Freezer Inventory and Giving Thanks

A dear friend came to play today, but instead of just playing, we cleaned out my refrigerator.  This had not been done since 2012, I'm pretty sure.  Which means it was uber gross. 

Actually, I think it's been grosser before, and that's just by some miracle. 

So, we pulled everything out and washed the fridge guts and then put everything back in.  Which is just the best feeling in the world.  The kids were even showing it off to one another.  "Look, Ada, Look at the refrigerator!" 

Anna's baby, Roland, even climbed in before we added anything back (except the bottom produce drawer - it was already filled).

A Girl! In All her Resplendent Glory

I spotted this post this morning, linked from a few friends on my facebook newsfeed. The pictures are beautiful and the project is creative. 

I was immediately drawn to it; I try to keep up with issues of The Woman, especially as related to The Little Girl.  I have one of those - little girls, that is -  and I remain concerned with the images we project onto our daughters.  [This week we're seeing the inability of Disney to let strong, real girls remain apart from sexual objectification, as seen with the reformatting of Merida, the atypical princess from the movie Brave.]   These images we continue to project, post sexual-revolution, have resulted in a culture of pornography and eating disorders, not to mention continuing the culture of unhappy marriages, divorce, and abuse. 

The second reason to be drawn to this post is that the photography is excellent.  I know not Jaime Moore, but she can sure take a picture. 

And the third reason (and it's entirely self-centered): I did a report on Amelia Earhart in second grade and have a treasured picture of myself dressed in my leather flight jacket and some sort of goggles on my head. 

So, I love these ladies - Especially Amelia, Helen, and Susan B, who are personal faves of mine.  And the little girl being photographed, well, she looks happy and to be enjoying the exercise.  And her mother's motivations are good:  stay away from the prostitutes-disguised-as-heroes in most of pop culture today.

However.

I have a few objections to this type of thing being the key to alternative, fix-the-bad-feminine-images strategy.  Please don't read this as a criticism of Jaime Moore.  She seems an earnest, excellent type who aside from taking great pictures, is being thoughtful about how to rescue her little one from the false images of sexuality that pervade and prevail.  I'm just reluctant to join the bandwagon of "isn't this cool" linking up to this project.  It is cool.  But, I fear it is not the complete answer. 

So, to the However. 

It's (not) my right: Fighting to, in fact, be a thankful house

Paul and I believe that thankfulness is the solution to many of the world's ills, thus the name of this here little corner of the internet.  And, our own world is no exception.  When there is grumpiness, chase it away with thankfulness.  When there is frustration or giving up or meanness or illness, conquer with gratitude, cheerfulness, joy.

But, not so surprisingly, sometimes that's hard.

And, as matriarch of the day, I have a special burden.  Ain't nobody happy when Mama's not happy?  Well, ain't nobody thankful for jack when Mama is just a fussin' up a storm.

And the fussing doesn't start outloud.  It starts inside.  And usually, it starts with perceived victim-hood, right?  We all know this feeling.  I have been injured, and now I am irritated, so now I am grumpy, and eventually, it works its way outward and we start snipping over the fact that are you seriously asking me again where your d**n shoes are?
And of course, the worst perceived injuries are those perpetrated against us by our families.  The world is not really out to get you, but your family probably is, right?

My husband is the most hard working, caring, kind man I have ever known, and he genuinely wants me to be happy, healthy, and holy.  And his ego doesn't even get in the way of those desires.  But, still, he clearly is in a plot to make me miserable, says the small part at the back of my head.

And do you know when the primitive id rears its ugly head and insists that gratitude is far from what is needed?

Every year at this time.
(And I bet I'm not alone here.) 

It's Mothers' Day season. 

This is a day to give us mothers a time when we are officially appreciated. The idea is that our job is thankless, and that if we can just have this one Sunday, all manner of thing shall be well. 

However, if you are as blessed as I am, you are appreciated most days.  My husband puts our children to bed, while I sit on the couch or languish in the bed or scroll at the computer, every.single.night.   My sons are, as I type, playing a game in the back yard of "Who can pick Mama the most flowers" and my daughter tells me about once a week that dinner was just so delicious and she hopes she can one day cook like I do.  And they all defer to me in matters of the matriarchy -  I dictate, hopefully benevolently and with input, the way in which our life runs on a day to day and celebratory basis.  Christmas goes the way Ann Lowrey arranges for it to go. 

They do appreciate me.  They all four do.  No, really.  But, that is not enough in my own mind.  And, to top it all off, nothing ever would be.  That's the problem, right?

One year on Mothers' Day morning, they brought me breakfast in bed.  It was pretty much my least favorite foods, all ill-prepared.  Who is the ungrateful one now?  Who doesn't appreciate whom?

Why do I (we?) feel this way?  Why is it not enough?

I was sitting here this morning and psyching myself up for not being a witch, even internally, this mothers' day.  And I realized why we keep waiting for the perfect celebration brought to us by our people.

It's because, at least for me, I'm the one who is good at this stuff.  I plan, I celebrate, I find the thing that they all need to make them feel special.  This is my job.  I better be good at it.  I am in the business of making a home.  This means the daily things and then the special things.  I am supposed to interpret and parse the real injuries from the dramatic ones, and react accordingly.  I am to take the temperature constantly.  I am to know who is stressed and why - who needs a pick me up and how - and then to enact it.  I am to recognize the reasons for and then ensure the celebrations.  And so, because of these duties, I get better at these things. 

So, this day rolls around.  And if I could celebrate myself, I'm sure I'd do a bang up job.

I would appear at my own door with a coke icee first thing in the morning.  I would send me to the book store with one of the children, and then I would clean the house for me.  I would administer a foot rub and a back rub and put on Norah Jones or better still that Diana Krall album Paul bought for me the summer Ada Brooks was born, candles lit.  I would have developed a slide show of pictures from my years of mothering, and, being inside my own head, I would know exactly what sounds good for breakfast, lunch, supper, dessert, and would pull it off with the right bit of panache.  There would be ice cream.  And I would know whether or not I was in the mood for silence or visiting, all the kids climbing up in bed with me or not, a hike or a nap, an outing or 30 rock.
I could really Mothers' Day it up around here. 

But of course, we don't want to do that.  We want them to know it all and do it as well as we'd do it for ourselves.  Even though this is what we do all day, and this is what they do once or twice a year.


I have a favorite song - it's by Mary Chapin Carpenter - the lyrics are all about a woman and those small things she wants.  It's got a great piano intro, and she rocks the guitar while singing in that great old country-rock style that defined my childhood.  She just wants pens that don't run out of ink, and, ultimately, she just wants passionate kisses.  She sounds so reasonable.  And then, she gets more and more irritated and she finally says, "Do I want too much; am I going overboard to want that touch?  Shout it out to the night; give me what I deserve.  It's my right."

And so, the seed of ingratitude grows.

[And, just before we allow ourselves on the high horse:  quiet martyrdom is no better, and sometimes more long-term harmful, than actually fussing.  Thinking, 'oh, they can't help but be terrible husbands and children, but my role as mother and wife is to sacrifice and so I shall be silent and alone and only the Lord will know the sufferings of my heart, woe unto me' may be worse than saying, 'hey sweetheart - could you buck up and do something for me?' Silent martyrdom isn't helpful; the only solution is recognizing how well-loved and undeservedly blessed we already are.] 

 "It's not hard to love on people - just love on me."
"Love is a transitive verb, afterall."
 "Just try, for goodness sakes."
all run through my head, and too many days for me to admit, escape my lips.

And they do try.
And they perform at about a C- level.
And our victim hood grows.

It is the sin of our mother Eve.  She knows better, and probably, if you'll just let her alone, she'll take care of it, and you'll all see.  But see, she doesn't just want to do it her way; she wants you to do it her way as well.  It is, in a word, disgusting.

So, admitting you have a problem is the first step to solving it, right.  I am joining Ingratitude Anonymous.
The list of things for which I should be on my knees constantly giving thanks about is ridiculously long.  God is good to the world He created.

I have an employed husband who seriously never quits serving people, usually us, who is also awfully funny and a terribly good kisser.  I have three pretty children who are healthy and amusing and generally pleasant.  I have a house - with 75 year old wood floors - a gas stove, gin and tonics, phenomenal friends, a church family that actually loves us, reliable transportation, clean water, great extended family, my health, hulu and netflix, an in-house and public library system,  sauteed onions and chocolate milkshakes, great music.  


But, for mothers' day, because I deserve it, afterall, I would also like 100 ranunculus in this perfect shade of antique ecru with an ever so slight tinge of pink undertones.  Carnations are evil; don't even try that jazz.  And why, family, do you not already know this? 

Lord have mercy on my soul.

Dinner and a Movie

I've been plotting our summer school experience around here.  It's difficult for homeschooling mothers - or probably any sort of educator-parent - to just enjoy the summer break.  However, I do believe in a break.  Slow growth.  Relaxed progress.  Joyful.  Calm.  Fun.  Easy.  Flexible. 

But, we have to do something.  It's not just my educator compulsion -  it's also because I know full brain disengagement for 3 months is actually damaging.  And because my children - like their mother - do poorly with an empty to do list. 

So, we have a few goals for the summer. 

1)  Swimming.  We are all four (Paul just won't) going to practice our swimming nearly daily.  The older two kids have joined the swim team, and Collins and I will join them at the pool most days. 

2)  Reading.  We'll all read a lot.  Collins will just listen. But Eason and Ada Brooks have ambitious reading goals, as do I - mainly reading aloud to the kids, but also doing some personal reading. 

3)  Memory Work.  We are all working on a list of things we'd like to memorize this summer.  We're aiming at very short lists, so we'll actually succeed.  ;)

4) Morning Meeting.  We did these last summer, and the kids still ask after them.  It is a brief 15-25 minute meeting most mornings when we sing, pray, recite, catechize, laugh and start our day from a centered place.  Yes, a combination or orthodox western Christianity and some eastern mysticism? 

5)  Miscellany.  Eason wants to improve his violin.  Ada Brooks has determined to learn to type 20 words a minute.  (Start small...).  Eason and Collins want to throw and catch a ball without dropping it 15 times in a row.  (Again, small).  Ada Brooks is going to plan and cook supper once a week.  Ada Brooks and Eason both need to work on their math facts speed.  They get the right answers; it takes them FOREVER. 


So, those are the categories.   As part of the Reading category, I had this idea that once a week we'd watch a movie that had been based on a book that one of us had read.  Ada Brooks will carry the plurality, and Eason will have a few and a few will be read aloud by Paul or me to the kids. 


Here is the dinner and a movie schedule.  The person who read the book will give the rest of the family a brief summary, we'll eat (on tv trays!) and watch the movie version.  Ada Brooks, for her 5 books, will write a compare and contrast paragraph about the book and movie.  Maybe.  If she enjoys it.  It's summer time after all. 

• Basil of Baker Street - Mama reads aloud - Movie on May 23rd
• The Secret Garden -  Ada Brooks -  Movie on May 28th
• The Wizard of Oz - Mama reads Aloud - Movie on June 4th
• Shrek -  Eason - Movie on June 18th
• Swiss Family Robinson - Ada Brooks -  Movie on June 25th
• Nim's Island - Daddy read Aloud - Movie on July 2nd
• Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - Ada Brooks - Movie on July 9th
• The Princess Bride - Mama read aloud - Movie on July 16th
• The Littles - Eason - Movie on July 23rd
• A Wrinkle in Time - Ada Brooks - Movie on July 30th
• Stuart Little - Eason - Movie on August 6th
• Around the World in 80 Days - Ada Brooks - Movie on August 13th

If anyone wants to join us for any of the Dinners with Movies, let us know! 

From dust/to dust: a reminder

Why celebrate a Lenten season? 

We humans tend to forget things. We especially tend to forget things we don't particularly like. If it were up to us, we'd probably just have Christmas and Easter. And Christmas and Easter again.
And Christmas and Easter are great - they are both celebrations of hallelujahs, of wonderfulness, of Christ, of Grace.

And grace is good. It's not just good, it's it. It is the story. The climax. The point.

But guess how Grace doesn't make sense?

Alone.

On My Eaters / Bean Soup

Oh, a New Year.

My resolution is to embrace all cliches.

;)

But, really, I am on a take-care-of-myself-like-I'd-like-to-make-it-past-50 Diet and, as soon as Moses gets down off the ark, I'm also going to exercise.  And, I've got some swear-word-related resolutions.  And reading ones.  Oh, and writing of letters.  And journaling.  And housecleaning.  Blah Blah Blah.
And so, I embrace the cliches.


But I'm writing this now, not to list my goals, but to record a recipe before I forget it.  Every now and then I receive praise from one particular person in my house.  Paul happily eats anything (save bleu cheese, canned asparagus, summer and winter squash, and fruit in places fruit should not be (on meat, in salads) - and even those things he eats, just with a mild bit of displeasure);  Ada Brooks eats anything.  Collins cannot be relied upon, because one day he'll eat complicated and spicy grown-up food and the next day he'll refuse noodles with parmesan cheese on top.  He's a capricious young thing, and though I force a certain amount of health issues (something green and some protein / before bread or sweet things - a holy terror I am, I know), I'm not fighting with him about each little thing.  Eat or don't eat.  No skin off my nose.

Eason Forster, however, well he's the ultimate critic.  And I don't mean with any kind of sophisticated palette.  There is no adult-ness or pretension or even taste buds? in his being.  He's a mac and cheese, pizza, chicken nugget kind of person.  He's a typical kid.  And you know all those super granola mamas who claim that if you just give your kids avocados, et. al., that's what they'll like?   Well, it's true to a point.  Eason, I'm sure, eats a lot more things than he would if I had not started putting grown up things on his plate before he had six teeth.  He's probably a better salad eater than I am.  However, he's just likes that kid food. 

But, if I make a multiple ingredient, healthy dish and he gobbles it down and even doles out praise, well, take notice!
So, since I'm on this Live Six More Decades Diet, I made a dish last night that is super duper healthy, cheap, and Eason came out with, "Oh, Mama, this is so good. Thank you so much for my supper!"

(and so did the others)

And so, it demands recording, before I forget it.
It's nothing exciting.  And it won't earn any culinary awards, but, with long on Eason praise and short on cost, calories, and time, well....
And it's not fresh or local, but it is real and natural - whatever those mean - I mean by it what Michael Pollan says - It's all food my great grandmother would recognize as food - none of it is a 'food-like substance'. 


1 tsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
3 cloves garlic
2 jalapenos, seeded and diced
1 4 oz can of diced green chiles, undrained
1 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes, undrained
4 cups chicken broth
2 tsps oregano
2 tsps cumin
1/8 ish tsp cayenne
 2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
2 cans great northern beans, drained and rinsed



Saute the onion, garlic, jalapenos and green chiles in the tintiest bit of olive oil.  Or more, if you're so inclined, but with a brothy soup, you don't need as much as you'd want for like a pot of red beans or black beans or something.

After they're all good and soft, add the tomatoes, broth, oregano, cumin, cayenne.  Simmer for thirty minutes or so.

Add the beans.  Simmer for 15 more minutes. 


Serve alone (what I did for me) or over rice (what I did for my other people).

Feel virtuous.

I estimate about $6.00 for the whole thing, and about 8 medium sized adult helpings.  And likely 200-250 calories each serving, before rice.

Oh, and like 20 minutes of active time - an hour from start to finish.

  


 

What Shall We Then Do?

A Dear Uncle with A Newborn Niece

 This article was lighting up my newsfeed over the past few days.  If you've not, please read it.
In it, Liza Long plainly articulates the everyday reality of living with a child who is mentally ill.  She doesn't offer many solutions, but she asks for help.

I have a mentally ill brother.

We had these types of scary moments at my house growing up.

My brother has always had a child-like sweetness and generosity of spirit.  He adores my children.  When he was young, he knew the diet, mating habits, and habitat of every species of fish and snake around, and could - and did - quote it all.  He was a walking wikipedia of marine life. My brother is to his family what a mother bear is to her cubs. 

He once, at the age of nine, chased a friend of mine, age twelve, around the house with a paring knife. One afternoon, he held a power hose nozzle on me, refusing to let me leave the back yard.  When I was in college, and he in high school, he threw my mother's canister vacuum cleaner down the stairs at me.  He was kicked out of more schools than I can count - and we long since quit counting. 

My parents sought help early and constantly, and while wonderful folks tried, there wasn't a really good answer.

And now, my brother floats in and out of jails and rehabs.
We are blessed that he, while anger management is still a struggle, has never been a vengeful person, but, rather was always reacting to in-the-moment stressors.  Also, he seems to have, thanks be to God, outgrown these physically scary and dangerous responses.  His outbursts are now verbally abusive, which, while remaining a burden, are much less panic-inducing. 

So, Liza Long asked for help in her article.  But folks do not know how to help.  Not even mental health professionals seem to know how to assist these young men who are afflicted with this specific, difficult to diagnose, and seemingly impossible to cure illness.

And most of us aren't mental health professionals or legislators or policy advisers or other sorts of folks to be on the ground working with a systemic, logistical solution.

But, most of us, whether we have an awareness of this or not, are in a position to be very helpful.

First, pray.
Pray for this issue continually.
Pray for the mentally ill in general - that they will know the healing power and peace of Jesus.
Pray for any specific people that you know of who struggle with mental illness.  Pray that they'll be spared from the worst symptoms of these diseases. 
Pray for their families, especially their parents.  Pray for them to be sustained by God's wisdom and mercy to us all.
Pray for those people who venture into the field of mental health.  Pray that they'll be granted knowledge of - and the ability to put into place - real solutions that are both effectual and merciful.
Pray for those saints who engage with the mentally ill in their ministries.  Pray that they'll be rewarded for their great work and that they'll see results in this world.
 Since we are commanded to give thanks for all things, give thanks that you've been placed in a world currently dealing with this issue.  And, especially give thanks if you have the privilege of ministering to specific families of mentally ill persons.

Second, minister to anyone you know who struggles with mental illness.
Treat them with kindness.
Be normal.
Laugh.
Hug.  
Visit.


Third, minister to the families of the mentally ill.

Do not stigmatize.  Having a mentally ill family member is not an embarrassment.  Are family members with cancer embarrassing?  
Do not pretend there isn't a problem. 
Do not pretend you understand the problem. 
Do not ever let the sentence, "well, if he was my child, I'd..." come across your lips.  You do not know what you would do.  I grew up with it, and I do not know what I'd do.
Do not attempt to diagnose.

Ask if and how you can help.  One great way is to minister to any siblings.  Grab them for the day.  Any respite is welcome when chaos is a reality.
Food is always a ministry.  Always.  Second only, of course, to laughter. 
Follow the lead of the person in your life about how much and when to discuss the problem.  Some folks are open and benefit from people checking in.  Some are tired and want to talk about the BCS standings, the weather, the anything but.  Provide openings without prying. 
 

Fourth, remember. 

Always remember that, but for His grace, there go we all. 

Honor the truth that sick people can do evil things.  The deeds are no less evil because they are sick, and the people are no less sick because they do evil things.

Remember that the vast majority of those who struggle with mental illness are not on the verge of engaging in destructive behavior.  

Talk to your children about emotional struggles that all people have.  Talk to them about right reactions to their own emotional struggles, and reactions to those folks who they encounter who have much more acute problems. 

God has blessed and protected my family from much of the sorrow experienced by Ms. Long, and certainly from the reality experienced by the Lanza family.
To Him, we are grateful for this and all of his mercies upon us. 

Join me in giving thanks for all of the blessings we all experience everyday. 
They are abundant and we deserve them not.