What we’re up to…

Blog posts are few and far between these days.  I get the bug to write, well, always, but the desire and the time don’t always hit at the same instant.  Know what I mean?  My laptop died, and that is where my photo software is, so for now, photographs aren’t as easy to share.  Also, if you have been reading this blog for awhile, you know that when I have big things on my mind, I can’t always articulate them.  Until I’m ready to sort out those things and write about them on my blog, let me share some of the things we’ve been up to:

:: Baseball and more baseball.  We have one child on a “pitcher machine” Little League team, and his brother is on a 4-year-old t-ball team.  The little guy reminds me frequently that it is T-ball, not baseball.  It’s all baseball to me.  I’m tired  of washing uniforms (including those strange, itchy long black socks), sitting on bleachers, trying to make an almost two year old sit on bleachers (FAIL), explaining why we cannot eat the vast majority of things offered in the concession stand, and trying to keep everyone happy at games that run far too close to bedtime.  BUT baseball brings good things to us.  Baseball has helped our big boy overcome a fear and realize that sometimes it feels good to push yourself.  Baseball brought us some new friends and a chance to deepen our friendships with a family from our church.  Baseball brought the fun of winning.  I’m not much of an athlete myself, and I’ve never been part of a winning team.  I played softball for a short time and tennis throughout high school, but they were totally for fun only.  I wasn’t competitive.  I adore Taekwondo, and I still practice it when I can, but tournaments were always secondary and only for the experience.  My boy, on the other hand, is really enjoying being part of a division-winning baseball team.  He and his teammates are so proud to be beginning their play-off run tomorrow!

:: Preschool has ended!  My little guy finished his VPK (Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten) program.  He insists that he learned nothing except on Polar Ice Day (funny!), but from the look of his letters, numbers, and drawings, he has come far.  The graduation ceremony and program were precious!  It was a joyful day as we celebrated his accomplishment and looked forward to having the whole troop home for learning as of NOW.  Yay!  We made it!

:: Musical time!  Our first-born is part of a wonderful youth choir in our church.  They put on a full musical production every Mothers Day–complete with sets, costumes, and music.  This year, they performed Oh, Jonah!, and it was delightful.  They truly rose to the occasion.  A few of our homeschool friends were in the play as well (including the lead), and we loved watching these children that we’ve come to love strut their stuff on stage.  Such a blessing!  Our little sailor was nervous, but he did a wonderful job.  I could see him relax and begin to really enjoy himself.

That’s the scoop for now.

Photography Class. Eek!

I didn’t know if I would blog about my photography class. I’m a little embarrassed. Why would I take a photography class?  I don’t want people to think that I think I’m some kind of photographic whiz kid.  I have no illusions of being a professional photographer or some kind of artist or anything.  I just want to have pretty pictures of my pretty kids–photographs that are good enough to frame on my own walls and maybe pass to a grandparent.  Nothing more.  Oh…and maybe spruce up my blog a little bit.

As a sort of Valentine present, my hubby gifted me with the opportunity to take an online photography class with the photographer and teacher, Nick Kelsh.  The course began on March 4th, and it runs into mid-April.  It’s been a lot of fun.  I’m pretty comfy with how to operate my camera already, but I’m learning plenty on how to look for good, natural lighting.  Here are a few shots that I’ve taken for class:

 

The Life I Want

I’ve been thinking a lot about the life I really want and the life that I can too easily substitute.  I can easily become enthusiastic about new and exciting possibilities.  And then I have to make myself ask, “Do I really want this?”

Obviously, life is sometimes made up of things that we don’t want, and we do not have the possibility to choose otherwise.  Sickness, job loss, death, house repairs, broken cars, and natural disasters aren’t things that we choose to have in our lives, but they are there.

No, I’m talking about knowing what kind of life I want and taking steps to make it happen.  I want a life that is joyful.  I want a life that is simple.  I want a life that is quiet, yet I am drawn to activity and learning and doing new things.  How do I keep a balance between simple/quiet and new/exciting?  How do I manage to not have clutter in my home or in my heart?  THESE are my struggles.

I was drafting this blog post two days ago, and then yesterday, I saw this post at simplemom.net.  The author (Tsh) defines simple living as “living holistically with your life’s purpose.“  In other words, you understand the life you were built to have.  Then all the things and activities in your life work toward that purpose.  Tsh says it this way, “all the parts of your life are pointing in the same direction.”  I like that.  For us the direction is Christ, but there is a lot of room in that for figuring out a way to live.  Check out the article.  I think you’ll like it.  And I’ll let you know how I do in figuring all this out!

A Special Find

A few housekeeping items before the post:

1. My Lenten Tree post was mentioned on another blog!  How exciting.  Please take a look at “A Time to Take Root” over at Christian Ed. at Holy Family.  The post title is hyperlinked (This new font doesn’t seem to show the links very well.).  The blog has a number of great resources for Lent.
2. I loved the feedback I received on Monday’s post.  I heard from a number of you on Facebook, here on the blog, and even in person.  Thanks!  I feel I need to clarify a few of things.  First, I’m not running off to Uganda or some other far off place!  Not any time soon.  My home is my mission field.  I remind myself of that frequently, and I take joy in it.  I’ve been given this time and this place to use my skills and my energy to glorify God here–right where I am planted.   I mean to focus on study, prayer, and advocacy in quiet ways–not some dramatic mission!  Secondly, I did write a note of encouragement to the mom that I mentioned.  Monday’s post kind of sounds like I stopped myself from encouraging her when I actually did write the message.  Finally, whether my post said it or not, I do believe that God gives us different seasons for different actions.  I, in no way, meant to imply that a person who doesn’t serve outside of the home or the mom who feels too overwhelmed to put on matching socks let alone head a committee or fly to Africa is wrong or bad or missing God’s call.  Nope.  Not at all.  We are each given different, worthy tasks, and I feel called to greater study and prayer at this time.  Maybe that seems selfish.  After all, it’s not very outwardly focused.  I just know that I’ve been ignoring it for far too long.

Okay!  On with the post…

I bought a little bag of bouncy balls at Target.  I am sharing this fact with you at great risk of public embarrassment.  My hubby really made fun of me–in the kindest of ways, of course.

When I saw this little bag with its cheerful colors peeking through the mesh, I was hit by a wave of happy nostalgia.  I grabbed them immediately and tossed them in the cart, hoping the kids wouldn’t notice.

“What’s that,” F immediately asked.  So much for my stealthy moves.

“They’re for me,” I replied with an unintended territorial edge.

Not giving up, he asked, “Well, what are they?”

“Just some bouncy balls,” I said.

But they aren’t just some bouncy balls.  They are a fun, sweet part of my childhood–a part that I hadn’t thought about in a long time.  I guess you could say that my sister and I had imagination to spare.  We collected rubber balls and played with them like someone might care for pet rocks.  We actually gave them names.  I kept mine in a coffee can under my bed.  I know how silly this sounds, but it is a warm memory for me (and probably my sister if she isn’t ready to kill me for posting this! ).  I’ve come across bouncy balls many times in the last decade, but I think I had an immediate emotional reaction to the bouncy ball sighting at Target because these were THEE balls.  The world is full of little rubber balls, but these ones are sort of translucent.  Their color is half-half like the “fancy” Easter eggs we try to dye each year.  They have a slightly rough exterior unlike glossy jacks balls.  They are smaller than most super balls, and they feel great in my hand.  Rolling them around in my palm, even making a mental note of their particular smell and weight, I feel like my old self.  Making my way to the check-out line, I smiled inside and out–even as I missed my sister almost too much to bear.

January to February: Resolution or Revolution?

Several years ago, I heard a psychologist on the radio suggest that instead of trying to jump-start a New Year’s resolution or major life change on January 1st–right in the midst of the hustle of the holiday season–why not use January as a month for reflection and planning so that FEBRUARY can be the month for a new start?  I liked that suggestion.

I came into the month of January with a lot of ideas about the goals I would set for 2013.  I already knew that I would work on focus.  I knew that I needed deliberate practice in being mentally present in my day-to-day life.  Maybe you are like me.  I do a lot of daydreaming, a lot of planning for the future.  I can get stuck in a week’s worth of daydreams just because I found a hypothetical something that tickled my imagination.  I am easily distracted from NOW because I’m thinking about later.  Partly, I think I’m like this because I’ve been a student from the time I was four until I left my PhD program about a month before my thirty-first birthday (more about that here).  As a student, especially a graduate student, you are kind of living for the future.  There is always a goal to reach, a step to take, an accomplishment to check off the list.  All of these things hold the promise of something better later.  Graduate school is a great exercise in delayed gratification.  You live like a pauper hoping that someday you won’t have to!

I digress.  (Ironic!)

So in the midst of planning to focus, I started planning a lot of other goals.  I was going to commit to keeping a journal, and then I decided that I needed two journals–one for practical matters and one for fun, artistic stuff.  Then I decided that I also would need a prayer journal.  So much for being focused, huh?  I set some goals about organizing my home.  I set a goal about money management and keeping my e-mail inbox clean.  I set exercising goals and made a plan to read more, take more pictures, and be in more pictures.  Sigh.  I’m really bad at being focused.

Then, right at the end of the month, everything became clear in a three part mini act of God.  First, one of my favorite blogs featured a post that looked a little like mine.  A sweet, godly mom was reflecting on how she had been in survival mode rather than growing in her faith journey.  I quickly wrote to defend her, but I realized that I am doing the same thing, and in writing to support her, I was sort of telling myself that “I’m okay” when maybe I am not.  Secondly, my husband realized that we had drifted pretty far in our financial giving to others and to our church.  In the past, we have seen how much we are blessed by giving, and we want to be generous even in our own struggles.  Very hard, and we totally fail…often.  It was not some sort of legalistic You-Must-Give-Everything-You-Own-Or Else moment; rather it was just a self-assessment of where we once were compared to where we are now.  I, too, had felt that we’ve been living for us instead of truly living for others as we’ve been called to do.  I began to reconsider my New Year’s resolutions at that point.

At the start of the final week of January, I volunteered to teach our Sunday School class on February 3rd.  The people in the class take turns leading it, and I was just in the mood to take a Sunday.  During the service, I decided to sneak a look at the passage that I would be teaching:  Hebrews 5.  Ugh.  That’s a tough one.  And here is where my attention was truly grabbed:

12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Hebrews 5:12-14

While I’m busy caring for kids, tending to a home, messing around on Facebook, folding laundry and neglecting to put it away, driving to and fro, glancing longingly at other people’s lives on cute blogs, reading this and that, sweeping up endless amounts of dry cereal, and doing more laundry, I’m not always growing in the ways that are important–to me or to God.  I am not complaining about my current season of life at all.  I actually love this time in my life with all its messes and demands.  I wouldn’t trade all the cereal for even the biggest paycheck.  Nonetheless, I’ve been in a funk, and I knew I wanted to stop moving through this comfortable but very safe life and instead feel what it is like to have nothing holding me up but God’s will.  Does that make sense?

I used to be on a major spiritual growth spurt.  During college, I was on fire!  I was reading my Bible and building a healthy prayer life.  It was a great time.  But it was also a time of personal struggle for a lot of reasons, and those dark moments fueled my hunger for God.  I wanted to feel Him and know Him better.  I guess I got too comfy in recent years because the hunger has changed.  I still long for God’s presence and His care, but I seem to want to meet that need in ways that don’t require my work or my time.  Hmmm…not good.  I’ve had “the milk” many times over, but I have to wonder: am I ready for the solid food?  Am I going to just remain satisfied to sip at the sweet but simple parts of the gospel or chomp on the hard stuff?  The real question though: am I going to live it or just think about it.  Some more.  Again.

If you made it to the end of this very long post, here is the conclusion that I’ve reached:

I can set a New Year’s resolution.  It would fine if I worked on the goal to keep my laundry washed and my bedroom floor clear of clutter.  Those are good things.  It would be okay to commit to exercising five days per week or eating more veggies.  But I decided that I don’t need another resolution.  I need a revolution.  I apologize for the corny play on words, but maybe it will stick in your head the way it has in mine.  I need to turn back to the things that matter beyond my day-to-day.  It does begin with focus as I said in the beginning, and the follow-through is a big dose of study and prayer, two things that have moved to the periphery as I unconsciously decided that my house and homeschooling and money (or lack of it) and many other things were more important.

I have no idea if this blog matters in big ways or even small ones, but since it is an extension of me, Warm as Pie is going to change, too.  If you’ve been here before, I’m sure you noticed the new look.  The menu across the top has an addition that I hope you will explore, and the “About” section has been updated as well.  I’ve added a few things to the “Places I Love” page, too.  Each month, I’ll be highlighting different blogs, websites, and even family interviews.  I cannot wait to introduce you to my first family!  But if you’re not really a fan of change, don’t worry.  Most of my blog content will be pretty much the same.  Just me thinking about stuff, taking pictures, and sweeping cereal.

Planning…

I love planning!  I get so excited about the prospect of something  new.  Something fresh.  I’m planning a blog revamp, and that is exactly what I am looking for–FRESH.  I’ve been thinking a lot about why I blog and what I want to put out in the world.

I can’t wait to show you the NEW Warm as Pie.

In the mean time, you might see some format changes that come and go.  I’m playing around a bit to find the look that best fits the new plan for the blog.  Check back in the near future!

Seasons, Rhythm, Etc.

If you’ve read my blog for awhile, you know that I love the Waldorf tradition of finding life’s rhythms and using the seasons to guide the natural rhythms in our home.  I have always loved the changing seasons, and my home reflected those changes.  But now I live in a place where seasonal changes are very, very subtle.  We seem to have two basic seasons:  hot and warm.

So…I’m wondering:  should I keep following the seasons that the calendar assures me are happening and bring out the decor that I’ve collected over the years, or should I embrace OUR seasons and OUR reality, celebrating the quiet little changes that our environment displays?

I’m looking for your feedback.  Please leave a comment!

Good-bye, 2012.

It’s 6 minutes until the new year. My babies are all sleeping. Cory’s out as well. I’m sitting here with my mom and dad with a full heart and a sense of happy anticipation. This has been a year of growth. We’ve been blessed, and we’ve been challenged. Good-bye, 2012. See you on the other side of the ball drop!

Christmas 2012

I have discovered a hidden blessing of moving far away.  Christmas has acquired a special magic.  I have always loved Christmas, but since most of my family lived close by for most of my life, the idea of “being together with family” for the holidays was basically lost on me.  I was always with family.  During my childhood, my mom’s side got together for a huge meal and fun together every single Sunday afternoon.  Christmas was like a Sunday with gifts and extra cookies added in.  But now.  Wow.  What a difference.  I anticipated the time we would spend with family like I used to wait for the arrival of Santa.  I had butterflies in my stomach as we made the drive north.  I couldn’t sleep.

What’s more, now that I have children who are at the age when the story of the Christ child can really mean something to them, I feel more pressure to capture those good teaching moment and less pressure to live up to the worldly expectations that can weigh Christmas down.  It’s a wonderful balance to navigate.  I baked just one batch of cookies from pre-made dough.  My Christmas cards are still sitting in a box waiting to go out into the world.  I’m totally okay with the incomplete to-do list.  I’m just happy.

Our Christmas celebration had some particularly memorable moments.  During our Christmas Eve time with my husband’s side of the family, the electricity went out during our gift exchange time.  Out came the candles and a sweet little oil lamp that gave our evening a beautiful glow.

Christmas morning was its usual mix of happy chaos and poignancy.  Little moments of joy and surprise will stick with me all year.  Our boys received beautiful nutcrackers, a special wish that our oldest has carried for three Christmases!  He is fascinated by soldiers and anything related to swords, so I guess–for him–the nutcracker is the ultimate Christmas soldier.  His reaction was so honest and precious.

For me, the ultimate moment was when Aunt Kristy revealed her homemade gifts.  As you may have seen in earlier posts, Kristy’s handmade capes are an important part of my kids’ wardrobes.  Well, one cape was tragically lost on our return trip home in the summer.  We were heartbroken, but Aunt Kristy saved the day in true super hero style by creating a new cape for Christmas.  All is right in our small world once again.  And guess what! Little Charlotte has joined the ranks.

J still has a cape, so Aunt Kristy created an adorable apron for my boy who loves to be my kitchen helper.  Although I didn’t have time for nearly as many homemade gifts as I would like, I knitted cowls for Kristy and my mom.  I also tried a pair of fingerless mittens for my sister-in-law.  All three worked well, and I hope they will bring some cuddly warmth to the winter for three special ladies.

Happy New Year, friends!

Advent: Week One

Oh, how I love Advent!  I always have.  When I was a little girl, I felt immediate excitement when we walked into the church to find the Advent wreath standing next to the Communion Table to start the season.  The shiny, brass stand and candleholders caught the glow of the santuary lights, but the candles were still dark, waiting for the counting to Christmas to begin.  Even if I understood very little of the theological meaning of Advent at the time, I knew that the candles meant Christmas and anticipation and joy.  The congregation joined together in song as one family climbed the steps to the wreath, bearing a tiny flame on the end of a long, elegant brass candlelighter*.  A member of the family read a short litany while the others lit the candle.  Sometimes the family was mine.  Sometimes it was a family that I knew.

Advent is a wonderful way to bring the tangible practice of our faith from the church to our home. It is a chance to tell the beautiful story of Christ’s birth again and again. Advent presents the opportunity to make the story visual and tactile. With four weeks to deliberately revisit the details and themes of the coming child, repetition becomes a powerful teaching tool.

This year, in addition to the Advent wreath, we are going through Truth in the Tinsel.  It’s a delightful e-book with short, simple devotions and an ornament craft for each day–December 1 through Christmas.  We are working through the materials at home, and on Tuesday mornings, we are gathering with our homeschool co-op to do that day’s ornament and reading.  I usually get off track on similar one-per-day activities, but so far, we are keeping up fairly well.  We’ve only had to double up twice.  I highly recommend this book.  I can see how it would be easy to adapt for various age groups, and I think it’s perfect for the ages of my boys, 4 and 7.

Sunday marked the start of the second week of Advent, so our wreath is now aglow with two bright lights.  I am grateful for less squabbling over who gets to light the candle each night.  How appropriate that the second candle is the Candle of Peace! 

 

*In case you’re wondering, that “thingy” that people use to light candles in church is actually called a candlelighter.  I looked it up.