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stolen summer pleasures

2008-07-25T14:59:00.001-07:00

If you want something yummy to eat, try out this Blueberry Basil Sorbet from Sweet Pleasure. Holy cow, is that delicious! (Thanks to my friend Emily for the blueberries, my faithful little herb patch for the basil leaves, and my husband for happening to have some vodka in the cupboard).

If you want something light and entertaining to read (and you either have kids or are a kids' lit fan like I am), check out The Willoughbys, which Heidi reviewed over at Mt. Hope Chronicles. Fabulous, warm-hearted satire by one of my favorite authors.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? I must be in the mood to flatter a lot of people right now, since yesterday's meme was stolen from Jen M., and today's recommendations are straight from other blogs too.

I could tell you all about how tangy and addictive this sorbet is and how funny this book is, but the original blog posts already said it all. So instead, I'll just let you click on through.

Read, eat, enjoy.

really getting to know me

2008-07-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

Jennifer Moody came up with this list of questions on her blog awhile ago, labeling it: A few questions you should ask if you really want to get to know someone. So here goes. Read on if you want to really get to know me.

Your coma: Unplug, or keep on pluggin’? Unplug. I wouldn't want my family to shell out big bucks to keep me a vegetable on the off-chance that someday science might revive me. And, realizing that I might come off sounding like a smug and trite Christian here: I know where I'm going. Death is not something I need to fear.

Superstition you can’t shake: Being in a bathroom with no lights on freaks me out, because there are always mirrors in bathrooms and as a kid we used to scare each other with the story of Bloody Mary who appeared in the mirrors of darkened rooms. I'm not sure who the Bloody Mary of this story was or what she would do after she appeared (something that involved blood, obviously) but it terrified me nonetheless and I still can never go into a bathroom without flipping the light switch on FIRST.

Last person you yelled at: Probably my kids.

Duty at work you hate: Cleaning the bathroom. Specifically the showers. I don't know why I always put off that chore--it only takes a few minutes and a clean shower is so much nicer--but I still hate it.

Invention the world would be better off without: The stretch Hummer limo. Could there be a stupider vehicle?

Actor/actress you’d trade your partner for: None. I guess Brad Pitt (specifically Brad Pitt in "Fight Club") is good-looking, but I can't think of any actor I'm really that enthralled with.

Selling price for your kids: Not to be all "Oooh, I'm such a good mother and SO un-materialistic," but seriously: not for all the money in the world. You can't put a price on a piece of your heart.

One thing your mom would faint if she knew about: But my mom reads this blog, and I don't want her to faint.

Sound of the little voice in your head: Her name is Lucy, and she sings just one line of the same song over and over and over again: "Bible tells me so, Bible tells me so, Bible tells me so...." Sunday School points to you if you now find yourself singing the entire thing.

What you do when the Jehovah’s Witnesses knock: Paste a fake smile on my face and politely tell them we already have a church home. Accept the copy of Watchtower and then throw it in the trash.

Web sites you visit instead of working: Lots of blogs. Facebook. Specifically Scrabulous on Facebook.

Tylenol or Ibuprofen? Either one.

Oldest thing in your fridge: Hmmm, I had to get up and go check. Looks like a jar of horseradish. I believe it is the only jar of horseradish I've ever owned, and I remember the first time I made my one and only recipe that calls for horseradish (and it only calls for 1/2 tsp) back when we lived in Brownsville, making it at least two and a half years old. Probably older. Does horseradish go bad?

First thing you’d do if made dictator for life: Find someone else to take the job. I have no desire to be in charge of the world.

Burial or cremation? Probably cremation. Only because I have a vague idea it's cheaper, and as I mentioned above, I don't see the point in having my family spend lots of money on my death or my funeral.

Worst vacation ever: Maybe the first camping trip we ever took with Beth. We couldn't find an actual camp site so we just found a wooded clearing off the side of the road. We tried to go hiking but couldn't find the right hiking trail. Beth barely slept all night and in the morning came down with a fever so we packed up and went home early.

Speed you’d drive if you knew you wouldn’t be ticketed: On a straight highway on a sunny day? 80 mph, minimum.

Best hangover cure: I haven't had one. A hangover, that is. Or a cure for one.

Sex on the first date? Is (forgive my crudeness) totally slutty. And stupid.

Thing you say that makes you sound like your folks when you swore you never would: "Because I said so, that's why." I can still remember my giant internal cringe the first time I said that. But sometimes I just can't explain every single decision I make to my kids.

Do you all feel just a little bit closer to me now?

What we did this weekend

2008-07-23T12:50:00.000-07:00

1. Played in the water

2. Ate yummy food

3. Played in the sand

4. Played in the water

5. Ate more yummy food

6. Chatted with relatives

7. Played in the water

8. Played in the sand

9. Ate smores

10. Fell into our sleeping bags at night and woke up to do it all again in the morning

11. Returned, reluctantly, to normal life.

to tattle or not to tattle

2008-07-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm going to go ahead and confess something here. Please don't leave me hateful comments if you think this is bad.

Most of the time, when I hear my girls yelling at each other, I just ignore it.

I really don't care if Lucy took Beth's pony, or if Beth is mad because Lucy doesn't want to play Hide and Seek, or if they both want the same green crayon even though there are at least eight other green crayons in our giant Mound O'Crayons box. Unless I hear that certain pitch in their screaming that means it's escalated to physical violence, I'd rather let them work it out on their own.

I have tried to make this policy clear to them. When one of them comes whining up to me with a sad, sad story of sibling malfeasance, I tell them that I don't want to hear about what the other person has done, and that if they can't figure out a way to play together, then they just need to go play separately for awhile.

So, that said, there are actually times when I wish they would tattle on each other. Like when Lucy takes both her shorts and her diaper off and is wandering around her bedroom making messes too horrible to speak of...and Beth sees this going on and doesn't tell me. Or when one of them (they wouldn't rat on each other, so I don't know who did this or if it was a joint operation) scooped bucketfuls of bark dust out of the flower beds and dumped it all over the grass in the back yard.

You see, don't tell the girls, but I don't actually have eyes in the back of my head, and sometimes a little heads-up about mischief-in-progress would be helpful.

So how can I teach them that most of the time I don't want them to tell on each other...except for those other times when I do?

Catch-22: Laundry edition

2008-07-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

I actually got caught up on the laundry the other day. Except for the clothes we actually had on our backs, the hampers were empty! I know. You can applaud now if you feel moved to do so.

And then, when I tried to actually put all these lovely, clean, nice-smelling clothes away, I realized something.

I can't put them all away. They just don't fit.

You see, our laundry seems to operate on the same principle as the sippy cups. Either there are NO clean clothes or I have so many clean clothes they don't fit in the drawers. It turns out, we actually own way more clothes than we seem to. It's just that our entire clothing storage system is based on the likelihood that at any given time, probably at least 30 and more like 50 percent of our clothing is:

covered in poop, pee, spit-up, sweat or other bodily fluids and sitting in the hamper.

stained with ketchup, juice, chocolate, grass or completely unknown substances and awaiting the application of something from my array of supposed stain-fighting products.
crumpled up on the floor somewhere, not even in a hamper
mounded up and overflowing in a hamper
sitting all wet in the washing machine, waiting to be transferred to the dryer (leaving laundry in the washing machine is apparently proof that motherhood has hastened my mental decline, according to an article that Heather found)
in the dryer all wrinkly waiting to be removed
piled up in a laundry basket waiting to be folded

sitting folded in the hallway waiting for someone to put it away.

So basically our laundry only fits in our drawers when at least half of it is out of commission. This obviously means we have way too many clothes. But if I gave half of them away, then what would we do on the days when I am NOT all caught up on the laundry, and 100 percent of our available clothing is now in a non-wearable state instead of the previous 50 percent?

And now we know why mommy never bothers to get completely caught up on the laundry.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this.

2008-07-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

I'm standing in the kitchen. I decide to get myself a snack. I take at least one bite of the nectarine. Juice runs out of the ripe, sweet fruit, so I grab a paper towel to wrap around the bottom while I eat it.

And then I get distracted. Beth has a question about something, and I move to a different room, and then I go do something else, and 20 minutes later I'm standing in the kitchen again, staring at the fruit bowl.

Wasn't I eating a nectarine? I ask myself. Where did it go?

I look all over the kitchen, but I see no bitten-into nectarine. Just virgin nectarines still in the bowl. I check the living room, the bathroom, the bookshelf--anywhere I may have absentmindedly placed my snack.

Did I eat the whole thing without noticing it?

I check the garbage cans, but I see no nectarine pits sitting right on top, and I'm not about to go digging into the depths to see if a fresh, slimy nectarine pit wrapped in a paper towel happens to have slid down into the bottom.

I look all over, but I can't find my nectarine.

Thus, I can draw one of three possible conclusions:

At the ripe old age of 27, my memory is already so bad that I can eat an entire nectarine and then, within minutes, completely forget having done so.

I am way tireder than I realized and I am actually now hallucinating. And my hallucinations involve biting into ripe fruit (and getting towels to wipe up the imaginary juice).

There is a half-eaten nectarine rotting somewhere in my house.

I don't think I like any of those options.

Wonder woman

2008-07-16T06:00:00.000-07:00

I want my daughter to be Wonder Woman when she grows up.

I want her to be and do everything she could ever wish for. Is that too much to ask?

One day Eric asked Beth if she wanted to be an astronaut when she grew up. She said, "No, I won't. Because I am a woman." And there it is. Three years old and she already has ideas about what women "can" and "can't" do.

Have you ever seen this clip from the TV show "The Office?" The character Phyllis says, "When I was growing up, my mom always told me, 'The sky's the limit.' I could be a teacher's aide...a nurse's assistant...some kind of volunteer..."

How do I teach my daughters that the sky really is the limit for them?

I know that's what my parents wanted for me. They told me I was smart and talented and that if I worked hard I could have any career I wanted. My teachers, too, encouraged me to aim high. I was told, upon graduating from college, that I had the talent to be writing for The New York Times one day. Big things were waiting for me.

Six years later, I find myself with a few years of experience at a small newspaper, three small children asleep in bed, writing for a small audience on my small mommy-blog.

I am extremely happy with where I am in my life. I would not change any of the choices I've made. And yet, I admit that sometimes I feel a tad apologetic about being "just a housewife," as if mothering is not an appropriate vocation for an intelligent woman.

Wendell Berry writes in "Life is a Miracle: An essay against modern superstition,"

"The goal of education-as-job-training, which is now the dominant pedagogical idea, is a high professional salary. Young people are being told, 'You can be anything you want to be.' Every student is given to understand that he or she is being prepared for 'leadership.' All of this is a lie. Original discovery is not everything. You don't for instance, have to be an original discoverer in order to be a good science teacher. A high professional salary is not everything. You can't be everything you want to be; nobody can. Everybody can't be a leader; not everybody even wants to be. And these lies are not innocent. They lead to disappointment. They lead good young people to think that if they have an ordinary job, if they work with their hands, if they are farmers or housewives or mechanics or carpenters, they are no good."

("Life is a Miracle," p. 58)

I want to raise my daughter to understand that if she decides to devote her full energy to parenting, that she has made a worthwhile choice, one she need not be ashamed of.

At the same time, I don't want her to get the message that because she's a woman, she must confine herself to the home.

I want her to understand the value of a simple life, a la Wendell Berry, without the unconscious self-limitations of Phyllis from "The Office."

What's more, I want to tell her that a woman's life need not be an either/or proposition. I want her to know both the joys of family life and the satisfaction of a challenging job accomplished with style. I want her to love and be loved, to work hard and realize her dreams--both big and small.

Will she have to be Wonder Woman to do all of that?

Of course, at nearly 4 years old now, Beth already has her own ideas about things. Except for the astronaut anomaly, she has a standard answer she gives when someone asks her the big question: "What do you want to be when you grow up, little girl?"

"I'm going to be Superman and Cinderella," she says.

You see, she's already aiming for the sky. She wants to look beautiful, dance the night away with a handsome prince, and fly around saving the world.

Sounds like a great idea to me.

.......................................

Check out other posts on the Wonder Woman theme at Scribbit.

"Kitchens where food is cooked and eaten: a really good idea."

2008-07-15T13:44:00.000-07:00

One of the things I enjoyed most about "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" was Barbara Kingsolver's honest appreciation for the joys of preparing good food. I love her term for it: “the nurturing arts."

Listen to what she writes (I’m omitting a few large sections here, indicated by the ellipses):

“Cooking is a dying art in our culture…I belong to the generation of women who took as our youthful rallying cry: Allow us a good education so we won't have to slave in the kitchen.
……….
When we traded homemaking for careers, we were implicitly promised economic independence and worldly influence. But a devil of a bargain it has turned out to be in terms of daily life. We gave up the aroma of warm bread rising, the measured pace of nurturing routines, the creative tasks of molding our families’ tastes and zest for life; we received in exchange the minivan and the Lunchable. (Or worse, convenience-mart hot dogs and latchkey kids.) I consider it the great hoodwink of my generation.
…….
Full-time homemaking may not be an option for those of us delivered without trust funds into the modern era. But approaching mealtimes as a creative opportunity rather than a chore, is an option. Required participation from spouse and kids is an element of the equation. An obsession with spotless collars, ironing, and kitchen floors you can eat off of—not so much. We've earned the right to forget about stupefying household busywork. But kitchens where food is cooked and eaten; those were really a good idea. We threw that baby out with the bathwater. It may be advisable to grab her by her slippery foot and haul her back in here before it’s too late.”

("Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," p. 126-128)

And just as much as I enjoyed hearing an educated, intelligent woman sing the praises of cooking for her family, I enjoyed her daughter Camille’s recipes and menu plans. I've already tried one of them, with excellent results.

At the end of each chapter, these menu plans provide practical examples of eating according to the seasons. Their suggested recipes for July include a Grilled Vegetable Panini that sounds delicious, plus Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies that she claims pass the kid test for tastiness. All their recipes and meal plans are available for free download here.

Their descriptions of cooking and canning were quite inspiring, to tell you the truth. (Raising and butchering poultry, not so much). It made me want to grow a big garden next year and preserve everything in sight, then literally eat the fruits of my labors all winter long. I am even tempted to try making my own cheese, after reading about how supposedly easy and delicious it is. (I think my husband thought I was weird when I told him I was considering taking up cheese-making).

Final verdict on “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle?” Definitely worth reading if you have any interest at all in food. The writing is excellent, and even if you’re not especially interested in environmental issues, I guarantee it will make you think.

For the love of food

2008-07-14T15:23:00.000-07:00

As promised, here are some thoughts sparked by "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," with more to come tomorrow.

My mother-in-law is a home-schooling mom of six children who attends her local Reformed Conservative Baptist Church four times a week. My father-in-law is a truck driver who spends a good portion of his day listening to right-wing talk radio while he’s on the road. They are a kind family, a generous family, an extremely conservative family.

Barbara Kingsolver is a professional writer with a graduate degree in evolutionary biology. She believes that the theory of evolution makes “a fine creation story—a sort of quantifiable miracle.” She’s Number 73 on Fox News commentator Bernard Goldberg’s list of “100 People Who are Screwing Up America” because of her liberal political writings. Her husband is a fellow scientist, a university professor. Their family seems to be pretty solidly on the left side of the American political spectrum.

And yet, as I eagerly turned the pages of Kingsolver’s book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a year of food life," I couldn’t help but think how much Kingsolver and my mother-in-law would have in common. The thing that brings them together?

Food.

Good, old-fashioned, home-grown, home-preserved food.

My mother-in-law fell in love with gardening in her early 20s, and every year they grow a big garden. They’ve got all kinds of vegetables, plus apples, blueberries, raspberries and grapes. They currently keep chickens, and in the past they’ve raised dairy cows and pigs. They don’t live entirely off their own land, but they came pretty close to it back when my husband was a small boy growing up in the forests of rural Canada.

Kingsolver’s family moved across the country and embarked on their year of local eating partly because of their concern about the fossil fuels consumed when shipping food to their former home in Tucson, Arizona, as well as the drain on the limited water supply that gardening creates in the southwest. Their commitment to environmentalism would probably get them labeled “greenies” among a lot of people that I know.

You see, there’s a disturbing attitude common in conservative Christian circles to sneer at environmentalist or “green” efforts. I think of experiences like this or this, as well as my own past. I’m a logger’s daughter who grew up in a timber town during the spotted owl battles of the ’80s and ’90s. As a kid I had the vague idea that anything that smacked of environmentalism was probably directly responsible for forcing my friends’ fathers out of work. I tossed recyclable materials in the trash proudly. We weren’t environmentalists.

As an adult, I take a much more stewardship-oriented view of God’s creation and I see that Christianity and environmentally responsible living can go hand in hand. And what’s more: choices that some people might label “green” are to other people just “frugal.” My in-laws don’t grow a garden as a political statement. They just like to know where their food comes from. Plus, it’s fresher, better-tasting and more economical.

To be honest, that’s my main reason for buying local food as well. Some people claim that eating locally doesn’t even reduce greenhouse gases that much. But that doesn’t bother me. For me, the benefits of buying local food are for my family as much as for the earth. When I make time to go to the farmer’s market or the produce stand, we wind up eating more healthy, fresh food.

Plus, as the Kingsolver book points out, when you buy food at a farmer’s market, you might pay more, but more of that money is going right into the hands of the folks who grew it. When I buy an expensive heirloom tomato, I can put my dollar bills right into the hand of the farmer. No middle man, no grocery store, no trucking company taking a piece of that instead of the grower—just me using my little bit of purchasing power to support a local guy who is working hard to grow quality food.

Sometimes, it’s just about the food. In the words of my daughters: yummy, yummy food.

It's true.

2008-07-13T17:15:00.000-07:00

I can't turn down an opportunity to proofread.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/05/12/99-grammar/

What daddies are good for

2008-07-11T11:31:00.000-07:00

Mommy may not always be able to get her to smile for the camera.

But Daddy sure can!

(also, check out the upper right-hand corner of the photos for the cutest dimples ever seen on a man. They may be one of the reasons I decided to marry this guy).

Zucchini, tomato, frittata!

2008-07-10T23:21:00.000-07:00

*Before you read the rest of this post, read the title out loud. Or at least think it out loud in your mind. Doesn't it have a nice rhythm to it? I noticed, as I was trying to think of a title for this post, that each of these components of tonight's dinner has the same metrical scheme--unstressed syllable, stressed syllable, unstressed syllable. They're all amphibrachs! And yes, I did have to refresh my memory to come up with the name of that metrical foot. I'm enough of an English nerd to notice the prosody of the ingredients I'm cooking with, but not nerdy enough to have my poetry feet memorized. We now conclude the literary portion of this message.*

Tonight's dinner was a first in the Local Eating Challenge: every single item on the menu was made with at least some local ingredients. Here's a rundown of what we had for dinner (because I am certain you were all dying to know).

Salad: Made with greens and Oregon Spring tomatoes from the Farmer's Market.

Whole Wheat Bread: Flavored with honey from the farmer's market and some basil and oregano that Beth and I picked from my little herb patch outside the front door.

Sliced tomato: This was an heirloom "Brandywine" variety tomato that I bought at the Farmer's Market. I only bought one, because they were $4.49 a pound! But after finishing "Animal Vegetable Miracle" and hearing Kingsolver go on about the perils of corporate seed domination vs. the joys of heirloom varieties that are on the verge of extinction, I figured I better try one. And it was indeed an excellent tomato. Really sweet and tender and juicy, and as you can see in the photo, also a much deeper, purplier red than the tomatoes you see in the grocery store. Also if you look at the very bottom of the photo you can see a little finger sneaking up to grab a slice off the plate as I was taking the picture. My girls were both trying to dig into that tomato before we even sat down to the table! We love tomatoes around here.

Veggie Fritatta: This was a recipe I got from "Animal Vegetable Miracle." There are a bunch of recipes and weekly meal plans in that book that sound great, and they're all available for free download on the website. The fritatta was quite tasty and SUPER easy to make. I used yellow summer squash and zucchini from the Farmer's Market (plus a few grocery store carrots) for the vegetables, and a combination of swiss and cheddar for the cheese, plus threw in a little oregano and basil for seasoning. The eggs were God's Eggs* from Turpen Family Farms. Both my girls ate it right up (because really, a frittata is not that different from Beth's favorite food ever) and it was very cute to hear Lucy ask for "More ta-ta, please!"

I have a longer post brewing in my mind about the Kingsolver book and local eating in general, but I haven't written it yet. Stay tuned, if you're interested in food, and one of these days I'll get it out on paper (or up on the computer screen, as the case may be, since I'm pretty much incapable of composing anything in longhand anymore).

*Eric and I have been calling eggs from Turpen Family Farms "God's Eggs" ever since Eric looked at the sticker on the carton and noticed that the farm is located in Alsea. You see, Eric has family that lives in Alsea, and all his life he's spent vacations and holidays there: swimming in the river, riding dirt bikes, hunting, blowing stuff up with his cousins, and just generally doing every fun thing a boy's (and later, a man's) heart could desire. In his mind, Alsea=the most wonderful spot on earth. Alsea is God's Country. And thus, eggs from an Alsea farm are God's Eggs. We just happen to be privileged enough to eat them. A little foretaste of heaven, right there at the dinner table.

why I immunize

2008-07-09T14:49:00.000-07:00

I looked straight into her eyes as the needle pierced her tender skin. They widened in shock, then tightened with pain, and the tears began to flow. I held her down on the table as it happened again and again, and the whole time she stared right at me. I know she's only six weeks old, but I am certain I saw the dismay of betrayal in her eyes. Not once did she look at the nurse, the one giving her the injections. No, her gaze was all for me, her mother, the one who was meant to give her comfort and love, and today willfully participating in this pain.

That's what I did Monday. And I'd do it again tomorrow if I had to, because I really believe that immunizing my baby today is the best way to protect her--and those around her--from disease and suffering tomorrow.

I know there is supposed to be a controversy about immunizations. Should you immunize or not? Are they linked to autism? Do they contain something that might permanently damage my child? I know there are people who choose not to immunize their children for those reasons or other ones, and I would never presume to tell them how to parent their children. Parenting is stressful enough; we don't need others looking over our shoulders, second-guessing the choices we've made for our own families.

But for me, I never had a second thought about whether I would get the recommended vaccinations or not. I was almost surprised when the nurse asked me at the appointment, "Are we going to begin immunizations today?" For me, that's always been an "Of course" issue.

Because here's the thing: I don't believe that the doctors or "the establishment" are out to hurt my child. I don't think physicians are foolproof or that they know everything, but I believe that the American Academy of Pediatrics is run by people who have studied public health for many, many years, and have come up with their recommendations as the best way they know how to fight disease. I trust my pediatrician. She spent years in medical school, while my medical knowledge is limited to whatever I come up with after searching Google.

I think of the thousands of children who died or were permanently crippled by polio, or smallpox, or any one of a number of diseases that are almost unheard of now. These days all of us--including people who choose not to receive immunizations--can walk around the streets without fear that our children will catch one of these diseases. And that's because for years and years now, parents have taken advantage of the advances medical science has to offer. Even though it does cause pain, and even though there is a small amount of risk involved.

And so I held my daughter down on the table and let the nurse give her her shots, look of betrayal or no. Someday, I think, she'll thank me for it.

the first blogger?

2008-07-07T22:46:00.001-07:00

Lunette Mulkey died this week.

Unless you're from the Linn County area, that probably means nothing to you. And even if you are from Linn County, that probably doesn't mean anything to you unless you are a dedicated reader of the Letters to the Editor section of the Democrat-Herald.

If you do fit those two criteria, then you probably already read about her death in the paper just like I did, and you probably felt the same sadness that there would be no more of her gently humorous letters to look forward to in the "Editor's Mailbag," mixed with respect and appreciation for a woman who lived a long and seemingly happy life.

Mrs. Mulkey sent her letters--mostly just her own observations about This American Life, as it were--for years. For as long as I can remember reading the paper, I remember seeing her name from time to time. She was such a regular and popular writer, the D-H actually did a feature story on her at one point, and they had her obituary on the front page yesterday. Maybe you're chortling to yourself "Musta been a slow news day!" and maybe it was. But that's the nice thing about a community newspaper--it tells the stories that matter to the people of this specific community, even though they don't mean a thing to outsiders.

But here's my thought for the day, the thing that sparked this whole idea for a post: Mrs. Mulkey was a blogger. Before there even was such a thing, that's what she was. Listen to this quote from the obit, written by my friend Jennifer:

"Aside from the poetry she wrote as a child, Mulkey was known mostly for letters to the editor, which she began sending to the Moberly Monitor-Index in Moberly, Mo., when her sons were young.

She would talk about life with her husband and their boys, or the pleasures of rural living. She’d lament the intricacies of new technology. She chronicled the quiet joys and disappointments of growing older and the lessons of a life well lived."

So: she wrote short pieces of prose about her days with her family and her take on life in general, and published them in a public forum where others could read them and respond to her.

How is that any different than what I and Jennifer and thousands of other women now do, all over the world? Lunette Mulkey was a blogger. She was just about 50 years ahead of her time.

taking a break

2008-07-07T19:18:00.001-07:00

I did not a scrap of housework today. The dishes are mounded in the sink. Laundry rests in hampers, in baskets, in the washer and dryer. Eric was not home, so I made the girls hot dogs for dinner. I didn't even give the girls a bath tonight.

Why?

Because I was taking a break today.

I was kind of tired, the baby got her first major round of immunizations this morning and has been fussy, and I decided I just wasn't going to do non-essential things today.

And so: I changed diapers, and nursed the baby, and dispensed food and drink to the older girls, and read lots of stories, and hugged and kissed and broke up arguments as needed. Those things are essential.

I also took a nap on the couch while everyone else napped, and played some Scrabulous over on Facebook, and ate a bowl of ice cream, and finished a marvelous book by Barbara Kingsolver, and started a decent one by John Grisham, and held my baby for a long time and just enjoyed her pretty smiles. And also held her for a long time and wished she would stop crying.

All the other stuff, I just ignored.

The thing about being a mom, is that you never get a break from it. Never. Working or at-home or some combination; whoever you are, wherever you are, if you're a parent then some part of your brain is occupied with your children. If you're on vacation in Tahiti (not that I have been, but I'm conjecturing here) you'll enjoy a walk on the beach and then go back to your hotel room and wonder how your kids are doing with the sitter. You just can't ever completely turn that motherhood function off.

But you can dial down the unimportant parts of it once awhile. And if you're currently an at-home parent, you have the freedom to decide when those times are. Which is why, I thought to myself as I sat in the rocking chair holding my baby and reading a good book this afternoon, sometimes this stay-at-home mom gig isn't so bad after all.

Red and white and blue

2008-07-03T15:04:00.001-07:00

That's been the basic color scheme in Lucy's room for the past year and a half. Actually, it's a pale creamy yellow in the middle, not white, but the trim is all white. And around the top and the bottom of all four walls, these circus-bright red and blue stripes. This is how the room was when we moved in, and I've been meaning to paint it for the past year, and I just haven't gotten around to it.

The current look isn't horrible. It's creative and all. I just wanted something a little more feminine. Something that looks more like a 2-year-old girl. You see, Beth's room and Evie's room both have really, really cute painting schemes (also inherited from the previous owners); princesses in Beth's room and nursery rhymes in Evie's room. I want Lucy's room to be just as cute as theirs, but I am uncertain about my level of decorating skills. And so I just kept putting it off and putting it off.

But the other night I decided that if it was ever, ever going to get done before she went off to college, I needed to just get started. And so I did. First step: start painting over the brightest paint colors imaginable.

So I've got it done on three of the four walls. One coat of white primer, anyway. As you can see, it's going to take at least another coat of primer before I'll even attempt to paint it with the real colors I'm going to use.

And what are those real colors, you ask? Well, I have a general idea that the color scheme will be white and a pretty, springy green. White on the top half the wall and green on the bottom. And then around the middle I plan to find some kind of daisy stencil and paint a flowery daisy-type vine around the middle. And maybe some of these cute little ladybug guys crawling around too.

If anyone has any painting tips on how best to make these ideas work, please share. I'm currently working on this project one or two nights a week (I put Lucy to bed in our room and then paint, paint, paint away). So it's not exactly coming along quickly. But maybe, eventually, I'll get it done. Before she goes away to college, anyway. But no promises on it being before she starts first grade.

time to read

2008-07-03T13:56:00.001-07:00

Someone asked me the other day, "Where do you find time to read? You have three kids."

And I do indeed, have three kids. Believe me, they never let me forget that, even for a minute. And so the answer is that I read just like I do everything else: in bits and pieces, and almost always while doing something else. Multi-tasking is the rule of the day when you're a mom.

I used to have a running list of my current reading materials on my sidebar, but I always forgot to update it so I took it down. But just in case you'd like a little peek into a busy mom's reading life, here are my current reads, sorted by location.

On the footstool in Evie's room, so I can read while I nurse. Of course sometimes I'm tired and I just shut my eyes and doze while she takes in her nourishment, but other times I find nursing to be a great time to read; 15 or 20 minutes at a time when I can just sit still: "The Meaning of Sunglasses" by Hadley Freeman.

This one caught my eye on the new books shelf at the library. It's a funny take on the world of fashion by a contributing editor to British Vogue. It's organized like an encyclopedia, with each entry a brief, witty essay on that particular aspect of fashion. Although I'd probably appreciate it even more if I was actually into fashion or ever read fashion magazines, I'm still finding it funny. Here's a good bit from the entry on "Fashionspeak;" that is, the industry jargon that goes into way too many magazines.

"...the majority of fashion journalists are not specifically trained in their field, unless a lifetime of shopping counts. And so, not entirely unlike the psychotic government officials from Orwell's apocalyptic vision of the future in 1984, they rely on an empty lingo to create a veneer of professional credibility. But most of all, they're just trying for a bit of variety instead of just repeating what they really mean, which is "I quite like these clothes; they would look good on me."...Fashion shows run very, very late...thus a lady or gent has a lot of time to think deep thoughts, such as exciting new synonyms for words like "beige" and "good."

On the bookshelf next to the kitchen table to read during breakfast: The Bible.

I admit I don't do this every morning. Sometimes I'm constantly hopping up and down to get more milk for this kid or another spoon for that kid and I can't concentrate on anything at else, much less the Scripture. But, especially when I happen to be awake before my kids, it's a good way to start my day. I'm working my way through Luke, currently.

In the bathroom, to read while I'm doing my business (I am a lifelong bathroom reader. Again, it's a time--even for just a minute or two--when I'm sitting still and not doing anything else. Might as well read!): The Egg and I, by Betty McDonald. This is a book I"m reading for book club. It's a memoir of running a chicken ranch in the boonies of Washington State during the early part of the 20th century. It's by the author of the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books and it is funny, as anyone who has read the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books might expect.

Floating elsewhere around the house to read during lunch, or during naptime, or some other moment to sit down that might pop up: "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," by Barbara Kingsolver.

This is a chronicle of her family's year of eating only locally-grown foods--as in, only foods grown within their county in the Appalachian mountains, and mostly what they grew themselves. Her writing is superb, as always. I'm also finding it really inspiring, and it's making me glad I'm participating in the Eat Local challenge, as it is making me more intentional about buying local ingredients. It also sounds like a TON of work--the massive garden, the flocks of poultry--more than I could do at this point in my life. Maybe if I was a successful writer whose book sales could support my family so we could spend all our time tending our fields and flocks and gathering wild mushrooms. Alas, my writing career is not quite on par with Barbara Kingsolver's yet.

Also, I thought how I ironic it was, as I was reading it today, that I was nodding my head at a particularly good point about how superior-tasting and better for the world local foods are, and yet I was also biting into a grocery store nectarine that more than likely was shipped here from California if not from further away than that. Let's just say that inspiring as I find Kingsolver's book, I'm not ready to become a strict locavore yet.

In the CD player. I'm not usually much of a book-listener; I have a hard time concentrating. But Eric and I have been been listening in the car occasionally and also sometimes in the evening after the girls are in bed. I can fold laundry, or clean the kitchen, or things like that while I'm absorbing the words of a good book at the same time, and I like that: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.

I love good sci-fi/fantasy, and this one is among the best. It won the Hugo and Nebula awards (awards for the best in science fiction) for a reason. It's a compelling story with very well-fleshed out characters, not the mere stereotypes that are sometimes the norm in this genre (think the Eragon series). No, "Ender's Game" is very good, and we're only partway through, so I'm eager to find out what happens to poor, friendless, brilliant Ender Wiggin.

Scattered around the house in messy piles, in both bathrooms, and on the coffee table: The daily local newspaper; TIME magazine; Bon Appetit; Cottage Living; and the Economist (that last one is more for Eric than me; I like the articles but rarely find time to make it all the way through in a week).

So that's my current reading. With all those different books going at once, it does take me awhile to get through any one thing, but I'm guaranteed that no matter where I happen to be in my house, I can find something good to read with any spare moment I can find. Five minutes here, a half hour there, and I'm actually surprised how much reading I manage to do. Even though I do have three kids.

The ups and downs

2008-07-01T20:04:00.000-07:00

Having my nighttime sleeping habits controlled by a terrorist masquerading as an adorable little baby (sleep deprivation is a torture tactic, no?) means that instead of living my life with a nice, steady rhythm, it's more like a series of unpredictable highs and lows, governed by how tired I am at any given moment.

You see, sometimes she lulls me into submission by sleeping for six and a half hours straight, and I wake up bouncy and chipper and go jogging and eat oatmeal for breakfast. I cross things off my to-do list, I make a nice dinner, and generally have a fine and dandy day.

And then we have nights where she wakes and wants to eat to eat three or more times, and I am not quite so chipper upon waking. That leads to days like today.

DOWN phase
6 a.m.: Alarm rings and I know that the idea of jogging is just laughable and so I turn it off and go right back to sleep.

7 a.m.: Beth comes to stand by my bedside in her pajamas, telling me that she is hungry and she can hear Lucy waking up in her crib, and I groan and tell her I'll get up in a few more minutes.

7:30 a.m.: I sit around in my pajamas, drinking coffee and trying to get some equilibrium for the day. I hear husband singing in the shower and when he gets out, I say to him in a surly tone, "Gosh, you're sure cheerful today."

9 a.m.: Realize that if I don't get in the shower right now I am going to accomplish exactly zero today. Rush around getting myself and everyone else out the door.

UP phase
10 a.m.: Feel energized by the fact that I am in fact dressed, and up, and out of the house. Have a nice hour or so running errands and taking girls to the library.

DOWN phase
11:15 a.m.: Good mood evaporates as Lucy throws a fit at the library. Librarians are super-nice about it but it just makes me feel worse for being the mom with the bratty screaming kid.

11:30 a.m.: Get kids home and realize that if I can hold out for another hour, it will be naptime. Blessed, blessed naptime.

1 p.m.: Put everyone to bed. Beth does not sleep but plays in her room. I collapse on the couch in a daze that never quite turns into actual sleep and somehow makes me feel even groggier.

Mid-afternoon at some point: Beth wants to come out of her room. And have a snack. And read stories. And color. And generally do kid things that do not involve being confined to a single room all afternoon. The nerve of that girl! I haul myself off the couch and wake up gradually.

UP phase

4 p.m.: Realize that I have not done a single household chore all day long. Put away some laundry, start another load of laundry, pick up clutter off all the various flat surfaces in the living room. Bribe Beth with a promise of making cookies if she cleans her room all by herself.

5 p.m.: Make cookies with Beth and Lucy. Eat way too much cookie dough. (But it's oatmeal raisin--that's healthy, right?). They go play outside.

6 p.m.: We have toast and eggs for dinner because it's easy and that's Beth's favorite thing anyway. Everybody eats happily.

DOWN phase
6:30 p.m.: Evie's evening cranky phase sets in. She must be held. Constantly. In a certain position. If these conditions are violated, she screams her head off.

7 p.m.: Lucy's tired and whiny phase sets in. She whines to be held, too, and collapses in a pathetic heap when she doesn't get her way about anything.

7:30 p.m.: Lucy is in bed

7:45 p.m.: Evie is in bed

8 p.m.: Beth is "in bed" meaning she has to stay in her room and play quietly until she falls asleep.

UP phase

8:30 p.m.: I breathe a huge sigh of relief at actually having some time to myself. So many choices! I could read the newspaper! Read my book! Write on my blog! Work on painting Lucy's room.

Last night, the evening UP phase came along, and I tried to accomplish all of these things, since I accomplished none of them during the day, and then I stayed up way too late, just in time for Evie to start waking up and wanting to eat again, making me super-tired in the morning...and we repeat the cycle.

But I am determined to break the cycle tonight and will be in bed by 10 p.m. Hopefully paving the way for a more level-headed day tomorrow.

Just to prove I'm not the meanest Mom in the world

2008-06-30T20:23:00.000-07:00

I thought I would share with you some photographic evidence that, as predicted, Evie is starting to move past the weird-looking phase and is well on her way to becoming incredibly beautiful.

Her repertoire of facial expressions has even expanded to include smiling now, but she wasn't in the mood for that tonight, apparently.

Instead, she was in the mood for frowning at the camera.

And yawning. She does a lot of yawning.

Yep. Eat, sit around and stare into space, smile occasionally (throwing everyone around you into spasms of delight) and then go to sleep. That's pretty much her life. That actually sounds quite relaxing. If I could change "stare at the pages of a good book" for "stare into space," I think I'd love to have the life a of a 5-week-old. Maybe we could arrange a trade.

Looking back. And looking down, happily.

2008-06-27T13:57:00.000-07:00

I can't believe she is 5 weeks old already. I can't believe it was just a little more than a month ago that I was still swollen like a balloon. It's a weird thing, having a newborn; sometimes you look at her all curled up in your arms and think, "This entire person was inside me." Pregnancy is a weird process. You start with nothing and you get...not something, but someone. A new person, who never was in the world before, and she came out of you. Weird, I tell you.

Here's a poem I wrote a few months ago. Back when painting my toenails was a serious undertaking. I gotta tell you, as beautiful in many ways as carrying a child is, I'm so glad I'm not pregnant anymore. Because seeing my toes is a good thing.

How to paint your toenails when you are nine months pregnant

Bend over.
Bend way, way over, bowing to the weight of the child.
Curl yourself around the bulge of her—
Your spine a ribbon wrapping you both—
Until you see your old friends: your toes
Splayed on the counter,
Pale under the fluorescent lights.
You have ignored them, these months of great expectations
In favor of the zygote, the fundus, the os.
Now they are chipped, half-naked, forlorn.
No starlet would have engaged in this sanctified omphaloskepsis;
being a mother does not mean ceasing to be a woman.
So seize your brightest hue and work fast—
You can’t hold this pose much longer.
Fill the blank spaces with bold strokes of color.
Now straighten up
Balance the sweet load before,
Against the bottomless desires within,
And admire, if you can, your handiwork.
Peer past the future your belly holds;
Take note of the perfect scarlet beacons below:
Ten tiny trumpets blaring your intention
To not go gentle into the dawning light
Of motherhood.

Shelter

2008-06-26T20:40:00.000-07:00

I try to be honest with my kids about things. About Life, the Universe, and Everything. Things I do understand, things I don't.

But sometimes, it's just easier to avoid an issue, especially when I think it's one they're not prepared to handle yet. Listening to NPR in the car yesterday, the reporter started talking about the Supreme Court's capital punishment decision, and when he started to say "child ra--" I flipped the channel. Call me a chicken, tell me I ought to be educating my children about the dangers of sexual abuse, but I just wasn't ready to have a conversation with Beth that begins with the little voice calling from the back seat, "Mommy, what's rape?"

Last week at the library, Beth picked a book off the shelf called "Always and Forever." I'm sure she was attracted to the cute pictures of woodland creatures. She handed it to me to put in the book bag and scampered off to find more. I took one look at the book flap description, which begins, "When Fox dies, Mole, Hare and Otter are devastated..." and put it back on the shelf. I just didn't want to have another conversation about death with her. Not after all the grief and pain our family went through last fall. I have not forgotten the fear and confusion in her eyes as she witnessed the sorrow we all felt, and I didn't want to see it again. At home, when she asked about "the Fox book," I said we must have forgotten it.

A week went by, and this Tuesday, we went back to the library and she found it again. "Mom! I wanted to get this one!" she said. "Oh...right," I said, and tucked it in the book bag again. This time I let it stay. I suppose it's probably a good thing to talk to her about, I thought, but I secretly hoped maybe she wouldn't understand the story and we could go on avoiding the subject.

When we got home from the library, several messages from my husband were waiting for me. "Call me!" he said. I did, and learned that a friend of mine--a mother, a wife, only 30 years old--had died of a heart attack.

We just can't avoid death, can we? It is a part of life, one we cannot, and ought not, hide from. As much as I'd like to shelter my children from all the unpleasant aspects of living, I can't.

Eric read "Always and Forever" with Beth that night, and though he described it as "the saddest book ever" it didn't seem to have much of an effect on her. I leafed through it on my own and thought it was an extremely well-done story about grief. It doesn't address any of the big questions about death (like why do people die? or what happens after we die?) but instead focuses on the sorrow felt by the family left behind, and shows in a very real and honest way how they cope with it.

I haven't talked to Beth about my friend's death yet. She knew the family slightly and played with her two sons occasionally, but I'm not sure she would remember exactly who Suzie was. And I've still been a chicken about bringing up the hard topics. I just want my kids to only see happiness all the time. But I know I'm not doing them any favors if I hide reality from them.

So probably tomorrow I'll mention to Beth that we'll be going to a funeral this weekend, because the mommy of two little boys she knows died. And that she's in heaven now, but her friends and family are sad. Maybe we'll read "Always and Forever" again. Maybe she'll be upset. Maybe she'll have questions. Or maybe not. She is only 3, after all. However the conversation goes, I'll do my best to be honest about what little I know of life. And death. Even the hardest parts. Because much as I want to wrap my kids in a blanket of warmth of safety, the shelter of our caring home can only extend so far--and sometimes the hard things come right through our front door. Sorrow follows along behind the sunshine, and all I can do is teach them to walk on through it, trusting the Lord as they go.

Back in the saddle again

2008-06-24T07:15:00.000-07:00

Or in the sneakers, to be more accurate.

The baby is a month old now (I can't believe it!) and I'm working on trying to fit back in the rest of my pre-baby clothes. Because I have a lot of nice clothes, and not being able to wear them is just annoying. And also I don't want to be one of those women who wakes up one day and realizes that her youngest baby is four years old and she still hasn't lost the "baby weight." Being pregnant three times in four years has not done good things to my body or my eating habits, but I'd really like to work on being healthier.

So. Here are a few sites I've been using to help me in my quest:

The Couch to 5K Running Plan. Not running for the past 9 months means that I'm still much closer to the "couch" end of the continuum than the "5K," but I intend to get back to being able to run the Albany 5K this fall. Maybe I'll even beat my time from last year.

The Hundred Push-Ups Training Program. To be honest, I cannot ever imagine myself doing 100 consecutive push-ups, and I'm not sure my form is the greatest. But I figure even if I don't ever manage 100, I'll improve my strength at least somewhat. My muscles are sure sore, anyway.

The ELFF (Eat Less Fatty Food) Diet and Half of Me. These are two blogs by women who have both lost large amounts of weight and kept it off. PastaQueen from Half of Me actually lost half her body weight! Amazing and inspiring, with some good practical, real-life writing about keeping up with a commitment to healthy living.

Fresh, local produce. This week's Farmer's Market purchases: more strawberries, which we blended up with some ice, watermelon, and non-fat vanilla yogurt to make smoothies (so simple and delicious); broccoli, which I plan to use in a chicken stir-fry later this week; and more of the yummy salad greens from the Salad Farm.

And here's a chart which isn't actually a weight-loss resource, but it makes me smile knowingly, because I completely relate to the cycle it describes.

At least my heart's in the right place. According to my fridge.

2008-06-20T14:27:00.000-07:00

What Your Fridge Says About You

You aren't greedy, but you don't really deprive yourself either. You strike a good balance with the stuff you buy.

You tend to be a fairly thrifty person. You splurge occasionally, but you're mostly a saver.

You don't tend to be a very adventurous person, but you do surprise everyone now and then. You have a bit of a wild side.

You try to be responsible, but you don't always succeed. Your heart is in the right place though.

You are likely to be married - and very busy.

What Do the Contents of Your Refrigerator Say About You?

Saw this over at Snapshot.

yummy, yummy food

2008-06-19T15:54:00.000-07:00

I have thought for years now that what Albany really needs is a good Italian restaurant. We've got a couple decent options for Chinese food (Ping's and AB Chinese); several good little lunch-type places (Sidekicks, Jacopetti's, the Beanery, the Wine Depot); a couple good Mexican places (that place in Two Rivers, and Los Dos Amigos); and good pizza too (Ciddici's and PizzAmore).

But far too many of Albany's restaurants are fast food, or greasy spoons, or chain restaurants. And Italian? Not a one. And that's my favorite kind of food, so the lack of a good local Italian restaurant has been disappointing to me. Thus, I was quite excited a couple weeks ago when we saw a sticker ad on the front of the Sunday paper announcing that Clemenza's Italian Cafe was open in downtown Albany. We tried it for take-out that night and were extremely impressed.

We got chicken and vegetable fettucine with Alfredo sauce, chicken canneloni, and marinated mushrooms. Everything was absolutely delicious and it was plenty to feed our family. The fettucine sauce was rich, creamy and tasty. The pasta was much higher quality than most Italian restaurants and cooked to that just-right "al dente" done-ness. I'd never had canneloni before, but they are Italian crepes stuffed with chicken and vegetables and a creamy sauce, and they were great too. The marinated mushrooms were very garlicky (but that's a great thing in my book).

This place is owned by the same people who own Sybaris (the nicest and most expensive restaurant in Albany), so the quality was not a surprise. The good thing about Clemenza's as compared to Sybaris is that you can actually afford to eat there more than once every five years. Most of the entrees on their menu are in the $7-10 range, which is much more within my family's budget than Sybaris. Heck, a McDonald's Value meal is $5 these days, so for just a couple dollars more my family could eat really excellent Italian food at this new place.

I haven't actually been inside--my husband went down to pick up the food--so I don't know what the facility is like, or what service is like for a sit-down meal. I know it's on First Avenue in downtown Albany, and I know that it really fills a niche for a quality, affordable, locally-owned Italian restaurant in this town. I'd love to see them make a go of it so that I can have their canneloni many more times. So if you live in the mid-valley, I'd highly recommend checking them out.

preparing for a lifetime of vagrancy

2008-06-18T10:27:00.001-07:00

Beth and Lucy decided to make "tents" in the living room this morning. First was one they made out of Evie's play mat (they enjoy it far more than she does, right now).

Then they expanded their tent city to the couch and coffee table.

"You can be my neighbor, Lucy!" Beth said cheerfully. "My neighbor that lives in a tent. And we can both always live in tents together!"

I'm so glad she has such lofty goals for her life.