A River Ran Through It

(Well, not a river, exactly, but a good, hearty, rushing creek.

Our favorite creek. 

The one where we've spent hours wading, swimming, building dams, enjoying the natural water slide.

Now there's not a drop of water to be found.

Our ghost creek.

Hello, historic Texas drought.)

"Don't let this world around you squeeze you into buildings or books. Buildings are good. Books are good. There are times to be in both. But God created the heavens and the earth to be experienced, not just read about or lectured upon."

"You will grow in your understanding of God and His ways by going outside, observing, asking questions ... and then carefully searching for the answers. He will fill you with wonder and praise."

- Boyhood and Beyond: Practical Wisdom for Becoming a Man

(a terrific book being read at night by the father and son in this house)

(thanks to Michelle at Delightful Learning for the recommendation!)

Four Chairs

Ever feel like you're in a creative slump? Maybe it's the weather, maybe the mood, maybe the undercooked fish you ate for dinner two weeks ago, but whatever it is, you just feel ... blah?

Those are times when the only way out is forward. What works for me is thinking of ONE thing I can do -- just one! --  and starting there.

Last week I had my nose in the most terrific book: The Gentle Art of Domesticity: Stitching, Baking, Nature, Art & the Comforts of Home. This, my friends, is a book to rush home to -- and it's NOT about to clean your oven or make your window blinds sparkle. The writing! The photos! The homages to Cary Grant! Here's a sample for you:

"We no longer need to knit socks, exhaust ourselves on "baking day," stitch quilts to keep ourselves warm or sew aprons to wear in the kitchen, and we are no longer judged on the quality of our hemming, party or heel-turning. The gentle arts have moved into a new realm in contemporary life, a realm we can choose to enter should we wish, and one in which the act of doing is as important as the result. Ignore all calls for perfection and focus instead on what can achieve, and the pleasures of the gentle arts will be yours for the taking."

In other words, we modern-day homemakers have an advantage: we can limit ourselves to the drudgery of chores, which are never permanently done, or we can choose to expand our skills and make our environment one of beauty ... because we want to. And I believe many of us do want to, secretly or otherwise, because we're made in the image of the ultimate Creator.

So, last week it was spray-painted chairs. [I also scoured the fridge. Guess which was more fun?]

Today, we're making pencil cases.

And the man in the big brown truck just dropped off this book.

I think there's hope for us.

Yes. What She Said.

"But marriage isn't perfect, any more than the rest of life is. I'm sure that you'll be married, too, one day, and when you are, you'll find out that it isn't a tidy little picture of one person meets another and they live happily ever after. It's two imperfect human beings coming together and scrambling and struggling and rough-and-tumbling their way through a lot of obstacles  … It's years of commitment and loving and making decisions and making jokes and cooking supper and saying the right thing and saying the wrong thing and making mistakes and forgiving each other for mistakes until over the years you find that, together, you've formed a great, big, wildly colored tapestry of a whole shared life." 

-The Little Women Letters

{... If I may suggest, a fun, humorous, poignant summer read with some absolutely dead-on sibling dialogue that might make your belly jiggle. I read it in one full day of our road trip, but it's not too breezy or fluffy. And it is by no means just about marriage. Over and out.}

Giveaway: Organized Simplicity for YOU

Let's cut to the chase here. I own this book, love it, and want you to own and love it too.

Here's what sold me on the book when I got my sample on Kindle:

"Simple living is a buzzword in our postmodern culture, and concepts like frugality and going green are trendy. They offer smart moves toward a healthier planet and healthier families. But the basic problem beneath these trends is that they feel like they ask so much of us. These ideas ask us to move into a world that feels impossible for everyday families who still want to participate in Little League, and who don't really want to live off the grid."

Then, a few paragraphs later:

"If we can't do all these things [wear all-organic clothing, eat only from your garden, sell the car], where does that leave us? It seems like we need to completely redefine simple living. Let's take some time to define what realistic simple living looks like for you. There's no need to forsake the suburbs for the farm."

Does this author understand where we live, or what?

(Full disclosure: The author is a super-duper nice person and a friend, so I can vouchsafe for her being a genuine person who does indeed understand where we all live. In my case, quite literally!)

After reading this book, I had a much better grasp of what simple living really is, and felt empowered to declutter the things that don't add peace and joy to our home and schedule. Guess what? Your version of simple living will be different than mine. It's not about how crunchy you are. You can still wear mascara and shave your legs. You don't have to abandon your house for a yurt. It's about, as Tsh says, "living holistically within your life's purpose" -- where your choices bear witness to who you really are, and who you want to be.

Want a copy for yourself? Just leave a comment between now and Sunday, April 10, at 11:59 p.m., and tell me this: What's the most cluttered place in your house right now?

I'll start: My bonus room, which is accumulating detritus for our upcoming YARD SALE (inspired by the book). But let me assure you, there are plenty of close seconds around here. See also: Bedroom -- boy.

Allowances: How We Do It

Until recently, we were the last people you'd want to ask about tips for teaching kids to manage money. We never had a consistent allowance-giving system, for two reasons:

1. We'd agree to give our kids an allowance, but on the designated day, we never had the right amount of cash on hand.
2. Even better, on the designated day, we'd completely forget. Because we're awesome parents like that.

Then, a real-life friend and erstwhile blogger (hi Camille!) recommended this book: The First National Bank of Dad: A Foolproof Method for Teaching Your Kids the Value of Money.


The Professor and I both read and decided to take the plunge. I realize there are divergent, even strident, schools of opinion on whether kids should be given an allowance, whether it should be tied to chores, etc. etc. etc. (I KNOW! Imagine that! Strident schools of opinion on a parenting-related subject!) But sometimes you just have to make a decision, jump on someone's bandwagon, and go with it.

So here's what we do now. The Professor, a.k.a. Grand Poohbah of Spreadsheet Making, created this Google Document, representing the "Daddy Bank Account," for each child. On Sunday, they each get money in the amount of half their age added to their account. No cash required.

Now, here's the kicker. They can spend all the money they want, without strings attached -- as long as the money is in the account. If we're at a museum, and in the gift shop Caroline sees a cheap dolphin pendant necklace encrusted with fake sequins, and it costs $6.99, and she just has to have it, we simply check her account. If she has the money, she can waste it on the piece of junk make this meaningful investment ... and learn the hard way that a) the necklace falls apart after two days, and b) she won't have the money in her account tomorrow for blowing on the next impulse buy opportunity that wafts her way.

OR, they can choose to save the money, keeping it in the Daddy Bank at a higher rate of return than the local credit union offers them. Interest compounds weekly. It's an incentive to save, and so far, we're pleased with the results.

Ian is learning that while he would love to buy himself a treat at the coffee shop we visit once a week during their improv classes, he wants to save up for the latest, greatest Nerf gun even more. (This is a logic any ten year old boy will instantly appreciate.)

We also encourage tithing, although we don't require it or specify exactly how much they should give. God loves a cheerful giver, right? Our personal belief is that it's our job to set the example, teach principles and lend guidance, but to let them own their charitable impulses. For example, they each have a child, of their respective age and gender, sponsored through Compassion International. We cover the monthly sponsorships, but the kids can contribute extra money for a birthday gift for their sponsored child.

That's what works for us.
Over and out.

How Not To Be a Hoarder

A couple months ago, I stumbled across a couple of online discussions of Gretchen Rubin's book The Happiness Project. Feeling skeptical (oh, please, not another navel-gazer telling forth the virtues of wandering the world and ditching everyone and everything that doesn't exist solely for her happiness) yet intrigued by the chatter, I tried the first chapter on Kindle.

Then I picked up the full volume at the library and buried my nose in it. Gretchen Rubin had lots to say that I found pretty compelling, honestly. Including the argument that making an effort to be happy is less narcissistic than it seems. If you're happy yourself, it's a whole lot easier to make  the folks around you happy. Think about that for a half a sec. Whom do you most like to be around? Who lifts you up? Who's most likely to rejoice with you in your successes or genuinely feel your pain without making it all about them?

The book left me thinking. And thinking some more. And making a few changes. For example: Rubin confesses to being an underbuyer. An underbuyer? I thought. You mean there's a word for people like this? People like me, who can't bring themselves to buy toothpaste or waxed paper at the store, even when it's on sale, until they're absolutely out of it and no-holds-barred need the thing right now? And then don't have the time to run to the store? People who know the bigger quantity of, say, organic chicken feed is a better deal, ounce-for-ounce, than the  half-size bag, but buy the half-size bag anyway because it just sounds cheaper right now?

AND HERE I THOUGHT I WAS ALL ALONE IN THE WORLD!

Spend out, Rubin urges. Which is not the same as, live beyond your means. She's talking about losing your fear of stocking up, of having what you need on hand before the need becomes dire. About using the good things (the nicer china, for example) now instead of leaving it stored away for that pie-in-the-sky "some day." And also, about letting of the need to obsess over whether every single expenditure of time and money is "worth it."

I remembered these words the other day when it became clear to me that 75% of the large batch of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies I had made had mysteriously disappeared during a  window of time when about ten different children had occupied my home. I wanted to sputter, "HEY! Don't you guys know that we have to SAVE those cookies?! Can't you make a batch of cookies LAST more than twenty four hours?!"

Spend out, a voice in my head whispered.

As if my cookie-making time is just sooooo valuable. I could have been calming the riots in Egypt or bringing lasting peace to Afghanistan during that time, you know. Oh, and those ingredients! So expensive! The hidden caviar and cardamom  tucked inside each cookie! What ever will I do if Michelle Obama  stops by for tea and I don't have a day-old cookie to offer her ... because my kids and their friends were happily wolfing them down???

Now, if you'll excuse me, I hear there's a sale on milk at my neighborhood grocery store. With all those little cookie eaters running around here, I'd better go stock up. Happily.


(Cookie photo from allrecipes.com. Yum.) 

Tiger Mom and Me

Unless you've been living at the International Space Station for the past two weeks, you've probably heard of Amy Chua and the furor raised by her HIGHLY controversial Wall Street Journal article and subsequent book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

Just the first two paragraphs of her WSJ article may have you convinced that this woman is the Mommie Dearest from hell -- a caricature of the stereotypical pushy Asian parent. Here's an abbreviated list of the many things her teenaged daughters have not been allowed to do: Have playdates. Watch television. Act in school plays. Play any instrument but the violin and piano. NOT play the violin and piano. Etc.

But here's the scary part: she's for real. So is the fact that she once called her daughter "garbage" for speaking disrespectfully to her and threw a homemade birthday card back into the other daughter's face when it didn't meet her standards for effort.

TIME magazine covered the whole fracas  in  this week's cover issue. And here's the deal. First, I COMPLETELY DISAGREE with various details of Amy Chua's approach (if for no other reason than that while they are young, my actions and attitudes reflect and represent God to my kids (eek! scary! I fail!) and last I checked, God doesn't call us garbage). But. In one respect, as the TIME article points out, she's onto something.

Have you read NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children? It's chock full of scientific studies that call into question all kinds of conventional assumptions about the way kids think and operate. And specifically, in one chapter the authors  debunk the whole more-praise-is-better myth that many parents buy into. The TIME article on Chua quotes the same research. Here's the Cliff Notes (TM) version: Slathering praise on your kids for being smart, clever, artistic, etc. can actually do more harm than good. It's way more helpful and effective to comment on their efforts, not their abilities.

It's not just that too much praise creates praise junkies -- kids who are never sure of how they're doing unless an adult compliments it. ("Do you like my drawing, Mom? Do you?" Yeah, I hear that.) It's that kids  who are told they're smart all the time often develop such a paralyzing fear of failure that they simply won't tackle anything too challenging, too fraught with frustration.

I've made this mistake. After we had our oldest child tested, I sometimes thought it might motivate him  to try harder and reach his potential if I let him know about that potential. "You are a bright kid," I'd tell him, alluding to his verbal IQ score. I don't I ever came out and told him he was smarter than other kids. But who knows what leaked out between the lines?

And sure enough, this child is my most frustration-prone. My most unwilling to stick with a difficult task. My most sensitive to perceived failure. Can I take  all the blame for that? No. But my bumbling attempts to beef up his self-esteem may actually have backfired. Perhaps he subconsciously believes that not understanding a tricky math problem or struggling with some memory work undermines his value as a "smart kid."

Since reading Nurture Shock, I've changed a few of the ways I interact with my kids. Most of all, I've made a deliberate effort to praise, or even just remark on, their effort, hard work, and persistence. Especially when they've had to push through a few obstacles to lay hold of success. I'm not going to go all Amy Chua on them -- I'm probably more Siamese cat than Tiger Mom -- but I do want them to reap the sweeter rewards of the higher-hanging fruit.


The TIME article concludes thusly:

Think of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother as a well-timed taunt aimed at our own complacent sense of superiority, our belief that America will always come out on top. That won't be the case unless we make it so. We can get caught up in the provocative details of Chua's book (did she really threaten to burn her daughter's stuffed animals?), or we can use her larger point as an impetus to push ourselves forward, the way our countrymen often have in the past.

Point taken. 

On Reading Old Favorites

"How life affirming it is to find that the writing that held my attention as a young reader still could do that decades later. Good writing, good stories live on in the reader's head, and they are easily renewed and become once again unstoppable like the ocean; they offer readers and writers a kind of ... yes, immortality."

                                                                   - Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone

Note: This quote, which I LOVE, came from an opinion piece on NPR in which Verghese discusses his lifelong love of C.S. Forester's Ship of the Line (Hornblower Saga). For those who've never discovered the Hornblower books, you might give them a try -- the Professor recommends them. (He loves books about boats, for some reason.) I haven't read them myself, but we own and have watched and re-watched the entire Horatio Hornblower Boxed Set. Recommended for at-home date nights, in case your symphony tickets and exclusive four-star dinner reservation falls through. You know, just in case. 

Picture Books of the Season

Here's a fall favorite of ours -- one that gets trotted out year after year.

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World  is a clever world geography lesson disguised as instructions for making an apple pie "if the market is closed." 

 The market's on a main street in a pretty cute town. But it's closed, you see, so you've got to make the apple pie the hard way. 

I mean, the really hard way. Which includes sailing to Sri Lanka to harvest cinnamon from the bark of the kurundu tree. (And to France for eggs, and Jamaica for sugar cane, and Italy for semolina wheat, etc.)

After all that globe-trotting, it's time to roll up the sleeves and make the pie. 

And share it with some friends, a la mode or otherwise. 

Recently we also discovered Ms. Priceman's companion book, How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the U.S.A. Same premise, different destinations and ingredients. Getting the sand from Hawaii to blow into glass to make your measuring cups gives whole new meaning to the phrase "made from scratch."

A few other Thanksgiving picture book favorites -- a little cornucopia, if you will: 

Cranberry Thanksgiving -Great springboard for a little discussion about judging folks by appearance

Over the River and Through the Wood - The poem, as an illustrated board book.

Squanto And The Miracle Of Thanksgiving - Historically edjumacational. C'mon. It's not Thanksgiving without a nod to Squanto. 

Happy Reading! 

Poetry Friday: Robert Louis Stevenson

In honor of Robert Louis Stevenson's birthday tomorrow, here's a poem a certain one of my children who would like to remain anonymous recently memorized:

The Swing
by Robert Louis Stevenson

How do you like to go up in a swing,               Up in the air so blue?  Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing               Ever a child can do!  Up in the air and over the wall,               Till I can see so wide,  River and trees and cattle and all               Over the countryside--  Till I look down on the garden green,                Down on the roof so brown--  Up in the air I go flying again,                Up in the air and down!

Discussing Mr. Stevenson this morning at the table, we decided it was pretty impressive that he's equally accomplished in both poetry and prose. One of our favorite Jim Weiss CD's is Treasure Island, part of that proud tradition of folks-marooned-on-an-island tales to which I owe my favorite -- and sadly, now-concluded -- TV show. You know what I mean. 


Speaking of memorizing poems, we got our paws on a new book from the library called Julie Andrews' Collection of Poems, Songs, and Lullabies. It's lovely in style and content and includes a CD of Ms. Andrews (a.k.a. Mary Poppins) and her daughter reading their favorite poems. Yesterday in the yard, I read Joyce Kilmer's "Trees" to Eliza as she perched in our giant ash. She decided she'd memorize that one, to catch up with you-kno-who. Find it here. 


Poetry Friday linkup here. 

Are You Busy?

Friends, I've been reading a wonderful book that has me by the heartstrings.

I don't often post about spiritual reading on this blog, mostly because my small audience is pretty diverse. Some folks aren't interested in Christian ministry, not even a smidge. Other folks only like books of a certain flavor -- understood. But still, this is my blog and I need to be true to what's speaking to and through me now.

Right after Caroline's accident, a kind and generous friend from our homeschool co-op gave me a bag of books. I finally started reading Having A Mary Heart in a Martha World and realized that the author, Joanna Weaver, understands where I live. Where many of us live. Are you busy? Anxious? Crowded with responsibilities? Easily distracted? Rushed or perfunctory in your time with God?

The title alludes to the famous sisters from Bethany Jesus befriended during His time on earth. One was a do-er, laden with responsibility. (Aren't we all?) She was rockin' that to-do list. One was able to somehow lay those burdens aside and sit at His feet to listen and just BE with Him.

Here are the two things that have touched me the most from my recent reading, both presented using very apt word pictures:

1. When we go beyond what He asks of us and accept burdens that He has not laid upon us, we end up stressed, overloaded and resentful, working FOR Him but not in oneness with Him. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.

2. Life presents us with many dishes that are like empty calories, superficially filling our needs when what we're really craving is time with Him. "If you're having a little trouble feeling close to God -- or even wanting to draw close -- you might want to consider what activities you are using to fill the empty places of your life. What's taking the edge off your hunger for Him?"

Personally, I know that often during the day, at home with the children, I'm tempted to dash into the other room to check my email or Facebook. Why? Probably for a sense of connection with other people over five feet tall. But lately as I try to curb that habit and just focus on being present with the kids and whatever I'm doing, I've been asking HIM to fill that need for connection.

Something to muse over, no?

This Could Mean Trouble

I just started reading Julia Child's My Life in France, and this clearly spells DANGER. With a capital "Duh."

I'm only on page 13, and I'm already wanting, craving, yearning to go to France and eat my way into a coma. Specifically, to return to Paris. Two days is not long enough to explore this beautiful city, especially when you have a jetlagged toddler in tow. (However, Ian did fall completely in love with the Eiffel Tower for the next six months of his life.) (True story: I have a photo of Ian sitting in his stroller in the Louvre museum, within spitting distance of the Mona Lisa. Is he gazing into the inscrutable face of La Giaconda? Is he noticing the swarm of Japanese tourists who are -- no lie -- videotaping the painting? No. He is fully absorbed in his giant board book of bulldozers and earthmovers.)

Did you see Julie & Julia ? Did you love it? (I pretty much did.) From what I've read so far, this book is way more fraught with peril. Don't read it if you're trying to: 1)slim down or 2) curb your travel cravings.

My problem is more the latter. Please send tickets to Paris or professional help.

(Send the help engraved on the newest model of a iRobot 530 Roomba Vacuuming Robot. You know, one of those nifty vacuuming gadgets that just works its way around your floor under its own power.)

Thank you.