Is Psalm 119, of course; I read from The One Year Bible every day for my devotions because it automates them for you. (I have a physical copy which I bought for like a dollar at the thrift store, which I love, but I currently read it on my Kindle because nobody can move my marker around that way or turn the pages for me, and I can make notations, and it remembers where I left off.) Lately the portion for Psalms has been a bit of Psalm 119.
This year I find myself reading the Old and New Testament portions as usual, praying the Psalm, and then regarding the snippet of Proverbs at the end as sort of a kicker. I didn't set out to do this, it just sort of happened since so many of the Psalms are in first person. When reading them, it's just natural to apply them to your own situation. (Even the violent ones, asking the Lord to judge the wicked, can be applied if you think of "the wicked" as being a dreadful situation.... or our own tempations...or the Adversary.)
Psalm 119 is all about the Word of God, His law and regulations, and it contains a lot of exactly what I need right now--requests that God would make the speaker wise, and help him/her to understand and apply the Word. It's amazing, although I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by now, how God sets up Scripture to speak into our lives. I really should expect it, since He's been doing it for years with me now, but I am still pleasantly stunned every time. Kind of the same feeling I got after memorizing the anatomy textbook in school and then seeing real surgery--whatyaknow, the liver really IS there! Astonishing!
We have a tricky time sometimes believing in God's provision. In fact I think we have, because of our myopic perspective and our fallen nature, a tricky time believing in much of anything that doesn't come from us. I.e., we have to convince ourselves that other people might genuninely be having a different experience than we are--just ask a warm-blooded person married to a cold-blooded person. Even after knowing each other's physical constitutions, the warm-blooded person still tends to think that the cold-blooded person can't possibly be chilly in such a warm room, and vice versa.
If we have a hard time believing about something silly like that, it's no wonder we struggle with the idea that God really will give us what we need.
Sometimes we can accept it for things like money (especially if we don't really have much control over our salaries) or health (especially if we have a bad diagnosis and there isn't a lot we can do) or safety (especially if we are a passenger and can't control the steering on the plane). Sometimes we struggle with all those areas. But often we struggle with trusting God's provision in the areas that it seems like we DO have control over. For instance, will I trust God to help me get enough housework done? Will I trust God to manage my body--sleeping, eating, etc?
(Note: that last sentence I almost wrote, "Will I trust God to help me manage my body" and realized exactly how deeply ingrained my grasping for control really is.)
Trusting God to provide for you in all areas of life is part of the Christian paradox inherent in "...work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you". As C.S. Lewis puts it bluntly, "On the one hand it sounds like you don't do anything, and on the other it sounds like you do a damned lot." So by trusting God to provide for say, my housework, that doesn't mean that I sit in a chair and wait for angels or fairies to come and wash my dishes. Trusting God's provision for my health doesn't mean that I quit learning about my body. It does mean that when I discover a truth--that the day will go better if I can have the dishes washed every night, or that God has designed my body so that it's possible to discern certain things like ovulation or when to stop eating--that I have to go on believing it in the same way that I have to go on believing more "spiritual" truths, like that my salvation was determined from the foundation of the world and I can't screw it up.
God provides for me, which doesn't mean I stop doing anything. But it means I let the control go--I go wash the dishes even when I'd rather read and my brain is trying to convince me that it won't really affect the next day, or I trust that God will manage my body and that the cues it sends me are accurate--and sometimes that's very difficult.
(Note: dishes and bodily cues are just two examples I picked. Perhaps God has not spoken to you about your dishes. Please don't get all condemned and think you're sinning if you don't wash dishes one night--that's just my thing.)
May I suggest you give yourself permission to find it difficult? Sometimes I think that the biggest trouble we have is with believing that things should, once we understand them, come easier. Just because something is true or simple doesn't make it easy, so perhaps it would help to start expecting difficulty. Then we won't be so surprised and disjointed when we run headlong into our own natures. We're not home yet, after all.
Read Psalm 119 if you get the chance, or part of it anyway. God provides discernment and encouragment, just like He provides everything else we need. Isn't He good?
Cheers,
Breanna
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Elfing 2010
Actually these pictures are of the morning after the elfing, since in the midst of the elfing there was dirty dishes and cardboard boxes mixed in with the Christmas cheer. We had just returned from the respective Grandma's Houses, from a wonderful and full weekend, and we recklessly decided to do our tree decorating yesterday afternoon anyway instead of resting and doing it today like sensible people. It was glorious, although we ended up getting so tired and backachey that we actually ordered pizza for dinner the weekend after Thanksgiving. In my defense, the only Thanksgiving leftovers at our house were crackers, so that isn't quite as weird as it sounds.
Here is what we had for breakfast this morning, since the Potential Moving Company that might be packing us up for our Potential Move doesn't do home-canned food in jars:
Apple turnovers (with biscut dough crust, because it's fast). That's home-canned apple-pie filling inside. I still have about 28 jars to use up. Want some?
And yes. The time on the stove clock is AM; we get going early 'round these parts.
The snowman cookie jar (and the Christmas music CDs next to him) come out directly after the turkey basket that holds my mail from Halloween to Thanksgiving goes away. Now I have to fill him with cookies.
I can't think how it's happened that Miss Boo never had candy canes until this year, but she likes them in spite of the fact that Mama felt the need (inspired by accidentally buying the kind of old-fashioned candy cane with the extra tiny stripes) to explain that the candy reminds us of the Good Shepherd before I even unwrapped it. Actually it was to stall while I picked at the plastic with too-short fingernails, so really it wasn't that bad.
We got the elaborate bulb with the house on it the first year we were married and it was on our first, eighteen-inch-tall tree. It was the only thing on the tree. Sorta sad, huh? But cute, and now we give it a spot of honor high on the tree, out of dog-tail and kid range.
Buddy doesn't do early mornings.
I like my nutcracker, even though he was made in China, or possibly Thailand, instead of Bavaria. The Nativity scene music box was popular last year and is already proving a good bribe (i.e., "we can't play the music box until we pull up our pants" - Miss Boo, doing excellently with potty training, just can't see the sense in pulling pants back up once you get the plaguey things down. You just have to pull them down again for the next potty run anyway.)
Padraig, sitting on the sheepskin rug where he knows he isn't supposed to be. He always acts surprised to find himself there, having worked his way on carefully, a toe and a tail at a time, while the kids were sitting on the rug.
Next year, Littleman... next year. It's too early for you to show up this year.
Waking up...slowly...
What's so captivating? The tree? The beautiful Nativity scene on my tall hutch that the Husband bought me last year and that I forgot to take a picture of? Santa?
Nope.
Dora. Sigh.
I am reading a Montessori book (about applying her ideas, not actually by the good lady herself--which seems to make all the difference) that I will probably review for you somewhat later; right now suffice to say it has a bewildering mix of good ideas and dumb pronouncements. This book says that I am ruining my children by letting them watch a Dora a day so that I can take a shower. Also I shouldn't cuddle them in the middle of the night or carry them. I confess it to you freely--I am, apparently, a really bad mom.
However, I do like the book's suggestion that I let the kids do more stuff for themselves. I forsee the child-sized soap and hand towel (I have some tiny ones that do no earthly good as adult hand towels, that are supposed to be chic) at the bathroom sink as making washing-up time very popular for a while, and I have long known that Buddy loves cleaning, so I might as well make the quest to find him a tiny broom and dustpan official and dignify it with the label "Montessori".
Our Thanksgiving was lovely and I spent it being unproductive except for knitting--I did get a couple of kid sweaters finished. (Nothing too remarkable there--worsted weight wool and 100 stitches around the body--no sweat.) Now I can't believe it's only a few days until Advent again. This year I'm getting a proper wreath, instead of cobbling one together with votive candle holders. They just don't work.
Hope you are beginning a lovely holiday season; remember that for Christians, this is "Advent", not just "the Holidays"--and then remember that the poor clerk at Walmart has to say "Happy Holidays" by company policy, so don't scold. If you believe what you're saying, you may smile warmly at the overworked, underpaid critter and tell her "Merry Christmas."
And a word to the wise from me (all the grandparents connected with me know this already, so this is a general message). If you are a grandparent, and hesitating between the toy that makes sounds and requires batteries and the one that doesn't--get the one that doesn't.
Cheers,
Breanna
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
A Frozen Birthday
I promise I will take some pictures soon. Yesterday, Miss Boo's third birthday, my hands were busy. Some of you got cell phone pictures; I promise I'll get some nice ones over Thanksgiving.
As compensation, here is a written account of the birthday.
Sometimes I think that reading blogs can be a little hazardous. At least, moms reading mommy blogs--it's sort of the same thing as reading cookbooks or thrift or organization books written by other moms--you tend to think that the picture you have of this person's life is the whole picture. They look really good, and by comparison you do not, and so you get discouraged.
Well, I hope you know that the picture you get of our lives on this blog isn't always the whole picture. Mostly because I'm lazy and don't write about everything, but often because unconsciously I select the things that are interesting, fun, or overwhelming to write about (I try to consciously include the overwhelming, actually). So you don't see days like yesterday, where the potty situation devolved to requiring seven pairs of pants for Miss Boo and a screaming fit from Buddy in the car because he didn't want to poo in his diaper. But more of that anon.
I am including these moist details so you will know that I am not some great woman whose garden never fails, who always gets the dishes done promptly, and who can whip out homemade presents and cake at the drop of a birthday hat. I am a very pregnant woman who loves her kids, has to pace herself, and who finished Miss Boo's red birthday sweater at about 2:30 yesterday afternoon. Turns out she was just as pleased with it as if she had been able to unwrap it (I didn't have any wrapping either) at breakfast.
See, it's been, as I've mentioned, REALLY cold here, so cold that I didn't feel it was safe for me and the kids to venture out by ourselves. (Our usual excruciatingly slow progress across parking lots is dangerous in below zero weather with a wind chill that makes your face hurt.) So I didn't have any of Miss Boo's presents bought. I didn't even have a cake.
Usually I make birthday cakes, but we're leaving for Thanksgiving at the grandparents' tomorrow, and I didn't think we could eat a whole cake in two days (meaning mostly me and the Husband eating the cake, since the kids eat all of 1/4 piece). I also can't make fractions of cake recipies very well, since eventually you get into things like 1/32 teaspoons of things and are trying to separate an egg into thirds. So my brilliant idea was to take Miss Boo to a bakery and let her choose one of those tiny cakes.
Only it was very, very cold yesterday. Luckily the Husband suggested we just bundle the kids, keep blankies over them, and book it between the car and the store. Under his generalship, Mama's Birthday Fail turned into Miss Boo's "Best-Birthday-In-The-World-I-Love-My-Birthday". She got to go to Target and choose her own dolly, and then to Albertson's and choose her own cake (green frog-shaped) and dinner (frozen pizza). Besides the dolly she got a coloring book, markers AND crayons (decadence...), and a tiny electric keyboard (thanks Oma!). She slept with the dolly and wanted the markers first thing when she woke up this morning.
(Well, first thing she wanted was a bye-bye hug from Daddy, who was just stepping out the door to work, but the second thing was the markers.)
So in spite of Mama's lack of forehandedness and the blithe ignoring of potty chairs we did, the Lord turned it into a good day. I offer this to you as proof that even imperfect people get a lot of beauty from Him whose "faithful love endures forever".
He's certainly blessed me with a sweet little girl, and I still can't get over it, even three years later.
Cheers,
Breanna
As compensation, here is a written account of the birthday.
Sometimes I think that reading blogs can be a little hazardous. At least, moms reading mommy blogs--it's sort of the same thing as reading cookbooks or thrift or organization books written by other moms--you tend to think that the picture you have of this person's life is the whole picture. They look really good, and by comparison you do not, and so you get discouraged.
Well, I hope you know that the picture you get of our lives on this blog isn't always the whole picture. Mostly because I'm lazy and don't write about everything, but often because unconsciously I select the things that are interesting, fun, or overwhelming to write about (I try to consciously include the overwhelming, actually). So you don't see days like yesterday, where the potty situation devolved to requiring seven pairs of pants for Miss Boo and a screaming fit from Buddy in the car because he didn't want to poo in his diaper. But more of that anon.
I am including these moist details so you will know that I am not some great woman whose garden never fails, who always gets the dishes done promptly, and who can whip out homemade presents and cake at the drop of a birthday hat. I am a very pregnant woman who loves her kids, has to pace herself, and who finished Miss Boo's red birthday sweater at about 2:30 yesterday afternoon. Turns out she was just as pleased with it as if she had been able to unwrap it (I didn't have any wrapping either) at breakfast.
See, it's been, as I've mentioned, REALLY cold here, so cold that I didn't feel it was safe for me and the kids to venture out by ourselves. (Our usual excruciatingly slow progress across parking lots is dangerous in below zero weather with a wind chill that makes your face hurt.) So I didn't have any of Miss Boo's presents bought. I didn't even have a cake.
Usually I make birthday cakes, but we're leaving for Thanksgiving at the grandparents' tomorrow, and I didn't think we could eat a whole cake in two days (meaning mostly me and the Husband eating the cake, since the kids eat all of 1/4 piece). I also can't make fractions of cake recipies very well, since eventually you get into things like 1/32 teaspoons of things and are trying to separate an egg into thirds. So my brilliant idea was to take Miss Boo to a bakery and let her choose one of those tiny cakes.
Only it was very, very cold yesterday. Luckily the Husband suggested we just bundle the kids, keep blankies over them, and book it between the car and the store. Under his generalship, Mama's Birthday Fail turned into Miss Boo's "Best-Birthday-In-The-World-I-Love-My-Birthday". She got to go to Target and choose her own dolly, and then to Albertson's and choose her own cake (green frog-shaped) and dinner (frozen pizza). Besides the dolly she got a coloring book, markers AND crayons (decadence...), and a tiny electric keyboard (thanks Oma!). She slept with the dolly and wanted the markers first thing when she woke up this morning.
(Well, first thing she wanted was a bye-bye hug from Daddy, who was just stepping out the door to work, but the second thing was the markers.)
So in spite of Mama's lack of forehandedness and the blithe ignoring of potty chairs we did, the Lord turned it into a good day. I offer this to you as proof that even imperfect people get a lot of beauty from Him whose "faithful love endures forever".
He's certainly blessed me with a sweet little girl, and I still can't get over it, even three years later.
Cheers,
Breanna
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Wholesome Reading
"The writer of the following letters is a young woman who lost her husband in a railroad accident and went to Denver to seek support for herself and her two-year-old daughter, Jerrine. Turning her hand to the nearest work, she went out by the day as housecleaner and laundress. Later, seeking to better herself, she accepted employment as a housekeeper for a well-to-do Scotch cattleman, Mr. Stewart, who had taken up a quarter-section in Wyoming. The letters, written through several years to a former employer in Denver, tell the story of her new life in the new country."
So begins my edition of "Letters of a Woman Homesteader", with a Publisher's Note dated 1914 (the letters themselves begin in 1909). They also made a movie of the story back in the early 80s or late 70s, called "Heartland".
I mention this book because it's one of my top ten books of all time. Also it's free on Kindle--do a search, if you've never read it and you have a Kindle. Please read it, especially if you are a mamma with babies and feeling overwhelmed.
Those of you who know how much I read will be more impressed by the fact that this book made my top ten--maybe even my top five, I dunno; not being Baba I haven't actually made the physical list--but I pull this book out to read along with The Imitation of Christ and my C.S. Lewis whenever I get into a fit of self-pity. Thomas a Kempis and Lewis are both good about stating the theory of submission and contentment, and Mrs. Stewart shows me the practicality (and quietly rebukes my softness).
Not that Elinore was a devotional writer in any way, although she was a devout Catholic and mentions quite simply the pleasure she takes in praying with her daughter. What she gives me in a refreshing ability to take hard work as a matter of course, and desperately hard work and even tragedy as something that comes into every life. She did a quantity of work in a day that would easily knock me flat--cooking (on a wood cookstove) for a rancher and his hands, managing a garden, milking cows, tending chickens, doing laundry with a wringer and a boiler and a clothesline, making bread, sewing, knitting, mending, chopping kindling, and occasionally putting up something for her poorer neighbors because she had a little time left over. She did all this alone on a homestead with her little girl and her employer, with her nearest female neighbors a long ride away.
It always settles me down to read the story. Firstly Elinore was a good writer, with an ear for dialect and an eye for the stories around her, but it's mostly the unspoken stuff in her work that gets you. If she didn't complain about her situation, all of a sudden it makes my whining about housework--in my two-story, carpeted, electrified, gas-heated house with a front-loading washer and dryer and a dishwasher--seem really, really silly. It's one of the rare books that makes you want to get up and do something for Pete's sake. Even while you're reading it you feel like you ought to be knitting a heel onto a sock or taking a patch in the seat of someone's long underwear.
(Completely parenthetically, I wish I could find some of those old-school red wool union suits for the kiddies, or someththing similar in a wool-silk blend. I saw the red ones once at our ranch supply store but I haven't yet this year. The thing is that they'd be like the footie jammies without the feet, and both Miss Boo and Buddy resent the feet on the footie jammies. I resent two-piece jammies that hitch up in the night and make their little bellies cold and then they wake up and have to be resettled. In the meantime I think I'll just put snaps on the shirts and bottoms of the two-piece cotton jammies...or make two-piece fleece jammies, cotton's not adequate for our needs at the moment. It was all of 6F this morning when we got up.)
In other words, this book is wholesome reading. It's empowering in the sense of leaving one no excuses. If this woman, a widow who's been supporting herself and her toddler doing backbreaking work--because laundry was backbreaking in those days--could face the idea of being essentially alone with strange men on the Wyoming range, and do it cheerfully and well, then I've got no room to fuss about living in the middle of soft-and-easy civilization.
There are some books that I think would be handy to all young mamas. Most of them are how-to sorts of books or books about babies, or cookbooks. This one, though, should be in the library of most women merely for the bracing mental outlook. I think men have more of this type of model, honestly; the best one I can think of off the top of my head being the Stephen Ambrose book Band of Brothers or the (very violent and not for kids) television megaseries of the same name. But both genders need to be able to put their problems in persepective and aspire to courage and cussedness, and both need models, and I think women have an easier time taking as a model someone who had to wash dishes umpteen times a day. We sometimes have this illusion that it would be easier to storm a machine-gun nest somewhere once than it would be to continue with the dishes and a cheerful heart. And perhaps it would be, for some folks; that's why you need a model who is like you. Most of you are are not going to be asked to storm machine-gun nests, after all, but there are a lot of dishes in the world.
So go--dig out the sock needles (admit it, you stopped after an inch of ribbing anyway because you got bored, so just knit and read at the same time and finish the dang thing), download the book on your Kindle (it's free!), set a pan of bread dough to raise or a kettle of beans to bake in the oven, and count your blessings. That's my plan for the cold, snowy day.
Cheers,
Breanna
So begins my edition of "Letters of a Woman Homesteader", with a Publisher's Note dated 1914 (the letters themselves begin in 1909). They also made a movie of the story back in the early 80s or late 70s, called "Heartland".
I mention this book because it's one of my top ten books of all time. Also it's free on Kindle--do a search, if you've never read it and you have a Kindle. Please read it, especially if you are a mamma with babies and feeling overwhelmed.
Those of you who know how much I read will be more impressed by the fact that this book made my top ten--maybe even my top five, I dunno; not being Baba I haven't actually made the physical list--but I pull this book out to read along with The Imitation of Christ and my C.S. Lewis whenever I get into a fit of self-pity. Thomas a Kempis and Lewis are both good about stating the theory of submission and contentment, and Mrs. Stewart shows me the practicality (and quietly rebukes my softness).
Not that Elinore was a devotional writer in any way, although she was a devout Catholic and mentions quite simply the pleasure she takes in praying with her daughter. What she gives me in a refreshing ability to take hard work as a matter of course, and desperately hard work and even tragedy as something that comes into every life. She did a quantity of work in a day that would easily knock me flat--cooking (on a wood cookstove) for a rancher and his hands, managing a garden, milking cows, tending chickens, doing laundry with a wringer and a boiler and a clothesline, making bread, sewing, knitting, mending, chopping kindling, and occasionally putting up something for her poorer neighbors because she had a little time left over. She did all this alone on a homestead with her little girl and her employer, with her nearest female neighbors a long ride away.
It always settles me down to read the story. Firstly Elinore was a good writer, with an ear for dialect and an eye for the stories around her, but it's mostly the unspoken stuff in her work that gets you. If she didn't complain about her situation, all of a sudden it makes my whining about housework--in my two-story, carpeted, electrified, gas-heated house with a front-loading washer and dryer and a dishwasher--seem really, really silly. It's one of the rare books that makes you want to get up and do something for Pete's sake. Even while you're reading it you feel like you ought to be knitting a heel onto a sock or taking a patch in the seat of someone's long underwear.
(Completely parenthetically, I wish I could find some of those old-school red wool union suits for the kiddies, or someththing similar in a wool-silk blend. I saw the red ones once at our ranch supply store but I haven't yet this year. The thing is that they'd be like the footie jammies without the feet, and both Miss Boo and Buddy resent the feet on the footie jammies. I resent two-piece jammies that hitch up in the night and make their little bellies cold and then they wake up and have to be resettled. In the meantime I think I'll just put snaps on the shirts and bottoms of the two-piece cotton jammies...or make two-piece fleece jammies, cotton's not adequate for our needs at the moment. It was all of 6F this morning when we got up.)
In other words, this book is wholesome reading. It's empowering in the sense of leaving one no excuses. If this woman, a widow who's been supporting herself and her toddler doing backbreaking work--because laundry was backbreaking in those days--could face the idea of being essentially alone with strange men on the Wyoming range, and do it cheerfully and well, then I've got no room to fuss about living in the middle of soft-and-easy civilization.
There are some books that I think would be handy to all young mamas. Most of them are how-to sorts of books or books about babies, or cookbooks. This one, though, should be in the library of most women merely for the bracing mental outlook. I think men have more of this type of model, honestly; the best one I can think of off the top of my head being the Stephen Ambrose book Band of Brothers or the (very violent and not for kids) television megaseries of the same name. But both genders need to be able to put their problems in persepective and aspire to courage and cussedness, and both need models, and I think women have an easier time taking as a model someone who had to wash dishes umpteen times a day. We sometimes have this illusion that it would be easier to storm a machine-gun nest somewhere once than it would be to continue with the dishes and a cheerful heart. And perhaps it would be, for some folks; that's why you need a model who is like you. Most of you are are not going to be asked to storm machine-gun nests, after all, but there are a lot of dishes in the world.
So go--dig out the sock needles (admit it, you stopped after an inch of ribbing anyway because you got bored, so just knit and read at the same time and finish the dang thing), download the book on your Kindle (it's free!), set a pan of bread dough to raise or a kettle of beans to bake in the oven, and count your blessings. That's my plan for the cold, snowy day.
Cheers,
Breanna
Friday, November 19, 2010
In the Cold
This morning we woke up in the dark, like most winter mornings, and sat sipping at our coffee before the Husband got ready to go to work. We sit at the kitchen table and chat quietly (hoping the kids will stay asleep for a bit) and read, me my Bible and him something else until his new Bible (on a Kindle!) gets here. (Amazon.com said it would get here tomorrow.) Sometimes we pick at a little breakfast; he's never hungry and I know I'll be eating again with the kids. It's a nice chance to connect before he leaves for the day, and if he sneakily tries to let me sleep in I miss it all day.
He leaves before the sun comes up and I'm always a bit twitchy, when it's frozen out, until I know he's safe at work. He has icy, fast roads to travel and there are deer that like to skitter in front of his car.
As the sun rises, Buddy wakes up--his sister had a restless night and is still asleep. He snuggles in my arms and we watch the ice crystals hang in the air. The sunrises have been soft pink lately but today it is blue. It's 10F outside, and I can tell even before I look at the thermometer by how cold the floor gets near the back door.
In spite of all this the chickadees on the dark fir tree outside the front window are cheerful, like little peasant ladies twittering around a marketplace. I like chickadees, even though they're considered rather commonplace birds, and now and then I put the stale bread in the yard to lure them here. They get all my chokecherries too, and welcome to them.
It's been an odd, difficult time lately at our house. Not that we've been fighting or anything--which is really remarkable, now that I think of it--we've just had a slew of weird and hard things to get through. Big decisions, sleepless nights, 60-80 hour weeks at work for the Husband, a stressful time with a new boss, and a bizzare array of pregnancy discomforts for me have all conspired to make us a very weary and run-down couple indeed.
Yet God has preserved us from getting sick, batting at each other, snapping at the kids, or turning into gibbering, slovenly piles of unwashed clothes. (Though I admit the clothes haven't been getting folded terribly promptly.)
Perhaps you could pray for us, both to rest in and be grateful for the gracious faithfulness of God, and for things to get a little easier soon. It's getting to the point where things are piling up enough that you begin to wonder what is going on--like is there a "make it tricky" switch somewhere that got left on?
Cheers,
Breanna
P.S.
Potty training continues to be sucessful, btw--Buddy is now betraying himself when he uses his diapers by standing up and clapping his hands and making his "yay!" sound like when he goes in the potty chair, so we're getting there. ;)
He leaves before the sun comes up and I'm always a bit twitchy, when it's frozen out, until I know he's safe at work. He has icy, fast roads to travel and there are deer that like to skitter in front of his car.
As the sun rises, Buddy wakes up--his sister had a restless night and is still asleep. He snuggles in my arms and we watch the ice crystals hang in the air. The sunrises have been soft pink lately but today it is blue. It's 10F outside, and I can tell even before I look at the thermometer by how cold the floor gets near the back door.
In spite of all this the chickadees on the dark fir tree outside the front window are cheerful, like little peasant ladies twittering around a marketplace. I like chickadees, even though they're considered rather commonplace birds, and now and then I put the stale bread in the yard to lure them here. They get all my chokecherries too, and welcome to them.
It's been an odd, difficult time lately at our house. Not that we've been fighting or anything--which is really remarkable, now that I think of it--we've just had a slew of weird and hard things to get through. Big decisions, sleepless nights, 60-80 hour weeks at work for the Husband, a stressful time with a new boss, and a bizzare array of pregnancy discomforts for me have all conspired to make us a very weary and run-down couple indeed.
Yet God has preserved us from getting sick, batting at each other, snapping at the kids, or turning into gibbering, slovenly piles of unwashed clothes. (Though I admit the clothes haven't been getting folded terribly promptly.)
Perhaps you could pray for us, both to rest in and be grateful for the gracious faithfulness of God, and for things to get a little easier soon. It's getting to the point where things are piling up enough that you begin to wonder what is going on--like is there a "make it tricky" switch somewhere that got left on?
Cheers,
Breanna
P.S.
Potty training continues to be sucessful, btw--Buddy is now betraying himself when he uses his diapers by standing up and clapping his hands and making his "yay!" sound like when he goes in the potty chair, so we're getting there. ;)
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Blogging Whilst I Have Power
In two hours this morning the temperature fell by 10 degrees (still dropping) and the skies dumped two inches of snow, amid a wind that would have pushed over a musk ox.
Well, maybe not a musk ox--I think they stand in circles to keep the babies warm when it gets windy--but it would have knocked over a regular ox. In other words, we have our first snow of the season, and it is a blizzard.
'Round these wild and wooly parts a blizzard means we might (probably) lose power, so if I drop off the face of the internet you'll know why.
The wind has calmed outside somewhat, at least enough that I can see across the street again, and we are cozy-warm inside. I have a fire going in the woodstove, the oil lamp down off the high shelf and ready to light, and diapers washing in a hurry-up way because I realized that while I can dry them on a rack in front of the stove, I really, really don't want to try hand-washing them if we are without power for more than a day.
I am so thankful for the Lord's provision. We have dry wood inside (my thoughtful Husband saw to that), plenty of food in the pantry that can be cooked in the dutch oven on top of the woodstove, lots of wool socks in the drawers, and down comforters on the beds. We have books and non-electric amusements galore. We have each other. We have steady cars that will get the Husband back and forth to work safely. I have two cheerful kids who think looking out at the snow (alternately with potty calls) is great fun, and I have an excuse to sit and knit diaper covers for Littleman.
Miss Boo has been playing with a toy camera that says, as you click the shutter, "You look as pretty as a princess". She told it, "Of course I'm a princess." That, you see, is what her daddy calls her.
Looking around at all God has given me, I know just how she feels.
Cheers,
Breanna
Well, maybe not a musk ox--I think they stand in circles to keep the babies warm when it gets windy--but it would have knocked over a regular ox. In other words, we have our first snow of the season, and it is a blizzard.
'Round these wild and wooly parts a blizzard means we might (probably) lose power, so if I drop off the face of the internet you'll know why.
The wind has calmed outside somewhat, at least enough that I can see across the street again, and we are cozy-warm inside. I have a fire going in the woodstove, the oil lamp down off the high shelf and ready to light, and diapers washing in a hurry-up way because I realized that while I can dry them on a rack in front of the stove, I really, really don't want to try hand-washing them if we are without power for more than a day.
I am so thankful for the Lord's provision. We have dry wood inside (my thoughtful Husband saw to that), plenty of food in the pantry that can be cooked in the dutch oven on top of the woodstove, lots of wool socks in the drawers, and down comforters on the beds. We have books and non-electric amusements galore. We have each other. We have steady cars that will get the Husband back and forth to work safely. I have two cheerful kids who think looking out at the snow (alternately with potty calls) is great fun, and I have an excuse to sit and knit diaper covers for Littleman.
Miss Boo has been playing with a toy camera that says, as you click the shutter, "You look as pretty as a princess". She told it, "Of course I'm a princess." That, you see, is what her daddy calls her.
Looking around at all God has given me, I know just how she feels.
Cheers,
Breanna
Sunday, November 14, 2010
The Most Important Part!
I can't believe I didn't post this yesterday, but it does make an appropriate Sunday post so perhaps it was meant to be.
I meant to mention that the most important thing I did about potty training was pray about it.
Seriously, I prayed about potty training, specifically that the Lord would help the kids (and me) to get it soon, as in, before Littleman arrives. I did the same thing about their sleeping habits.
I could emphasize that it worked--they are getting potty training and they are sleeping better than they have for months, in their own beds--but the bigger lesson, I think, is that God doesn't expect us to do anything on our own.
Most of the time I have this idea in the back of my head that God expects me to handle stuff of a certain magnitude by myself--like He'll help me with the biggies like cancer or who I should marry but not with a difficult left turn at a dangerous intersection or a day when I can't get my housework done. That's backward--we learn that He'll help us with the biggies by trusting Him with everything else.
So--pray first!
Cheers,
Breanna
I meant to mention that the most important thing I did about potty training was pray about it.
Seriously, I prayed about potty training, specifically that the Lord would help the kids (and me) to get it soon, as in, before Littleman arrives. I did the same thing about their sleeping habits.
I could emphasize that it worked--they are getting potty training and they are sleeping better than they have for months, in their own beds--but the bigger lesson, I think, is that God doesn't expect us to do anything on our own.
Most of the time I have this idea in the back of my head that God expects me to handle stuff of a certain magnitude by myself--like He'll help me with the biggies like cancer or who I should marry but not with a difficult left turn at a dangerous intersection or a day when I can't get my housework done. That's backward--we learn that He'll help us with the biggies by trusting Him with everything else.
So--pray first!
Cheers,
Breanna
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Mainly Interesting To Mommies
Disclaimer: If you are a guy, don't have little kids, find bathroom talk to be TMI, or pretty much just don't care about potty training, I suggest you go ahead and read something else. I have had my mind in the potty chair for the last couple of days and I have discoveries.
So.
This is kind of a book review of a couple of books--one is called Diaper-Free Before 3, a crummy title but an interesting book. The other is Diaper-Free, the Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene. They sort of come at an idea I've been playing with, from different angles: What if waiting and waiting and waiting to start potty training is a bad idea?
It began because Miss Boo has a hard time telling me when she needs to potty, and Buddy has been majorly interested in the potty chair. I let him sit on it a few times, but was hesitant to actually try to get him to use it because, after all, he isn't even two years old, and our doctor had told us over and over "if you train them too early, you're the one who's getting trained."
Meanwhile Pullups are expensive and giving Miss Boo a wicked rash, and Mama is getting very, very, very tired of washing load after load of wet pants, and Miss Boo is getting very, very, very frustrated at being wet all the time.
So I got the Gentle Wisdom book on my Kindle and started reading about people who were taking teeny, tiny little babies--like 2 months and younger--to potty. ("Taking them potty" means watching for signals that they have to go and popping a little chamber pot under their butts while you hold them in your lap--not sitting the baby on a big toilet.) I was intrigued and decided to spend a day watching Miss Boo and Buddy for "cues", because after all if people can do it with tiny babies I should be able to do it with mobile, speaking toddlers. (Buddy speaks his own language most of the time, not quite English yet unless he can't make us understand otherwise. I think he finds English limiting.)
Bam! It worked. If I pay attention, they signal me literally every time they need to go, whether by a posture change, a facial expression, dancing around, or staring off into the distance. For a while Buddy was signalling directly after he'd gone, but by afternoon I was catching it. Miss Boo had only one accident all day, and that was my fault--I ignored a cue.
I got the Diaper-Free Before 3 book in the mail yesterday about noon and read it all before bed--it's a little book and fast to read. In it, the author (an MD) argues from research that kids are capable and, indeed, most want to begin potty learning long before their second birthday--even before their first, in some cases. She advocates not so much cue-watching as sitting the kid on the potty at routine times, like before and after naps, trips out into the world, meals, etc. (Note: this doesn't mean that you're being pushy, mean, or stern, you're just having a happy time with the kid reading books and sitting on the potty.) She also points out that by keeping babies in super-absorbant disposable diapers for several years, we remove a natural feedback loop that helps them master pottying-- the cause-and-effect of "I pee, and then I'm wet and uncomfortable". She advocates using disposables for the first year of life and then cotton training pants; I advocate using cloth diapers and never letting the baby sit in wet pants (much easier with cloth, because you can feel when they're wet.)
I figured I could combine the best of both methods, the super-crunchy and the slightly-regimented. I've been watching cues AND taking the kids potty at regular times. So far we've had great success.
Buddy, who is 19 months old, pottied 4 times on the potty chair the first afternoon I decided to try it with him, and pooped there too. I had what was either a brilliant or a stupid idea and went ahead with the cotton training underwear for him. Now he won't let me put a diaper back on and mostly keeps his pants dry, if I pay attention--he comes over and starts tugging at my knees when he needs to go.
Miss Boo clued me in on something vital I had been missing. As I sat her brother on the potty, she came up and put an arm around him and said, "Come on, Buddy, pssss." He peed instantly. So when it was next time for her to try, on a hunch I said "Come on, psssss" instead of "come on, potty". She peed instantly. It occured to me that "potty" to Miss Boo means sitting on the potty chair, and "psssss" means actually getting down to business, and I felt like an idiot for not thinking of it sooner.
I've discovered that lot of what I thought was being squiggly, or resisting naps and bedtime, might have just been that the poor kids needed to pee.
While there are things I disagree with in each book, I am thankful to both authors for suggesting to me that I could just quit diapering my kids altogether and watch them. I need to get some waterproof pads for their beds before I will be comfortable with stopping nighttime (cloth) diapers--and being a nurse I want the good, hospital-quality ones I know are out there, not the flimsy cruddy ones from the baby aisle at Walmart--but for daytime it has been so, so, nice. They even wake up dry from naps.
As to "at this age you're the one being trained", it occured to me that this knee-jerk statement is about on par with the knee-jerk statement I heard when people discovered I was exclusively breastfeeding Miss Boo: "But then you're the only one who can feed the baby!"
Well, duh.
There are lots of things for which I take responsibility until my children are mature enough to do it themselves--from getting them dressed in appropriate clothing to making sure they eat proper food at proper times. If I have to potty them for a while until they can do it themselves, why is that a bad thing? Except, of course, that it doesn't leave me as free to do my own stuff as I would be if I left them sitting in a soggy disposable.
It seems like it's pay-me-now-or-pay-me-later. I can put in the time to watch them now, and hopefully they'll learn quick that it's more comfy to stay dry and go on the potty chair, just like they can climb to their own seats at the table when they're hungry. Or I can leave them diapered, and then have to put in the time when they're 4 years old, convincing them to interrupt their activities to go potty. (After all, wasn't my excuse that I didn't want to interrupt my activities to take them potty? Why should they, if the grownup doesn't?)
That's what I think after a couple days of reading and experimenting. I have another book coming, about pottying tiny babies again, and I may be sharing more ideas from that later. As it is, I am still so excited at being able to see light at the end of the tunnel. I'll probably be posting some practical tips as we get further into this business. Right now the best advice I have is to make sure, if you're potty-training two kids, to have two IDENTICAL potty chairs. We had one highly-favored and one scorned potty chair, and it created enough havoc that today I demoted the scorned potty chair to be the Emergency Car Backup, and went and purchased another favored potty chair. (The blue Baby Bjorn potty, in case you wonder. It does seem more comfy--has arms and a back.)
Cheers,
Breanna
So.
This is kind of a book review of a couple of books--one is called Diaper-Free Before 3, a crummy title but an interesting book. The other is Diaper-Free, the Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene. They sort of come at an idea I've been playing with, from different angles: What if waiting and waiting and waiting to start potty training is a bad idea?
It began because Miss Boo has a hard time telling me when she needs to potty, and Buddy has been majorly interested in the potty chair. I let him sit on it a few times, but was hesitant to actually try to get him to use it because, after all, he isn't even two years old, and our doctor had told us over and over "if you train them too early, you're the one who's getting trained."
Meanwhile Pullups are expensive and giving Miss Boo a wicked rash, and Mama is getting very, very, very tired of washing load after load of wet pants, and Miss Boo is getting very, very, very frustrated at being wet all the time.
So I got the Gentle Wisdom book on my Kindle and started reading about people who were taking teeny, tiny little babies--like 2 months and younger--to potty. ("Taking them potty" means watching for signals that they have to go and popping a little chamber pot under their butts while you hold them in your lap--not sitting the baby on a big toilet.) I was intrigued and decided to spend a day watching Miss Boo and Buddy for "cues", because after all if people can do it with tiny babies I should be able to do it with mobile, speaking toddlers. (Buddy speaks his own language most of the time, not quite English yet unless he can't make us understand otherwise. I think he finds English limiting.)
Bam! It worked. If I pay attention, they signal me literally every time they need to go, whether by a posture change, a facial expression, dancing around, or staring off into the distance. For a while Buddy was signalling directly after he'd gone, but by afternoon I was catching it. Miss Boo had only one accident all day, and that was my fault--I ignored a cue.
I got the Diaper-Free Before 3 book in the mail yesterday about noon and read it all before bed--it's a little book and fast to read. In it, the author (an MD) argues from research that kids are capable and, indeed, most want to begin potty learning long before their second birthday--even before their first, in some cases. She advocates not so much cue-watching as sitting the kid on the potty at routine times, like before and after naps, trips out into the world, meals, etc. (Note: this doesn't mean that you're being pushy, mean, or stern, you're just having a happy time with the kid reading books and sitting on the potty.) She also points out that by keeping babies in super-absorbant disposable diapers for several years, we remove a natural feedback loop that helps them master pottying-- the cause-and-effect of "I pee, and then I'm wet and uncomfortable". She advocates using disposables for the first year of life and then cotton training pants; I advocate using cloth diapers and never letting the baby sit in wet pants (much easier with cloth, because you can feel when they're wet.)
I figured I could combine the best of both methods, the super-crunchy and the slightly-regimented. I've been watching cues AND taking the kids potty at regular times. So far we've had great success.
Buddy, who is 19 months old, pottied 4 times on the potty chair the first afternoon I decided to try it with him, and pooped there too. I had what was either a brilliant or a stupid idea and went ahead with the cotton training underwear for him. Now he won't let me put a diaper back on and mostly keeps his pants dry, if I pay attention--he comes over and starts tugging at my knees when he needs to go.
Miss Boo clued me in on something vital I had been missing. As I sat her brother on the potty, she came up and put an arm around him and said, "Come on, Buddy, pssss." He peed instantly. So when it was next time for her to try, on a hunch I said "Come on, psssss" instead of "come on, potty". She peed instantly. It occured to me that "potty" to Miss Boo means sitting on the potty chair, and "psssss" means actually getting down to business, and I felt like an idiot for not thinking of it sooner.
I've discovered that lot of what I thought was being squiggly, or resisting naps and bedtime, might have just been that the poor kids needed to pee.
While there are things I disagree with in each book, I am thankful to both authors for suggesting to me that I could just quit diapering my kids altogether and watch them. I need to get some waterproof pads for their beds before I will be comfortable with stopping nighttime (cloth) diapers--and being a nurse I want the good, hospital-quality ones I know are out there, not the flimsy cruddy ones from the baby aisle at Walmart--but for daytime it has been so, so, nice. They even wake up dry from naps.
As to "at this age you're the one being trained", it occured to me that this knee-jerk statement is about on par with the knee-jerk statement I heard when people discovered I was exclusively breastfeeding Miss Boo: "But then you're the only one who can feed the baby!"
Well, duh.
There are lots of things for which I take responsibility until my children are mature enough to do it themselves--from getting them dressed in appropriate clothing to making sure they eat proper food at proper times. If I have to potty them for a while until they can do it themselves, why is that a bad thing? Except, of course, that it doesn't leave me as free to do my own stuff as I would be if I left them sitting in a soggy disposable.
It seems like it's pay-me-now-or-pay-me-later. I can put in the time to watch them now, and hopefully they'll learn quick that it's more comfy to stay dry and go on the potty chair, just like they can climb to their own seats at the table when they're hungry. Or I can leave them diapered, and then have to put in the time when they're 4 years old, convincing them to interrupt their activities to go potty. (After all, wasn't my excuse that I didn't want to interrupt my activities to take them potty? Why should they, if the grownup doesn't?)
That's what I think after a couple days of reading and experimenting. I have another book coming, about pottying tiny babies again, and I may be sharing more ideas from that later. As it is, I am still so excited at being able to see light at the end of the tunnel. I'll probably be posting some practical tips as we get further into this business. Right now the best advice I have is to make sure, if you're potty-training two kids, to have two IDENTICAL potty chairs. We had one highly-favored and one scorned potty chair, and it created enough havoc that today I demoted the scorned potty chair to be the Emergency Car Backup, and went and purchased another favored potty chair. (The blue Baby Bjorn potty, in case you wonder. It does seem more comfy--has arms and a back.)
Cheers,
Breanna
Monday, November 8, 2010
Our Rainy Afternoon
Actually some of these are from last week, which just goes to prove that I really did have good intentions about getting the baby pictures up.
That was my lunchbox back when I was working (for a paycheck--I'm pretty sure I still work, my hours are just not taxable). Now it holds crayons, pencils, and occasionally a leaf-shaped soap that Miss Boo has adopted, and carries around tenderly. But we don't get it wet.
The problem is that she is drawing some huge project, and Buddy thinks he ought to help. Only of course, he doesn't do it in the way she wants him to, and her eldest-child/older-sister/passionate-personality comes out, and it's very, very, very difficult not to shove the picture-wrecking brother off the chair onto his little bald pate.
So this was deemed a safer activity today: cookies and cartoons, considering we've had a cranky morning (Mama had to go to the midwife, and the strain of behaving for so long in the waiting room broke after lunch in a wild fit of fussiness.)
Chocolate chip/Heath bits cookies. Very nice invention, if I do say so myself; however, just for your information the Heath bits melt, and make a kind of toffee layer in the middle of the cookie. They don't stay in bits.
Yes, that's the potty chair he's sitting on, fully-clothed. It's where the cool people sit these days. Sigh.
Another view of her "writing". It quickly becomes a picture, but she likes to write some first. Not sure what the difference is yet, but notice the good pencil holding! We've been working on not holding it like a dagger in our fist.
The cloth diapering has been going amazingly well. I ordered 3 Bumgenius 3.0 (for the curious) from Cotton Babies, for overnight dipes (we have been using disposables), and I take back everything I ever said about not needing the more expensive cloth diapers. Well, not everything--you don't NEED them, I got by just fine with Miss Boo using prefolds and Dappi pants--but wow, these diapers are slick. They look like NASA engineered them, and they're about as simple to use as a disposable. We'll be using them, with the hemp inserts, tonight, and I will report on whether they work well.
During the day Miss Boo has been wearing cloth training panties (at home) and Pullups (if we are in a store and can't leave a puddle) but I am hoping to get rid of the Pullups, because they give her a horrible rash. Buddy's been wearing Econobum diapers, which I love, love, love--they are $50 for a startup kit that should take you from newborn through toddler stage. Using it now at the toddler stage, I can report that it works well. When Littleman is born, I'll tell you how they fit for a newborn.
An unforseen bonus is that since switching to cloth Buddy's eczema has cleared up. He frequently gets, or used to, a little bumpy pinprick rash on his chest, besides lots of diaper rashes. He hasn't had a single rash since we've been in cloth. I'm a dumb mama not to have thought of it before, but at least I know enough to keep doing what works.
As far as laundry goes I've been washing every morning, looking at it as a simple chore like doing the dishes. And honestly, with the nice washing machine I have, I really have nothing to complain about. (The thing has a "sanitary" cycle and boils the water, for pete's sake.)
You'll forgive me for going on about diapers. I am just still thrilled over the cute little things... and they are seconds with cosmetic flaws--they were half price. Supposedly the labels were sewn on crooked or something, but I can detect no cosmetic flaws.
Hie you to Cotton Babies, then, if you have kiddos in diapers, and just think about it--for less than the cost of one month of disposables, you can never buy diapers again. Hurrah!
Cheers,
Breanna
Sunday, November 7, 2010
God Knows What He's Doing
I listened to a sermon today that was supposed to be about prayer but was really about the sovereignty of God. (It happens. Sometimes something morphs as you're making it. I guess sermons are no different. And I know that prayer and sovereignty are linked.) It occurred to me that although we know God is sovereign, we 1) aren't really sure what that means sometimes and 2) tend to act like He isn't.
Sovereignty means that God knows what He's doing. In other words, the God Who made you knows what's best for you.
This is difficult to apply. Part of our sin nature is that we are all sure, deep down where our thoughts don't bear much examination, that we know what's best for us. Sometimes, perhaps, we do--but I suspect that most of the time we really don't. Given that I'm not God, the rational part of me knows that I'd be really bad at doing His job. The prideful part that likes to whisper at the back of my mind isn't entirely convinced.
That's one reason that the Bible talks a lot about submission and surrender and not so much about following your heart and going with your gut. It says something not entirely flattering about us that we are so fond of stories where people follow their intuition (against advice or morality) and then turn out to be right; we almost never see a story where someone follows their intuition and is wildly wrong. (Well, except on those talk shows about people who get into romantic relationships with people they met on Myspace.)
You can all be praying for the Husband and I if you would, as we are needing to make some rather complex decisions in the next few weeks. We are having to rely on the sovereignty of God. It's good practice, and it also reminds us to be thankful for His other attributes. He's a good Sovereign; He loves us, and doesn't move us around like chess pieces just for fun. Whatever He does fufills His perfectly loving purpose, and whatever He asks us to do is likewise important. Tuck this into the back of your mind: when you say "no" to God, you are being not only sinful but stupid. (Yes, I said that.) Of course it's stupid. God knows everything--it's silly to argue that you know more than Him, given that you are not even sure where you left your green socks.
All of which is, as usual, easy to say and hard to do. Stuck in a fleshly body, with the inability to see even a speck of the future, the only thing you can do is to stick hard to the things you know are true; God loves you, and He knows what He's doing. Your job is simple: just say "yes".
Cheers,
Breanna
Sovereignty means that God knows what He's doing. In other words, the God Who made you knows what's best for you.
This is difficult to apply. Part of our sin nature is that we are all sure, deep down where our thoughts don't bear much examination, that we know what's best for us. Sometimes, perhaps, we do--but I suspect that most of the time we really don't. Given that I'm not God, the rational part of me knows that I'd be really bad at doing His job. The prideful part that likes to whisper at the back of my mind isn't entirely convinced.
That's one reason that the Bible talks a lot about submission and surrender and not so much about following your heart and going with your gut. It says something not entirely flattering about us that we are so fond of stories where people follow their intuition (against advice or morality) and then turn out to be right; we almost never see a story where someone follows their intuition and is wildly wrong. (Well, except on those talk shows about people who get into romantic relationships with people they met on Myspace.)
You can all be praying for the Husband and I if you would, as we are needing to make some rather complex decisions in the next few weeks. We are having to rely on the sovereignty of God. It's good practice, and it also reminds us to be thankful for His other attributes. He's a good Sovereign; He loves us, and doesn't move us around like chess pieces just for fun. Whatever He does fufills His perfectly loving purpose, and whatever He asks us to do is likewise important. Tuck this into the back of your mind: when you say "no" to God, you are being not only sinful but stupid. (Yes, I said that.) Of course it's stupid. God knows everything--it's silly to argue that you know more than Him, given that you are not even sure where you left your green socks.
All of which is, as usual, easy to say and hard to do. Stuck in a fleshly body, with the inability to see even a speck of the future, the only thing you can do is to stick hard to the things you know are true; God loves you, and He knows what He's doing. Your job is simple: just say "yes".
Cheers,
Breanna
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Doubling Everything But Your Money
I promise I'll have some cute kid pictures soon, but I'm still reeling from my most recent trip to my friendly neighborhood grocer.
You have to understand how I grocery shop--I don't go every week. Here's what it looks like at our house:
Every six months we go to Costco and spend about $300 on big bags of flour, rice, beans, and sugar, and cases of canned milk, canned fruit and veggies, pasta, coffee, and Nutella. (Everyone needs some luxury on their toast.) Every year we spend about $700 purchasing an entire cow from a rancher, having it slaughtered, and wrapped for our freezer. This takes care of a large bit of our dry goods and almost all our meat for about $1300 per year. As we eat down the beef I buy and freeze butter 4 lbs at a time. Cheese I could theoretically freeze, but we eat it too fast for that. (Roughly 5 lbs of cheddar alone, per month. Seriously.)
But in between, we need milk and eggs and salad greens (the season here lasts about a month and greens can simultaneously have bolted and be frost-nipped, so no, I do not grow all my own) and bananas. So for a few things, I shop like normal people, just once every two weeks or so and for the same items.
This week I needed some things that we usually store in the pantry--ground coffee, for one. It's been at least 2 months since I bought ground coffee at the grocery store; then a can of Folger's cost $5.99. This week it was $9.99--on sale for $1 off--and the can is smaller. I have an old one (Miss Boo likes to freestyle drum with it) and compared.
I don't like buying bread but with my sciatica, we were--the bread that was $2.50 last time I bought it is now $4.25. The price of milk is holding steady, but 5 measly chicken breasts cost $12.95--more than two bucks a cutlet, my friends.
And then we got the phone bill and found that, through adding 40 cents to a tax here, and $2 to a fee there, our flat rate has gone up by $28 per month. Now, $28 per month is not going to break us, but I still wish that they had mentioned something about these coming fees *last* month. As it is, I can make it break almost even by cancelling our long distance plan that we never use, and using cell phones instead. (We need the landline to get the internet, or we wouldn't have a house phone at all, I think.)
What do these trends indicate?
Well, I said in my last post that a lot of people are finding they should spend less this year. I think this confirms it: when folks are making less money (for instance, the Husband's company has frozen raises for the last couple of years, from the CEO on down--and they are furloughing workers during shutdowns) and necessary things like bread and meat are getting twice as expensive, then it's time to batten the hatches a bit.
Just a bit, if you are squeamish or fear that I'm going to make you eat mashed turnips. I mean things like why not invest in one of those re-usable cups-that-looks-like-a-Starbucks-cup that I see popping up in Target/Walmart/Kmart, and take your home-brewed coffee to work in it? From a distance, you'll still look like you're spending $6 for a cup of coffee, if you care about that sort of thing. (Remember, I was shocked that a whole can of coffee that makes 120 cups cost $9.99--I'm trying hard to be sympathetic to those sensitive to coffee peer pressure, but I'm failing kind of miserably.)
I sort of like the frugality game, so we're returning to basics at my house. I'm making bread again--with the mixer that the Husband gave me for my birthday it's practically effortless--and after figuring out that disposable diapers for Bud + disposable training pants for Miss Bo = at least $160 per month, I pulled out the cloth diapers again. (Lazy, what can I say. Being pregnant/morning sick/sciatica-ed kicked my behind. But I am feeling better for the moment. And Pullups are way, way expensive.) For the last two days we've made the cloth diapering/cloth training pants a point. Miss Boo has decided that Diapers Are For Babies, Not Girls and Mama has rediscovered that it's really not that hard. And I'm calling the phone company in the morning.
I tell you all this, instead of just pretending like of course we never fell into the disposable diaper pit, so that you don't get discouraged with your own attempts to be good stewards of your money. So you knew better and you didn't do it. So what? Fix it now.
One thing I should point out, though the tail end of a post probably isn't the place--don't stop tithing just because you have less to tithe with. God still wants you to take care of the needy, and if you have a computer screen to read this on I'm betting you can find people who are more needy than you are. Maybe you can't give them money, but you can always add a little water to the soup, right? Make sure your elderly or alone neighbors aren't lonely and cold this time of year, especially if you've got the woodstove burning anyway. Invite them over for a chat, or go to their house with a plate of gingerbread. For the price of a little molasses, you might save a life--and you'll make the Lord smile.
Cheers,
Breanna
EDIT: The Husband kindly corrected my math. It isn't $700 total for the cow--that's just what we pay the rancher--the cut and wrap is another $350 or so. So our meat for the year (and some to give away because of the size of our freezer) is about $1100, give or take, bringing my figure to around $1400.
You have to understand how I grocery shop--I don't go every week. Here's what it looks like at our house:
Every six months we go to Costco and spend about $300 on big bags of flour, rice, beans, and sugar, and cases of canned milk, canned fruit and veggies, pasta, coffee, and Nutella. (Everyone needs some luxury on their toast.) Every year we spend about $700 purchasing an entire cow from a rancher, having it slaughtered, and wrapped for our freezer. This takes care of a large bit of our dry goods and almost all our meat for about $1300 per year. As we eat down the beef I buy and freeze butter 4 lbs at a time. Cheese I could theoretically freeze, but we eat it too fast for that. (Roughly 5 lbs of cheddar alone, per month. Seriously.)
But in between, we need milk and eggs and salad greens (the season here lasts about a month and greens can simultaneously have bolted and be frost-nipped, so no, I do not grow all my own) and bananas. So for a few things, I shop like normal people, just once every two weeks or so and for the same items.
This week I needed some things that we usually store in the pantry--ground coffee, for one. It's been at least 2 months since I bought ground coffee at the grocery store; then a can of Folger's cost $5.99. This week it was $9.99--on sale for $1 off--and the can is smaller. I have an old one (Miss Boo likes to freestyle drum with it) and compared.
I don't like buying bread but with my sciatica, we were--the bread that was $2.50 last time I bought it is now $4.25. The price of milk is holding steady, but 5 measly chicken breasts cost $12.95--more than two bucks a cutlet, my friends.
And then we got the phone bill and found that, through adding 40 cents to a tax here, and $2 to a fee there, our flat rate has gone up by $28 per month. Now, $28 per month is not going to break us, but I still wish that they had mentioned something about these coming fees *last* month. As it is, I can make it break almost even by cancelling our long distance plan that we never use, and using cell phones instead. (We need the landline to get the internet, or we wouldn't have a house phone at all, I think.)
What do these trends indicate?
Well, I said in my last post that a lot of people are finding they should spend less this year. I think this confirms it: when folks are making less money (for instance, the Husband's company has frozen raises for the last couple of years, from the CEO on down--and they are furloughing workers during shutdowns) and necessary things like bread and meat are getting twice as expensive, then it's time to batten the hatches a bit.
Just a bit, if you are squeamish or fear that I'm going to make you eat mashed turnips. I mean things like why not invest in one of those re-usable cups-that-looks-like-a-Starbucks-cup that I see popping up in Target/Walmart/Kmart, and take your home-brewed coffee to work in it? From a distance, you'll still look like you're spending $6 for a cup of coffee, if you care about that sort of thing. (Remember, I was shocked that a whole can of coffee that makes 120 cups cost $9.99--I'm trying hard to be sympathetic to those sensitive to coffee peer pressure, but I'm failing kind of miserably.)
I sort of like the frugality game, so we're returning to basics at my house. I'm making bread again--with the mixer that the Husband gave me for my birthday it's practically effortless--and after figuring out that disposable diapers for Bud + disposable training pants for Miss Bo = at least $160 per month, I pulled out the cloth diapers again. (Lazy, what can I say. Being pregnant/morning sick/sciatica-ed kicked my behind. But I am feeling better for the moment. And Pullups are way, way expensive.) For the last two days we've made the cloth diapering/cloth training pants a point. Miss Boo has decided that Diapers Are For Babies, Not Girls and Mama has rediscovered that it's really not that hard. And I'm calling the phone company in the morning.
I tell you all this, instead of just pretending like of course we never fell into the disposable diaper pit, so that you don't get discouraged with your own attempts to be good stewards of your money. So you knew better and you didn't do it. So what? Fix it now.
One thing I should point out, though the tail end of a post probably isn't the place--don't stop tithing just because you have less to tithe with. God still wants you to take care of the needy, and if you have a computer screen to read this on I'm betting you can find people who are more needy than you are. Maybe you can't give them money, but you can always add a little water to the soup, right? Make sure your elderly or alone neighbors aren't lonely and cold this time of year, especially if you've got the woodstove burning anyway. Invite them over for a chat, or go to their house with a plate of gingerbread. For the price of a little molasses, you might save a life--and you'll make the Lord smile.
Cheers,
Breanna
EDIT: The Husband kindly corrected my math. It isn't $700 total for the cow--that's just what we pay the rancher--the cut and wrap is another $350 or so. So our meat for the year (and some to give away because of the size of our freezer) is about $1100, give or take, bringing my figure to around $1400.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Welcome to the Holidays
...as they put it in the Advertisements.
I feel sorry for retailers this year, in a way; they seem to be very desperate to assure themselves a good Christmas sales season. I say I only feel sorry for them in a way--I feel sorry for the temporary workers who might not get hired or for the clerks that will lose their jobs when stores have to close--but I don't feel sorry about what looks like the partial demise of the Christmas shopping industry.
See, as we've talked about before, the main point of Christmas for Christians is a religious festival that is of little interest to the rest of the world. Of this festival, gifts make up only a small part.
No, I am not against giving Christmas gifts. Even Lexuses (Lexi?) with big red bows on them, if you can afford them. I am against giving more than you can afford. And this year, with our economy in something very similar to shambles, it seems like a lot of people aren't going to be able to afford as much as in past years.
By "afford" I mean you don't take advantage of K-mart's layaway program, accept the offer of a new Target credit card, or ignore a payment on a debt you already have in order to pay for presents. I also mean that the presents you select have a few characteristics--they fit into your budget (money you've already set aside), they are something that the reciever will use (vs. a random knicknack that you bought just because you weren't sure what to get them and you had to get something) and they fit your values (I'm not going to tell you what your values are--if you don't know, you have bigger problems than your shopping list).
Here are a few ideas for presents that hopefully won't involve K-mart's Layway Plan, to get you thinking:
Homemade presents
These don't have to be dumb, and you shouldn't have to open an account with Stampin' Up (or whomever is selling stamps for greeting cards and scrapbooks these days). Try:
a) Knitted or sewn gifts made with materials from your stash--if you are a crafter, you probably have supplies. Don't go out and buy the yarn for a scarf, make a Joseph's Coat shawl instead where you use up all your bits, and present it to a person as a Reading-In-Bed shawl, if you're afraid they won't like the looks. Rice bags to be warmed in the microwave and then placed under cold feet in bed or over sore shoulders are nice, too, and inexpensive.
b) Edible gifts - Cocoa mixes, flavored vodkas, herbed vinegars, baked bean seasoning mixes (packaged with a jar of beans), fancy cake mixes, a jar of home-canned jelly or pie filling, some freezer meals, etc. etc. etc.
c) Homemade cosmetics - a bit more expensive than the others, because you'll have to get the supplies from somewhere (like the health food store): white clay, some herbs, etc. But because most of these things are sold by the pound, and because it takes a lot of herbs to make a pound, you can make a lot of say, Rosemary Gladstar's cleansing facial scrub for the cost of one batch of herbs, and then package it for several female relatives. Stick it in a basket with a homemade washcloth and a candle and you've got a nice spa gift.
d) If you are an artist, you can write a story, draw/paint a picture (maybe a portrait of a loved one who is in heaven? you can use an old photo), take photos, scuplt a vase, etc. etc.
Also don't underestimate the power of simple rituals.
If money is tight, consider gifting mainly to the children, with adults concentrating on enjoying (and making enjoyable) things that can become a recurring part of each Christmas season. For instance:
a) Advent wreaths and readings.
b) Christmas music, both recorded and sung by the family--surely there's someone who can play an instrument or carry a tune.
c) Caroling the neighbors.
d) Stringing popcorn and cranberries to make a tree garland, perhaps on Christmas Eve while someone reads the Christmas story.
e) Setting up the Nativity Scene-- either all at once, or in the traditional way of adding a new piece every so often until you add the Christ Child on Christmas Day.
f) Making a creche
g) Using an Advent calendar
h) Cooking a special dish for Christmas breakfast (or Christmas Eve dinner, or whatever)
i) Attending church services
j) Putting on a family Christmas program with improvised costumes, performed for uncles and aunts or visiting grandparents
k) Making cards for faraway relatives
l) Watching a movie you watch every year (yeah, we have a few...)
m) Reading aloud every night from Thanksgiving to December, both religious and classical Christmas stories--i.e., legends, some Dickens, A Visit from St. Nicholas, ending with the real Christmas story from the Gospels.
n) Decorating the house and yard - with lights and stuff if you've got them, but if you must be frugal you can be traditional, too. For $5 around here, you can get a permit from the Forest Service to go into the woods and cut a Christmas tree; if you do that, you will certainly have lots of branches for greenery. Holly and mistletoe have to be purchased from a florist here (because they're English plants, I think), but each can be made from construction paper and are good crafts for kids that have been shaking packages. Popcorn and cranberries make lovely garlands, and paper snowflakes are another good kid-distraction craft. You can use Crayola window crayons to decorate the windows, too.
o) Coming up with creative wrapping for packages-- maybe you don't want to spend money on paper that will be thrown away. If you are clever and save paper you are set, but you can also do things like make the wrapping (a bag with the owner's intials embroidered on it) part of the gift, or part of the tradition--maybe everyonehas the same bag(s) year after year.
p) Making, decorating, or hanging Christmas stockings--reading about the tradition of the stocking.
q) If you don't know anyone needy you could go serve dinner one night at a rescue mission or something, but before you go manufacturing charity, think about your neighbors. Isn't there an old person in your neighborhood who might need their walk shoveled--for free--for the winter? Or someone who'd benefit from a basket of easy-to-fix food left on their porch? Or a lonely college student at church who needs a family to celebrate with for Christmas or Thanksgiving? Remember "He sets the lonely in families".
r) Reminiscing - if you can get the older members of the family talking, and someone inconspicuous acting as a scribe/recorder (if you have a dictaphone), you can pass on family history. Get the grandparents or the aunts and uncles talking about the time Uncle Simon fell off the roof on Thanksgiving, wedding stories, wartime stories, stories of other Christmases, etc. Such memories are valuable and easy to lose. Old photo albums are a good way to start this.
s) Build snowmen, igloos, or have snowball fights, depending on the aggression level of the cousins.
That's all the letters I can think of at the moment. :) Doesn't that sound funner than a Tickle-Me-Elmo? Now that you're not worried that not getting your kid whatever toy they've decided is the "must" this year will damage them forever, I'll cease talking about Christmas until after Thanksgiving, which is how we will spend November.
Cheers,
Breanna
I feel sorry for retailers this year, in a way; they seem to be very desperate to assure themselves a good Christmas sales season. I say I only feel sorry for them in a way--I feel sorry for the temporary workers who might not get hired or for the clerks that will lose their jobs when stores have to close--but I don't feel sorry about what looks like the partial demise of the Christmas shopping industry.
See, as we've talked about before, the main point of Christmas for Christians is a religious festival that is of little interest to the rest of the world. Of this festival, gifts make up only a small part.
No, I am not against giving Christmas gifts. Even Lexuses (Lexi?) with big red bows on them, if you can afford them. I am against giving more than you can afford. And this year, with our economy in something very similar to shambles, it seems like a lot of people aren't going to be able to afford as much as in past years.
By "afford" I mean you don't take advantage of K-mart's layaway program, accept the offer of a new Target credit card, or ignore a payment on a debt you already have in order to pay for presents. I also mean that the presents you select have a few characteristics--they fit into your budget (money you've already set aside), they are something that the reciever will use (vs. a random knicknack that you bought just because you weren't sure what to get them and you had to get something) and they fit your values (I'm not going to tell you what your values are--if you don't know, you have bigger problems than your shopping list).
Here are a few ideas for presents that hopefully won't involve K-mart's Layway Plan, to get you thinking:
Homemade presents
These don't have to be dumb, and you shouldn't have to open an account with Stampin' Up (or whomever is selling stamps for greeting cards and scrapbooks these days). Try:
a) Knitted or sewn gifts made with materials from your stash--if you are a crafter, you probably have supplies. Don't go out and buy the yarn for a scarf, make a Joseph's Coat shawl instead where you use up all your bits, and present it to a person as a Reading-In-Bed shawl, if you're afraid they won't like the looks. Rice bags to be warmed in the microwave and then placed under cold feet in bed or over sore shoulders are nice, too, and inexpensive.
b) Edible gifts - Cocoa mixes, flavored vodkas, herbed vinegars, baked bean seasoning mixes (packaged with a jar of beans), fancy cake mixes, a jar of home-canned jelly or pie filling, some freezer meals, etc. etc. etc.
c) Homemade cosmetics - a bit more expensive than the others, because you'll have to get the supplies from somewhere (like the health food store): white clay, some herbs, etc. But because most of these things are sold by the pound, and because it takes a lot of herbs to make a pound, you can make a lot of say, Rosemary Gladstar's cleansing facial scrub for the cost of one batch of herbs, and then package it for several female relatives. Stick it in a basket with a homemade washcloth and a candle and you've got a nice spa gift.
d) If you are an artist, you can write a story, draw/paint a picture (maybe a portrait of a loved one who is in heaven? you can use an old photo), take photos, scuplt a vase, etc. etc.
Also don't underestimate the power of simple rituals.
If money is tight, consider gifting mainly to the children, with adults concentrating on enjoying (and making enjoyable) things that can become a recurring part of each Christmas season. For instance:
a) Advent wreaths and readings.
b) Christmas music, both recorded and sung by the family--surely there's someone who can play an instrument or carry a tune.
c) Caroling the neighbors.
d) Stringing popcorn and cranberries to make a tree garland, perhaps on Christmas Eve while someone reads the Christmas story.
e) Setting up the Nativity Scene-- either all at once, or in the traditional way of adding a new piece every so often until you add the Christ Child on Christmas Day.
f) Making a creche
g) Using an Advent calendar
h) Cooking a special dish for Christmas breakfast (or Christmas Eve dinner, or whatever)
i) Attending church services
j) Putting on a family Christmas program with improvised costumes, performed for uncles and aunts or visiting grandparents
k) Making cards for faraway relatives
l) Watching a movie you watch every year (yeah, we have a few...)
m) Reading aloud every night from Thanksgiving to December, both religious and classical Christmas stories--i.e., legends, some Dickens, A Visit from St. Nicholas, ending with the real Christmas story from the Gospels.
n) Decorating the house and yard - with lights and stuff if you've got them, but if you must be frugal you can be traditional, too. For $5 around here, you can get a permit from the Forest Service to go into the woods and cut a Christmas tree; if you do that, you will certainly have lots of branches for greenery. Holly and mistletoe have to be purchased from a florist here (because they're English plants, I think), but each can be made from construction paper and are good crafts for kids that have been shaking packages. Popcorn and cranberries make lovely garlands, and paper snowflakes are another good kid-distraction craft. You can use Crayola window crayons to decorate the windows, too.
o) Coming up with creative wrapping for packages-- maybe you don't want to spend money on paper that will be thrown away. If you are clever and save paper you are set, but you can also do things like make the wrapping (a bag with the owner's intials embroidered on it) part of the gift, or part of the tradition--maybe everyonehas the same bag(s) year after year.
p) Making, decorating, or hanging Christmas stockings--reading about the tradition of the stocking.
q) If you don't know anyone needy you could go serve dinner one night at a rescue mission or something, but before you go manufacturing charity, think about your neighbors. Isn't there an old person in your neighborhood who might need their walk shoveled--for free--for the winter? Or someone who'd benefit from a basket of easy-to-fix food left on their porch? Or a lonely college student at church who needs a family to celebrate with for Christmas or Thanksgiving? Remember "He sets the lonely in families".
r) Reminiscing - if you can get the older members of the family talking, and someone inconspicuous acting as a scribe/recorder (if you have a dictaphone), you can pass on family history. Get the grandparents or the aunts and uncles talking about the time Uncle Simon fell off the roof on Thanksgiving, wedding stories, wartime stories, stories of other Christmases, etc. Such memories are valuable and easy to lose. Old photo albums are a good way to start this.
s) Build snowmen, igloos, or have snowball fights, depending on the aggression level of the cousins.
That's all the letters I can think of at the moment. :) Doesn't that sound funner than a Tickle-Me-Elmo? Now that you're not worried that not getting your kid whatever toy they've decided is the "must" this year will damage them forever, I'll cease talking about Christmas until after Thanksgiving, which is how we will spend November.
Cheers,
Breanna
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