The Erudite Lit-ite

Groovy kid

2012-01-21T06:05:00.000-08:00

Abby is really into the funny sayings stage. I have a couple of favorites as of late.

1. She's picked up the phrase "No way, Jose" from somewhere. She likes to say that (not to negate anything but rather just to walk around saying it), but if she's saying it around me, she came up with "No way, Jo-mommy" and "No way, Jo-daddy" with Ben. That makes me chuckle.
2. I was getting dressed this morning while Ben and Abby were playing in the living room. Abby, for whatever reason, was talking with Ben saying something like "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy-o..."
3. I've heard "I don't like stoplights" a couple of times randomly while driving. Me neither, little one.
4. We're big fans of the Sandra Boynton books, and when she plays by herself, she'll sometimes proclaim "Attention, attention, attention all Pooks," a line from Happy Birthday, Pookie.

Otherwise, she can count by herself to 30, and has gotten over the hurdle of skipping 15, 16 and 17. And, she's big into going potty all by herself (I'm a particular fan of this one) and washing her hands all by herself (but she's a slow poke).

All in all, while her milestones aren't as dramatic as they used to be, but every once in a while, I think, "Wow, she's doing some cool stuff."

And in other news...it's another girl. :-)

E-Mealz

2012-01-16T08:15:00.001-08:00

Disclaimer: I HATE it when companies spell things with a "Z" when it should be with an "S." That's just stupid. So is "lil" instead of "little." Dumb.

I'm a big fan of Groupon and subscribe out of both Ft. Wayne and Indy since I access both cities on a regular basis. I haven't bought a lot of Groupons in the 2 years or so where I've subscribed to it, but I have scored some deals on parking for a football game, popcorn for the boy who dearly loves it, a birthday party for the female members of my family at a tea house, and more. My most recent purchase is one that I'm particularly excited about today. (And, I think that this deal is still good for another day or two if you're interested.)

Ben and I decided to use Groupon to subscribe to an on-line meal service called E-Mealz, which sends you weekly menus catering to your food preferences/ needs as well as the store that you choose as your primary grocery spot. We got our first menu this morning and I admit that it was enjoyable to take shopping this morning; I felt like I was at the store with a purpose instead of a couple of hazy ideas about what I might make for supper throughout the week and randomly purchasing items so that I could figure out what to do with them later. We have a couple of goals in utilizing this service:

*Ease of menu planning. This is a pretty genius idea, I think. Very little expense for the people who own the company. They set up menus which and shopping lists which you then access and print off. That's an awesome business model in my opinion. But seriously, some weeks it's a struggle while other weeks I have 6 ideas about what I want to make. It's mentally time consuming as well. I'm hoping to free up that part of the process, which I don't not enjoy but would really not mind skipping during the school year when I'm consumed by many other things that I need to do or think about.
*Ease of preparation. It's really nice to have a grocery list made for you so that you can get what you need and, theoretically, don't miss anything. I inevitably do. That could cut down on return trips later in the week to the store as well. And, I still get to do my favorite part--cooking, which is absolutely more fun when it's not something that I'm throwing together haphazardly at 5:15.
*Variety. I have a decent stockpile of go-to dishes that I know we all like and are easy to make as well as full of ingredients that I often have on hand. That's nice, but some variety is welcome indeed. We chose the vegetarian option in E-Mealz because it's a lot easier to add meat into a meatless dish than it is, generally, to take meat out of a meat dish. And, we don't meat in the grocery store anymore. Instead, we bought part of a cow and have that stocked in the freezer and I have a source that I splurge on chicken once in a while. Yeah, splurge. It's the good stuff, not the factory farmed chicken, and it's pretty pricey per pound. I'd prefer to have meals planned for me that don't require me to buy a lot of meat each week.
*Timing. Ben's track season starts in about a month, which is a big burden during the spring semester as he's out of the house QUITE a bit in the evenings around dinner preparation. I could definitely use some mental relief in that department with an active Abby around. And, with another "vanilla bean" on the way, it could really help us both in the summer when our lives will be otherwise occupied. Plus, the recipes print out with the menu, so that will make it easier for either of us to be able to choose a recipe and put it together without hunting through cookbooks or searching on-line.
*Future use. These are downloadable menus and grocery lists. Which means that they're easy to save on the computer so that a one-year subscription can theoretically last beyond one year. In other words, we're thinking of it as an investment in a cookbook. With the Groupon price, it really is.

Shopping was a little more than is what I think of as our "normal," but I'm not so sure that this will be the way that it usually is. You do still have to buy all of the things that don't necessarily apply to dinner--toothpaste, a loaf of bread, milk, etc. But I also think that I bought more food than we'll need this week. I'm hoping to get a better understanding of how much to use out of the planned menus each week. But right now, I'm trying to decide whether we should have baked tomatoes and pasta or chilequilles tonight. Either way, I'm getting excited!

Oh, I LOVE you...SOOO much!!

2012-01-14T12:11:00.000-08:00

My little sweetness has entered a new phase, the ability to reciprocate the idea of love. It's pretty much the cutest thing that she's done, and it seems like every time she does something new, Ben and I say that to each other (and always agree that it is, indeed, the cutest thing that she's done yet!). But this one, ahhhh....this one is pretty delectably sweet.

For quite a while now, if you ask her, "Do you love me?" or "Do you love Mommy?" she'll respond "Yes." And if, when we're going through the bedtime or leaving routine, I say "Alright, now I need a hug and say 'Love you Mommy,'" she'll do both. But up until this past week or two, she hasn't spontaneously started to verbalize love without being prompted. And we both know that like so many things she does, she is mimicking what she hears us say with her. But it's still REALLY cool to witness. And the awesome little toddler voice just makes it all the more irresistible. She always says the same thing: "Oh, I LOVE you...sooo much!" And it comes across every single time as if the feeling of love has just snuck up to her and surprised her. It's so heartfelt in a glad/surprised kind of way. Some things that she apparently absolutely adores:

*Ben. She randomly turned to him while they were sitting on the floor in our room yesterday morning, gave him a gigant-o hug and made this declaration of affection.
*A picture of a kitten on a magazine in the library today. Funny, she doesn't share the same affection for our 2 cats. If she sees them, she wholeheartedly chastises them and tells them to "go back to your office" where they hide much of the day when she's awake. She must think that they're in a time-out because they're back there so much, though we have certainly never spoken to the cats like that in front of her. Ah well. I surmise that these three will never bond but live in unspoken tolerance of each other.
*Her stuffed ________________. It rotates every few days, though lately it's been between her kitty and her monkey. Often it's a teddy bear. Sometimes it's a penguin. It just depends on the mood and her varying need of softness.
*Her pants, the ubiquitous lovey that seems to be lost in our house about twice a day lately. I've written about her pants before, now they're just raggedier and more faded.
*Curious George. The love for this literary monkey knows no bounds right now. I could write a paper on the formulaic qualities of children's literature based solely upon this series (which, good grief, whoever has continued the series after the passing, I assume, of the original creators needs to let it go...way too many of these at the library and she knows right where this section is).

Who she hasn't uttered this little sweetness-ism to is: ME. No surprise. I'm the lesser parent preference, for sure, though she has been a touch more into me lately. She actually *wanted* me to put her coat on as we were leaving the house the other morning instead of Ben. Whoa. She doesn't realize that I'll gladly do whatever she wants (you know, within reason) if she prefers me over Ben ever. She's got some kind of 2-year old manipulative control! Until she bestows the golden words upon me, I'll just have to reiterate the message to her as much as I can, and that's no sacrifice on my part.

What's Going on in There?

2012-01-10T16:17:00.000-08:00

I'm getting a lot of questions about how much Abby realizes that she's going to have a sibling show up in a few months. In a nutshell, she knows as much as a 2-year old can comprehend.

Our most concrete conversation about it happened right after Christmas when Ben and Abby came with me to my 2nd check-up. I was telling her that we were going to the doctor but for me instead of her. She asked why, so I told her. It was one of those moments where I was sitting there thinking, "How do I answer this?" Simply put, she knows that there's a baby in mommy's tummy (though her anatomy is off sometimes and she thinks that anything on the front of me that bulges might very well be the baby...not quite, honey!). She knows that she used to be in mommy's tummy but that she's too big for it now. She knows that she and daddy do NOT have a baby in either of their tummies. And that's about it. But she's funny how she'll randomly re-assert this information. We'll be sitting on the couch reading books together and she'll lean over and pat my belly and say "You have a baby in there." Yep, my sweetness. I do.

One of the fabulous stay-at-home mommies that takes a turn watching Abby every week is also expecting, and funnily enough, just a few days after us. Apparently, there was a heated debate at the lunch table a few days ago between Abby and her little buddy Jonathan (who is himself only a few days older than Abby) about whose mommy exactly was in possession of the baby in the tummy award. It's really pretty cool that these little friends can go through this weird life-changing process together. (We're all of us looking for new houses right now also, so there's even more changes in store for the two amigos!)

I'm feeling a little sad already for life when it was just the three of us. But I'm starting to think that I'm feeling the first fluttery movements, so that makes me pretty excited. The quickening does so much for my mental ability to process just what exactly is going on in there. And then I read in the mommy-to-be guides how big the vanilla bean is approximately, and I think, "Whoa, as big as my hand...seriously cool!" It seems like it's far too soon for me to be showing, that it's just the beginning since I haven't felt any serious jabs and pokes yet, but we're coming up on half-way through. So I have to repeat again...whoa.

Pretty soon, we're going to be laughing with both of our silly boos (I'd add an apostrophe here to add distinction about how to pluralize 'boo' but that's just wrong!!) and this will all be...hazy, fuzzy, nostalgia inducing memories.

Together: A Story of Shared Vision

2012-01-03T10:20:00.000-08:00

One more book review post to wrap up Resolutions 2011. I actually came in under the deadline on this one though it's taken me 2 days to get around posting about it. It was a short book, one that I downloaded from the library and read in 2 days.

Together: A Story of Shared Vision by Tom Sullivan and Betty White (yeah--I *think* the actress)

This was a pretty fun read, and really, it helped that it was so short. It was certainly predictable, but the plot wasn't really the point. If you've seen or read Marley and Me (and cried like I did), then you get the idea of the animal-human bond/emotion that this book attempts to illustrate.

It's an interesting plot--a young 20-something man with tons of intellectual ability and possibility loses his vision in a hiking accident and then must come to terms not only with that but also with the sheer necessity of relying on another to help him re-achieve independence and interdependence. There's the typical selfish-girlfriend-can't-handle-the-handicap problem, which is quickly resolved by the loving-new-girlfriend-who's-only-known-boy-since-he's-been-blind-and-therefore-doesn't-have-t0-come-to-terms-with-new-limitations. There's the chance for figurative redemption by re-hiking a mountain and the inevitable disaster that turns out to be the epitome of the success of this man's life-changing evolution. And throughout, you get a pretty good dose of self-loathing, bitterness, and self-pity.

But the scene where the man "figures it out" and realizes just how much this new guide dog means to him is a pretty touching moment. It's simple, but it's also forthright. And the book get's a gold star for that; the emotions are so heavy to the point of nearly overwhelming the story that it doesn't need an equally burdensome mini climax. It makes sense the way it is...the man/boy just get's it. And that, is the beauty of the dog-human relationship in the book. There's no reason why animals and humans form such intense devotion to each other. It just happens. It just is.

A good way to end a year in book reviews.

The year of the ---

2012-01-01T14:10:00.000-08:00

SOUP and FREEZER! I came up with a "resolution" of sorts. Before every significant break for the past 2 years at least, Ben and I always say something to the effect of "We should fix a lot of stuff and put it in the freezer so that when school starts again, it will be ready." And we never do. So this is the year. This is the year when that idea becomes more of a reality.

Every month, I will try a new soup recipe and post the recipe here. Every month, I will add something to the freezer for those days when it's needed. That may not sound like a significant amount of anything, but right now, the "add something to the freezer" part sounds pretty overwhelming.

We have a decent amount of space in our chest freezer right now, so there's room for stock. There's space for stew. There's an open invitation for lasagna. And, I have containers that are begging to be filled. Pleading! Else why would they tumble out of the high cabinet in which they are stored with such alacrity?

This week, we're having either Roasted red pepper, white bean & pasta soup or Minestrone with pesto. I might whip up some Italian country vegetable soup while I'm add it and stash it in the chill chest.

I LOVE SOUP!!! It's too bad that Abby isn't such a fan yet; it must be intimidating to her or something because she likes all of the original parts just fine. We're still working on her...she'll come around! Here's to this month's soup & hopefully a trip to Whole Foods before school resumes. Delish!

Resolution Version 2012

2011-12-31T10:46:00.000-08:00

Here is my 2012 New Year's Resolution (singular): Survive.

I was thinking about how the last couple of years I have established a New Year's Resolutions goal on this blog and how that's actually helped me remember it/them and have a desire to keep on keepin' on. Well, I have nothing that I feel particularly driven by right now other than to survive. To forget a new everyday. To create something that hasn't been before. And, to be happy about it.

It's a busy, momentous time for me and us right now. My new job is one of survival. Every day with a 2-year old, packing and planning and coordinating, is something of a survival mode. And with the second little bean on the way, I'm pretty positive that there's going to be some survival adjustments to be made by us all there as well.

Therefore, my goal this year is not just to survive but to thrive and truly be happy in the life that we are molding for ourselves. It is what it is around here, and right now, that's okay.

So, here goes...!!!

How to survive the holidays when you can't remember anything

2011-12-26T09:51:00.000-08:00

I've never been known for having an outstanding memory, though it mostly seems to be lacking around my mom. In other words, I *always* forget something when we go up to stay with my mom and dad. Yet, I personally think that I'm pretty darn good at remembering at school, a work environment that pulls my attention 100 different ways every minute. Maybe it's a learned behavior in both situations.

Either way, pregnancy brain has struck again--BIG time! This is especially problematic in December, which is non-stop between school and the holidays. I'm just used to needing to make a couple of trips to the store and forgetting things on my Christmas list, even with lists. To his credit, the boy doesn't get frustrated with me about my forgetfulness. He's a good sport and rarely complains, even if it means that he has to make a flying trip to Meijer in order to save the recipe that I'm half-way through. But the latest BIG flub is both totally my own doing and one that I'll remedy myself, though it's the last thing that I want to do right now.

I went gift card style for lots of family and friends this year, mostly because I'm at the stage in my life where those are up at the top of my Christmas list. I don't really need (or want) most stuff, but food is entirely another matter. I LOVE me some food gift cards! And I do also appreciate the freebies that places throw at you right now if you buy a gift card. I wholeheartedly admit that I can be a sucker for gimmicks and advertisements as long as it serves my purpose. I don't really care if I'm giving a gift card from steakhouse A or B as long as I have something that the person is going to like. So if it's 6 of one and half dozen of another, then why not go for the one where I get future date night money in return? A week ago, I went on my gift card shopping binge and plunked down something like $150 just for gift cards, but seriously, that took care of everyone with some freebies for me in return.

The time came this week, early in the morning during the pre-school-getting-out-of-the-house rush that I needed to stick the first 2 gift cards in gift bags to send to the sitters. I grabbed them and life was grand. Actually, life was great because I actually remembered to send them unlike the week before when I just completely forgot. I had a free pass on this one of sorts, so I was just glad to make amends for my earlier miscue. Except...

...a couple of days later, I realized that I gave the wrong gift cards to the wrong people. While the ones that I gave to our sitters were perfectly acceptable, those were actually intended for my siblings, who don't live in Kokomo. I did have a couple of gift cards ready to go for the sitters, who do live in Kokomo, for one of the few quality, non-chain restaurants in town...in Kokomo. What I have left at this point are 2 gift cards for a restaurant IN KOKOMO for 2 people who DON'T LIVE HERE. Which means...

...that I have to go out and buy 2 more gift cards at a time when I'd rather not spend more money on presents, thanks very much. Granted, the two gift cards that I have will be just fine sitting here and waiting until the end of the school year for another little thanks-so-much-you-guys-are-a-lifesaver moment for those 2 fantastic women who play with, teach and encourage my child every day. I guess that I just have to suck it up and pay now rather than later. And really, those 2 gift cards for the local restaurant are still going to have to survive the next semester, which could be an unprecedented time of confusion and upheaval for us.

I guess what I really need for Christmas is a personal assistant for the next 5 months. That. Would. Be. Amazing. Except in my case, the devil wears maternity clothes. :-)

A festival of lights

2011-12-17T17:41:00.000-08:00

I never really enjoyed driving around to look at Christmas lights when I was younger, which I remember doing a couple of times as a pre-teen/teenager. It's not like we did it every year, but I distinctly remember doing this a couple of times with my parents and grandparents, who seemed to really like it. What I distinctly don't remember is either of my brothers coming along, so my guess is that this happened in that period of time when I was still forced to come places but when my brothers were old enough that they were off doing their own things. Truth be told, I didn't hate it, but it was frankly pretty boring in my opinion.

Imagine my surprise when I totally enjoyed it tonight with my little family! While driving home at night with my little munchkin the other night, it came to me that she'd really enjoy driving through the park where they have a pretty nice (per Kokomo standards, granted) holiday display set up. Ben was groovy with the idea, so following an early supper, we did the bath routine and jammied up (all of us!), loaded in the car, brought some Christmas cookies, and set off. We jammed to lots of great Christmas music and just generally chatted and looked around with the perspective of a 2-year old. On at least one occasion, this caused me to annoy the car behind me when I realized I was only driving 20-miles an hour. But worth it! We were out for about an hour and ended up going through several neighborhoods as well at a snail's pace. And, one house was even synched to the radio, so we stopped there for an entire song. Fun! Abby even convinced us to let her lick on a candy cane and later determined that her "skin was sticky." That was definitely true.

This has been a fun Christmas for all of us so far with Abby's growing interest in Christmas-y things without the burden of consumerist impulses manipulating her young mind. I think that she's still going to have much fun receiving the socks that we already stashed in her stocking. She wants to get Ben a teddy bear for Christmas. But she also wants to get me a teddy bear for Christmas, and undoubtedly that's on her wish list for herself as well (her little friend must be privy to these Christmas yearnings because that's exactly what he gave her, and it's now always with her). And Ben has decided that secrets will be ignored this year as he is utilizing Abby as his little Christmas elf and having her help with secrets for me...secrets no more! She's pretty good about telling what's in the presents without prompting.

Abby gave us a break and was happy by herself for a while, which allowed Ben and I to cook supper together in the kitchen (a rarity!), followed by our festival of lights excursion, which means that overall, I'm still in the happy little family glow. Times like these sometimes just pop up, and those warm fuzzies are the best!

Zogurt & such

2011-12-07T17:49:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, I went to a wedding by myself when I was 9 weeks pregnant, and it was down in Fishers/Indy, an hour from my house. I ate lunch before I left (wedding was at 2:00), but as soon as I got in the car, it became inherently obvious that I would need food before the cocktail hour began. That little granola bar wasn't going to cut it. I missed one Arby's. I missed another Arby's. Life was looking grim. I wasn't looking forward to a wedding of indeterminate length with nausea inducing hunger. And then, and THEN, a heaven sent Zogurt appeared before me at the last corner, on the last road, about a block from the church. My car must have had some GPS tracking device that guided it into a parking space in a fantastically quick fashion.

Zogurts, as the bored looking guy explained, is all about gluten-free, sugar-free, and other free frozen yogurt. And it's delicious. And, you can sample the flavor before you buy it. AND, you control everything! Portion size...toppings...everything! So I dug into some white chocolate macadamia nut frozen yogurt. With a few well placed brownie chunks, and Oreo pieces, and pecans, and hot fudge, and caramel, and coconut.

That Zogurt kept me so happy until cocktail hour began. What a wedding day miracle!

And in other news, I'm on the down slope with the nausea (oh please, OH PLEASE). This has been w-a-y worse than the last time. A boy this time?!?

I don't even recognize my life anymore!

2011-11-17T17:17:00.000-08:00

Oct. 5th. My good friend's birthday. 3:30-4:30 p.m. Lots of life changing stuff happened in this hour.

(in no sequential order)

First, I received a call from a principal at another high school (Ben's, specifically) officially offering me a job teaching 12th grade English. This meant that I would have to give up my job where I had been working for 5+ years, where I knew everyone and everyone knew me, where I adored the people that I worked with. Ultimately, I made the change--tendered my resignation and broke the news to my kids. And then I spent the next couple of weeks biding my time before the transition happened, an uncomfortable and unsettling period when I knew and the kids knew that my teaching ability was somewhat restricted. That being said--those kids were great. Really. Not a single time did I have a student throw something that I assigned back at me claiming that it was useless since I was "just leaving" anyway. (There was one parent, however...) And now I walk into a different classroom with a different view out of the windows with different kind of desks and a different board and assign different homework. Goodness, I miss many of those people...even the hallway duty and the (idea of) the lounge coffee. Two weeks in and still so much work.

Second, yep, the clan is expanding. Where we're going to put this new one is anyone's guess!! This house--still on the market. 'Bout to come off of the market for a couple of months. So now we're into trying to control nausea just about non-stop and pulling out the boxes of maternity clothes. My super sniffer superpower has returned. My hunger knows no bounds. I can't remember basic info. I must be pregnant.

So the last 6 weeks have been nothing short of tumultuous and exhausting. Just...tired.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet & The Litigators

2011-11-06T11:19:00.000-08:00

That's the longest title I've ever used.

I've gotten a couple of books read, and I'll use these as my blogged books for both October and November since I, again, didn't get anything down last month. (Excuses? It was a busy, weird, unsettling month!)

First, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jaime Ford: Howard County Reads book for 2011. Not super impressed. Despite a couple of reviews that I read online before I cracked the cover, this one was overall a let-down. The story itself was okay to above average, but the writing--mediocre at best. At best! I'm not inspired at all to read anything else by the same guy. I even spent some time reading in his blog (a first-time experience for me, reading an author's blog), and I'm even more disappointed after reading the book. I don't know. He seems like something of a braggart on his blog and then his book doesn't live up to that gradiose-ness and importance that he kind of implies. But, he's also apparently going to be in town in a few weeks for an appearance at the local college. That could be interesting to attend for no other reason than to compare yet another impression of him to the other two that I've established. I did like that the story is fairly unique, dealing with a lot of atypical racial tensions (Chinese-Japanese) in Seattle during WWII. Remember, we put all of those people of Japanese descent in concentrations camps then. If this book is to be taken as an honest representation of that, then it paints a uniquely different perception of what a concentration camp is in comparison to what we are most familiar with given that term--Nazi concentration camps. But, that interest factor beside, I read it because I kinda had to for school. Henry Lee, the protagonist, just didn't do anything for me. He's pretty static actually; not a good thing to have with a protagonist!!

Then, I whipped through The Litigators by John Grisham this week. It was absolutely a welcome respite from life at night and during breakfasts throughout the week. I've read every other Grisham book save one YA fiction book that he's done, so I'm obviously a fan. Frankly, his style is just really Grisham-y, and it works, hence his gross level of success. Seriously, who would think that someone could be so famous and successful writing about lawyers and lawyer stuff? Yet the stories are so addictive! It helps that they're easy to read, granted. But, really, the characters are his specialty. He always spends time with the details on the characters, not ad naseum, but in a freakishly insider kind of way. Detailed in the right way. He's pretty expert at creating a fairly developed character in a short amount of time. And, I always think of this when I read his work, he gets a lot (if not all) of his character's names from the obituaries. Fun, right? At any rate, The Litigators is supremely fun, especially the end, but I'm really not wholly buying the storyline. But, frankly, it doesn't matter! How delicious is that! It's a greatly enjoyable read with a fairly ludicrous plot. Sounds captivating, doesn't it?? But read it! Absolutely!!

Why do we...?

2011-10-17T16:14:00.001-07:00

Why do we congratulate people so enthusiastically when news of a new baby comes out? It's A LOT of work, among other things!!

I remember reading a specific reference that a Russian woman made to this, noting that in Russia, news of a new arrival is met with a more realistic attitude--"Oh, that's good news, but there's a lot of work ahead for you." Whereas in America, how do we respond? "Yayyyyyyyyy!!!!! Congratulations!!!!!!" You'd think that having a baby was synonymous with having scads of money flung at you for you apparent reason: everyone is excited about it and kinda wants in on the action for the good parts but no one wants to really help out with the bad parts (like paying taxes on your lottery winnings).

I'm not about to pretend that I don't also share this energetic, over the moon, as-if-it-were-happening-to-me response. I can't help it. You get all hopped up on happy thoughts of warm snuggly, toothless little coo-ers who smack their lips and have those ever-so-adorable yawns and good morning stretches.

And, for that matter, why do we get so excited to share such good news? Do we revel in the adoration? Secretly desire the lavish attention showered on us when it's our turn? Ignore the rational knowledge that reminds us, Warning: massive amounts of work ahead with little free time for yourself for at least a couple of years!!!

Whatever the case may be, happy news and cuteness is always appreciated.

conundrum

2011-10-06T17:38:00.000-07:00

In keeping with the constant state of flux and difficult problems this school year, here's another.

I have officially been offered a job teaching 12th grade English at Eastern High School.

Yep.

10 years already?

2011-09-28T15:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I sent out a message to a couple of high school buddies and said something to the effect of "Hey there friends from my former life." It's so true. What part of my life now resembles anything 10 years ago? My goodness, my twenties are flying by! Will there ever be another decade of my life with this much tumultuous change and upheaval?

I've been thinking about this somewhat lately because my 10-year high school reunion is coming up in a few days, I guess. The only way I even know a single bit about this is because someone put me on a list on FB and every once in a while I go over there and look at bits and pieces of what people have been saying.

And I don't miss these people, at least the ones who have been posting. I'm really not sure what I was like 10 years ago. I don't remember much at all from being in high school, especially in the classes themselves. I remember snatches of who I hung out with and vague bits of my schedule. But I really wonder, what was I like from a teacher's perspective? From my classmates' perspectives? I...don't know.

There isn't any incentive for me to pay $30/person ($60/couple...what a deal!!) to go try to make small talk with some people that I used to know in my past life but who I can't always put a face with a name. By and large, I can't remember vivid details about these people. A couple of my "besties" from high school are out West and really out West (like West coast style), so they're not coming back. Another good friend is going, but...I've kept in touch with him and see him occasionally.

It's also Ben's 10-year reunion, yep, another $30/person. All told, it would be $110 for both of us to go to both of our reunions. Not a good use of finances, I think. Unfortunate? More bittersweet.

My classmates mostly intimidated me, and I never felt like anything more than an overweight, nerdy nerd around them who couldn't think of anything funny and was highly uninteresting. So this whole reunion thing is kinda bumming me out a touch cause what it is mostly doing is dredging up these ugly, unpleasant feelings.

Instead, we might go to our college's Homecoming, a place where I never felt anything but acceptance. We might go to the zoo and visit with my parents. Both of these options seem better to me.

So I'll lift my own glass of whatever to cheer on my old classmates from a distance. Some of them are truly inspiring and warm-hearted individuals; I'm proud to be friends with them or to know them, even tangentially. Best wishes to them all. I hope that they have fun.

Out of the tumult comes a modicum of relief

2011-09-24T11:36:00.000-07:00

What do you know, our babysitter situation seems to have resolved itself. Big sigh of relief, less night crying, an ulcer has been averted...

I'm over exaggerating a *smidge.* But some amount of kismet or else a true honest to goodness heaven sent hug just came our way.

But hear me out. I'm not guilty about working and having Abby at a babysitter's house every day. I'm not. Ben's not. We have no reason to be. Because she's in the care of two wonderful, loving women, she's undoubtedly learning and experiencing things that she would not should I choose to give up my career and stay at home with her. She has the chance to socialize with two little kids who are both exactly her age. She learns songs at Bible study. She does crafts, liking making a cute little ant that looks like a spider. She gains an understanding of what it is like to not be the only child.

Granted, paying for childcare stinks. And of course of course, I adore being at home with my munchkin. Love it. Have the sweetest job in the summer that lets me be home for 10 weeks and still get paid for it.

But still, what's to feel guilty about? Before our babysitter change, the thing I felt guilty about was that she was in a mediocre situation, not a great one. And now, she's in a great one. But it's still going to be another up-in-the-air situation at the end of the school year probably. Crud. This part really bites.

Tumult

2011-09-18T11:18:00.001-07:00

(If you're interested, I just posted about my latest book find. Keep reading if you're interested.)

This school year has been nothing short of TUMULTUOUS. There's some quality of self immolation for anyone who chooses to teach. Sometimes, it's torture. Sometimes, it's horrible. Most often, it's comfortable and (dare I say?) enjoyable.

I made no secret in college that I was only going to teach for a few years and then move on to other pursuits, ventures, and what have you. I'd already decided that I wanted to be involved in education in some capacity, but I wasn't convinced when I graduated with a license to teach adolescents (oxymoron??? ha...lame joke) that I wanted to commit my entire professional life to the confines of a high school. Just because you start out as a teacher, it doesn't mean that you have to always teach. But, you know, it's growing on me. I'm alarmingly close to reaching my 10-year-and-out limit. We'll see how the next 2 years go after I fulfill this contract.

But what I really want to talk about here is just the sheer tumult in my life right now. It seems as if nothing is truly comfortably fixed, which drives me absolutely NUTS.

*My classroom situation is in a complete state of flux. I have a student teacher working with me for the first time, which is somewhat incomprehensible. Am I really old enough or experienced enough to have a newbie working out the kinks alongside of me?
*My teaching schedule is going to be radically altered next year when I am assimilated into the New Tech way of teaching at the junior level.
*My babysitter situation is not where I want it to be and seems to be impossible to find what we need. This is definitely keeping me up-a-night. What can we do? Do we just stick it out? Where else can we place her for 2 days a week? We are doing our best to avoid placing her in a daycare setting, but what if we have to? How do I reconcile myself to that situation?
*Our house has had some really positive showings, which is quite a bit alarming and exciting. Alarming--we have no where to go, not even an apartment lined up should our house sell. Exciting--we're going to take a hit on our house, but maybe not as much as we had been warned against. Alarming--we have been seriously looking for a new house since January and have no house in our sights. Exciting--it's still kind of fun looking for an upgrade.

How HARD can it be to find a house that has a couple of basic requirements in the price range that we're restricted to? In this county, it seems that it is in fact downright impossible. Something is just going to have to give, and unfortunately, it can't be the price. Maybe we can't have a basement. Maybe we can't have 4 bedrooms. I don't know. But something is going to have to be amended if we are ever going to find our we're-staying-in-this-one-until-retirement house.

This all comes along with a phone call from our financial adviser who was answering a question that Ben posed to her. But the answer that she gave me just epitomizes the frustrations and TUMULT that everything has been lately. According to her, we need to contribute an additional $800/month to our retirement savings if we want to retire at 55 (standard for teachers). That along with what we're already contributing would equal 23% of our net salary. How does this work? It's not like we're just now starting to save. Technically, we could afford it, but at what cost? No vacations. Not nearly enough or anything saved for Abby's education. Nothing or very little put away in savings. Is the economic forecast really that bad that we need to commit this much to being able to maintain the way we live now, which is decidedly not flashy?

And, the only salary increase I earned after 4 years and $12,000+ dollars to finish my Masters was about $30/paycheck because my school's teachers were forced to agree to a 2.5% pay decrease and no incremental promotions (i.e. I'm stuck at 5 years experience for an indefinite amount of time even though this is my 7th year teaching). Comparatively, Ben, who is on the B.S. salary schedule (2 increments below mine) and has the same years of service earns about $3000 more than I do in gross pay. Our health insurance has gone up 14% in 2 years and our pay is going...

I'm whining here, I know, but why does it have to be so hard? Why? We both have stable, full-time jobs; why can't we find a decent long-term house and be able to save for our collective futures without sacrificing everything now?

Let me clarify that I don't expect everything to be given for me. I appreciate the fight and the struggle and how the benefits that are reaped are sweet. But, I wouldn't mind a little sense that we're doing things right, that we're okay.

In one of the best episodes of The West Wing, Toby, Josh and Donna end up stranded in Indiana. Toby is hanging out in a hotel bar waiting for a train to get back to Washington, and he gets into a conversation with a guy who was returning home from taking his daughter to Notre Dame for a college visit. The guy is baring his soul to Toby, talking about how he doesn't need someone to just hand it all to him, but just a little help would be nice, something to help him know that all of his efforts are meaningful and that things will work out. I get this guy's perspective now. I get him. Just a little confirmation would be great...

This has been a constant prayer as of late.

Stories I Only Tell My Friends

2011-09-18T10:43:00.000-07:00

By Rob Lowe

There's a little bit of background to my adoration of Rob Lowe (2000s-present). He was Sam Seaborne in The West Wing. You may ask why that's such a big deal--it is!! First of all, his character is nothing short of adorable and genuine and optimistic in the show. Second, it's The West Wing, an amazing show. Third, this is the show that hooked me up for good with Ben. (Another story for another day if you're really at all interested.)

I'm not all that in love with Lowe in his pre-TWW days, e.g. the likes of Tommy Boy when he was associated with the Brat Pack. The rationale for this is basically because that type of movie is really never anything that I watch or enjoy. Crude comedies? Not my thing.

At any rate, I adore Sam Seaborn. I'm not much of a book buyer, so I had to wait in line at the library to finally get a copy of it to read, which is to say that I had to wait for a while because I was something like 18th in line for a copy. And then I got my chance to read it at the beginning of September when I was halfheartedly reading 2 other books and when the school year starts ramping up (and, oh my, this year has been epic so far--distractingly so). All of this means that I had to turn my copy back in to the library with no hopes of renewing it. I had to get back in line, but I'm only 5th in line now, so maybe I won't remember that I'm on page 127 and that he's in the middle of talking about starting to shoot his breakout film, The Outsiders (I hated this book! Truly one of the few books that I've had to read for school that I haven't enjoyed in some way. But whatev...way to go Rob "Sodapop" Lowe!)

Regardless of me not finishing it, I'm going to offer my thoughts on it so far, which I also believe will hold true for the rest of the book whenever I get it again.

1. His writing is pretty lame.
2. His stories are pretty incredible.
3. Didn't anyone who was editing/proofing his text realize that his verb tenses are problematic and subtly (or forthrightly) suggest that he fix them? I mean, past tense or present...pick one.
4. It's unreal that random connections he had by the time he was 15, 16 years old. The name dropping in this autobiography is jaw dropping. "The guy who beat me in that footrace ran like Superman; later, he would be Superman. It was Dean Cain." Or, "I got fired from my first real job partly because I was caught making out with Holly Robinson [Pete] behind the Coke machine." Or what about, "I was hanging around the [Martin] Sheen's house with my good buddies Emilio and Charlie and this guy Tom Cruise was staying there for a few days while he was auditioning." Another favorite--"I was walking across a supermarket parking lot, and I saw these guys, Chris and Sean Penn, making a movie." Ridiculous.

It's an amusing, quick read; why not pick it up if you also enjoy his adorableness? And his son is a big Colts fan. :-)

computer woes

2011-09-03T17:18:00.000-07:00

The Cox family definitely has a dearth of computers floating around the house. We've had some combination of 3 laptops and 2 iPads floating around our house all summer. Ben and I have each invested in personal laptops justifying it by citing grad school work. Ironically? Ben still hasn't started his (soon???) Unfortunately, this has also meant that I greatly appreciate the luxury of having my own device. For all of the torment my little machine has given me (really, who ever thought that Vista was a plausible operating system?), it saw me through 4 years of Masters work. I much appreciate what it can do for me. But now, I am sad to report that the little booger has died.

It is lost beyond the feasibility of pricey repair. And now I have to largely share laptop space with Ben whenever I want to type. I don't like sharing it. It irritates me enough to rarely even open it. Instead, we (fortuitously) adopted a couple of iPads for free this summer. One went back to the school that Ben teaches at, but the other is basically on permanent rent to us. I greatly enjoy the quickness that I can access any information that I desire. Especially considering that it would often take me 5(+) minutes to turn on my laptop and log onto the internet it was sometimes so bogged down in garbage that Ben never got cleaned up. Now, it's 20 seconds. Lovely! But iPads are frustrating means of typed communication. They're really mainstreamed for finding and scanning information, not typing emails to friends who you haven't talked to recently (or typing blog posts, even short ones).

But then my school blessed me with my own personal laptop, so it's kind of a cheap way out of investing in another laptop just for my personal use. If I remember to bring it home. And if Ben was able to make it compatible with our internet at home.

So all this to explain why I haven't typed much lately. And that also means that I lost the last two topics that I had yet to write on for my This I Believe series. But no one reads that anyways. And, I know that I broke my New Years Resolution for the month of August--I think? I don't think that I've done a book review since July. I've run into a reading road block once school started. This is an exhausting time of year. Unsettling as routines are hammered out and altered. Suffice it to say, I miss my laptop. I kinda feel sad, like selling our first car that we owned. Nostalgic for the silver bullet that was nothing if not slow.

This is such a funny age

2011-08-17T16:28:00.000-07:00

Abby's a Daddy's girl, BIG time. Tonight happened to be Ben's night to give her a bath and put her down to bed (we alternate). Ergo, she was in a great mood.

As Ben was backing out of the room, I heard a variety of little girl giggles including "Good night, sleep tight" repeatedly interspersed with a litany of things she loves. It ran something like this "Abby loves zoos, Mommy, Unca Joe, Mommy, butterflies, Daddy, zoos..." So that was funny.

Then, she kept chattering to herself after Ben finally shut the door, and since her room is right by the living room, we could hear it all. And the best part was this particularly funny exchange.

Abby singing a nursery rhyme.
*thump*
Abby: "Oww, that hurts. I hit my head." (in a silly, giggly sort of way)
Ben: If she hit her head, that means that she's not tucked in anymore.
Abby: Daddy, tuck my feet in! Daddy, tuck my feet in!!
Daddy walks into the room to re-tuck the little munchkin.
Abby: "I have poopy diaper."
Daddy: "This is what you needed to do in the potty before you laid down..."
(a few minutes later...)
Abby: "Tuck in Abby's feet! I tuck in Abby's feeeet!!" (Her pronouns are hit and miss. She still insists that the proper way to ask to be picked up is "Pick you up!" And often when she wants to sit on your lap, she'll repeatedly insist "Sit on my lap.")
Ben goes in to re-tuck one last time.
Abby: "I see Daddy's feet!"

Back to singing to herself. Her current favorite hits medley alternates between "Tinkle, Tinkle Little Star" (which I find wildly funny when she sings it while sitting on the potty) and the ABC song.

Oh wait, as I type this, she's reverted to another favorite stand-by. "Where'd Abby go?" She probably has a blanket on her head. (Which reminds me, and I'm apparently in a rambling mood, Abby likes to play hide-and-seek, and sometimes mixes it up and "hides" her favorite stuffed kitty, though always in the same spot. It's pretty easy to distract her and then re-hide kitty. So funny when she comes back to where she thinks her kitty is hiding, sure that you'll never find the toy, only to discover that her kitty is truly hiding. Where'd kitty go??)

Service

2011-08-06T17:38:00.000-07:00

***This is the 13^th entry in my This I Believe series.***

Well, it’s been months since I’ve last contributed to my goal of completing my own This I Believe series that I began last fall with my Composition kids. I’m finishing these last couple, whether anyone reads them or not!

I know what I want to believe about service, what I feel that I inherently do believe about service, but I’m the first to admit that I am not absolute in my devotion to carving out the time necessary to make this a habit in my life. There’s always more that I, we, you can do to serve others. My belief that service is right, good, necessary all stem from my faith, but I don’t believe that it has to be. To me, it’s a bit nebulous because “we” want to stereotype that as something that “good people” do, and “good people” are those who are “religious” or “go to church” or what have you. But certainly, one can fail to fulfill their need to attend organized church and still succeed in a deep understanding of what service is to one another.

I know that service makes me feel good, but about what? Myself? My world? My community? Do I feel good because I realize anew all that I have to be thankful for? Do I feel good because there’s no greater commitment to humanity than to serve others above ourselves? I like to think that the latter is the pivotal reason why people continue to serve each other. I’m always going to play the optimist because as far as I have seen, witnessed or experienced in my few, cognizant years, people always step up and help when the rough things happen. Not only that, but who hasn’t witnessed someone perform a simple act of kindness for a random stranger for no apparent reason?

I believe that such simple acts of kindness are a necessary act of service if we are to communicate and live together as a unified society, whether that is city, state, country, or world. We must help each other out. We must. It’s that simple. I believe that to be true, fundamentally and wholeheartedly. I feel this way about service much as I do about my faith—it just is, it just must be so.

I believe that there is a variety of services that we must perform, not only to ourselves but also to our world (which, really, all comes back to serving ourselves also). If we want to live in community, we have to include service to this phenomenal world that God has given us to take care of. We are stewards of the Earth just as much as we called to serve each other.

I believe in the ideology of being a servant. We sang this hymn at our wedding, and the words are just as applicable here: “Will you let me be your servant/let me be as Christ to you?/Pray that I might have the grace/to let me your servant, too.” There’s a pretty heavy message in this simple Brethren hymn; can we not only serve each other but allow others to serve us, too?

Abby's prayer

2011-07-19T07:21:00.001-07:00

Abby really likes to pray, specifically at bed times and at meal times. Granted, some of this is a delay maneuver on her part. Little does she know that she's actually doing what we want her to do...ha.

Until last night, Abby has always been free and easy with making prayer requests. We pray for every member of both of our families every night (it takes about 2 seconds per person), some of them repeatedly (Uncle Sam and Uncle Don...you get a lot of prayer requests). And sometimes, other things strike her fancy and must be prayed about as well--the sandbox, the swings, the slide, her stuffed kitty, etc.

Last night at supper, Abby made her prayer request; except for the first time, she wanted to say it herself, and the proceeded with this gem:

"Dear Lord, I love Mommy and Daddy. A-MEN!!"

At that point, I think that Ben and I were each adding our own silent prayers of thanksgiving for our little sweetie.

If I had extravagant amounts of tangible wealth...

2011-07-11T07:36:00.000-07:00

This is my thought process during my shower this morning.

If I had extravagant amounts of tangible wealth, I would make these splurges priorities:
*a daily trip to Starbucks for a grande hazelnut latte, skim of course
*a Kuerig/Tassimo deluxe coffee station
*a membership to a wine club (by the way, I'm open to sharing this with someone out there who would like to get together maybe once or twice a month just to have dinner and try new things...seriously)...this makes it seem like I'm a pretty serious drinker, which I'm definitely not. I just kinda like the idea of trying new wines once in a while.
*a gym membership so that I could take yoga classes
*a summer vacation that would last for about 2 months and would take us to visit every MLB ballpark, once Abby was older
*someone to do my hair EVERY day
*weekly pedicures/manicures
*my dream kitchen
*a greenhouse
*a nanny who would not live at my house

I think that's about it. Do-able on a teacher's salary?!?!?

Busy, busy, busy!

2011-07-05T17:43:00.000-07:00

June was a veritable whirlwind! It included, but was not limited to
4 office visits for Abby (various doctoral needs)
2 visits to the zoo
1 trip to Ft. Wayne
1 trip to the lake
4 times running the Coyote Kids race (a Kokomo thing for kids)
4 story times at the library
4 playdates
potty training part I and then potty training part II
daily walks
visits to various parks nearly every day
2 visits with two of my best buddies
1 babyshower
1 anniversary
at least 8 trips to the library, maybe closer to 12
2 trips to N. Manchester
1 meeting at church about sharing a pastor
1 cabin/camping trip with the in-law clan
1 day spent driving around looking at houses

And I thought that July was going to slow down. Not at all!

Now, Abby's turning into a potty pro, but it's still an adventure every day. And coming up soon, we have a trip the fair, a reunion, a possible trip to Jungle Jim's in Cincinnati, a definite trip to Cincinnati with a stay at a sweet little B & B and a Reds game with club seating (there will be a blog posting about this...SO excited, our first baseball game since before Abby was born, *and* club seats), a whole day ordeal so that Abby can have a couple of cavities filled which involves sedation (curse you, antibiotics!), another day where Abby gets tubes put in, a green team meeting at church, and the possibility of three more playdates/swimdates coming up. Oy! I'm kind of in a sunshine and family stupor right now as I'm typing this, too. We just came from another lake trip-then-afternoon with the in-laws that included an eye doctor trip & unexpected lunch out with the boy. How much can you jam into 18 hours? A lot!!

In the meantime, I thought about writing an entire post about our zoo trips, but it's been 3 weeks now, and I finally have my pictures put on the computer and labeled (I took around 200 just in June), so I'll just throw on some from the last month. Fun times!

This is from the Coyote Kids race last week. After every kid finishes, they get a popsicle and a...

...ribbon. :-)

Abby is BIG into "ready-set-start," and this is one of her two runner's poses. This is (as Ben informs me) her 2-count start. She sometimes chooses to start "from the blocks" in a 3-count start. I'll let Ben be the running coach. He gets paid to do it; I don't. But, I will say that this isn't her best starting form. She's preparing to run up a ramp here, and her balance is thrown off a bit. I'll just cheer and hold out a little cup of water as she zips by me.

This isn't the best picture of Ben, but it's the only one where Abby didn't have a hand in front of her mouth. Silly goose. Look how many clothes we're wearing mid-morning at the end of June! It was beautiful camping weather!!

Sometimes, you have to eat where and when you have the chance. Sometimes, you're not wearing pants when you eat.

Zoo #2: trying to be a giraffe or pet a giraffe

Zoo #2: serious. concentration.

Zoo #1: typical pose

After zoo trip #1: This isn't Abby's best picture, but Ben's face was extra goofy and his eyes are open in the picture for once, so hey, why not? She thinks that it's funny when she and Daddy wear his Colts hats together.

This has been a seriously fun summer...so far!

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

2011-06-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

by Amy Chua (not only does she have a fantastic first name, but there are a lot of Amys referenced in this book, also)

okayihavetorefrenencethisbooksomewherebecauseit'sprettycoolsoyeah,thisisanotherbookreview,but deal,okay?

Alright, 230-ish pages, and it took me around 24 hours to read. I mean, this one reads fast. It's not like all I did was read for one whole day. Nope, just for a while at night and then during nap time. Quick quick quick.

What I most especially love about this one is that the author *completely* talks about what worked and failed, and frankly, focuses on failing quite a bit more than succeeding with "Chinese parenting." If you haven't heard of this one, it gained a lot of press when it was published a few months ago because the idea of Chinese parenting can be (in my opinion) misconstrued as barbaric by Western parenting models, which is the #1 focus of the text. Chua addresses differences between Chinese & Western parenting models, as well as admitting how she grossly stereotypes with this terminology, consistently throughout the text.

There's a part of me that is very much like "Rock on, you've got something working here!" with what she talks about. But really, the greatest part of me is more "C'mon, we need to compromise here between what you're generalizing." Truly, I see us as being (or wanting to be) somewhere smack in the middle of the two. I'm not big on sleepovers and accepting mediocrity (which she bashes), but I do see the validity of playdates and allowing your kid to have some say-so in what activities they'd like to participate in (which she also bashes). But then again, my kid(s) will learn how to play an instrument and have definite academic standards set for them (which she acknowledges as givens). It's an interesting ad refreshing perspective on parenting, and one that I frankly admire a lot because of what I understand as motivating factors. It's not that I admire the tactics necessarily employed, but I really admire the deep, intense desire to prepare your child to succeed and perform well.

Chua is funny, insightful and frank. And, she is really quite gifted at just telling a story. She's a Harvard educated lawyer who married another Harvard educated lawyer, both of whom now teach at Yale. In other words, she's a smart cookie. Okay, I'm also jealous of her but in some small, niggling way that means I would never seriously consider exchanging my life for hers, knowing what kind of life an academic (especially at that caliber) truly leads. It's intense. Really, really (really) intense.

And Chua, I like how you ended the book; the coda is truly a fitting way to end and honest to the rest of the book.

what I learned from camping with the Cox clan

2011-06-26T17:07:00.000-07:00

We had a be-u-ti-ful weekend of weather for camping in our 2nd annual Cox family camping trip. Here are some reflections from the time well spent with wonderful people. It's a good family to be accepted into. Abby is the only grandkid on this side, so there were 8 adults and 1 toddler. Things I (or any combination of we) learned:

*In the middle of the night when you're camping and it starts storming, it's nice to be able to think "I'm glad that I'm in a cabin and not a tent." (Yeah, I still consider this camping. It's like luxury camping.)
*Abby does just fine sleeping in a utility closet when faced with a dearth of options.
*A peanut butter cup makes a dandy substitute for the classic chocolate bar in a S'more.
*My in-laws generally pronounce certain words differently than I do, namely "cee-ment" (cement) and "sa-more" (S'more).
*It's entirely possible to eat 2 breakfasts.
*When camping, it can be difficult to fit in any activity other than eating. It has to be carefully scheduled in.
*Being able to eat dinner by 6 means starting to search for "one of the really big grills" and a shelter by 3:30 in hopes to find something by 4.
*Swans honk like geese would if they were old men who smoked a lot.
*A simply fantastic adult to toddler ratio is 8:1.
*When you take along 6 extra adults with you while on vacation, it means that you get a vacation from playing with your kid and actually get to just...sit.
*Drawing a chalk line on a sidewalk that says "STOP ABBY" is all you need for ooooodles of entertainment. This sets the stage for racing. All of the extra adults take turns and you don't have to for once.
*When you send three females into a grocery store for milk & butter, it will still take 2 phone calls and a long time before they'll come back out.
*If you take the interstate around Indy rather than a circuitous route full of twisty roads, small towns, double lines, and road construction, you'll arrive at your destination at least an hour sooner.
*Spencer, IN is almost exactly 97 miles from my house, which just so happened to be the range my car told me that I had left before I would run out of gas. The gas light comes on with 25 miles left. Some gas stations are closed on Sundays. "Just for fun," I had 4 miles left when we finally succeeded in filling up after passing by all of the Indy/Carmel/Westfield gas stations because Abby was mercifully asleep.

I didn't get as many good pictures this time around, but the weather made up for it. Basically, it was simply fantastic (especially in a cabin!). :-)

The Kitchen Daughter

2011-06-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

This blog is turning into a veritable book club, isn't it? I do tend to blog in spurts of like topics frequently enough. You may not notice, but I do. And, since I try to bring you the highest quality blog-someness that can be found anywhere, I take this quite seriously. But you know what? Sometimes we have three pasta dishes all in the same week. And so it goes with my blog. Just think of this like fettucine alfredo--always impossible to resist, right?

Here's the low-down. I devoured The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry in 2 days. Yeah, I'm on summer vacation so I "have time" to read more, but it's not like I don't have other things to do yesterday and today. This one hooked me really quickly and it was hard to set it aside last night and was effortless to finish today. I mean, I loved it (as far as pop fiction goes)! Why???

1. The protagonist is autistic, specifically has (undiagnosed) Asperger's syndrome. This creates a unique narrative perspective that forces the reader to challenge her own expectations. In other words, you don't expect it, and because you figure it eventually because of subtle clues, it wonderfully emphasizes the primary theme--What is "normal"? And frankly, the autism spectrum is affecting more families and individuals in our society, and it's a fabulous reminder that we as a society are oh so quick to judge, label, and categorize anyone who doesn't act as we do (i.e. a supposed "normal").
2. On a personal note, my nephew has been categorized as having Asperger's, and I greatly appreciate an author, albeit a fiction writer, affording an often silenced voice a chance to "tell" her side, to demonstrate her emotions and thought processes, fears and strengths.
3. The protagonist is brilliant in the kitchen, and there's some beautifully descriptive food passages as told through her perspective.
4. It has something of a corny premise (there are ghosts in this novel), but it's really written in such a way that it's not cheesy at all. It works! Probably because we, the reader, have the same inner battle between incredulity and hopefulness about the protagonist, and we ultimately choose the same mindset as David, a key character. We believe because there's something about the girl, Ginny, that just begs us to be the one to listen and understand her if for no other reason than no one else does or will.
5. It has an unexpected ending. And I like that.
6. It's not a romance. If it were, the author would be selling out. But she doesn't. You think that she might, but the book stays true to it's deeper message.
7. The cover is kind of fun. Okay, pretty brilliant actually. You could write a paper on it--how the main character is represented by the mesh grocery bag, transparent but strong, full of holes and flaws, but also perfect for the purpose that she was created... Yep.
8. It's kind of a sad book. But really, it's more of a book about empathy than sympathy.

My only negative comment is that the author, like so many pop fiction writers today it seems (ahem, Ann Brashares and Sarah-Kate Lynch), relies on forced analogies. There's fairly terrible at times and are nothing short of clunky and absurd. BUT, after a while, I got what McHenry was doing and politely applaud her efforts here. All of her analogies are food analogies, which correlates to the mind of her protagonist, who uses food as a coping mechanism. So it makes sense, but it's still a bit yeesh.

Those are my thoughts on the book. I value the impact it had on me and my way of thinking. And, I challenge you to go through the experience as well. Will you?

My Name is Memory

2011-06-11T18:03:00.000-07:00

by Ann Brashares

(Just to prevent my brain lapse about monthly book blogging for June, I'll just take care of this nice and early in the month.)

As you can see, I'm not totally a classic book snob or a Michael Pollen-esque book snob. I actually do read pop fiction once in a while. By here's the reason that I don't more often--I don't know these authors! Unless something has been recommended to me or unless I happen to stumble upon one, odds are that I haven't read it. This is kind of why I don't think that I would really use a Kindle, though I want one enough to consider it. I just don't buy books all that often unless I have to for a class, and I don't read much pop fiction.

And this book proved why I shy away from such reading. Here's my analogy. I used to like Hershey's chocolate. It was good stuff and the best of the Halloween candy when I was a kid. Chocolate was chocolate, and I enjoyed it all. But then I discovered Lindt. And Ghiradelli's. and Valhrona. And Scharffen Berg. Hershey's will never be "good" again. It's not even acceptable. It's in-a-desperate-situation-only kind of chocolate for me. It just doesn't taste that good to me anymore once I've experienced quality chocolate. This book is definitely Hershey's. But at least it is the dark chocolate Hershey's. If it was milk chocolate, I wouldn't have gotten very far in it.

The diaglogue was contrived and often saccharine sweet, cloying even. Give me books where the dialogue is seemless and plot is seemless rather than forced. GIve me one or two dominant themes upon which the protagonist's character is developed rather than a jumble of disjointedness. Furthermore, give me characters who mean something. It's like profanity and adult content--there's a time and a place. Make it purposeful about the message of the text, not gratuitous.

So if it sounds like I'm slamming this book...I am. I probably wouldn't have been so harsh about it except for one unforgivable flaw. I mean, seriously unforgivable. The books just stopped. It wasn't even a cliffhanger ending or an ambiguous, choose-your-own-adventure, The Giver style ending. No. It just stopped. It wasn't just one story line that ended, it was allll of the storylines. What??? Oh, and it's really similar to The Time Traveler's Wife, though I haven't taken the 2 seconds to see which was written first. (I think that TTTW was because Brashare's book references 2009, and the aforementioned book had the weird but decent movie that came out sometime around 2009.)

In a nutshell, not too original. Forced dialogue. Typical characters. Unrealistic emotions & situations. The worst ending that I think I've ever read. But, quick read and entertaining enough to keep going.

Ann Brashares: You did much better with your breakout novel, The Last Summer of Me (and You). You had moments in that one that kind of got overlooked because it was a pretty decent message. But your writing has some serious flaw-age. Fix it. And don't take another author's idea; that's not appreciated.

Wuthering Heights

2011-06-10T18:12:00.000-07:00

I'm slacking (unintentionally)! I missed my New Year's Resolution May post about a book I read for fun. A few days laaaate, but here it is.

I daresay that my general constituency, if I had one, will discard this post as a snooze. Can't help it. Sorry peeps. This is what I read last month. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (pretend that I knew how to include the two dots above the last "e" in "Bronte"). Despite being the only novel by this Bronte sister, it's a keeper!

It's a perfect example of a Victorian Gothic novel--supernatural elements; dark, foreboding atmosphere; large, ancestral homes; etc. Lots of raw emotion, intense passions even at the expense of common sense, and haunting presences. It's one of those that I read, and enjoyed, for an undergrad class--pretty sure it was spring of my first year, so I would have been 19. Ergo, it's been 9 years since I read it, and time well spent with it again. And, it has my favorite line in any book.

It reminded me of why I've spent 8 years as a student of English literature. It's the equivalent of a special kind of ice cream that had been discontinued for a few years now and all of a sudden you find it again in a little out of the way store, splurge, spend a night savoring it tiny spooonful by tiny spoonful, and then when you finish it, you think "I missed that." Ahhh, good times.

my shy sheila

2011-06-08T11:19:00.000-07:00

Abby has always been shy around people, even family, whom she doesn't see on a regular basis. Thankfully, our immediate family members are pretty understanding about it and don't take it seriously, but I know that some people do. What!?! You're really getting bent out of shape because a toddler doesn't like it when you get up in their face, make a stupid noise, and poke at their belly? By the way, I hate this and cringe for Abby every time. It's not her fault that you're acting like an idiot.

So this post goes out to the older gentleman at our church who persists in doing the aforementioned every week though I try to avoid him. He doesn't get the message. No, she's not tired. No, she's not grumpy. No, she's feeling just fine. You, however, are acting like a buffoon, and she thinks that you're scary.

This post is also dedicated to random people who you meet in public who likewise act stupidly whenever there is a kid in their presence. I know that you think that you're being funny and connecting with kids, but really, listen to yourself. You're not. Treat children like people, not lapdogs.

I wasn't intending to rant about this, but it's been on my mind a bit because Abby's level of shyness is reaching really bad proportions when around other people, even her BFF Jonathan, whom she played with, sang with, read books with, ate with, giggled, and chased for 3 days each week of the last school year. I feel bad for the little guy because all he wants is his friend Abby and she's acting all who-are-you? with him. She came with me to graduation open houses last weekend and clung tighter to me than she ever has post utero, seriously buried her face in my shoulder, and held a hand over the exposed part of her face the whole time (yet still managed to eat a cookie...talented, she is).

My sheila has always been shy, but this is problematic. It might be really tough on her (and us!) when school starts back up again in the fall. Oh my.

Sigh...she's so big

2011-06-02T11:18:00.000-07:00

after "helping" plant the garden

I was trying to take a good picture of Abby's first ponytail, and it turned into a full-fledged photo shoot. Mostly, she likes taking pictures so that she can see herself on the camera.

She's. SO. Big.

Signs that the End is coming?

2011-06-01T16:54:00.000-07:00

The title is a tongue-in-cheek homage to May 21st. And the October 21st that is coming.

In all seriousness, there are some really weird things going on lately.

#1: I have found myself enjoying cucumbers. I not only ate pickled cucumbers and begrudgingly shared some with Ben, but I read through a recipe for an asian cucumber salad tonight and am already salivating in anticipation. Yum!

#2: I ate tomatoes TWO DAYS IN A ROW and (again) enjoyed them! This is especially not normal. I mean, I'm like those people who don't enjoy chocolate because up to this point in my life, I could honestly say that I thoroughly disliked tomatoes. I've started to eat them and not mind them in certain circumstances, but this past weekend, they were front and center in a salad and, frankly, delightful. Granted, these were cherry tomatoes, so they're supposed to be super sweet, but I heretofore hadn't been convinced of that. Yum again!

I guess that there's hope yet that the kid will grow out of her aversion for avocado. It might take 26 more years, but hopefully someday she'll learn to like them if her mum can smile about cucumbers and tomatoes. (It feels weird talking like this.)

Why does everyone around me have to breath?

2011-05-13T17:29:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while, I'll have an inordinately hard time falling asleep, usually on Sunday nights for whatever reason. This really irritates me when I know that I have to get up at 5:15 the next morning. I mean, this really irritates me, which only leads me to fume and toss and thrash and continue to just be awake. In the last month, I've had three such nights, which is rare. During the school year, I know that I'll be sufficiently wiped out mentally to be able to fall asleep pretty easily every night. It's a sleep-to-wakefulness ratio that seems to work.

So this is beyond irritating to me at this point. I'm at the point where I go to bed almost expecting to stay awake because even on the nights that I do fall asleep, it seems to take me a little while longer. Last night, around 11:52, while I'm settling into our surprisingly-comfy-to-sleep-on couch, I realized that this is a unique time of day for me, should I be awake. It is around this witching hour that all of this inevitably scrolls through my mind.

*Various shades of annoyance and downright anger at Ben. I'm an irrationally light sleeper in general, which has caused anyone who lives with me grief for years. But really, how can I be expected to sleep when he's laying there breathing beside me??? It's completely impossible! The loudest sound EVER! And he refuses to entertain the idea of either his & her bedrooms or a king-sized bed. I'm especially irate about this at 11:52 p.m.

*The dishwasher always seems to be running on nights when I can't sleep. Which means that I can't just move to the couch because it is a mere 10 feet from the offending dishwasher, which, understandably, is a million times louder than Ben's breathing. Hence, I am forced to stay in bed. My irate-ness continues.

*Normally, the dryer is good white noise for me to help drown out Ben's unfair breathing. But on nights that I can't sleep, it's another instigator of my irritatedness. Our utility room is across a hallway space from our bedroom, but I've already been trapped in my bed because the couch is too close to the dishwasher.

*Silence. This is the WORST!!! Mostly, because it allows me to hear BEN'S BREATHING!!!!!

So the couch has been my bed of choice lately, despite the clock that incessantly ticks. For some reason, if the dishwasher is done and if the dryer isn't running, then this is a good place to be.

But then again, I always have the baby monitor turned on because you never know when my child will turn rooster. And, then, you know what...I can hear Abby's b-r-e-a-t-h-i-n-g.

Sometimes, the hardest part of my day is trying to go to sleep.

It's nights like this

2011-05-06T17:23:00.000-07:00

Supper was not a fun event tonight. And while I won't over exaggerate and say that it happens all of the time, it's not *infrequent* either. Part of me doesn't want to write this because my pride dictates that I only present a happy-at-all-costs facade, especially since I can decide what is put on this blog and edit out anything that isn't complimentary. But you know what, my parenting isn't that pretty, so I dare say that there would be little to write about.

Ben's 100% married to track right now, and there's still about 1/3 of the season left. They started on Feb. 14th, and it's been one never-ending season. Right now as I wallow in my own self pity, I want to blame this on Ben and say "Because you aren't here a lot, I have to do more than my fair share (yeah, I know...whatever that is!), and I need a break." I want to be able to blame someone other than myself for the veritable disaster at dinner tonight which left me in tears and Abby laughing. And while I know that she wasn't vindictively laughing at me, IT SURE FELT LIKE IT!!!

So it's nights like these that re-affirm how much parenting is fail fail fail fail. Are the good parents the ones who cover their failings the best or who hide them most skillfully? You know, giving an almost 2-year dinner who can adequately feed herself a little bit of food is fairly simplistic. Easy. So how did we end up in a standoff where she alternated between playing peekaboo (I turned my chair and ignored her), pretending to be asleep (really hard not to laugh; I turned my chair to ignore her) and poking (at) me saying "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" (I still turned my chair and ignored her).

I know that part of my sobbing is the determination that my daughter WILL learn to eat well and enjoy healthy food. So a mealtime like this feels like a slap.

I refuse to use dessert as bait. (I actually got her favorite lovey out of the dryer, which she had been neglected of all day, and used that instead. It worked insofar as she kinda took one bite.) I hate doing the "3 more bites and you can..." tactic because I want her to learn to listen to her own hunger cues. But then again, if she's telling me that she's not hungry, why am I trying to force her to eat even just a couple of bites of food? How do I learn the difference between "I know what's best for you" and "I must respect your own innate self"?

I crave "parenting talk" and seek it out a lot specifically for help, tips and validation of what I'm stumbling through. But it can be tough to be in a conversation with another parent and admit that I'm really struggling with whatever issue. So I'm going to put this out there seeking maybe not so much advice (though welcome) but commiseration. It's good to know that I'm not the only one who struggles with knowing how to parent. More often than not, it seems that I am. I think that "we" all have on the I-must-not-admit-my-failures filter. Well, I'm admitting one of mine, of which there are many. Maybe I'll slug though another one on a different day.

The Art of Racing in the Rain

2011-05-04T17:29:00.000-07:00

I know, this is late for the book that I read in April. And actually, that's something of a misnomer--"read."

April was a month of re-discovering free time for me. But what I'm still finding to be true is that I've had such a dearth of it for so long and I have so many things that I need to work on or want to do that my free time at night is about 1 1/2-2 hours and it's full full full full full of stuff. Suddenly, it's 9:30 at night and I kick myself again thinking, "Drat, I wanted to read tonight."

It was about 1/2 way through April and I hadn't really begun any new reading project when my kids started talking about this book, The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. Not only were they talking, but they were raving about this book, even kids who I know are non-readers. That sounded like high enough praise, so I tracked down a copy and dug in.

Actually, there's wasn't much to dig into, unfortunately. It's not as bad of a book as I'm going to make it seem, but here's my honest take on it.

It has flaws:
*The writing is often crass and at times monotonous. Sometimes, there are passages of poignant writing, but...
*The narrator is a dog. And this isn't Watership Down.
*There's a ton of detail about open car and open wheel racing (are those the same? I'm not even sure.) I like sports, but...
*This means that the whole philosophy of the book is based on fairly cliched sports truisms. Which makes the crass writing sometimes smarmy.
*The technical writing is around an 8th grade writing level, but...
*The content is definitely adult at times, which means that the content doesn't really match the intended audience. Bedroom scenes (yeah, plural), really?!?

Ultimately, I didn't have any desire to finish it even though it's a quick read and I was 2/3 of the way through. I found myself irritated with every character. There wasn't a single one that redeemed the book in my eyes. I mean, every character had flaws that were loathsome if not disgusting, the only exceptions being the dog (super crass) and the little girl (a flat character who wasn't even likable).

I'm not a person who has huge issues with the reading that is taught in schools. If anything, I'm the very opposite of that person, but still, I have issues with this book. I can see how kids would like it, but what are we sacrificing by using it? Morals? Propriety?

It could have been a great book...

Friendship

2011-04-30T17:37:00.000-07:00

This is the 12^th entry in my This I Believe series.

*****

I’ve lived in Kokomo for 6 years this summer, and I can count on 2 fingers the amount of friends that I/we actively socialize with on a regular basis. And those 2 people are married. And holdover friends from college. And we haven’t socialized with them since the Super Bowl back at the beginning of February. And it really feels pathetic.

(Here come the “buts.”) But, I/we have never been social butterflies. But, we each have a collective group of friends that we work with. BUT, we have the lame yet true “excuse” of being so ridiculously busy for much of this semester that we don’t even see each other that much let alone friends.

I believe that it’s really, really hard for most people to make new friends a) when they graduate from college or high school (whatever their culminating education might be) and b) when they move to a new town/city where they don’t know anyone, specifically in their own age bracket. Not only do I believe that it’s really hard, but I believe that it’s an issue that isn’t addressed enough and leads to definite feelings of confusion, loss, depression, self-doubt, or some combination of any of these.

I admit that I’ve gone through some gradation of feeling all of these in the past 6 years, despite joining my best friend in moving to this new city. It’s taken me this long to come to terms with friendship as being a different beast than it used to be. Admittedly, friendship has never been easy for me; I feel awkward and overtly intimidated by people that I don’t know or don’t know well. Consequently, I also know that I come across as snotty or mean too often. I mean, I know it, and that alone leads to feelings of “confusion, loss, depression, [and] self doubt.” I’m also just starting to recognize this and thus be more conscious of it.

Thinking back about high school, I didn’t realize how torturous it was at times for me to relate to and communicate with my peers. It was the norm, and I didn’t dwell on it at the time. So here’s my apology to anyone who knew me before college. I know of one circumstance where I was completely misconstrued, and it led to a lot of unintentional pain for both me and my friend. I fully admit that I still dwell on that situation today—10 years later. I’m sorry I was such a snot and so mean. I didn’t try to be. I really didn’t.

I believe that friendship is just hard, and I completely admire those people for whom the ability to engender and maintain friendships is a natural gift. Social media is a whole ‘nother monkey that has absolutely twisted our cultural understanding of “friendship,” and I believe that it enables people to believe that they are “friends” in interesting and counterintuitive ways. But I also believe that the friends that you fly across the country to see, those are the ones that you cherish. Your friend base doesn’t have to be centered in the geographic area that you live, and I’m learning to understand that I’m okay with that. But, it sure does make it a little more convenient.

It's good to be a commoner

2011-04-29T18:10:00.000-07:00

What a breathtaking, awe-inspiring, impossibly intimate Royal Wedding. Wow.

One of my naysayer students made a comment to the effect of "why should people [we] care about it?" This strikes me as positively amusing, ironic and baffling. We are Americans who are notorious for our hero-worship of anyone beautiful and/or rich, yet we scoff at it if the individual isn't directly related to America? Seriously, wouldn't the collective everyone simply fawn all over Will & Catherine if they had some tangential tie-in to the States? Why must we be nationalistic snobs? We glued ourselves to our TVs, iPhones and laptops this morning simply for the same reason that we afford any celebrity more than their 15 minutes of fame. We, Americans, have a big issue with idolizing individuals for ambiguous reasons. However, for once, why not?!? In my very unimportant and unscientific opinion, at least this is one couple that we should celebrate and adore. You can't make me believe that those TWO kisses (gasp!) on the balcony of Buckingham Palace weren't heartfelt and adorable. Watch Charles & Diana in the corresponding situation and then compare...egads.

But watching that made me realize that sometimes it's good to be a commoner. Would I have handled my own wedding in that manner of pomp and ceremony? AND, think of all of the details in which Princess Catherine did not have a voice. Undoubtedly, the majority of the wedding was detailed and coordinated by someone who is paid well to say "You do this, and you stand here because this is the way it will be." To some extent, it would have been more relaxing for my own wedding if I did have that someone to tell me what to do, to only have to decide what my dress would be and what my hair would look like. But on the other hand, I remember specific specific details about my own wedding that Princess Catherine can't. However, I also understand that you can easily argue that she will have "specific specific" details to remember about her own wedding day that are grander and more extraordinary than my wedding could ever replicate.

Yet my wedding didn't require $55 million just for security (which, by the way, kudos to the British for their panache in blending security into the landscape; American police can never compete). And my wedding was still joyous, just as today's celebration was.

Funny aside: Ben and I were told that we would not kiss after being pronounced husband and wife, kind of like today's newlyweds couldn't either. Except that I/we forgot, and we did. Good thing we're not royal; we would have enraged the Queen, among others.

The wedding made my day after an emotional week. I'm definitely one of those people who enjoy attending weddings rather than dreading them. Every bride is beautiful. Every wedding is so full of emotion--trust, faith and love. I thoroughly enjoy sharing such intimate moments because a wedding inevitably reminds me of how much I love my own hubby and the importance of the vows that we wrote for each other.

But once again, sometimes it's just good to be a commoner. I don't enjoy kissing in front of other people. So having at least a billion people watching me smootch...I'll let someone else revel in the balcony scene.

What do you do once you finish your formal education?

2011-04-27T16:07:00.000-07:00

GRADE. I've been a bit behind.

SIGH. What is there left to achieve next?

REGROUP. Remember what a Friday night of pure relaxation feels like.

WORK. There are about 50 projects that haven't been worked on for four years.

SIGH. Again. In private. I'm getting a lot of lemons right now and haven't gotten up the gumption to find some sugar to mix in yet. I'm fairly wallowing right now.

LAUGH. Abby is at a fantastic age of funniness. Re-learn to play with the little one without the constant niggling reminder of work that isn't being done.

GO TO TRACK MEETS. Fantastic diversion for my daughter, and it gives her a chance to see her daddy on nights that they wouldn't otherwise meet up.

COOK. Key lime cheesecake. Pumpkin cream cheese muffins. Linguine with edemame pesto. All in my fridge right now.

LOOK FOR JOBS & HOUSES. If only...

READ. I'm out of sorts on this right now.

WATCH. Copious amounts of baseball. Without reservation. By the way...I'm in first place in the standings in my fantasy team. It's not yet May, but I can already smell the $300 winning prize (again).

PLANT. Peat pots. You should check out my nifty makeshift garden in my classroom at school.

THINK. About Abby's 2nd birthday...less than one month away (oh my!).

WRITE. On the blog. You lucky people.

That was an oops...

2011-04-20T18:33:00.000-07:00

I need to preface this short post with 2 things to clarify my emotional state of mind.

1. I've been losing lots of things lately, and I'm not one who loses things. Everything has its place just for this reason.

2. I finally bought a new pair of jeans after searching sporadically for months and going through 2 pairs in the meantime.

So, the story. I was changing clothes after school a couple of days ago, and I couldn't find my new jeans. I knew that I was wearing them the night before, so I couldn't possibly have left them anywhere (we were out of town the previous day). Abby even got in on the search-and-find rescue mission. I looked through all of Ben's jeans twice since we'd just done some laundry. So I called Ben, who had a track meet after school. Maybe he knew? Voicemail--call me.

Ben called back: "This is not cool! I figured out that I'm wearing your jeans because the pockets are so small!!" Found my jeans! And for the record, he didn't continue wearing my jeans, and I accidentally put his on once thinking that they were mine.

You wouldn't think it by looking at us, but we basically wear the same jean size. Not that we purposefully share clothing... :-)

B & B Spring Break style

2011-04-07T10:44:00.000-07:00

Something that Ben and I have enjoyed to do ever since we've been married is to stay at bed & breakfasts when we travel. We found one in Ft. Wayne that had a fantastic hot tub when we got married. We stayed at a really quiet, quaint one down in St. Thomas on our honeymoon. We still talk about the one that we stayed at in Wisconsin when we traveled up to Minnesota a couple of years ago. We had a great time staying in one down in Brown County the spring before Abby was born (biggest breakfast ever!). And just this past week, I found one about an hour from Ft. Wayne in Grand Rapids, OH that was exactly what we needed.

If you ever have the chance and if you're into this sort of thing like we are, I recommend all of these. This week, we stayed at The Mill House, which is a converted mill right on the "rapids" of the Maumee River, which, incidentally, is bigger in OH than it is in IN, so it's really not as inconsequential as it first sounds. It was a memorable trip for a couple of reasons, most importantly, this was Abby's first overnight visit with the grandparents all by herself. In other words, this was the first time that I had not been with Abby overnight. It was a bit of a milestone, and I'm glad that I was able to choose when this took place because it was so much easier for me; I was ready, and I know that Ben was as well, for a break.

But back to The Mill House. It's in this tiny, tiny little city of about 1,000 people, which boasts 2 pizza places, 2 places for ice cream, 1 other restaurant, 1 other B & B, and an assortment of cute little shops and many that are out of business. The recession hasn't been kind to their Main Street, it seems. The Mill House itself is adorable with awesome character and beautiful brick & wood, including floors made from reclaimed bowling lanes. In my opinion, lots of B&Bs tend to be over decorated and dated, appealing exclusively to older generations. But this one is fairly neutral, which I appreciate.

When we got there, and we were the only guests Monday night, the hostess had made a little mistake and hadn't noted our arrival on the correct calendar. But she was utterly gracious and made up for it in spades. We definitely took advantage of her homemade scones (so delish!), biscotti, and gigantic chocolate chip cookies. Plus, she had a Keurig coffee maker, of which I am envious. Despite the cruddy weather, it was SO nice to just sit down, drink some coffee, nibble some scones, watch some tv, play a game, and just chat or be silent for the afternoon. This adventure came on the heels of the most hectic, stressful 2 weeks of my grad school career which resulted in tears a few times.

We had the best, loungiest afternoon/evening, just watching baseball and basketball, reading and eating. And, I received an email while I was there that my research project had been accepted, which means...I'm done with my Masters! The stars aligned, and I'm ready to do this again. Soon.

Life

2011-03-29T18:51:00.001-07:00

This is the 11^th entry in my This I Believe series.

*****

I believe in life in many ways, but lately, it has been in figurative rebirth.

While lately I’ve been mired in my own work both at school and at home, I see subtle signs of rebirth all around me, especially as I gaze longingly out of the window.

*My lilac bushes that Ben and I planted when I was very pregnant are going to be the first fresh burst of green leaves this year.

*A pair of finches have been scoping out last year’s nest, looking for a suitable place to guard this year’s batch of babies.

*Weeds are already becoming a nuisance.

What a perfect time of year to write about LIFE because it rushes at us everywhere we look right now. Every day seems to have its own reminder that yes, God’s creation is one of LIFE—pure, simple, love.

This year, I find myself actually itching to grow something, which has never been much of a hobby of mine, mostly because since I’ve moved out of my parents’ house, I’ve never had the means to really grow anything of consequence. But I’ve realized that my burgeoning interest in growing things rather corresponds with my new role of mother. (By the way…this still seems new to me. She’s nearly 2, and it still hasn’t really sunk in, I don’t think!) But this makes perfect sense to me; surely the same endorphins and chemicals that control our mothering instincts also correlate with the desire to grow other things. Essentially, isn’t it all cultivation in some manner?

I believe that you need to be aware of the resources around you in order to cultivate life to the best of your ability. To that end, I have about 50 peat pots cuddled together on a sunny patch of floor in my classroom because that is the resource that I have to meet my needs. I believe that we shortchange ourselves when we only recognize the easy route—Taco Bell and Monster energy drinks.

Regardless of whether the life is wanted or not (e.g. those never ending thistles), I truly believe that it is much more tenacious than tenuous. And that’s good! We can live in a world that we know will rebound, rebuild through dormancy, and re-emerge in some glorious capacity. How truly awe-some!

Nights in Rodanthe

2011-03-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

Egads, you're thinking. She's reading Nicholas Sparks?!?! Well, yeah, I did. Everyone's entitled to some book candy once in a while, right?

Actually, I ran out of books and out of time to head to my public library to get whatever is next on my list. So a few weeks ago I posted that my next book chat would be about an Eli Wiesel book. Surprise! Actually, I only got a few pages into it while in a pain induced delirium and then it was due and didn't have the fortitude to start over again. It came across as pretty abstract at the beginning, and at the time, I was totally not in that mind frame. Instead, I meandered down to my school library a few days later and figuratively begged for something to read. While a lovely, sweet soul, our librarian missed the mark with me; she tried to get me into some teen sci-fi. Um, nope. I barely acknowledge adult sci-fi. It's so...SCI FI. Ick. I've read Asimov, once. And I've befriended Bradbury and Wells at times (albeit by default that I have to teach them). At this point in my life, that's enough.

When I found Nicholas Sparks, it was meant to be at that moment on that day. He's actually been on my reading list more lately because right now I teach a class that literally is all about reading for the sole purpose of pleasure. I get to read a lot of journaling about what the kids are reading, which is a lot of Stephen King and Nicholas Sparks. The rom-com fan in me adores a good romance, even one that is drenched in the schmaltz. I chose Nights in Rodanthe simply based on the movie. Loved it. Love Richard Gere. Love Diane Lane.

Liked the book okay. Sparks isn't ever going to be mistaken for a really good writer. But he's productive, and he's consistent, so that works in today's publishing world. Nicholas Sparks is a brand now, not unlike Stephen King or J. K. Rowling for that matter. But, I appreciate that his writing is fairly clean and honest even if far fetched at times. And that book read seriously quickly, like I-read-this-in-the-space-of-one-week-reading-primarily-during-the-47-minute-class-period-every-day. (At this point, if you're a fan of reading, you should be slightly envious that this class is in my teaching load this semester. It's heavy on me reading and light on me teaching because it's designed to be that way, not because I'm a pathetic excuse of a teacher.)

Enjoyable. Fairly forgettable. I liked the movie better. Will probably read another one or two of Sparks's books simply because they're so convenient to read during this class.

The best part of the book is...the name of the town. I adore it. Rodanthe. Very New England/Cape Cod style housing/bed & breakfast-y.

Teaser for next month's book chat: no idea! I'm not currently reading anything except my computer screen lately. Suggestions???

Bless You!

2011-03-20T18:07:00.000-07:00

My little family went up to Harlan this weekend to join my larger family in celebrating my dad's 60th birthday today. It was loud, chaotic, and giggle-some. All-in-all, it was much fun and lots of laughs.The birthday boy with my niece.

Abby kept wanting my brother, "Unca Joe," to get on her rocking horse. So he did!

She really loves the Bob the Builder belt. Boooobbb the builllllder...Can? We? Fix it?!? Booooobbb the Builllllder...Yes! We! Can! (You gotta sing it.)

Abby and I were hanging out by ourselves and getting ready for church this morning. She had been fed, diapered and clothed before I got my breakfast. So I finally get to sit down with a bowl of "fakes" (she has trouble with the "l" sound). The little bug wanted up in my lap, of course, to help me eat my cee-we-a. This resulted in her sneaking in a bite every so often. Half way through, she's hanging onto the spoon, leans over the bowl to take a bite, and straight up sneezes into my bowl.

Yum. I still finished it. I figured that we've shared worse. :-)

Goals

2011-03-11T18:48:00.001-08:00

This is the 10^th in my This I Believe series.

*****

Right away I’m going to admit that I have never thought of myself as much of a goal person. Arrogantly, I think this is because I have generally been able to succeed with whatever I’ve wanted to do, and what disappointments have come along in my life have never been crushing. Okay, I didn’t get the job or well, I guess I live in Kokomo now, but it is what it is, so what next?

But in actuality, as I think back over the years since I graduated from high school, I really have been fairly goal-oriented. I’m realizing that goals also moonlight as short/long term outlooks. I like the term “outlook” or “plan” a lot better than “goal,” which to me has always come across as somewhat stodgy and snooty sounding. “My goals for the future are…” But to me, saying “I plan on…” sounds more realistic, down-to-earth and attainable.

So I plan on…graduating. If you’ve been paying any attention to my random bloggings and postings for the last couple of years, you know that this has been a very consuming focus of my life for the last couple of years. Unfortunately, this may turn out to be a $12,000 investment in nothing given the way that Indiana Republicans are treating education right now. (And just for the record, this last statement is not indicative of how I vote or how I am registered. It’s me expressing disappointment.) I find this beyond unfortunate since I chose my degree so that I become a better teacher. I really dislike having to re-think my GOAL. I need certainty, and this engenders ambiguity.

But my plans quickly coalesced to be part of a “we” once I got to college. Blessed indeed, my goals have always been accepted by my “we” partner. Thinking back now, I know that my parents treated my goals the same way that my husband does—supporting them, encouraging me in them, providing the basis upon which I could both succeed and fail gracefully.

As I become more and more enmeshed in the lives of teenagers, I’m becoming used to the shock that so many have no basis of support that I have always had. When I taught at Frankfort, the common goal among students was to get out of high school some way (not necessarily through a graduation ceremony) an d then work in a factory or as a beautician. I still think about that accepted and depressing outlook for life.

I admit that goals need not be absolute but they need be addressed. Goals are really a window into the soul in a singular way. I believe in the validity of goals, and while not necessarily comfortable to reckon with, they are…there. Like the clothes in your closet, it’s good to shift them around sometimes.

from A to frozen peas

2011-03-04T15:32:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick little update snippet for cool and bizarre things that Abby is doing or into right now.

A-Z: this kid has about 1/2 of the alphabet down pat! I dont' have a concept for when this is normal, so humor me if you're rolling your eyes on your side of the computer monitor and thinking "ugghh...she's bragging about something that is so commonplace by Abby's age." To me, it's fantastic. Plus, she says some of the letters so cutely that it's always enjoyable reading our plentiful letter books and playing with our letter magnets and bath letters. (coo: Q, effffff: f, emmmm: m). Letters, letters everywhere!

frozen things: Abby's favorite way to eat corn is frozen, and she's always willing to pop in a stone cold pea. She adores frozen blueberries. This means that sometimes I get her to eat some veggies on the sly while I'm getting dinner ready when I ever so nicely let her eat some of the veggies that are going into dinner for the night.

pigtails: There is no more perfect hairstyle than pigtails. I suggest them for boys. Instant adorable. Dreadfully hard to get them to stay in sometimes.

boop boops: Today, we took one last romp outside in the boop boops even though it was in the 50 degree range and there was no snow to be seen before they'll probably be retired forever. I'll have to get her some rain boop boops to replace them, I suppose. How cute will that be?!?

evi, e-o, to-be: She can spot our cats (or our babysitter's cats) from 100 yards away. Eagle eyes.

busss! yeh-yo busss!: We are hardcore into anything that resembles a bus, sounds like a bus, smells like a bus, or is yellow. We know the hand motions to every verse of "The Wheels on the Bus" and sometimes make up new ones.

nursery rhymes: Where is Thumbkin?, Old Mother Goose, Goosie Goosie Gander, The Duke of York, Ring Around the Rosie, Shoo Fly, The Farmer in the Dell, Old MacDonald...we love them all. And she can verbalize enough and carry a tune well enough so that I can generally pick out which one she wants to do or what she's singing. For some reason, Goosie Goosie Gander is a bathtime favorite.

chickie: She can finally pronounce this word fairly clearly rather than "chee-cheech." But her absolutely positively favorite lovey, a pair of 6-mo. size blue leggings are still "P-T" (pants).

hocks: She loves to give hugs and pats you so sweetly when she does. The best ones are the sneak attack "hocks" that are so gentle and heartfelt.

"yu-yuu mama" = happy mama :-)

The Alchemist

2011-03-02T17:21:00.000-08:00

I interrupt my recent barrage of non-fiction save-the-world-one-vegetable-at-a-time book reviews in favor of this one that, frankly, seems deceptively easy but is in my own humble opinion, fantastic. The teacher in me is glorying in the depth and the message. The reader in my loves that it was a quick and at times humorous read. And so I introduce The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo. But, you know me, I do have a penchant for Latino/a writers (kind of).

My two favorite reasons why everyone should read this book:

1. "It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting"
2. "...people need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want"

I have #2 on my board at school this week and a kid randomly commented to me today that he really likes it. A 17-year old hormonal, self-absorbed teenager noticed it and thought about it and determined that it is...good. Hallelujah.

The whole book is basically an extended proverb, or, rather, a series of related proverbs. So, yeah, it is a bit preachy and completely obvious what the author's intent is, but still, the message is important and gains momentum through being repeated throughout.

Everyone has their own personal journey. It's your choice whether you fulfill yours because it is your choice whether you abide by the omens that are around us every day and it is your choice whether you act on what you see. In the end, the treasure if yours if you are faithful to your quest. I really like it.

I first wanted to read this book after a senior I had four years ago read it for a project in my World Lit. class and it sounded really intriguing, but it's been on my mental bookshelf ever since, until now. Now, I shall praise it to the rafters and encourage all who inquire that yes, they should read it!!

It was also fun to read right now because I read it primarily at school during a class that I affectionately refer to as my 2nd prep period. The class is an elective where kids come to my room and ... read. Pretty much all day. Every day. Read. No teaching required on my part, which means that if I'm caught up (or caught up enough), then I pull out a book and luxuriate in the freedom to read at work for 47 minutes of my day. And on this schedule, I zipped through it in about a week. While I had it on my desk, one of my honors students (a junior) noticed it and struck up a conversation with me about it because she has also read it though years ago. So it was fun when she'd ask me every day "Where are you at now?" And then she tried to bite her tongue and not give anything away other than "I hate the ending, oh I can't stand that ending! The ending is...uggghhhh!" For the record--I liked the ending. I thought that it was basically the only way for it to end, the perfect ending if you will. I especially like that it was so completely unexpected for me. After all of my years of avaricious reading for both fun and school, I feel like if a book can hoodwink me, then it deserves props. It's like movies, too; who doesn't enjoy a good twist at the end?

Next up I have an Elie Wiesel book (fiction). I "started" it two nights ago while I was at Med One trying not to cry because of the horrible horrible pain in my right ear. But it is too figurative and intentionally vague at the beginning, so I only made it 8 pages and have no idea what happened. I'll have to start this one over again. Maybe tonight while I undergo my ear therapy. (Oh the pain, please let it go away! I go on the record to say that Monday afternoon/night was way worse than my entire labor with Abby. And it's still hanging around like the worst muscle strain ever. I mean to sound pitiful here. Please please pity me. I don't want to be the only one.) So we'll see...Elie Wiesel or something else? Don't know yet, but, oh, the possibilities!

LOVE

2011-02-21T18:15:00.000-08:00

This is my 9^th entry in my This I Believe series.

*****

In keeping with the major holiday of this month, I decided to write and think about love tonight. I have a lot of jumbled thoughts in my head about this topic, so I hope that it comes out more clearly.

LOVE is so cliché and original; it’s such a paradox. It has to be cliché because it’s such a driving force behind so much of our daily lives. And when it’s so important, people notice it, and then they write/sing/joke/obsess about it. I believe that love is the impetus in some capacity behind our other most intense emotions. Think about hate, even in its gentler form—anger. We hate ourselves/others/things because they are the antithesis of what we love. Or we get angry when something is wrong with what we love.

Right before I started typing this, I happened to notice the scrolling pictures that I have on my desktop of all of the pictures that are saved on my computer, which is not an insubstantial amount now. Just the briefest of glimpses of Abby, and I felt all warm and melty inside. What an intense emotion LOVE must be if even the slightest image illicit such a heady response so quickly. I choose to believe in the power of LOVE as transformative and more inspiring than the LOVE as evoking hatred/anger/negativity in my earlier example. I also feel quite strongly that if we always know how to love, then we’ll ultimately be okay as a whole. I believe in peoples’ desire to want to LOVE.

I read in some shmarmy novel once well before I had entered into anything resembling a serious relationship that you have to accept being loved, and that idea always has stuck with me. I also like it because it implies, again, that people ultimately desire LOVE. And, if we want to be loved, then I believe its inevitable that people will want to reciprocate love as well.

But my favorite LOVE is what I see and experience in subtle ways every day. It’s the really awkward teenage couple at school who want to be affectionate with each other but even more strongly want to abide by school rules and so air kiss and then hurry apart. It’s my Valentine’s Day “present” this year—Ben took care of recycling the recyclables because it was something to make my day better. It’s my dad, who made sure to visit or at least call my grandma every day when her health really began to fade. It’s my little girl who knocks us over with her exuberant hugs and sometimes remembers to say “uv ew” when we leave her in her crib at night. It’s my friend who babysits Abby for us and treats her like her own child though it’s not always convenient.

LOVE is phenomenal and hopeful. It’s such a dynamic force that influences so many mistakes and problems. But it’s just so absolutely worthwhile.

This matters to me

2011-02-20T19:12:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my soapbox.

Planet could be 'unrecognizable' by 2050, experts say

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A growing, more affluent population competing for ever scarcer resources could make for an "unrecognizable" world by 2050, researchers warned at a major US science conference Sunday.

The United Nations has predicted the global population will reach seven billion this year, and climb to nine billion by 2050, "with almost all of the growth occurring in poor countries, particularly Africa and South Asia," said John Bongaarts of the non-profit Population Council.

To feed all those mouths, "we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000," said Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

"By 2050 we will not have a planet left that is recognizable" if current trends continue, Clay said.

The swelling population will exacerbate problems, such as resource depletion, said John Casterline, director of the Initiative in Population Research at Ohio State University.

But incomes are also expected to rise over the next 40 years -- tripling globally and quintupling in developing nations -- and add more strain to global food supplies.

People tend to move up the food chain as their incomes rise, consuming more meat than they might have when they made less money, the experts said.

It takes around seven pounds (3.4 kilograms) of grain to produce a pound of meat, and around three to four pounds of grain to produce a pound of cheese or eggs, experts told AFP.

"More people, more money, more consumption, but the same planet," Clay told AFP, urging scientists and governments to start making changes now to how food is produced.

Population experts, meanwhile, called for more funding for family planning programs to help control the growth in the number of humans, especially in developing nations.

"For 20 years, there's been very little investment in family planning, but there's a return of interest now, partly because of the environmental factors like global warming and food prices," said Bongaarts.

"We want to minimize population growth, and the only viable way to do that is through more effective family planning," said Casterline.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110220/ts_afp/scienceuspopulationfood)

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

2011-02-18T16:11:00.000-08:00

Finally, I got through Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and so ends my current foray into non-fiction. I promise! For anyone out there who actually reads this and isn't gagging over me talking about books, I'm heading back into my favorite realm, fiction, next. What will be next?!?! My secret. A clue--it's not an American author and evokes the idea of metallurgy. If you figure it out, you're genius like or else my hint was way too easy. But, back to the task at hand...food book.

Interesting concept this: eat seasonally (and locally) for one calendar year. In other words, eat fresh tomatoes when fresh tomatoes are ready. Eat zucchini when zucchini is in season. Don't drive to the store and buy tomatoes in January and lettuce in December. What it essentially boils down to in this epicurean adventure is developing a intuitive relationship with food that isn't reliant on overt quantities of petroleum to supply it. Could I do it? Not at all, not the way that I'm currently set up to be. And, frankly, I'm okay with that.

In fact, I'm mostly okay with reading this book without feeling like I'm being frowned upon for the 6 oz. of blueberries that I bought at the store this week because multiple times, Kingsolver happens to mention that they still bought Kraft mac-n-cheese. Admittedly, I don't quite get this because her first mention of this was that they bought the chemical (i.e. petroleum) laden noodley goo in order to make her youngest daughter's friends appeased when they came to play. But they also denied bananas to their oldest daughter's friend. And later times when she mentioned buying the blue box magic, it really came across like she was also buying it for her family as a splurge. Hypocritical? I do believe so even if Kingsolver wasn't trying to portray it as such.

I admire Kingsolver for this smart and funny book (she's really quite sarcastic at times and laughingly pokes fun at herself a lot) and especially for the epic family resolve that her family took on upon themselves voluntarily. I wish I could do it. It's another book that makes me want to plow up my yard and scour plant catalogs. And I decided somewhere around chapter/month September that whenever I have a better little plot of land to tinker in, I will definitely need some funky hippie Wellingtons to wear as I putter around. And a plaid shirt. And comfortably worn jeans with threadbare knees. And hair that is long enough to pull into a messy ponytail or braid. Or maybe just Wellies.

But the book is delightful overall. I really think the message here is moderation not abstinence. It's a lovely read in conjunction with Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, which, if you missed it (tsk tsk), I blogged about toward the beginning of January.

And for any of you out there who are like, hmm...Barbara Kingsolver...I know that name. Yes, you probably do, especially if you went to Manchester, where everyone seemed to be reading or had read or was recommending that you read The Poisonwood Bible. For the record, I much prefer her non-fiction. Scathing indictment!

Pick it up. Enjoy it as spring starts knocking on the door. I bet that it will make you want to start searching for the first green shoots of wild asparagus. Delish!

Mussel-ing up courage

2011-02-15T17:39:00.000-08:00

Over Winter Break, Ben and I went on our epic Christmas date and hit up a seafood restaurant in Carmel. From the advice of our waitress, we tried mussels for the first time. Both of us really like seafood, but it still felt squeemish-y to try mussels. Maybe it's the name.

But we LOVED them! I might have actually spooned big slurps of the buttery sauce after all of the mussels and bread was gone. Soooo yummy!

So Valentine's Day seemed like the perfect time to recreate this utterly delish dish, especially since all of my best buds on the Food Network tell me repeatedly how easy mussels are. They really are super cinchy. But...

...I spent the whole time eating them hoping that I wasn't giving either me or Ben food poisoning. And the smell. Ewwww. Definitely not super fresh just caught this morning. The smell alone will cause me to never make these ever again because it reminded me that yes, I live in a very landlocked portion of the country that is far far removed from anything resembling a coastline where fresh seafood lives. So I shall leave it Mitchell's Fish Market where they know delicious.

When the same song gets old...

2011-02-13T14:09:00.000-08:00

(Ben is playing with Abby on the floor. They're singing songs. Abby's standing on Ben's belly and then falling down on him. You know, the normal. hehe)
1st time: Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream...

2nd time: Paddle, paddle, paddle your canoe, gently down the stream...

3rd time: Paddle, paddle, paddle your kayak, gently down the stream...

4th time: This time we're going to take a viking ship...

All of these came complete with appropriate rowing motions. Fun times. :-)

new......house?!??!?

2011-02-11T17:48:00.000-08:00

Here's the deal, Ben's starting to throw this information out more and more willy nilly, so I feel free to post this, too. It's kind of like waiting until the 10 week mark when preggers (surely I'm not the only one who waited until this point?). I'm kinda afraid, so to speak, that if I dare to give voice to this, then it won't happen. But each week brings us closer to being official house hunters! Yay! Finally!!

So many things are contingent on this whole shooting match to commence.
*We must sell this house.
*We must decide where we want to live.
*We must find a house with x, y, and z factors.
*I must figure out what my future employment horizon will look like. And that's all I'm saying about that. :-)

Okay, in actuality, this is all dependent on my job. Which is contingent on me finishing my degree. Which will give me options (oh please, oh please, oh please).

There isn't a day that goes by when I'm driving around town when I'm not checking out houses that I see that are for sale, neighborhoods that might have the amenities we're looking for, or places where we could build.

I have my favorite real estate agent websites. We have the real estate guide bookmarked with property circled. We dropped the little one off for a play date with grandparents tonight so that we could drive around for a bit unmolested. We were even dashing through snow banks trying to get the curbside information!

We have a lists! Must-have features, and must-not-have features. DIY projects around the house to make it look beautiful. Places we will live and places that we refuse to even consider. We even have an official binder started.

Given the rush job we did finding this house, which, thankfully, has been great for what we've needed, I'm determined that we're going to perform a more thorough search this time. It's going to be our raising-kid(s)-for-yearsssss house, not the we'll-stay-in-this-until-we-have-one-kid-or-three-years-whichever-comes-first house. (Yep, it's been 4 1/2 years.)

Let it be known...I've never wanted to raise a child while living in Kokomo. Nope. Guess I'm being strongly reminded that my perfect plan is not necessarily the perfect plan for me.

We have changes coming, and while we're both dreading going through the hassle of selling and buying, we're also really excited!! This should be the last move that we make until, what, retirement when we move to Carmel? (You think I'm joking...) Remember that last post about gardening? That's never going to happen this summer because in our ideal situation, we'll be moving!!!

dreaming of a garden

2011-02-06T11:07:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year when cool people that I know who actually have successful gardens start thumbing through their seed catalogs, and it makes me a bit envious.

This is what my garden looks like right now (approximately--if there was not 2 feet of snow/ice on it and if it were summer time and if i actually had it nicely divided into sections and if i knew how to garden correctly).

This is what I want to have someday--a hoop house! Or, a lovely greenhouse.

Right now, this is about all that my raised bed garden is good for...playing in the dirt and letting the mint, which invasive blight that it is, grow in the raised bed even though it was never planted there.

This picture demonstrates nicely how poor my gardening skills are. I grew the pepper, which if I remember right was the only one that my raised bed yielded that year, and it was the same size as a head of garlic, which is to say...quite small.

I've found out that successful gardening isn't as easy as it looks. I thought that since I helped my mom in her garden, which looks something like this, every year, that I would be able to be fruitful and green thumby, too. Nope.

I've decided that I'm going to learn, though! But first...I need a garden. The raised bed that we have just isn't working out. Maybe we should could turn it into a minty/oregano-y sandbox???

a little bit of the schmarm

2011-02-04T17:47:00.000-08:00

I was all set to have a dud night, a good old fashioned pity party with no one else invited. Ben took off to go to some track thing, promising not to be home until "late." Normally, this suits me just fine. I like some alone time now and again, and it's not like I was planning on going anywhere on a Friday night. I rarely do. In that respect, motherhood hasn't changed me a bit.

But tonight, for whatever reason, I was feeling like I needed people or a person or something involving something resembling a social calendar. As Ben was getting ready to take off, the litany of pity and self-blame was already running through my head.

You're no good at socializing. It's really hard for you to make friends. It's your fault that this is the life you have. You could have friends if you wanted to. You always say the wrong thing. You're basically socially inept.

But what does a mom do? Suck it up! Read countless books, giggle, chase & hide, play play play, fix feed eat clean-up dinner, read even more books (an innumerable amount), get the bath, get the lotion, get the jammies, read some more, pray, kiss, hug, tuck tuck!, whisper goodnight of course.

In actuality, this would all have happened regardless of anyone's mood. But tonight, oh tonight. I swear Abby had the panache of a smart and sassy lady. She was everything I needed. She was independent when I needed her to be! She used her words when she needed to! She had smiles for everything! She was content! She ate...everything...easily!! She was hilarious! She thought I was hilarious! She helped pick up her toys! She didn't cry once!!!

It's not that she's a little hellion or anything, but there's usually some point on any given night when there's a tear or protest about something. She's a toddler. She protests about toddler things. It's how it goes. But not tonight!!

Essentially, when Ben walked out the door, I had a little chat with my own inner hellion and tried to smack it around a little. I was not going to wallow and cry for my poor, sad self. And then Abby picked me up off of the floor and cuddled away my woes. Thank you, my sweetness.

P.S. The picture book section at our library is as big as the adult fiction section. Picture books are lots smaller than novels. So there's a t-o-n of picture books to sift through. This is great, but...impossible to sort through while also trying to watch a toddler. And, picture books encompass a huge range of abilities, I've quickly figured out. This is definitely a 2-adult field trip.

Eat, Pray, Love

2011-02-03T10:48:00.000-08:00

Thanks to a bevy of snow days this week and thanks to a quickly approaching due date at the library, I read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert in what is anymore for me, record time...about 3 days. A big reason why I was able to veritably whip through this one is that it was at worst really good and at best fantastic.

My reasoning behind reading this one is mostly because I generally adore Julia Roberts, still am anticipating getting to watch the movie whenever Netflix lets me, and thought the idea of this story was an interesting one. It is the author's memoir of what amounts to a year lived abroad in Italy, India and Indonesia following a messy divorce and a messier rebound love affair. I basically knew this much before starting to read the book, but what I didn't know was how the book is further broken down. In fact, it's pretty cool. Gilbert spent a third of the year in each of these countries, so naturally, the book is divided into three parts. But then each part is broken down into 36 mini chapters. Why 36? Because 36 x 3 = 108. Why 108? Because there are 108 beads on (I hope I'm getting this next part right and I don't have the book in front of me anymore because of the aforementioned fast approaching due date) what amounts to an Indian rosary, though the concept of these particular prayer beads apparently predates the "invention" of a rosary by quite a few...hundred...years. Why 108? It has to do with how each digit of this greater number equals 9. Just read the book. Gilbert explains it quite nicely in the preface, or the 109th bead as she calls it. Due to my complete love of neat, orderly, clean appearances/concepts, this appeals to me. It's just so...neat. Orderly.

The year began in Italy, and was by far my favorite portion of the book. As I was finishing up this portion of the book, I suddenly realized that I've been reading a lot about Italy lately. Ah well, this time it wasn't all about Italy, just one glorious part. And really, this part was, in my opinion, the best because of the sheer irreverence and sarcasm embodied throughout, not to mention the really clever description. This girl knows how to write a unique analogy.

First, Italy and serious, gluttonous pleasure. Next, India and some down to business wrestling with spirituality. Then, Indonesia and a cumulative understanding of a life that includes both pleasure and spirituality.

The story is definitely not a travel monologue (like Bella Vita and Under the Tuscan Sun tend to be); it never makes any effort to be anything except a written story of Elizabeth Gilbert's wrestling with demons. Gilbert repeatedly describes herself as the type of person who can make a friend whenever and wherever she is. Yep, I can see that. After you read it, you're a friend. She's much too intimate to still hold you at arm's length after sharing all of that.

Savor this one with some tea and maybe a pastry, but then do some yoga and meditate for at least an hour afterwards. It's essential.

Society

2011-01-31T17:52:00.001-08:00

This is my 8^th entry in my This I Believe series.

*****

None of the remaining topics are really jumping out at me, demanding to be written about. So this one is dedicated to the adorable mid-thirties lady in the white coat behind me at Meijer tonight. Here’s why…

This topic, society, was a little bit depressing (much like “prejudice”) when I read about it in my students’ writing. Several of them were actually quite negative about society, expressing pessimistic beliefs that are, I’m sure, rooted in a blue-collar upbringing. How do “we” (collectively) get to the point where we only acknowledge the negatives?

I believe that when we wallow in negative outlooks, it’s basically a self-fulfilling prophecy because that is all that we see and understand. And really, my case in point lies in the Meijer store tonight, when I had to scrounge for a free cart and waited nearly 30 minutes to get through the check-out. There was seemingly a lot to be grumpy and negative about. No doubt the cashiers were hearing lots of negativity, too. I was a cashier in a grocery store for a couple of years long long ago. I remember those nights. I remember the scowly lady who wanted to write a check when going through the cash-only line. It’s so easy to let those negative events affect you and color your way of thinking about people.

But I believe that society, while a collective noun, is mostly individuals who fit together in some sort of patchwork puzzle. I don’t suggest that I’ve much experienced this first-hand, but I listen and read and absorb this information in a manner of ways. I grew up in a white community, attended a white public school, chose a largely white private college, and now teach in a white public school that is situated on the outskirts of a white community. Circular, don’t you think?

But I believe that society isn’t just color variations, though I think when I went to college I probably felt this way. Society is a collection of thoughts and ways of life, different professions and sports affiliations, contrasting routines and eccentricities. In other words, a “white” community can be multi-faceted, too. I mean, look at my “brown bag sisters” from college—three charming, idiosyncratic, experienced, knowledgeable, creative, empathetic white women, all born within 5 months of each other, all from within a 100 mile radius in northern Indiana. The same yet…way different! But, we’re still a society, albeit a small one. And, frankly, I find much to be optimistic about with these girls let alone many of my students, colleagues, and friends who live in my city and all around the world. SO MANY good things are happening all over the place that I find it inherently hard to be pessimistic.

And my new friend, the mid-thirties lady in the white coat, you were so nice to chat with in an otherwise unpleasant situation. Thanks. I choose you to represent my society, the one that I want to live in. This, I believe.

songs & stories

2011-01-29T18:47:00.000-08:00

Abby has been big into music lately, grabbing her CDs and asking to listen to them. Great. We love our kids music!! But really...some of those songs...why are they kids music?

Ben questions "Charming Billy" which talks about Billy Boy who found "the love of his life." Unfortunately, "she's a young thing, and cannot leave her mother." So Charming Billy fell in love with a child. Creepy.

I wonder about the song that talks about the burning of Scotland. It sounds rather violent.

And then there's the nursery rhyme in her book that has the person throw an old guy down the stairs because he will not say his prayers. Hmm...questionable. I generally skip that one.

Lest I overlook the obvious, there's always "Ring Around the Rosie," the nursery rhyme about the plague. But that one amuses me more than anything.

Mother Goose, you are a titch concerning.

P.S. I just finished Under the Tuscan Sun, and while I'm not going to officially post about this, I will mention for anyone out there who was inspired to read Bella Tuscany and may want to read this one because of the movie, it's NOTHING like the movie, which I kind of knew going in. They share a name, a house named Bramasole, and a general setting. That's it. Not a bad book, but Diane Lane's character is, alas, fictional.

The Omnivore's Dilemna

2011-01-24T17:35:00.000-08:00

I know that this is technically the second book posting of January, but this is outside of my New Years Resolution (NYR) parameters. This one is personal. This is a book that I've heard "Have you read..." in reference to it probably five or six times. Apparently, to run in the circle that I run, which is to say fairly health conscious, eco conscious people, this is a must read. So I read it. Here are my thoughts (and before anyone says, "Oh wait, you also need to read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I assure you...it's sitting in my room right now, already checked out from the library)...

First of all, The Omnivore's Dilemna, by Michael Pollan, is divided into three sections: (in a nutshell) corn, organic, and foraging. My first impression, which lasted throughout the entire first section, was really underwhelming. I wasn't hugely impressed with the resplendent monotony of the corn section. At that poitn, while I was generally enjoying the text enough to keep reading, I wasn't riveted to the pages. It was depressing to read about and sure, further validated some of our household practices, but I was still kind of left wondering why this book was SO exciting/enthralling for everyone to recommend it to me. Pollan absolutely knows his stuff. But it was a bit much too sciency for me. Still, like I said before, interesting enough to keep going, especially because there are definitely some good moments in this section. Truly, the most compelling aspect of it is that I know people who farm and could envision them doing this work. And it's certainly not un-interesting, the story of field to table. McDonald's really became synonymous with all of the ills that are incorporated into corn/soybean farming in this country; this particular fast food chain definitely did not receive a positive review.

The section on organic farming, however, I found to be fairly fascinating and much more of a gripping narrative. Undoubtedly this is spurred by my fairly recent conversion to this "genre" of food. Most interesting to me was that Whole Foods, the organic-ish market that really sells that lifestyle, came off in something of a negative light as well...almost, dare I say, as the McDonald's of the organic world. Really the only reason for the negative implications associated with Whole Foods in this section came from the tie to oil in order to stock a supply of organic food year round. While Pollan never comes out and says it, I think that even he has to admit that the notion of refusing to sell out of season produce/food that has been shipped to markets across the U.S. that was grown in other places is foolish. It just is. While regrettable that we can't have fresh produce AT ALL (save for local greenhouses, who are still tinkering with nature) during the winter season, that doesn't mean that we should forsake such a portion of our diet for months on end because it takes oil to bring it to us. Pollan narrates a week-long adventure living/working at a truly sustainable & organic farm in this section, and this story was, in my opinion, the best part of the book. It's incredible how nature takes care of itself given the ability to do so. And it also cements the notion in my mind that food is a gift, once which we are fortunate to savor and enjoy (yes, even meat!), but that also comes with responsibilities. When there is a face and a story behind the $12 chicken, then you know what, I'm okay with paying the extra money. Be conscious of what you choose to eat; be conscious of how you eat affects people and the environment around you; savor what you eat. Don't gorge on cheap food just because you can afford it. There's a price to pay for that, too.

Finally, the foraging section, while quaint, totally oozes California (where Pollan lives). This section revolves around "the perfect meal" that the author cooked with all local ingredients while also incorporating at least one element of all of the different kingdoms that Pollan foraged/gathered/collected himself: animal, vegetable, fungi, and mineral. This essentially was a story about a) hunting and killing a wild pig and b) hunting and collecting mushrooms. Yes, this guy chose to hunt and kill on purpose, but the part that I find gratifying in this is the sense of revulsion that he experienced after he saw pictures of himself from that primal man moment--the vainglorious arrogance of human kind unfairly killing wildlife using unnatural means. I'm really anti-hunting for sport. It was a touch disgusting to read about his excitement after he formed his plan until he realized his aversion to stalking-killing animals. (At least that's how I interpreted it.)

All in all, not a bad read. In fact, a lot of thought provoking moments, and as far as I can tell, these are largely not politically motivated. This guy is an investigative journalist and teaches journalism at Berkley. While living/teaching in/at Berkley essentially clues us in on what are likely his political leanings, he really does a nice job staying middle of the road as an investigative journalist is supposed to do. I kept waiting for him to divulge his motivation behind these pursuits, but I really think that the guy is just motivated by curiosity. And, he's published before under roughly the same umbrella of thought, so this appears to just be his niche.

So...have you read The Omnivore's Dilemna by Michael Pollan? No? You should. Soon! :-)

contagious happiness

2011-01-23T13:06:00.000-08:00

When toddlers are happy, they're the coolest, happiest, FUNNIEST, most geniune people.

Case in point. Abby woke up from a nap, which usually means that she's in a super mood. She had her snack, which also usually means that she's in a super mood. Then she turned nutters on us.

Running from the living room to our bedroom back to the living room back to our bedroom back to .... shrieky laughing. Continuously. Funny stuff.

Then she started going in circles around the coffee table like she was chasing herself. Funnier stuff.

And it's always a riot when she plays peek-a-boo by putting a blanket over her head, but when she starts walking around before she takes the blanket off of her head, she runs into things (gently bumping, really). Funniest stuff.

It's been a laugh a second around here since 3:00 this afternoon. What a fun age!!

"Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them." P. J. O'Rourke

Prejudice

2011-01-18T18:11:00.000-08:00

This is the 7^th entry in my This I Believe series.

*****

I’m going to preface this by saying that I had something that we’ll pretend was brilliant all pecked out and not saved on my laptop before I put it to sleep so that I could attend to the feeding circus with my favorite trick pony, Abby. When I came to turn in back on…nothing. Here it goes again.

I’ve been wanting to write another entry to my This I Believe series, and haven’t had any genius moments of insight into any of the remaining topics on my list. But yesterday was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which made me think twice about the topic of prejudice. Here’s what I see in one very specific part of my life.

I teach high schoolers…big, egotistical, arrogant, deceptively intelligent, hilarious, loving, frustrating teenagers. The curse about my job is the seemingly never-ending grading that crosses my desk. The joy about my job is the same thing. I have a special insight into some really cool, special, and scary places when I read teenagers’ writing, a trust that I don’t take lightly. It never ceases to amaze me that a student allows me access to their secret life when they intentionally illustrate their story on paper. Yet, it also bothers me to a great extent when I have to read prejudicial, hurtful, hateful writing. How do I flippantly mark what I know is inherently wrong?

Who teaches prejudice? And who decides what prejudice is acceptable and which is not? It is so frustrating to feel completely helpless in dealing with an attitude that will not be swayed. Such was the case when I graded the final installment of the assigned This I Believe portfolios from my senior Composition classes. Twice. Two young men who were unabashedly demonstrating unequivocal and unapologetic prejudice. Because that is the environment in which they have been implicitly taught.

There is still work to be done. There are still young minds who are being shaped by the wrong mold. There are still adults who don’t care about who is affected by their own (wrong) opinions.

I’m convinced that prejudice is manifested as fear more often than ignorance.

But Ben and I have the sobering task of most directly shaping Abby’s perceptions of the world. I’m deeply aware of this, not only in regards to her perceptions of race but also of gender, intelligence, and such. As with all babies, she is a beautiful example of non-prejudice. May we all be so.

Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy

2011-01-10T17:43:00.000-08:00

Last year’s New Years resolution was a smashing success in our household. Costly, but money well spent. Something of a life overhaul that has become firmly rooted into our way of daily living. This year, I’m going all out…books.

With the advent of the coursework for my Masters degree, reading for pleasure was largely shelved. (That came across as rather punny.) After three and a half years of reading what someone else has told me I should read, I have found myself burnt out on reading for quite a while now. There have been times throughout, like during the summer, when I certainly “have time” to read (and really, I’m sure that there has always “been time” but like everything else, it’s largely a matter of making time), but the desire was strongly lacking. Since the fall of 2007, the most I have read for fun was the summer after Abby was born just because I was sitting down and holding her a lot, and there wasn’t much else to do. But then the coursework began again, and the sob story continued. Woe is me.

Actually, I’m not trying to whine. I’ve really enjoyed the reading more often than not throughout all of the classes that I took. But now, I’m done with all of that, and I feel like I have some reading time suddenly readily available to me. So here we go. This is my New Years resolution, version 2011. Read and blog about one book a month for this calendar year. This doesn’t really sound like a lot, but I know that it will definitely still be a challenge at certain points this year, like April and May when track season is at its busiest and everything seems to be due to be immediately graded. (These 3 paragraphs will not be included in every subsequent post. Thanks for being patient through them!)

Consider the following my first installment: Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy by Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun. I began it on New Years Eve and finished it on January 8^th; so far…so good.

The most dominant thought I have after reading this book is how deeply it makes me want to visit Tuscany. As I read this, I kept trying to figure out when I could go. Maybe when Abby is three, we could leave her for a week…but I really want to have two weeks there if possible…would it be something we could do for our tenth anniversary? twentieth? The book is simply saturated with rich food descriptions, often very earthy and simplistic, sometimes complex and foreign. The food parts were definitely my favorite passages in the book, and thankfully, they predominated. My second passion in life—dreaming of my perfect house—corresponded well with the rusticity of Bramasole, the house in Under the Tuscan Sun. Admittedly, I bought this book at Half Price Books for $1 simply because I love the movie and have long wanted to read the books, so I figured this might be a good place to start.

The biggest negative to me is the proliferation of monotony that saturates the beautiful shadings of the rest of the book. This is monotony with an asterisk, though, because what reads as tedious to me is certainly not without interest to many other people…in this case, these parts are for the people who are into art history and Italian history. Mayes gets boringly tedious about things like Italian gardens and cathedral after museum after monastery. And I’m all for a little bit of this, but after a while, I just didn’t really care anymore. Her “bread and butter writing,” the parts where her descriptions and language affinity really shine, is really where she remembers meals, Italian ways of life, and neighbors in quaint detail.

There is, I believe, a certain unattainability that is not directly addressed in the book, likewise. In other words, if she just came out and said, “You know what, I’m living a dream life—working and living half of the year in San Francisco; being Italian the other half of the year. I realize that this is largely unattainable for nearly every American. I’m not the norm,” then I could accept the book for what it is. Instead, she never does come even close to saying this. Instead, she talks about flying to Venice over Christmas Breaks. Flying to Florence on a whim. Buying a house in San Francisco that reminds her of her Bramasole. Redecorating ad naseum (in both Tuscany and San Francisco). Five acres of garden, terraces, and landscaping. Basically, she’s wealthy. She lives a wealthy life, even if her whole point is that this was a broken down house and she’s restoring it. Everything she does in this book is essentially beyond my monetary ability. She spends too much time trying to come across as normal and not wealthy. I’m not buying it, and it leaves something of a dissatisfied taste in my mouth after finishing this. Normal people don’t take one whole day off to drive around Tuscany buying cases and cases and cases of wine to stock their cellar. Normal people don’t spend a week in Venice just because it’s cold and rainy in Tuscany.

Regardless, the book is mostly enjoyable, though I’m not overly fond of Mayes’s overall writing style. Uber detailed and somewhat monotonous. Yet it’s still something of an insider’s vacation to an exotic locale, one which has a beautiful simplicity. I can dig that appeal.

(Unprecedentedly, I have blogged twice today. If you are one of the very few people who purposefully read this, check out my other post from earlier today, too. I wrote it while glorying in the warm, winter sunlight. Then the widget woke up...)

"ear" you go

2011-01-10T10:12:00.000-08:00

This post is all about my little bug who caught a bug.

Ben got a cold. Then he gave it to me. Then we cumulatively gave it the Abb-ster. This one I can't pin on the kids that Abby's around all week. It's not necessarily a problem that Abby got a cold, but you've got to understand something. The kid does NOT act abnormally when she has an ear infection. This is her 4th go-round with a diagnosed ear infection since the beginning of October. The most prevalent sign that there is a problem (sans stuffy runny nose) is that she's not really eating much. But this is also not necessarily abnormal with her. She goes through these toddler-food-swings where one day she's ravenous for broccoli and the next day she won't touch the stuff, not even with "chee" in which to dip it. She's also been an erratic eater, so it's just not hugely unusual for her to give up her "normal" eating habits.

I feel bad for her a bit because it took us a long while to figure out her "normal" for ear infections. She must have been hurting for a while in past flare-ups. So today marked the FOURTH trip to the doctor (for various things--ears, 18-mo. check-up, ear check-up) since the middle of December. But she's such a trooper and even smiled at the doctor today, albeit when she was leaving. We've been working regularly on "please" and "thank you" and "sorry" for a couple of months now, and it's always hilarious when Abby says "thank you" for weird things. This is her best of the three phrases, and she volunteers it a lot throughout the day now. It's still so funny though when she says "thank you" after I wipe her nose or after the doctor checked her ears. She's crying, she's sniffling, and then she says "tank eww" with a quivery lip and big fat tears in her eyes.

She did so well this morning that I wanted to give her a treat, and we were pushing her "yogi" time (e.g. her morning snack--yogurt), so we swung through Dunkin' Donuts on the way home after going through the drive-throughs at the pharmacy, the bank, Starbucks (yeah, I give myself a treat and not her? that made me feel a smidge guilty), and back through the pharmacy. My little girl deserved a doughnut, I decided...which had never happened before. Plus it's right by the pharmacy. Why not stop?

I felt a little stupid ordering only one doughnut hole going through the drive-through. That's it. Just one doughnut hole. $.20. I get up to the window, start searching for a couple of dimes, the lady asks if the doughnut is for Abby, why yes it is, oh I don't have twenty cents, I'll have to give you a dollar, oh...don't worry about it! Take it! Free doughnut hole. Really? Thank you!!

I know that it was only one doughnut hole (and don't they regularly give a free doughnut hole to kids who come with their parents??), but it was just such a nice little gesture. It made my day. Thanks Dunkin-Donuts-drive-through-lady! You made my little ear infection really happy. She made that doughnut hole last all the way home.

Today really reminds me of when I was on maternity leave. I remember day after day of gorgeous sun lighting up the living room in the morning, cuddling and reading. I should have taken Friday off (happy birthday to me...no voice), we'll probably lose some time later this week what with the snow coming through tomorrow, and I took the day off today. Only the second week of the semester, and already behind. Ah well.

waiting on the next post to happen

2011-01-08T08:36:00.000-08:00

I know exactly what I'm going to write about next, but I feel like this blog is just sitting here blob-ish. So this is just a quick note saying, yes, something is coming. And I'm excited about it. Not that it is in and of itself exciting, but this is my newest venture.

In other words, I have stock bubbling away on the stove, which just makes the house smell like a Saturday. A good thing. I didn't bring home any grading this weekend. A good thing. Abby's vocabulary is growing a lot lately, it seems (up to 40 words now). A good thing. And, my paycheck increased because of a change in tax contributions (I now receive $7 more / paycheck!). A good thing.

All in all, content. Here comes a quote; it's been a while!

"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." E. B. White

Organic living, 4th quarter: 2010 New Year's Resolution Revisited

2011-01-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

(By the way, is it New Years or New Year's? I'm going to err on the side of it being possessive.)

Here we go. The last post on this particular topic. One last run around the block.

Things that I have learned and/or realized:
*It's really uncomfortable to me to watch someone throw something away that is easily and fully recycle-able, like paper. Or cans. Or wrapping paper.
*Howard Co. has a kickin' recycling program, though we can no longer recycle styrofoam. It's really uncomfortable to me to throw styrofoam away, too.
*Eating much more vegetarian-ly has caused me to lose a bit of weight, kinda, though I've griped on here before that it hasn't. I measure weight gain and loss by the way that my clothes fit, which right now means that I'm starting to look for new jeans (which are, mind you, pre-baby jeans). This is an interesting and paradoxical situation for me coming straight out of the holidays where I have not abided by anything resembling moderation.
*I haven't purchased raw beef or chicken for...months.
*Organic living is really more about sustainable living for us, which means that when I just purchased a new pillow for myself a few days ago and was deciding between two different ones, I ultimately chose the one that was made from sustainable materials, taking that into consideration over the other one, which was not.
*I am trying to be more aware/conscious about all products around me, not just food. Meaning, that I factor this mentality into other purchases--lotion, toothpaste, shaving gel. Parabens and phalates are everywhere, unfortunately.
*Tom's of Maine toothpaste has an odd taste at first, but I quickly became used to it.
*I don't like the "green" shaving lotion.
*There is a branch of literature studies called "Eco-criticism."
*Abby enjoys recycling.
*Our family recycles a lot. Our garage becomes rather over-run by recycle-able packaging in 1-2 weeks. We have one bag of garbage in our kitchen approximately every 2 weeks. We empty the other garbage containers in our house about once a month. Our recycling - landfill garbage ratio is pretty good, I'd say.
*You can't recycle paper packaging with the waxy coating on it, like a cardboard milk carton.
*Eco-friendly cat litter is quite comparable to the traditional "clay" litter and way better environmentally.
*Our compost bin has really really reduced the amount of garbage that we throw out. Even though we have a garbage disposal, there is still a good amount of waste that can't be put in it (like carrots). We may not be around this house long enough to really enjoy the fruits of the compost's labor, but it still makes us happy that we have a better place to put this waste.
*Soy candles. Mmm.
*Programmable thermostat. Effective.
*Low-flow shower head. Relaxing.
*Cloth diapers. Easy to use. Easy to launder. Less guilt. That being said, Abby needs to embrace using the potty. It would be nice.
*Meijer is fairly organic-friendly. Marsh is not.

This has been the first "resolution" that I've seriously made. It's totally doable, and small shifts in our way of living that I already see as making a difference. Here's to a society that continues to understand the importance of such changes!

Existence

2010-12-28T17:58:00.001-08:00

This is the sixth post in my This I Believe series.

*****

Amidst all of the scurrying and hurrying that the holiday season inevitably brings, I’ve found myself thinking about this next entry a few times lately. For a couple of reasons, I’ve decided to choose “existence” as my next topic. I tried to choose one that rather aptly ties in with this miraculous season in the Christian calendar, but none of the remaining 10 topics screamed “Christmas.” However, while thinking about which one to write about, “existence” kept coming to mind, and then I realized that this fits perfectly.

I was standing at the sink in my kitchen the other day lamenting to myself about the bothersome and persistent pain of a cut on my right index finger. In the winter, my hands, like so many other peoples’, are prone to getting overly dry, especially around the knuckles, and the skin tends to crack easily. I have a particularly annoying crack on the aforementioned index finger, which being the dominant finger on my dominant hand, this gets bumped, jostled, and scraped a lot. I was standing there trying to do whatever I was doing without hurting it, and some vague, wispy memory came to mind about pain. Can it exist if we don’t allow it to exist? I’m thinking that it’s some reference to a movie, maybe Denzel Washington? Maybe The Hurricane? But, would pain disappear if we refused to acknowledge its existence? Pain is a pretty powerful and motivational force in our world as well as each of our individual lives. What kind of mental temerity and strength would we have to possess individually in order to distance our belief of what pain is from everything we have previously experienced and been taught about before? Is it possible?

Yet faith is no more tangible than pain. It is equally invisible, elusive, and powerful. This is the perfect time of the year to exemplify this point. What better time than Christmas is there to demonstrate faith, at least from a Christian belief? We collectively proclaim our faith in this newborn child, a seemingly ridiculous act. People re-affirm their intrinsic belief that Christ existed in human form and in so doing has established an eternal existence.

I very distinctly remember the uncanny feeling throughout the first trimester of my pregnancy when I knew that I was pregnant but had nothing outwardly physical to show or touch in order to confirm this other growing being; day to day, I had nothing more than a basic faith that there was another being who was existing. Conversely, I (again) vaguely remember watching a movie or television show where the evil villain was eventually destroyed because collectively, the people he was fighting against turned their back on him and forgot about him, thus destroying any belief in his existence. Ultimately, I believe that we are not inherently born with the ability to forget existence. Maybe collectively is the only way that we are strong enough to both destroy or nurture it.

Memories

2010-12-20T18:40:00.001-08:00

This is the fifth in my This I Believe Series.

*****

Memories seem to be so straightforward; everyone has them, and how happy many of them make us. Memories simply make the holidays, so this post seems to be aptly timed to some extent. This year, we are staying home on Christmas day, not seeing any other family members for various reasons (not because we’re grinchy and self-consumed). This is really weird to me as if the holiday isn’t really a holiday. I can’t remember ever having such a Christmas ever before, and because I don’t have a memory of this, I feel somewhat lost in this unusual circumstance. I have no memory for it to tell me how it will be.

When I teach Developmental Reading, I choose to read The Giver with the kids, and this book is centered around a community that has no memories. Every memory (which is also translated as historical fact) is kept within one individual and is then subsequently passed down periodically to the next Receiver of Memories. Ultimately, the conclusion that the reader is intended to realize is that we actually cause more harm to our society if we don’t permit individual memories. Such a simple conceptual idea made all the difference for the demise of this community.

Obviously, individual memories are important. Isn’t this ability truly a magnificent gift? Just like any other God-given gift, I believe that we must learn to accept the imperfections that such an ability brings. There are innumerable circumstances where memories prove to be torturous rather than sustaining. Yet I believe that these painful memories are as necessary as any healthful ones. Do understand that I say this guardedly, however, because I am fully aware that such outright statements of belief are forcing me into a gray area between truth and arrogance, even hypocrisy. I truly believe in what I am saying, yet can I make such bold claims when my life has been sheltered and soft? I can’t say that I have had to endure and make some sense of agonizing memories, but does that negate my beliefs? My arrogance says no, that my beliefs are still valid in their honesty.

Regardless, memories are charming, poignant, heartrending bits of the past that are unique to each individual. I am comforted in knowing that for every memory in our individual pasts, there are also countless more that have yet to occur in our consciousness; but, our future memories are out there on our God’s radar. This, I truly believe.

Learning

2010-12-04T18:14:00.000-08:00

This is the fourth in my ongoing This I Believe Series.

*****

My job is definitely not perfect. I just finished up another Friday night/all day Saturday combo of grading and grad work. It’s a wicked combination, but one that is thankfully nearly done, at least for the time being (oh, I’m such a waffler). Luckily, I’ve never been someone who lives for Friday/Saturday night. I like being at home, comfy, cozy, preferably doing nothing important. Yet for about 9 months of the year, my weekend nights are often quiet, comfy nights doing the necessary chore of grading.

But this post isn’t about grading, so I’ll give up my wayward rant and return to the crux of my belief—I believe in learning. I know, shocking. Revelatory. I’m really throwing myself out on a limb on this one. Who would ever have thought that Amy would believe in learning?!? I admit that I’m an educational junkie. Why else would I shell out about $12,000 for a degree that will potentially be insignificant in the long run of my career? For that matter, why else would I choose to work as a teacher? I just believe that there is an inherent necessity in all of us to form a basis of understanding about a plethora of interdisciplinary topics. I mean, of course I’m glad that I’ve been forced to take science classes insofar as I appreciate having some basis of understanding from them. But I also truly believe that the greater role of education is instilling a fundamental realization that we are all life long learners (yeah, I know…Manchester was a great fit for me, right?). So it turns out that I basically just stumbled into going to Manchester, but what I learned there about not only the process of education but also how to accept education are fundamental beliefs that guide my professional career now.

For those of you who wonder what I’m going to do once I graduate—I’m going to work. Yep. There you go; that’s my answer. Way before Abby, when Ben and I were engaging in a discourse that involved such abstract concepts as marriage and potential children, I clearly remember swearing that I would never permanently be a stay at home mom. I still don’t think that I ever will be because I’m too addicted to education. I will work in the educational field for the rest of my working life, of this I am certain unless something freakish and/or horrendous happens. This is not only my professional identity but it is also a belief that I have chosen to embrace regardless of how many Friday and Saturday nights are devoted to senior Composition essay and vocab tests rather than television and movies.

There are so many problems that we must confront in education, really scary problems that will affect our children. But I can’t give up on it just because it’s sometimes broken. I won’t be able to fix it on my own, but I can still hold out some hope in it. This, I believe.

Mr. President, please let me through your police barricade

2010-11-23T17:31:00.000-08:00

President Obama came to visit me today for the second time in 2 years. Wow!

Actually, I'm all for the president coming to town for a whirlwind tour, even if it is for PR purposes. (Um, Repubs do it, too. Don't be hypocritical.) Not only was it good for the president, but it was equally good for Kokomo. We seem to be in his good graces or those of the PR gods. NY Times articles. Stories on national news broadcasts. Personal visits from the president. Ah, good times are had by all when the stimulus money gets spread around. But, in all actuality, Obama's stimulus money has essentially saved Kokomo from the fate of Marion and Anderson. I'm all for that if I'm living here. By the way, Obama spent over $90 at a bakery here in town buying doughnuts and cinnamon rolls. That's kinda hard to do, I think. That's a whole bunch of stimulus money (whoa, I'm joking) right there, and his daughters better have gotten some of the goods. I admit, I now want to go check this bakery out.

But herein lies the heartrending issue for me. President Obama was leaving his gig downtown on the square at 3:00 this afternoon. I pick up Abby from the sitter at 3:00. I drive through downtown to get to the sitter, which happens to be absolutely, positively, as far away as can be managed and still within Kokomo proper from where my job is. The whole schedule for his 3 1/2 hour trip was kept so under wraps that I was NOT aware of this conflict. But I quickly found out when it was a) too late and b) too late. I managed to become completely enmeshed in the presidential snarl, which ordinarily I wouldn't much care about, enjoy even. It's really something of an out-of-body experience trying to pick your way through roadblocks in Kokomo, IN because the President of the United States just happens to be about 2 miles south of you and heading your way. Weird situation, really.

This next thing that I'm going to say kinda sums up my entire motherhood experience to date (though I like to think that I'm getting better). When I got so enmeshed in the traffic snarl that it appeared that I was going nowhere quickly, I found myself completely agitated, panicked almost. I could not get to my daughter! I was stuck and could not get to my daughter! In hindsight, I'm really scoffing at myself...oh heavens to Betsy. Really.

We'll pretend that I had an angry confrontation with an armed sniper where I verbally demanded admittance to the path that I desired, whereupon he caved to my wishes. Instead, I jagged around cop #1, pleaded with cop #2, turned around, came back to cop #1, pleaded some more, and was allowed to commence on my way on my improvised route, which, incidentally, took me through a historic neighborhood of Kokomo that I had heard about but never driven through before and was completely taken with the super lovely architecture of the stately homes.

What befuddles me still is the roadblocks. The path whereupon the President would be leaving downtown and heading back to the highway was *not* the only path that was barricaded by armed guards. What??? Is this meant to confuse potential assassins? Let's block off four consecutive, parallel streets so that no one will know which road the procession will travel down, even though it's obvious because all but one are quiet little residential streets. And, my final barrier that I had to "break" through was west of where the President was and was going to be traveling. There was utterly no way that any car even remotely associated with the hubbub would be coming to where I was finally stuck.

So in the middle of my mini meltdown, I called the sitter with an I-won't-be-there-on-time-but-I'm-coming-as-quickly-as-these-darn-cops-will-let-me message. Why would this even be a concern? I'm fully comfortable leaving Abby there all day, but once 3:00 strikes, someone turns into a pumpkin? To my credit, our neighbor called me moments before I called my sitter with an equally frantic I'm-stuck-in-traffic-and-can't-believe-it-arrrgggh! message because she wouldn't be home to let her daughter into their house and would I please let her in our house until she got there? We chuckled about that just a touch, and funnily enough, ended up one in front of the other once I got Abby collected and was on the way home.

Still, it was a humorous experience and an interesting memory. This guy has some cool power and importance to require such protective measures. Regardless of political affiliations, it's pretty cool but only because it was slightly inconveniencing one time. I don't want him to move in beside me.

Family

2010-11-19T15:42:00.000-08:00

In honor of Thanksgiving, this is the fourth in my This I Believe series.

*****

I saw a story in the paper today (front page, hard to miss) about how Americans are changing their perception of what constitutes a family. I kind of wish that I had it in front of me right now so I could rattle off some statistics from this poll, but truthfully, I don’t need it. I know the gist of what it said: Americans are shifting their thinking away from the traditional nuclear family to a broader sense of the term that encompasses more nebulous boundaries and a variety of configurations.

I see this in my own family, too, though I would never have thought of such a possibility when I was younger. And I’m not writing here to label my belief of what is “right” and “wrong” about what the make-up of a family should look like, especially given that one definite thing I’ve learned in the last decade is that there is no one right way. I can respect that, and often find myself wanting my way to be just like someone else’s way.

I believe that when Abby is in her twenties, the idea of “family” will be radically different from what it is even now. That’s okay; we change. But what I believe in most wholeheartedly is that “family” will always revolve around love, acceptance, and memories. To me that is what “family” has always been and what it continues to be, regardless of who makes up the dynamics of the “family.”

I also believe that Abby will grow up with a definite understanding that her family is vitally important to her life, the foundation upon which she will stand as she both succeeds and fails. Family will not desert her and will be the first to cheer for all of her accomplishments.

It will be interesting to see our family in ten or twenty years. Will it be more reserved like my side or boisterous like Ben’s? At what point will our family be complete?

I believe that the day Abby was born, my perception of family changed. It is so delightful to be our own little subunit of two greater families. And this little family of three chooses to abide by that familial triune: love, acceptance, and memories.