I think it is important to keep some of the harsher truths of the world away from the eyes and ears of small children.  I’m not saying that we should lie to the young people in our lives.  Oh no.  But they should not have to carry the full weight of evil and grief and darkness yet.  They can take in the truth in manageable bites that ultimately carry the same big message: you are safe, and you are loved.  Based upon that notion (and a general lack of interest), we don’t watch television news.  Independently, my husband and I look at the news online.  I usually turn to MSN or CNN for a quick update, and we both like to read the good old Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

So…given the fact that my kids rarely see or hear the news, I was really surprised that my boy knew so much about the Boston bombing this week.  We were driving to our homeschool co-op, and I decided to tell him some of the story because I wanted to talk about how God works through tragedy and how people around the site of the bombing jumped in to help.  I began by sharing the circumstances of the event, and he interrupted to provide many of the details–from the few details that were available only a day after the bombing.  At first I was surprised, but then I realized that Cory and I had been talking about the bombing on Monday evening.  Even though our kids weren’t in the room, apparently they were in hearing distance, and this kid of mine took in what we were saying.  Mental Note to a Mom of a Big Kid (all kids, actually): He is listening!

But here is what stopped me in my tracks.  He made a connection between this event and the theater shooting during the Batman movie last year (July 2012).  His web of knowledge is growing.  There was a time when “last year” was too long ago for him to actively recall, and now he can play connect-the-dot with two headline-grabbing, heart-breaking events.  Two horrifying tragedies.  My heart sinks as I write this because he is building a timeline of terror, a list that all of us have.

My first memory of national mourning was the Challenger explosion.  I was five and a half years old, a kindergartener.  I remember my grandparents picking me up at school because one day per week my mom helped the treasurer at our church count the weekly offering.  Grandma and Papa took me and my little sister to lunch at the Five & Ten, a practice I remember fondly.  I always ordered grilled cheese and chocolate milk.  Papa would share bites of his coconut cream pie.  That day, the small restaurant was buzzing with anxious conversation.  People were excited.  I saw the footage of the explosion later, and when I was in first grade, we read about the accident in our Weekly Reader.  For years, I thought of those astronauts every time I said the pledge of allegiance or heard the national anthem.  I’m not sure why the pledge and The Star Spangled Banner were so closely tied to the Challenger in my mind, but I connected the event with heroism and patriotism–maybe because for elementary children of that time, the telling of the story hinged on the bravery of school teacher, Christa McAullife.  I held on to that story.  In ninth grade American Cultures, I wrote a report about McAullife, and she still comes to mind from time to time.  I think of what teachers will do to catch the interest of their students and how they model a love for learning.

What will my son take away from the scary events that are coming into his awareness now?  The two tragedies in his immediate memory were not accidents.  They don’t carry patriotism as their major theme.  They were acts of terror, of evil.  I’m the mom of a big kid now.  It is up to me and to Cory to frame this in a way that conveys truth and hope in the same breath. It’s terrifying, but I’m grateful to be in this position with a smart young man who wants to think things through.

I read the following article this morning, and it inspired some of my thinking today.  I am a huge Mr. Rogers fan, and this piece brought me to tears.  Of every celebrity in all of time, Fred Rogers is the one I wish I could have met.

http://www.sparklestories.com/blog/2013/04/blog/why-we-go-to-mr-rogers/

I know that here is my home.  This is my family.  But my history is somewhere else, and a huge slice of my heart lingers there.  On some days, the missing piece leaves an awful emptiness.  Yet, spring brings the promise of a summer trip in the near future, and for weeks, we have been anticipating some April company!

We had a lovely Easter visit with my husband’s parents.  How nice to have Grandma and Papa in our home for eight busy days!  Here are some shots from our time together.

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:

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!

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.

Doesn’t she look ready to join the Pittsburgh Steelers?  She is one tough cookie.

Charlotte is so tender with her brothers though.  We spent Sunday afternoon at a local garden, and J was sad because he had broken a “favorite” stick.  Charlotte would not leave him alone until she got a smile out of him.

It took some effort, but in no time, J was giggling and romping, too.  Sorry, Steelers!  This girl might be a wrestler.

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.

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!

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!

We’ve returned to the warm weather, and we are enjoying the sunshine once again. However, the joy of the snow was not lost on us as we visited with our families in the north.  I was thankful for a good snowfall during our trip.  The boys were so eager for snow, snowmen, and snow angels.  They were not disappointed.