Author Archives: Amy Jane

Update/Confession Time

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  • I have a storytelling gig tomorrow afternoon (for Blueberry Baby‘s grand re-opening in their new location) and have not practiced. Really.

(Sorry, Lara– I’ll try to be ready. Jay says I have enough in my back pocket already. We’ll find out, I suppose.)

  • I totally revised my picture book manuscript yesterday.
  • I also went through and found a number a publishers for a second round of multiple submissions
    • My “everything” envelopes (with the cover letter, SASE and Mss.) is just over 1-oz. on my little danglie scale, and I have no un-wasteful way to make postage for that size.
    • So I will be bringing three small children to stand in line at the post office today (hmmm, maybe this will be a chance to practice my stories…)

Ah, yes. Nothing like practicing voices in a postal checkout line to make self-awareness race in laps like a snake inside your gut.

I don’t know how a self-conscious person like me ends up with a singing voice or a story heart.

Right. To stretch me. Whoopie.

Oh! And I’ve got sewing on the brain for the first time in *many* months.

I’m still in the R & D stage, but I may be making some stuffed toys to sell at Blueberry Baby.

I’m still designing the pattern (in my head, so far).

Before I could actually put pen to paper I had to get to a stopping spot in my writing– hence yesterday’s accomplishments.

My goal is to find a design that will be simple enough to be time- and cost- effective while still being a unique and identifiable species.

~

The kids and I spent a few hours yesterday morning at my cousin-in-law’s place.

She watched the girls while I worked detail-stuff upstairs with Elisha nearby.

Great system I think I’ll be using again. (Hers were the boys I watched that day I was so productive.)

If I can get the house whipped together (enough) this morning, I might try some actual pattern-drafting during nap-time.

I’m excited at the possibilities.

Children Learning to Work

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I came across this series of articles written by Lara at The Lazy Organizer and liked them so much I wanted to link them here (so I can find them again when I need the reminder):

All about including children in cleaning-up.  But more than that too.  So much good stuff.  Go.  Read.  (Dream of the day your child/ren will be old enough for this to apply.)

The emphasis is on training now, so they’ll be equipped later– not having to figure out on their own so much of the stuff we (even 2nd and 3rd generation!) young homemakers have been working toward.

It’s funny.  I did every kind of job while I was at home, so I wasn’t unprepared that way, but I still had no idea how to put it all together– how to make it regular or automatic (or efficient!).

These are the things I’m trying to catch-up on now, and I imagine the great value it would be to help my children learn  (as Lara puts it so well) while they’re young and have so many fewer distractions.

Its the same principle behind music practice and scripture-memory in childhood, really.

Now if I could only pull myself and my desires into order.  That would make all these lessons more effective…

Bought a New-Release

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The last time I remember doing this was when Beauty and the Beast came out on Video.

Jay and I saw Music and Lyrics in the theater, and it being our first movie in a long time it inspired a series of movie posts (In Defense of “Movie” Dates, Finding Motivation in a Movie, and Movie Weaknesses, in case you missed them the first time around ;o)).

Now I had some birthday money, and we decided it would be fun to buy. Neither of us liked the ultrasexualized dancing, of course (see “Movie Weaknesses” above), but Jay’s pretty confident now he can cut those scenes for a version to have on our computer.

This might seem like a weird thing to mention on a blog like this, but it’s about a story– a story I enjoyed with my honey and we’re looking forward to sharing it again.

How Much Mystery…?

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I was reminded recently about a book I read where the female author warned wives not to be too transparent with their husbands.

She wasn’t advocating concealment or duplicity, she sincerely believed that to drag one’s beloved through the details of your life is to remove all that could be deep or mysterious within a woman’s nature.

And wives need to maintain that aura of mystery in order to keep their husband’s intrigued.

The idea, of course, being that it is the thrill of the unknown that could be what causes some men to “stray.” The idea that their own women have become boring.

<<Do you know, my dad never allowed us kids to use the word bored? I didn’t remember this at all. It was my grandmother who brought it up, last summer. Apparently he would just say, “Then go find something to do.” I always wondered why it wasn’t in my general usage.>>

Like I said, I was reminded of this idea when I came across it in an online article, and reviewing the idea I decided it sounded ridiculous.

But, hey. I’m not the guy. Maybe I am dumping too much on him. Maybe he’s drowning in the sea of verbal processing I direct at him and he’s too polite to stop me.

So I go to the expert. To the man himself. I explain the concept and ask if he’d like it if I were more reserved, or if I should try to find someone else to talk to instead of “dumping” on him, and try to cultivate this being more mysterious.

He looked at me like I was crazy and said, “No. Way. I don’t need you to be *more* mysterious.”

And, seriously folks, what man wants his woman to be harder to figure out?

Contentment or Anger

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While continuing to think about yesterday’s topic, marriage came up.

Now, I suppose an unmarried person would take an admonition to contentment differently, but as a married person I find it interesting that husbands and husband-behavior didn’t come up in our spontaneous list.

Most of that can, I believe, be attributed to the fact that our group seems to be full of contented women (a blessing I wish for every young wife– to be surrounded by contentment. It is a good training ground).

We have every personality-type represented in our small church, and a variety of marriage-types (God did such a good job pairing us off!).

It would be possible for any of us to look at one thing another husband does really well, and become discontented or angry with our own husband, but to seek contentment we can fall back to this test:

Have I prayed about this yet? Why do I want this/him to be different? So I will look better? So my life will be easier?

After this conversation about anger and wanting and covetousness, I understood for the first time why some women have become angry with me when I talk about my relationship with my husband: I have something they want, but don’t have.

Perhaps I can try to redirect their reaction to prayer before their response progresses to (this seems so weird) covetousness?

Maybe there’s nothing at all I can do.

Does this mean I should avoid talking about my (fabulous!) husband, like I should avoid talking about being a millionaire?  (I’m not one, if you were wondering.)

I make it a point to not speak negatively of my husband, so someone might never guess what a truly balanced view I have of him, or make the (erroneous) assumption that he is perfect, or that I believe he is.

But it’s harder, I think, to not-talk about my husband than about anything else someone could envy.

I’m not really sure what the guidelines should be here.

I can’t control other people’s reactions, but I can pray for the sensitivity not to feed those reactions overmuch.

It’s an awkward balance to seek: modeling positive conversation about my husband (in the midst of husband complaints) without sounding like I’m gloating or exalting myself/my marriage.

The Kiss– a Tuesday Tale

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Here’s another short one– I was too young to understand it the first time I read it, but somehow still knew it was funny.

~

In the days of the Soviet Union, a young woman, an old woman, a KGB officer and a university student found themselves sharing a cramped railway car traveling from Moscow.

Passing into a tunnel, the car became utterly dark. As soon as the light was gone the four heard a loud kiss followed immediately by the sharp sound of a slap.

The old woman thought, Now there’s a girl with good morals.

The KGB officer grumbled to himself, thinking, Isn’t that tidy. The boy steals a kiss and I catch the clout for his impudence.

The young lady felt confused. I wonder why that handsome student tried to kiss the old lady and not me…

And the student smiled to himself, knowing he had gotten away with assaulting an officer simply by kissing his hand.

~

This is the type of trickster tale that I enjoy– where the little man learns how survive (and frequently to thrive) within the rules of a much larger and frequently hostile system.

Check Your Attitude

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What is the source of the wars and the fights among you? Don’t they come from the cravings that are at war within you? You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and don’t receive because you ask wrongly, so that you may spend it on your desires for pleasure.

James 4:1-3

Holman Christian Standard Version

This was our passage in Sunday School this morning. The discussion went something like this:

“Now, I can’t imagine any of us actually murdering because we couldn’t get something.”

“But there’s that passage where Jesus equates anger with murder, and I can see any of us getting angry about not getting something we want. Seeing things other people have and we don’t.”

“Not just things. There’s sleep, time.”

“Children.”

“Travel.”

“And, really, this passage is very clear why we don’t have what we want: ‘You do not have because you do not ask,’ (makes me think of an earlier blog post) or ‘You ask and don’t receive because you ask wrongly, so that you may spend it on your desires for pleasure.’ We just studied last summer that the point of prayer was to bring glory to God, not fulfilling our wants or needs.”

“So if we ask for something for ‘spending on our own pleasures‘ we’re working against the express purpose of prayer, and there should be no surprise it doesn’t work.”

~ ~ ~

Now, I know there are a number of ways and reasons God says “no” to prayers: His will for us, timing, protecting us from what we think we want…

But I think it is good, too, to run our unanswered prayers though this James 4:3 filter and see if we need to be convicted about a wrong attitude in the way or for what we’re asking.

One Trumps All

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When I’m holding forth on some topic and make an assertion from a statistical level, it is interesting to me how forcefully someone will disagree if their personal experience conflicts with my proposed reality.

Naturally “your reality is reality,” but if facts are presented that contradict your reality, well… then we have… global warming. Both sides. <rant warning>

Ugh. Enough already. When you have something new for the average citizen to do, I’d love to hear it. As long as you’re recycling sidebars from 1985 (yes, I know how much you love to recycle) quit beating us over the head: Real or unreal, give us some candles or stop telling us we suck up all the light.

<rant over>

*sigh*

I was just talking with someone last week about how much charting can help improve the chances of conceiving and the woman standing next to me insisted it didn’t work for her.

“Well, I haven’t interviewed you yet,” I said, trying to sound light about it. But really it made me think of a relative who used the phrase, “Well, when I was growing up…” about four times in 20 minutes.

He was talking about all the dangerous things he’d survived as a kid, using his experience as a measure of what he was comfortable with for kids.

Without thinking (certainly without considering the negitive impact this might have on familial relations) I chirped, “I think it’s great how your sample-size of one trumps all.”

But really, isn’t this how we all are?

In some things (knowing my body is different than anyone else’s) this make sense as a directer of choices.

But in other things (say– turning your pack of 8-year-olds loose at the local swimming hole) personal experience shouldn’t override protective sense.

I’m still working at listening well enough to a broader reality that doesn’t match mine, but mostly, I’m trying to learn the difference between the things I should trump and the things (if this is the right term) that should make me fold.

Carpe Diem… Patiently

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Having a long-term perspective for a number of goals (my novel, children, guitar) has resulted in an interesting…dichotomy (if that’s the right word) for me.

As believers we are called to make the most of every opportunity.

I think what can happen as a result of this “only now matters” perspective (which is correct in its own way), is that we can lose our eternal perspective, and even forget it is not our efforts that accomplishes significant things.

I’ve quoted this before, but it fits here too:

“God does not have to depend on human exhaustion to get His work done. God is not so desperate for resources to accomplish His purposes that we have to abandon the raising of our children in order to accommodate Him. God is not so despairing of where to turn next that He has to ask us to go without sleep for five nights in a row. Chronic overloading is not a prerequisite for authentic Christianity. Quite the contrary, overloading is often what we do when we forget who God is.”

“Someone has said, ‘God can do in twenty minutes what it takes us twenty years to do.’ Let’s trust more and do less. Is it busyness that moves mountains…or faith?”.

What I’ve found myself dwelling on more is gratitude at the amount of time we’ve been given.

~ ~ ~

Yes, yes, I know its not guaranteed, or even truly mine, but when time stops for me, I’ll be in eternity so the shortness of what time I had here won’t matter to me.

By being obedient I don’t need to worry about when this will all end. (Look at One Year to Live).

~ ~ ~

What I think of is how many years I have ahead of me to (for example) progress in guitar. When I hit my Silver Anniversary with Jay, I’ll have more than 20-years’ experience in guitar-playing.

Think how many exercises I struggle with now that will be second nature by then!

~

I am challenged now by what and how I will teach my children, but in 10 years they will all be solidly entrenched, and we’ll be doing it.

When I am temped to fear, I remind myself I have nearly two more years to prepare, and many faithful who have gone on before me.

This is a quintessentially doable task.

~

Things that I wish I’d started 20-years ago, as a child, if I actually do start them, will eventually have 20-years of experience behind them.

You can get good at something 20 years.

This is what I think of when I think of having lots of time.

~

I remind myself that goals are to be worked for, and not having abilities instantly is okay, because there is always time.

For those who want to argue my time may be cut short, I’ll simply point out that seeing Jesus face-to-face will more than make up for my not being fluent in Spanish.

Until I am gone I hope to enjoy the world and the wit our Creator gave me, and since my interests, inclinations and abilities can pull at me frantically, this reminder of time is a peaceful way for my patient Heavenly Father to slow me down and help me enjoy where I am now, even as I pursue the next goal.

5-9-07 ETA:
This is my WFMW this week. This idea of allowing myself time to reach my goals is a blessing I wish for other moms “stuck” in the less-productive “nows.”

Try to remember that not everything really needs to be done *Today!* and I think you will find things growing more peaceful.

“We have tomorrow,” and “Morning is wiser than the evening” are both good mantras for those many days when we reach the end of the day before the end of the list.