get out of a kitchen rug.

Keep in mind that during this saga, I had yet to have any food myself.  We had leftover ziti from the night before, but I'd also made a rather disappointing pumpkin soup yesterday, and had dutifully packed away the leftovers despite having not enjoyed it all that much the first time.  When I saw the recipe at Faith and Family, I thought I'd struck gold; this time of year finds me practically turning orange from all the sweet potato, squash, and pumpkin that I eat, and I'd been looking for a recipe for a sweet pumpkin soup since having some at a restaurant last year.  Last week I'd tried to replicate it using pumpkin pie filling, but the result was inedible; this recipe was much better, but still just seemed to be missing something.  Perhaps if I'd made it with something richer than 1% milk it would have been really good, but as it was, it was just sort of "bleh".

Still, being food, and food I'd specifically bought ingredients for, I didn't feel like I could throw it away, unexcited as I was to eat it again for lunch.  Suddenly, in a dash of inspiration, I threw a handful of chocolate chips in before I heated it up.  The result?  Wow!  Yum!  So good that I'll likely make it again.

Even LW voted it tasty, no small feat since she started crying after the taste she had yesterday.

Something tells me that this won't be the last time I find myself singing the praises of chocolate chips...  

Co-creation

I went for a long walk (after a shorter than usual run) tonight: one of those walks where it just feels good to be outdoors, crunching leaves underfoot, breathing in wood smoke and leaf mold and the last lawn clipping scent of summer, and just enjoying being alive.  Walking for me is generally a great way to get into a thinking sort of mood - to, as Emily of New Moon would say, bring on "the flash"(if you're not familiar, look up L.M. Montgomery).  Anyway, I found myself really pondering the idea of co-creation, and how it relates to our eventual (hopeful) destination of heaven, as well as our current vocations in the here and now.  Thought I'd share a bit of the rambling road my thoughts went down, not that they were somehow highly insightful, but rather hoping that they might inspire further thought and/or spark discussion, leading us "further up and further in" (as C.S. Lewis would say).

1)  I would love to be able to really paint, to do justice to and call attention to the beauty of God's creation around us.  But I would need another whole lifetime to cultivate that particular skill.

2)  Lewis and Tolkien both suggest heavily that a particular element of heaven will be our continued participation in further fleshing out/leafing out/decorating God's creation - that the particular way in which we are made in God's image, is that we, like him, create.

3) Therefore, perhaps in heaven, I'll have the chance to perfect my painting skills.

4)  Perhaps the great multitude around the throne singing "Holy, Holy, Holy," aren't necessarily literally singing the whole time, but are rather glorifying God with the various talents God has bestowed upon them (and ever discovering new talents He has bestowed on each).

5)  In the meantime, here in this time and space, He has given me a very particular set of roles and gifts.

6)  One of these gifts is writing, however the time hasn't necessarily come for that to be my primary focus (when or if such a time ever comes is in His control rather than mine).

7)  He has, very definitely, given me one very concrete way to participate with Him in the most glorious type of co-creation possible: that of begetting and raising new little souls to be loved and learn to love Him.  Being "just a mom," even if I never did anything else, would be, if lived rightly, all the purpose, title, and crown I could ever need.

8)  Still, I do hope to be able to find time, (in time, or in eternity), to develop the other passions He's planted in me: not for my own glory, not to point towards or share of myself, but to share more of Him.

As Tolkien says, in his poem "Mythopeia" (this is only an excerpt; the whole poem can be found in the book Tree and Leaf),

"Though now long estranged,

man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.

Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned,

and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,

...

man, sub-creator, the refracted light

through whom is splintered from a single White

to many hues, and endlessly combined

in living shapes that move from mind to mind.

Though all the crannies of the world we filled

with elves and goblins, though we dared to build

gods and their houses out of dark and light,

and sow the seed of dragons, 'twas our right

(used or misused). The right has not decayed.

We make still by the law in which we're made."

Anyway.  If any of this resonates with any of you in even the smallest part, I suggest reading Leaf by Niggle, by J.R.R. Tolkien.  It is (especially if you have any knowledge of Tolkien himself, and his long work on The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and the Silmarillion) a beautiful metaphorical glimpse into what heaven might be.  And also The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis.  My apologies if this all is a bit disjointed - I find myself torn between perfecting my posts (and never or rarely posting anything, due to the previously lamented extreme lack of time in which to write), or posting items even in an unanalyzed, barely proofread state just to continue communicating with the world at large :)

No time, no time!

"Time is what we want most, but what, alas! we use worst; and for which God will certainly most strictly reckon with us, when Time shall be no more." - William Penn

I have so many things I'd love to be blogging about these days, but somehow all my time from waking to sleeping (and back around again) is eaten up with all sorts of other things: big things, little things, monotonous things, exciting things, but all offline things.  It's amazing how the vocation of marriage and motherhood can and does demand all of you (and then some): all your time, all your patience, all your energy, all your attention, all your life.  I wouldn't have it any other way, but I do hope that I can also find tidbits of time, soon, where writing can find a regular niche in my days as well.

In the meantime, until I get back to telling the story of my horse, or sharing some other thought that is on my mind, I'll leave you with one of my other favorite quotes about time.  My great aunt shared this with me when I was a teenager, and it's stuck with me ever since.  Although I don't know who the original author was, and I realize that it could certainly be seen as trite or cliche if read in the wrong manner, it is still a valuable way to rightly weigh which "things" I'll allow to eat up my time, and conversely, which aren't worth the cost:

"What I do today is important; I am exchanging a day of my life for it."

When you look back at the end of your life, which "things" were worth the exchange of one of those precious days?  And which "exchanges," if you could, would you take back, and purchase something more lasting with?

Happy Sunday everyone, and a holy day of Sabbath rest to all.

A Horse and Her Girl: Backstory

"There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man." -Winston Churchill

After posting Part One, I suddenly realized that a good deal more backstory was needed to fill in the gaps, explaining exactly how horse crazy I was (and still am), and why I am suddenly thinking about the story of my horse (which is, in essence, not just the story of that one horse, but of me and horses).  So a little bit of background, before I continue on chronologically.

As I mentioned before, "horse" was among the first handful of words that I learned; what I didn't mention was that I was crazy about them from the first introduction, playing with replicas, pretending to ride, etc.  And when I say crazy, I mean truly, head-over-heels, crazy.  Aside from a well-loved Cabbage Patch doll, the first present I can really remember receiving was a My Little Pony, and by the age of 8, my herd at grown to 40.  Later on, Breyer horses replaced the My Little Ponies, and my dad built a lovely functional stable for me.  There was no Barbie dream house; it was Brenda Breyer all the way, and my imaginary play didn't involve romance, but rather cleaning stalls, watering, feeding, and riding.

Back then, my favorite moment of the year was at the fair, when I'd get to go on the pony rides.  I still remember that it cost $5, which seemed like a lot of money, and I would absolutely savor those few minutes of walking around the circle on a bored pony with its lamentably shaved mane (oh, if only $5 could buy so much happiness now!).  Even better than the pony rides were the few times that I was allowed to sit on one of my aunt's horses; on Winakee Furka, her gentle-as-could-be stallion, or one of the yearlings who were still pony-size.  My family started raising sheep around the time I was 4, and I did get to occasionally "ride" the sheep - even jumping my ewe Rosemary over the ditch in our pasture.  Sheep don't have long necks like horses, and aside from the wool, there isn't much to hang on to; I credit those early sheep rides with laying the foundation for my future ability to stay on a horse despite some pretty wild unseating tactics.

By the time I was twelve, when I wasn't reading the Black Stallion, The Island Stallion, Misty of Chincoteague, King of the Wind, Summer Pony, or some other horse-related fiction, I could most likely be found pouring over the latest StateLine tack catalogue, or setting up jump courses for myself to run through outdoors.  I was that weird girl that you'll sometimes see from the window of your car as you zip by - that one who appears to be "cantering" around her yard, jumping a course made of buckets and sticks, perhaps with a branch of a tree in her hand as a "crop".  When I went on hikes, walks, or bike rides, I didn't do so as a human in my mind; always there was an imaginary horse involved.  I even named these various imaginary equines, with bold names like Commander, Crusader, and SunStar for the stallions, and gentler ones like Secret and Shadow for the mares ("Chestnut Brown," which my cousin came up with, was just not a good enough moniker for the grand Arabian steeds in my head).  I practiced breeds of the horse flashcards; built a model of the "visible horse"; once tried to mail "horse dust" to the aforementioned cousin... you get the picture.

Perhaps I would have imagined less, and even been less invested in the idea of myself as a future equestrian, if I'd actually been able to spend more time with horses; if my aunt had allowed a pony, or my family had been rich enough to afford riding lessons earlier and more often.  But I count myself highly fortunate, because my aunt did own and breed horses, and thus, when Eclipse was born, I was able to realize a dream that for an awful lot of horse crazy girls only ever stays a dream: that of actually owning and training my own horse.  The end of the story might be a sad one - but still, for seventeen years, I was blessed.

Aside from merely reminiscing due to the various reasons that this time of year awakens the equine passion in my blood, I found myself thinking about all of this, and wanting to post about it, because it so highly shaped who I was as a teenager, and who I am today.  At some point, I'll have to tell the story of the sheep, too, because raising sheep quite definitely has shaped my views about how the world works, at least from a biological perspective.  But horses are and always have been special to me, and as my husband and I have been thinking about purchasing a house at some point, and where that might be, along with what our needs and wants are in that area, I've found myself pondering what role I want horses to play in our future.

I tell this story to remind myself of the past; perhaps to show my own path into a territory that all those equine novels didn't really cover.  It's all well and good for the teenager to ride off into the sunset, but what happens when she grows up?  When other dreams begin to compete for time and space in her finite life?  This story is an attempt to remember that sunset, and then see through it to the middle of the next day, when the same horse-crazy girl is asking, "How can horses find a role in a homemaker's life?"

A Horse and Her Girl: Part One

This time of year, with the crunching leaves and crisp edge to the wind, always makes me think of horseback riding.   And this year, it's reminding me of my horse, Eclipse, in an extra way, because it was right around this time last year that we had to say goodbye.   My mom wrote about this at the time, but for me there wasn't a lot to say. Now, however, over a year has passed, enough time to want to, and be able to, tell the story of the horse that grew with me from a child of ten, to a wife with a child of my own.  However, it's a longish story, encompassing seventeen years, so even a brief telling of the tale will take a couple of parts.

Part One

Eclipse was technically an accident, the product of an escaped stallion, a late night rendezvous, a moment of unbridled equine passion.  Her mother was, at the time, my absolute favorite animal on the planet, a thoroughly patient, devoted, loving mare named after my grandmother Norma.  N.R., as she was referred to, was never formally trained, but she was still the safest horse in the pasture on whom to learn to ride.  The stallion, Praise Song, was a fiery young stud who, shortly after the rendezvous in question, picked my father up by the hood of his sweatshirt and actually shook him (my dad later liked to show us the sweatshirt with the teeth marks, evidence of a close brush with death).  Needless to say, Praise Song didn't get to stay a stallion long after that incident - he was actually gelded the very next day.

So Eclipse was a one-and-only from the moment of conception.  Then came the night of her birth.  If you search for June 15, 1992, you'll find that there was a partial lunar eclipse on that night; that night she was born, with her forehead marked with the crescent moon.

She was essentially mine from birth; my aunt, who owned all the horses, had promised each of her nieces and nephews a horse of their own choosing at their 13th birthday, which they could either sell (reaping the proceeds), or keep and train.  Horse-crazy basically from childhood ("see! see!" was my early word for horse), I of course chose the latter, and the only filly born in years from my favorite mare was an obvious choice. But, at 10 years old (and not yet weighing the sixty lbs that my elders has arbitrarily deemed the weight at which I could ride alone), there wasn't a lot I could do with her.  I halter trained her, of course, and when she escaped her pasture, I was the only one who could catch her to get her back in.  I have a shadowy memory of a young, dark filly on a sunny lawn, friendly ears pricked towards me as I confidently walked up and put a lead around her neck.  And another memory of then weaving, with my mom, a "baling twine barrier" all up and down the fence, so that she couldn't escape again.  Hours of work, a complete visual eye-sore, but effective enough that it stayed for probably a decade after we put it up.

Over the next three years, she and I both grew, and the storms of adolescence hit.  She began to exhibit a temper much like her father's; I was rather broody, melancholy, and while becoming an accomplished rider, still very green and uncertain.  Probably as with any horse trained by a young teenager, she developed some quirks right from the beginning that took years to go away: spinning into the circle on the lunge, rearing to get out of things, tossing her head at bridling.  If things had continued in that vein, I might not have had much luck ever riding her, but fate, and illicit rendezvous of her own with another escaped stallion (this is a trend on our farm.  Stallions, rams, "I don't think anything happened" and then several months later, offspring; great for reproductive education but not so great for keeping herd size down), intervened.  Over the course of a few months, her mood inexplicably mellowed, until one day, as I was brushing her, I felt something move.

Unbridled Passion, as I named the foal, was born a few months later.  Before he was born, I took great advantage of Eclipse's more mellow disposition, and the weight of the foal inside her kept her a lot slower and easy to work with (having now experienced the last trimester of pregnancy, I now realize it was awfully unfair to take advantage of her condition, but it did help).  Of course, the whole situation was far from ideal; if she'd been a human instead of a horse, she'd have been starring in the movie Juno, because age-wise she wasn't out of horse-high school yet.  The stallion in question was a cousin of hers, so the genetics weren't great, and the foal never amounted to much (he actually had to be put down after he broke his leg in a pasture accident when he was two).  But the time allowed Eclipse and I to grow much closer, and for the first time in my life I was riding on a daily basis.  Riding - to this day, there's still nothing quite like it, and back then, I was riding my equine best friend.

If there's any interest in part two, I'll continue soon.. :)

Contentment versus Discontent: Part Deux

I've been reflecting further on the nature of contentment, and how to get there from the land of discontent, and I've come up with the following.  I'm sure my "solution," if you can call it such, since I guarantee it's a battle I'll fight repeatedly my whole life long, is nothing new or particularly inventive.  But as I've been able to find a small measure of peace through a change in attitude and practices,  I thought I'd share, since you were all so kind as to comment, offer suggestions, and mostly just empathize with the feeling of not being quite where you want.

First - the back story, part one, can be found here:

Not wanting to wallow all Fall in a bog of disappointment, disillusionment, and discouragement (oh, those nasty "dis" words), I've adopted a three pronged approach that seems to be offering some measure of consolation:

1) Re-examine and remind myself of all the blessings and provision that God *has* provided, in His good time.  These blessings have been either gratuitous, in that we didn't need them but were very happy to receive just the same, or utterly fortuitous, because we really needed His provision to come through, and it did.  The list gets long when I really stop and think about it - a loving (and humorous) husband, a beautiful daughter, good jobs for both of us that have allowed us to have a lot of flexibility, and have allowed me to be home with our daughter; families that love us; good educations, great friends both near and far.  Everything that we have needed, He has provided, with a goodly measure of non-needs at the same time.  Part of step one is also realizing that this very apartment, that we want to move out of, is among the many blessings we have received.  Indeed, the fact that the oil furnace broke, necessitating replacement, and more importantly prompting our landlord to replace our expensive electric water heater with (cheaper) on demand hot water is proof that God is watching out for us, even when it isn't necessarily what we're wanting.

In this same vein, I've examined why exactly we want a house so badly, and whether it is currently a want, or a need, and have found that it is still truly the former.  Our current apartment, while small, is fine for a family of three with the newest member still co-sleeping in our bed.  We do have a second bedroom, even, that can be converted to LW's room if we end up here for a goodly length more time.  It would be tight with two little ones, but not as tight as my parents made do with when we were small (a single-wide trailer with an addition, until I was five, while my dad was building our house).  We'd like a house because financially it makes more sense long term; because we'd like a place to sink our roots and really call home; because we'd like a yard, and the ability to grow much more of our food.  But for the time being, a want it is.

2) Examine what is "lacking" in our current living space, and address it, where financially feasible.  When we moved into our apartment, we didn't know for how long it was going to be; we were hoping to buy a house once our one-year lease expired.  We've now been here well over two years, and some of the assumptions that we made going into it have proven false.  For instance, we've chose to make do with the old $40 carpet I'd bought at Staples for a former apartment, figuring it didn't make sense to buy something nicer.  We made do with a cardboard box at first for a DVD stand, until our landlord kindly donated his old one when he purchased a bigger TV.  Fortunately, I did yield to Jim's better judgment in the matter of blinds and shades for the windows - if it had been up to me, I probably would have done without, figuring "we're not going to be here for long."  But in the meantime, this attitude has made us unconsciously act as though this isn't really our home - and has thus increased our feeling of discontentment with where we're at.

So, I've been looking around our home, and seeing the places where we could make it a little bit more homey.  Some of these touches are small - I'm planning to make a nice shower curtain, and some new curtains for our kitchen.  Some are bigger - it really is time to get a new rug for our living room at the least, and perhaps the bedroom as well.  We'd love to get a small flat screen TV that could hang on the wall and free up more floor space (as well as keeping the buttons out of the reach of inquisitive fingers - our current model, a TV I bought back when I was still a teenager, has had to be retrofitted with a cardboard panel taped over the buttons).  However that is a much bigger purchase, and requires a lot more evaluation.  The key, as far as I'm concerned, is mostly small additions that can eventually carry over to the house we buy when the timing is right.

It isn't all purchases, either: we've been very much living, the last few months especially, as though we were going to move.  This has meant not bothering to keep some small areas of our house (cupboards, closets) tidy.  Today I went through and attacked as many "culch" areas as I could, and the house really does feel better for it.  I'll go through the kitchen cabinets sometime soon as well.

3) Finally, realize that the feeling of want that I'm experiencing is really about something deeper, and even finding that perfect house wouldn't actually assuage it.  C.S. Lewis says it best, in The Weight of Glory: 

 "If a transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desire fixes must be in some degree fallacious, must bear at best only a symbolical relation to what will truly satisfy,"

and also,

"The books or the music [or house!] in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

I've been forced to learn this lesson repeatedly in the past, especially when longing for a romantic relationship that was yet to be, or nostalgically missing a person or place from the past.  The real longing is for the joy those people or places, or that desired relationship, did or would bring into my life; joy that is a foretaste of heaven, but that exists only in so far as I keep seeking heaven, and don't seek those things in themselves.  When I've gone back to those places looking for that same joy, I find exactly what Lewis says: it is not there.  In the past, I've counseled myself to remember that what I'm really longing for is heaven, and to therefore seek God with all my heart in order to one day experience the real fulfillment of that want.  So really, that is the be all, end all, cure to wanting a house: to realize that I'm not really wanting an earthly house, so much as my heavenly home.  And in the meantime, to accept God's daily provision, and trust that He'll provide a bigger space, and earth to sink our roots into, when the time really is right.

My apologies for the LONG post, but I really wanted to share :)

Late September

The seemingly endless, hot days of summer have given way to cool, rainy, cloudy fall.  The leaves are slowly turning, and my garden has put forth its last fruits.  Technically, the fruits really ended, for all intensive purposes, a while back; the garden fell into disheveledness sometime in August, but I did make a valiant attempt at reinvigorating it a few weeks ago.  I cut off the all the tomato vines that were showing signs of early blight, pulled out all the squash plants, took down the pea fence and vines, and raked, mostly so that our landlords wouldn't be unhappy with us for bringing down the eye-appeal of their lawn.  The side-benefit was that the hot peppers put out enough of a final effort so that I was able to can two tiny half-pints of pickled peppers yesterday.

(I then spent all last evening with my hands *on fire* because I scoffed at the warnings to use rubber gloves while handling the peppers.  Never again!)

This is what fall looks like in my kitchen:

Essentially, my already non-existent counter space is completely overwhelmed with food preserving equipment - and, of course, coffee.

Apple butter in the crock pot, spearmint in the dehydrator; I dried nearly my entire bush of sage as well, leaving enough to bring some inside to see if it will last the winter. 

Two half-pints of pickled peppers, three one-pint zip lock bags of oven-dried cherry tomatoes, a jar of spearmint, a jar of sage; a summer's worth of lettuce and tomatoes for salad, enough peas for two rounds of pea-potato soup, plus a few dinner servings of snap pea pods; overwhelming amounts of summer squash, basil, sage, and chives; and one or two sweet peppers.  That is pretty much the tally of what our little garden plot yielded this summer.  I'm not sure if we really saved any money, but I had a lot of fun in the process, and I look forward to trying again next summer - I'll definitely know better what to focus on, and how much is enough, too little, or too much of various plants.

As for produce that I didn't plant, but did preserve: a bushel of apples yielded nine 4-oz jars of butter, 5 crisps, and enough extras for eating.  We also have the rhubarb marmalade jam from earlier in the year (my new favorite), and ginger peach jam (also good, but we have enough that some will probably make its way into Christmas baskets).

Anyway, I never expected to get that much canning done with a 15 month underfoot, so I'm pleased, and happy to hang up the apron for the winter.  Now I can turn my eyes to other crafty pursuits, such as Christmas presents.  I've already pumped out two skirts and a dress for myself, and a skirt for LW, but I'm sure there's more sewing on the horizon.



LW modeling her skirt.  Blurry because I had to snap quick in order to run across the room to save her.  This is what is *really* keeping me busy lately - she's developed quite a love for climbing.



Besides crafting, I'm turning my leisure time more towards reading again, and contemplating, and hopefully, more writing.

And coffee.  Lots of coffee.  Something about the light of morning creeping later and later into the day, and the grey weather, and my daughter's reluctance to nap, combined with my never-ending need to get work done, has me drinking large amounts of the stuff.  It doesn't do a ton of good because I can't really tolerate anything that isn't decaf, but there is a psychological boost just the same.  I blame my cousin for getting me hooked while she was here; there was something lovely about having a morning coffee quietly appear as I dug into my day's computer work.  The joke is on her though because it's a lot harder to come by coffee where she'll be for the next year :)

I have further thoughts on the nature of contentment vs. discontent, but I'll save those for a post all their own - I've been all over the map enough for one post already :)

Finally - I just heard that one of my favorite spiritual writers died on Sunday: Fr. Thomas Dubay.  If you haven't read any of his books, I highly recommend The Evidential Power of Beauty, and Happy Are You Poor.  Say a prayer for the repose of his soul!  Our loss is heaven's gain.

Contentment versus Discontent

I don't have time for a long post at the moment, but this is something I've been struggling with lately (OK, maybe I've been struggling with it my whole life?):  how to be content in the moment, content with God's provision for Right Now rather than looking to the future or the past for something that isn't Right Now.

At the moment, the "want" that is currently unfulfilled is that of a house to call our own; we've been looking and looking, and are finally coming to the conclusion that we may need to put the search on hold for the time being, because financially it just doesn't feel like the right moment. With LW's tooth problems, there may be some big medical expenses coming up, and it was a financially rough summer with lots of weddings, miscellaneous car repairs, and random (yet somehow large ticket) other items that had to be taken care of.   We probably could swing it, but I've found myself riddled with doubt, anxiety, and an extreme lack of peace about the decision, all good indications that the way has not yet been opened for us to move forward.  I feel more at peace in one sense about waiting, but at the same time, waiting leaves me in an uncomfortable place of unfulfilled "want".

However, it's not the first, or doubtless the last, "want" that I'll experience.  For a long time, it was a relationship; then engagement, marriage, a child.  Of course, right now I'd love to go back and be in one of those places of "want" again instead, because I can now see how He provided those blessings all in good time.  He is ever faithful, and in the same manner, I know He'll provide a place to really call our own when the time is right - yet this doesn't stop me from looking longingly at what others have, even jealously and oftentimes bitterly at the means that He's given others to live with, and to live just a bit more easily than we do.

And yet, when I really stop and look at it, I can see how, like the manna in the desert, He has been providing everything we need, right when we needed it.  Perhaps He's working on teaching us to trust a bit more, and the house will come along when we really need it, when we begin splitting the seams of this apartment rather than when we're mostly wistfully thinking of all the perks of home ownership.

I guess it just comes down to trusting the Hand that is leading us, even when the way is dark.  I feel like I've lived through this lesson over, and over, and over again in the last several years, but there must be some purpose still left in it; who was it that said, "You learn more from climbing the same mountain a hundred times, than from climbing a hundred different mountains?"

When I stop and really look at how I'm feeling, too, I begin to feel really guilty for feeling discontent.  So many in the world go without nearly all the creature comforts that I enjoy, so how dare I feel bad because we can't buy a house, or because money is tight?  After all, money doesn't determine happiness. And we are happy, taking joy in the growth of our little girl, in our marriage, in family, friends, the beautiful state we live in, and all sorts of non-money related little pursuits.  Still, the itch is there - the itch for more, better, to have something that I currently don't have.  Consumerism lives deep within, hard as I may try to weed it out.

Ironically, the best way that I've found to deal with this particular itch is a two-pronged approach of focusing on the real, concrete blessings that God has bestowed (and how providentially He has provided every step of the way), while at the same time practicing a bit of detachment - getting rid of things I've been holding on to, and denying myself in little ways to restore my focus on where I should be storing my treasure up.  It's a dual watering/pruning approach, and it does work, but still growth comes slowly, grudgingly, like roots through concrete.

Anyone else experience these sorts of feelings?  Any practical advice for learning patience when it comes to things like houses and finances?  I find that I can so quickly fall from discontentment to outright discouragement, because it so often seems like some of the dreams I have are years away, if they indeed will ever be realized.  Then again, this very week three years ago, I never could have guessed that marriage and baby were literally only months away.  I've experienced the darkness before the dawn enough to know that quite often, when I start feeling like this, good things are just around the corner, if only I can be patient enough to allow them to unfold.

In two places at one time...

Nope - I haven't learned how to bi-locate.  But you can find me over at Catholic Mothers Online today, with a guest post about one of my newest favorite novels: In This House of Brede, by Rumer Godden.  Stop on by and say hi, and check out the blog roll of other Catholic moms while you're there!

Thankful for blessings in disguise...

While it may not have looked any quieter than usual around here the last few days, it was actually a lot quieter (well, less Internet-y) in my home.  This is because on Monday night, I turned on my computer only to discover that a virus was wreaking havoc with my ability to do any sort of searching with any of the major search engines. 

This could, and should, have been a huge hassle, given that the computer affected was my work computer, and I telecommute.  Coupled with my husband's computer being dead due to a broken power cord (a replacement, courtesy of my lovely cousin, will be arriving this weekend), it could have meant disaster.  As it turned out, it did mean a couple of days of lost productivity that I'll have to make up in one way or another in the coming weeks.  However, it was also a huge blessing, because it forced me to take a real break from the distractions that so often keep me from taking real breaks. 

For two days, I couldn't check my email, surf the net, Google for recipes, or read other people's blogs.  I couldn't research houses or peruse Facebook.  Rather, my options were to read a book, sip coffee, clean the house, or play with my little one.  When she was napping, my options were limited to the first three.

Therefore - after a two day, Internet-free "vacation" - my house is very clean, and more importantly, I feel very rested.  I didn't get any more physical sleep than usual, in fact perhaps less, but I experienced a rest from the temptation to distraction that the Internet so often represents for me.  It is just so easy, when given an hour's break, or even ten minutes, to spend it researching this, shopping for that, reading, navigating, etc, and I couldn't believe how often I caught myself thinking "I'll just go check..."  But of course I couldn't, which was the whole blessing of it; when I have the ability to do all those things, I end up frittering away my few moments of peace, and feel less rested after than before. 

So, after a few days' break, I definitely appreciate some of the very good things of the Internet more, like the ability to have a recipe instantly at my finger tips, my calendar and people's phone #'s just a click away, and the social connections.  However, I also have a renewed sense of understanding for how good it is just to step away; to close the computer and soak up a good book, or a few minutes listening to the radio or even the wind outside. 

In light of this discovery, my husband and I are seriously contemplating making Sundays "Internet-free" days, so that at least once a week, we can unplug, relax, and enjoy the real world outside without the constant allure of information at our fingertips.  I think this would be a really good thing for our mental health, our daughter's formation, and also for our relationship.

I do recognize the irony of blogging about unplugging, but I thought I'd share.  Try it - unplug for an hour or a day (and I mean, really unplug - no cheating!), and see what I mean.  See how often the thought to check something crosses your mind; if you are like me, first it will feel very uncomfortable, and then you'll realize how much more uncomfortable you are with having the Internet hold such power over you, and you'll find something better to do.  In my case, that meant a great book (The Fellowship of the Ring), which of course must be accompanied by an appropriate snack (wedge of cheese, apple, mug of coffee); for you, the form of relaxation may be different but the point is the same.  Unplug, and enjoy something tangible for awhile; I promise you'll come back to the Net a healthier person for it.

Let me pick my jaw up from the floor so I can post about this...

My little girl actually asked for a nap for the first time ever today.  Sure, it was all non-verbal communication - toddling into the bedroom, vocally complaining that I wasn't in there, coming to the living room to find me, holding her arms up with an emphatic "dah!" to ask to be picked up, pointing to the bedroom from the vantage point of my arms, pointing to the bed, and then when put down, signing milk and rubbing her eyes.  However, coming from a baby who I generally have to fight with to get to nap, the above sequence (so deliberately enacted) is nothing short of remarkable.  I momentarily thought I'd wandered into some weird alternate universe, but no; just my baby, slowly growing up day by day.

Win some, lose some..

It is still very, very busy in our household, and hence still very, very quiet in my blog realm.  I'm starting to make some "back to school" type modifications (not that anyone in our house is back to school, but as fall sets in , a greater sense of order and stability seems to go along with it, which I associate with "school time").  One of these changes is getting dinner on the table by 6:30 instead of 7, and then LW in bed by 8:30 instead of 9+.  I'm hoping to push bedtime back even earlier once daylight savings rolls around, but for now we'll take what we can get :)

Anyway, I don't have time (surprise, surprise - but I promise I will again someday!  Blogging is about fifth on my to-do-list each day and I just never quite get there) for a long post.  But I thought I'd share a couple of this week's wins and also losses:

First, in the category of losses, fails, or "things I hate":

1)  The lawnmower starting up outside and prematurely waking LW from a nap.  It happens at least once a week, I have no control over it, and it makes me want to kick something.
2)  Hot sticky weather that makes it almost impossible to get LW to nap in the first place, and shortens her already short span of patience.  I'm convinced that being overheated is contributing to her new found problem behaviors of scratching and biting (me, and also herself... poor little girl has started biting her *own* fingers when she gets frustrated.  It is kind of heartbreaking to see)
3) The grand finale of "fails" for the week, and of things I hate, or that make me want to kick something:  last night I went into our bedroom to a t-shirt after putting LW down for bed.  I obviously didn't want to turn on the light, so I wandered around in the pitch black.  I went to bend to reach the bottom shelf of my bureau.. unfortunately not realizing that I'd left the second to top drawer open, which I hit, full force, with my mouth.  BAM instant punctured, fat lip.  Today I am sporting the "tattooed lipstick/collagen implant" look, very naturally.
4)  A bonus fail for the week - I was working on making a plaid skirt for the fall, perfectly matched the plaids only to not take into account that the pattern, which had multiple seams, was going to make weird chevrons in obvious and unintentional places.  I'm not very happy with the result.

However, the week hasn't been a total loss:

1)  I managed to complete a guest post that I needed to submit by Sept 1st, and was even happy with it.
2)  I've been putting my crockpot to good use, to try to have less hassle at dinnertime, which has mostly been a success.  I need to find better recipes, but it is definitely easier to fix things early in the day and then just eat dinner, rather than cooking for an hour, then eating, then all the cleanup.
3)  We have actually managed to have dinner at the desired time all week, which has left time for an after dinner walk (instituted as a habit last week, when my cousin was visiting, and a tradition that we'll hopefully keep up until the weather gets prohibitively cold; LW gets all excited as soon as we ask her if she wants to go for a walk).
4)  Bonus win for the week: managing to find the time to sit down and write this post.  Yay for finally knocking off that fifth thing on the to-do-list!

Crock-pot recipes, anyone?  Or advice on how to soothe frustrated toddlers?