www.thoughtsinterrupted.net

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Not sure if you ever do this, but when I decide I’m going to revise some facet of my life, I have a really hard time staying focused on the predefined responsiblity in the meantime. In today’s terms, I’ve decided that I’m going to update my blog and give it an address all its own.

The I in this scenario would better be stated as we…seeing that without my better half and his ability to master all things technological, this facelift would not be occurring. I have big and small ideas for my new virtual home, but mostly am just ready for a clean slate. There’s something beautiful about revision. In college I rearranged my dorm furniture about every two months. Is it possible to love revising while also loathing change? It must be.

All that to say, I’ve thought about posting countless times. But then, I stop myself - figuring that each of these virtual contemplations would be better suited for the new blog. And time ticks on. 

Today we were supposed to head north for the day to take in one of our favorite spots. It’s a magical place for us. There are tide pools filled with sea stars, tall Eucalyptus groves and miles of ocean bluffs to explore.  

Hailey hasn’t been there yet and it seemed as though this holiday was the perfect opportunity. Then, Phil’s throat started feeling funny. Prudence told us to stick to a more basic plan. And so, with a few tears behind us, we loaded up the car with simple snacks and explored a familiar path closer to home.

With kids comes the need to be flexible – to live it ourselves with the hope of modeling it for them. Sometimes this feels incredibly difficult. Other times, the beauty remains in tact. 

 Click to view slideshow.

My nightstand has a fairly neat stack of titles that continue to deplete my Post-It Tabs. It turns out that I’m just not a one-at-a-time book sort of lady. I’m okay with this. At moments I do question my behavior from the standpoint of  personal cohesion. Then I move on (and find something else to read). 

That as the backdrop, here’s some present day favorites.

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean my Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun  By, Gretchen Rubin

This one caught my attention right away. Rubin is a professional writer, a wife and a mother of two girls whose age span mirrors the H’s. She has no intention of pulling an Eat, Love, Pray on her family (which I appreciate) but also recognizes the merit in searching one’s soul and taking intentional steps towards a happier existence. Some nights my attention has waned, but generally speaking her ideas have challenged my own and left me with some solid takeaways (like committing to a 10:00 bedtime and pursuing the end of designing a new blog). 

One Thousand Gifts: Dare to Live Fully Where You Are  By, Ann Voskamp

Within the first few pages, I found myself taken by Ann’s craft; her transparency borders on unsettling, yet dares to move through the realm of grief and hope in ways I’ve never encountered before.  

National Geographic Guide to the National Parks of the United States, 6th Edition

Last month I came up with an idea. It was birthed out of my desire to leverage the lifestyle benefits of teaching the girls from home. Like any decision, it can become easy with homeschooling to focus on what makes that commitment challenging. I don’t want to chose that path.

Enter, the National Parks book. With a bit of research I learned that there’s 58 of them. Here’s my thought – how amazing would it be to see all of them as a family before we send Hannah to college! I figure we can circle back to some favorites with the littlest once her sister is gone.

Phil’s on board with only slight hesitation based on his deep appreciation for his goal-oriented, deadline-driven wife. He did make me promise that the Virgin Islands would be our 58th destination. I agreed.  We’re starting this spring with Yosemite and Sequoia. This summer we’re planning to visit Rocky Mountain National Park. I find myself floating somewhere between giddy, sentimental and totally fixated on how we’ll pull this off. 

Jayber Crow  By, Wendell Berry

Oh Jayber. This insightful and steady barber feels a bit like an old friend. I’ve found my pace for reading Berry’s novel to match that of his protagonist. Still, its story continues to resonate and challenge me. And so, I keep going. A few weeks back I found a quote that I fully intend to site in my own book someday.

“That grief should come and bring joy with it was not something I felt able, or even called upon, to sort out or understand. I accepted the grief. I accepted the joy. I accepted that they came to me out of the same world.”

 In Praise of Slow: How a Worldwide Movement is Challenging the Cult of Speed  By, Carl Honore

I haven’t actually started this one. I checked it out from the library on the recommendation of my new friend Ann. Ann and I often find ourselves talking on the patio at church since neither of us have tapped into nursery care. The more I learn about Ann, the more I like her; she’s artistic, deep thinking and incredibly hospitable.  

She and her husband invited us over for dinner last weekend. It was one of those balmy January days where you’re tempted to call your friends who live in Colorado and casually bring up the weather.

They served up a grilled cheese bar on their barbecue. Imagine a nice loaf of sourdough with olive oil on hand to spray each slice of bread. There were various cheeses lining a wooden cutting board along with a plate of possibilities to add including but not limited to pesto, spicy mustard, fresh basil, tomato, avocado and prosciutto.

I kept my eyes out for a staff photographer from Sunset to show up.  Okay, not really. But in all seriousness, it was just such a nice evening as families that teetered harmoniously between comfortablity and class.

While this has very little to do with the book’s content, I’ll leave you with this; how could I not enjoy a read that was recommended from a woman who served kale chips right alongside bacon wrapped dates as appetizers for this fresh evening meal?

“Most good memoirs turn out not to be about the memoirist at all. But always, the reader becomes a stand-in for the I, and the life of the I becomes the life of the reader, so no matter who is speaking, the successful true story is always the reader’s story on some level.”

- Bill Roorbach, Writing Life Stories

We had a great time at the LA Zoo yesterday with Nana; we spent the better part of four hours exploring the grounds and meeting all sorts of interesting creatures. Although you wouldn’t know it from my pictures, we did see animals far more exotic (although not necessarily cuter) than meerkats and prairie dogs.

The littlest mastered saying “zoo” just in time and proclaimed this three-letter word with great inflection throughout our day. She also fell deeply in love with the paper map and was passionately opposed to her big sister borrowing it for even a moment; thankfully, we had two.

I’ve found that the day after field trips I often have a less than motivated student on my hands. Mostly, I’ve concluded that this is a result of the aforementioned pupil running her legs off the day before. Still, I struggle to not take this behavior personally at times – believing that somehow my seven year-old’s appreciation ought to translate into direct enthusiasm for mastering grammar the following morning.

Regardless, we made it through and as always found happiness in several good books (once the subtraction part was over). My parenting conclusions of the day are as follows:

1. I need to expect that some days Hannah will complain about her school work. While I would love to believe that my child would be forever grateful for all my efforts, that is of course not reality. Accepting this keeps me from being internally shocked and undone when we face one of those days.

Having said this, I’d also add that accepting this doesn’t mean I need to tolerate the heavy sighs, eye rolling or flopping one’s body on the ground. Today she had the opportunity to spend a bit more time on her own, considering whether or not such outward expressions move her any closer to having her work completed.

2. I have a people-pleasing perfectionist on my hands. This poses some interesting challenges within our educational and behavioral environments. This past weekend Phil and I were able to attend a screening of A Race to Nowhere. This only further solidified my desire to help equip Hannah to set realistic standards for herself and to learn how to work through those inevitable bumps she’ll hit along the way. 

Today we spent a fair amount of time talking through the idea that in life we will make mistakes and we will at times intentionally make a bad choice. We talked about there being a fork in this road – how some people choose to let these moments swallow them up. 

Then we talked about another route – the one that involves both remorse and grace. Here one owns up to the mistake or choice and then decidedly moves toward the best resolve possible, because often there is something that can be done to at least partially rectify the situation. I used smaller words of course; I also used Crocs as props to demonstrate the proverbial fork.

There were tears, some fidgeting and several quiet declarations of just how hot she was feeling; that’s all part of these discussions, at least in our house. Still, I think this day – zoo hangover and all - left us a bit more educated not only in the realm of pronouns and word problems but also in the area of  life.

We’ve been on the homeschooling path for nearly five months now. We took our winter break last week and are back at it. I intended to write my first term summary last week. Instead I spent my best blogging hours coughing. So now, in no particular order, here are my thoughts for this evening.

1. Color coded spreadsheets designed to order your entire life as a homeschooling family look really, really great! I made one, put it in a sheet protector in my master binder and referred to it for approximately four days.  My littlest rapidly set me straight on this one.

2. Having said this, I would add that a well-defined plan is in fact critical for a person like me. I just have to add a large dose of flexibility to the mix each day as well.

3. As parents our natural inclinations and giftedness lead us in how and what we teach our children. I do best when I lean into this truth and work literature and words into every subject possible. I can also rapidly lose sight of this outlook and panic when I stare down the pages of  third grade math and realize that I will be educating myself as I teach my daughter…at least the first one.

4. I have a new love for Friends of the Library bookstores. They are an amazing resource for good quality used books. I’ve procured spotless Usborne titles, some great classics that I’ve identified in my books about books and a good showing of the American Girl series. I’ve never spent more than $2.00 on a single item. This can still add up if you walk off with 18 books. Next time I’ll take a ten-dollar bill and leave my checkbook in the car.

5. Snacks continue to be a very important part of our school day - the fancier the presentation, the happier the child.

6. Like so many aspects of life, the homeschooling crowd can tend to be an internally polarized bunch. It reminds me of my first years of motherhood when I dabbled in the various camps  - the natural vs medicated birth folks, breast-feeding verses bottle feeding ladies, stay-at-home vs working mothers – you get the idea. These topics are difficult and can in their worst moments start feeling like a bad religion. 

Now, enter the land of the proverbial jean jumper connoisseurs. There are those of us who are fiercely opposed to charter programs and others of us who see great value in them. One group thinks it is close to a crime to teach your child to read before they are at least seven or eight. The other side, encourages early exposure and swears by their results. There are those who live by boxed curriculum and others who abhor it. There are those who lead very traditional and conservative lives and others who seem better suited for life in a VW Vanagon.

I’m still finding my place. Another time I plan to explore the seemingly unrelated topic of being a vegetarian who is  coming to terms with the fact that I love bacon. Somehow I think my own journey of  living within such paradoxes could help me to forge positive relationships with the various subsets. We’ll see.

6a. I say all of this and would also immediately add that homeschooling families are incredibly creative, gracious and resourceful people. I have been given invaluable counsel, practical tools and even an inside view into several families’ homes as I put my own school house together. There is tremendous opportunity to collaborate and for that I am incredibly grateful.

7. The littlest is very industrious these days! She continually seeks out jobs and wants so much to be a part of things – big girl things, please! As she continues to nudge her way into the school house by way of exploring math manipulatives, coloring and looking at books, I want to welcome her with thought, patience and grace. While eating the crayons she was just moments ago drawing with or tossing the counting beans across the table feels disruptive and annoying, I am trying to remind myself that she is a real, live toddler – not a seven year-old. 

8. Outsourcing is a fabulous strategy. Most recently, I signed Hannah up for an art class taught by a woman who is herself an artist with a background in the Social Sciences. She is clearly gifted and passionate about what she does. My talents happen to fall in different areas. How thankful I am for these outside opportunities. I’m keeping my eyes out for a fun and brilliant math-inclined individual. The person I have in mind happens to be out of the country for the next four years.

9. It is okay to turn your kids loose on some school work while you attend other matters – like retrieving your toddler from the kitchen island or even grabbing a cup of tea. In our case independent work has built confidence, creativity and internal drive and oftentimes produces work beyond what would have occurred had I been standing over her. 

10. I have fallen in love with children’s chapter books and I’m also pretty sure I could never write one. Recent favorites include Caddie Woodlawn, Sarah Plain and Tall, Addy: American Girl Series,  George Muller: The Guardian of Bristol’s Orphans and Little House on Rocky Ridge.

10. By stepping outside of the norm, I need to accept that I get to explain myself and my daughter a lot. Presently, I’m working on refining my 5 second, 5 minute and more lengthy conversation points for why we decided to do this. On good days I see the encounters with our pastor, the mailman, the Trader Joes clerk, the acupuncturist as opportunities to share one of the many options available to our children. On my not so great days my emotional posture exudes something entirely different. 

11. As I look back over the past five months, I’m mostly encouraged and also pretty tired. I’ve learned a bit more about what I can and can’t do. I’d be toast without grandparents. We’ve relaxed into a flexible routine and our plan is to wrap things up by late June. I’ve come to see the value of taking time off through our not-long-enough winter break. I have since revised our schedule and our content so that we can enjoy a traditionally long summer. We all need it and I see this now. I would have never imagined this is where I’d be and yet it somehow feels entirely right for this season.

“The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls – woman’s normal occupations in general run counter to creative life or contemplative life or saintly life. The problem is not merely one of Woman and Career, Woman and the Home, Woman and Independence. It is more basically; how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel.”

- Anne Morrow Lindbergh from Gift From the Sea

So, without further ramblings about my devotion to the written word, I’m going to share four titles that are presently on my shelf. If you have any other suggestions in this arena that you’d like to pass along, I have one more fifteen dollar plastic card from Barnes and Noble that is just waiting for this sort of transaction.

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

100 Best Books for Children

This is my most recently acquired title of this sort and has fast become my favorite in the kid department. Author Anita Silvey certainly has the publishing credentials to be taken seriously within this genre. Still, even more impressive to me is her clear passion for literature that inspires and ignites a child’s imagination – from their earliest years forward. The grouping is organized by age (from two to twelve) with a one to two page essay for each title; here Silvey shares interesting background information as well as substantial context and storyline details.

If you happen to be goal oriented, this resource is also one you could literally move through until seeing it to completion. Likewise, if you are just not sure where to turn with your elementary or junior high child when you head to the library or bookstore, this would be an invaluable guide.

Honey for a Child’s Heart

I was given this title as a gift when Hannah was born from a woman who’d spent her entire career teaching elementary school. The first one hundred pages are devoted to casting a vision in both inspirational and practical terms as to how you can help foster a love of literature in your children. For me, this was certainly foundational as I started down the road of parenting and I still find myself referring to it often with new eyes depending on my present vantage point.

The back half (another 100 pages or so) provides you with lists (again by age) starting at 0 and working all the way through to 12. The descriptions for each title are concise but also give you enough of a picture to know whether or not it would be something you’d like to pursue. This resource and I have spent many late evenings together at the computer as I’ve poured over it in order to reserve titles from our local library online.

Books Children Love

I’ve spent the least amount of time with this final resource. Still, the moments I have glanced through it have left me impressed and wanting for more. In its introduction, author Elizabeth Wilson sums up her purpose and intention quite well. “It is a book that was written with love: love for children with their wonderful questing minds, their lives of yet-undreamed, unshaped possibilities; love for language, for ideas, for imagination, for knowledge, for all that is a part of the inexhaustible richness of the world of books; and, above all, with a love for God, and for all He has made and done and given - truth, beauty, love, infinite diversity – for He called it very good.”

A BOOK FOR THE ADULT READERS IN THE ROOM

Besides the Bible: 100 Books that Have, Should, or Will Create Christian Culture

I first came across this one on Donald Miller’s blog. He began featuring essays from this resource and I was immediately taken – both by the words themselves and the titles they were calling upon. This list is more diverse than one might imagine (ranging from The Rule of Benedict to Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies) and frankly will keep me busy for several years I’m sure.

Each book is introduced through a short essay penned by an impressive collection of authors. These provide both background and insights that may even lead readers to revisit old friends. Most recently I’ve been inspired to take a second look at Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird since the last time I mistakenly assumed that the yellow and black version told me everything I needed to know. The authors behind these essays tend toward dry humor and wit which is fine by me. In all, a great guide to move you through familiar and new titles with fresh and engaging commentary along the way.

A couple of weeks ago, author Bill Roorbach caused me to sit up a bit straighter and create a plan for how I would add consistency and strides toward my goal of writing on a more consistent basis. He reminded me that writers read – something I know and practice. In exercise two he told me to select a collection of difficult books and go about consuming them in a timely manner.

I went about selecting my titles (you can see my list below). I began with Hemingway’s Green Hills of Africa and thoroughly enjoyed the first thirty pages. I enjoyed them so much that I flipped to the back of the book in order to learn a bit more about the man behind the prose (I was a Social Science major for those scratching your head in wonderment at my lack of familiarity with the details of Hemingway’s life). Turns out, he killed himself. You probably already knew this. Well, I didn’t and somehow his tragic end cast an entirely different hue on the pages I’d just ingested. No longer was I enjoying my nightstand discipline.  

Add to this grey cloud, two sick girls and Christmas days away. My self-imposed syllabus of sorts was all but forgotten. At first, I felt bad about this – as though I’d somehow failed. Yet with perspective and a Barnes and Noble gift card from my mother-in-law I began to see this experience with different eyes.

I’ve been a mother for over eight years now (if you count pregnancy, which I definitely do). On the one hand, I would like to think that I’ve embraced this role and live well within it. Still, it is in moments like my self-imposed reading list I come to understand even more that I continue to hold on to desires and ambitions that are difficult to fit into my present season. Being a mom is hard work – it requires more than I ever imagined and leaves little time for reprieve and personal development.

This is a sticking point for me if I’m really honest about it. In my most candid moments, I long to develop my writing, my culinary skills and my fitness regime. Instead, most days involve more American Girl books than Hemingway, more grilled cheese than frittatas and more toddler chasing that serene yoga poses. Part of me would love to travel and hike to places beyond the county line and without having to pack rice puffs and raisins wherever I go. I really like the idea of  a carpet without spots, a car without sand and a social life that included an occassional lunch out. At times I look longingly at women in their slacks with laptops gracing the bar at Peets while I schlep my kids to the counter and pray that nothing breaks at the hands of  the littlest while procuring my once a month Soy Cafe au Lait to go.

When Roorbach provided me a structured and disciplined plan for writing I jumped at the chance, until I remembered that I don’t live in a bubble. For me, writing is that thing that makes me feel most like myself – more than parenting, more than most things. Yet I was quickly reminded that my present capacity and my commitment to my girls and Phil limit what else I can take on. That’s hard to admit, but in my case it is true.

At the end of a long day of straddling the world of a toddler and that of a seven year-old there’s little left for striving on the word front. When Hemingway’s fate came to light that evening, I quickly realized that this heavy plight was more than I cared to pursue as I drifted off to sleep – even if that meant forgoing the worthwhile end of taking on difficult books. And here’s where the gift card comes into play.

With twenty-five plastic dollars in hand, I went about finding books that soothed my soul rather than restricted or upset it. I released myself of the self-imposed limitations that had no place in this season and replaced them with the freedom to meander. And there, in this wandering I have to believe that creativity and groundedness will coexist.

So far, this path has led me to Wendell Berry’s work, Jayber Crow as well as some other titles that you’ll find in my margin. I’ve found the aforementioned to be pleasant bedtime reading, insightful and most importantly not draining me of the energy I need to reserve for the things that matter most. It’s a season. I know it is. How I long to face each moment of it with authenticity, acceptance, inspiration and hope.  

Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there. I have had my share of desires and goals, but my life has come to me or I have gone to it mainly by way of mistakes and surprises. Often I have received better than I have deserved. Often my fairest hopes have rested on bad mistakes. I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley. And yet for a long time, looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led – make of that what you will.  - Jayber Crow