Category Archives: Lists

My “Eventually” To-dos

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Now, to be honest, I already have a “someday” list, but I was looking at a post of Ann’s and (as I sometimes just feel like making lists) I wanted to follow her example and make a list of somedays that were based more on the challenge of doing them than the challenge of growing the skills (the list referenced above).

Here’s my first attempt.

  1. Learn to ride a tandem bicycle
  2. Do an overnight hiking/camping trip (ideally 2-way, maybe a couple days out and back)
  3. Adopt another Grandma (eventually)
  4. Perform at an open-mic night at a local coffee shop (stories or music)
  5. Create a storytelling curriculum–or the start of one– that teaches storytelling like children these days are taught essay-writing (as The Horse and His Boy puts it).
  6. Find (and fill) a female role in a musical that both has a good solo(s) and doesn’t end up kissing anyone. (Men have so many more options than woman within these parameters.)
  7. Finish writing a novel
  8. Publish a novel
  9. Write a song
  10. Climb a tree as high as I can go (more than one kind of tree).

iPod Meme

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I’ve already got the feeling I’ll have at least as many book chapter titles as song titles.


Instructions:

1. Put your music player on shuffle.
2. Press forward for each question.
3. Use the song title as the answer to the question even if it doesn’t make sense. NO CHEATING!

How do you feel today?
The Passing of the Grey Company–The Return of the King (JRR Tolkien)

What’s your outlook on life?
Riddles in the Dark– The Hobbit (Tolkien)

What does your family think of you?
Soulin’ — Astra Kelly

What do your friends think of you?
He is a Song– Twila Paris

What do your exes think of you?
Sunrise– John Michael Talbot

How’s your love life?
Savior of my Heart– Sheila Walsh

How will your love life be in the future?
The Prophet– Michael Card

Will you get married?
Where Does My Help Come From– Shalom Jerusalem

Are you good at school?
The Queen of Narnia– The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis)

Will you be successful?
Stranded– Plumb

What song should they play on your birthday?
In the House of Tom Bombadil– Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien) There is a *neat* instrumental with a similar title by Nickel Creek (is it?); a rollicking, lively tune that would be excellent for my birthday if someone wanted to send it my way…

What song should they play at your graduation?
The Black Gate is Closed– The Two Towers (Tolkien)

The Soundtrack of your life?
Happy all the Time– Baby’s Best Bible Songs

You and your best friends are?
Two Tragedies (Ouch!) — The Last Battle (Lewis)

Happy times:
Be Our Guest– Beauty and the Beast soundtrack (the stage musical)

Sad times:
Journey to the Crossroads– The Two Towers (Tolkien)

Every day:
Talking Beasts– Prince Caspian (Lewis)

For tomorrow:
The Storm and What Came of It– The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Lewis)

For you:
Murlough Bay— Iona

What does next year have in store for me?
Let the River Flow– Darrell Evens

What do I say when life gets too hard?
Tradition– Fiddler on the Roof

What song will I dance to at my wedding?
The Lord Reigns (Actually it was “We Rejoice in the Grace of God,” but this works too.)

What do you want as your career?
The Window on the West– The Two Towers (Tolkien)

Your favorite saying?
Be Bold and be Strong– Hosanna/Integrity

How will I die?
The Gentle Healer– Michael Card

This was a *kick*! Some of these are sooo thought provoking… others are just provoking ;o)

“Only 15-minutes”

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Have you ever thought about the number of things we’re told we should be able to squeeze into each day because they only take 15-minutes.

  1. the amount of time added to meal-prep to make it from scratch (my unofficial average)
  2. the ab/butt/thigh destroyer (never done it, but a classic example)
  3. improve/expand your vocabulary (ditto)
  4. practice a musical instrument
  5. read the paper
  6. write a letter a day (to an old friend, to your representative, to the editor)
  7. memorize scripture
  8. read through your bible in a year
  9. journal before bed
  10. stretch
  11. take a short walk
  12. train your dog
  13. paint with your children (paint your children?)
  14. Bathe the children
  15. Shower yourself
  16. clean the bathroom
  17. tête-à-tête with your spouse when you meet again in the evening
  18. Putting on make-up in the morning
  19. washing your face four different ways before bed
  20. washing the dishes after dinner

There’s about five-hours worth of stuff there and I’ve barely touched on the basics of house maintenance and meal prep.

It really does go back to doing what we want most to do.

I think our limitations are just one more way of God to remind us both of our finiteness and of our need to depend on Him: both for the wisdom of what to actually do, and for provision in the gaps of what we are not able to do.

What I Love About My Husband

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Kathy at Mudlark Tales did a post celebrating the details of her love for her husband, and I liked the idea so much I wanted to follow suit.

(If you find this kind of celebration cloying, obnoxious or anything else negative, please look at this recent post.)

Otherwise, I hope this list gives you warm-fuzzies, and inspires you to think of all the little things that add to your delight in the package-deal that is your husband.

What this exercise does is force one to notice details, and once that began, I remembered more and more. I expect to record more as I think of them, but they will probably go in my home journal, rather than here.

This list was such fun to make I could have kept going, but I decided to stop at 50.

  1. I love that he has a job he enjoys and is happy to go to.
  2. I love that he sets the alarm on his watch so he remembers to come home on time.
  3. I love how he provides for me to be home with the children.
  4. I love how he comes home and works along side me without complaint.
  5. I love the example he is to our children of working whole-heartedly at something. At everything.
  6. I love when he surprises me by saying just what I was thinking– before I do (especially to somebody I shouldn’t have said it to, but he could).
  7. I love how he can follow my convoluted way of thinking without getting lost.
  8. I love how he listens to me to let me process; how he invites it (“Tell me about your day”).
  9. I love how he is actually engaged while he does this, and gives me the feedback I need to refine faulty ideas.
  10. I love to hear him laugh when he’s reading a book I gave him that I have enjoyed.
  11. I love to hear him read aloud something that struck him, and seeing how his mind works.
  12. I love how he can fix anything.
  13. I love how gently he ignores the world’s opinion– the way he is absolutely un-vested in any stranger’s opinion of him.
  14. I love how he asks me for more details.
  15. I love how he sings with his whole heart, even though he doesn’t have a trained voice.
  16. I love how he began the tradition of creating silly songs at bedtime, making up nonsense while I was still stuck on how I sounded instead of focusing on my children’s delight.
  17. I love how he tells me exactly what he’s thinking.
  18. I love knowing he loves me enough I never have to be afraid of what he’s thinking.
  19. I love that he notices whatever I’ve gotten done on the house, even if it’s not all clean when he gets home.
  20. I love how he enjoys everything I cook.
  21. I love how he doesn’t complain about my picky eating and knows he got a special treat when I make him something I’m not fond of (e.g. lasagna).
  22. I love that he shares my passion for ice cream.
  23. I love that he never talks about weight or exercise while we’re enjoying it.
  24. I’m so thankful he is a left-overs eater.
  25. That he values my opinion.
  26. That he trusts my judgment (sometimes more than I do).
  27. That he believes my instincts.
  28. That he is concerned with self-improvement.
  29. I love how there has never been a joke in my house about how I look in the morning.
  30. I love how he plays with our kids.
  31. I love the look on his face when he walks in to show me he got the baby to sleep.
  32. I love the look on his face when he watches me in the mirror.
  33. I love how he matches his rhythm and stride to mine whenever we walk together.
  34. I love that he drives most of the time, because I hate to drive.
  35. I love that he doesn’t complain when I drive.
  36. I love having him as my own personal furnace to pre-warm the bed each night .
  37. I love that he lets me put my cold feet on him.
  38. I love how he notices when I take extra effort with my clothes, hair or make-up, and compliments me.
  39. I love how he’ll cut the last slice from the loaf of homemade bread and take the heel to leave the slice for me. (If I’m in the room he’ll look over at me and say “I love you” when he does it.)
  40. I am thankful he doesn’t complain about how much money I spend on books.
  41. I appreciate so. much. that he will eat one-handed (i.e., with the baby) so I don’t have to.
  42. He read my novel. In it’s original, unedited, post-NaNo form. Sure, this was something of a trust-exercise on my part, but it was also a tribute to his worthiness of that trust.
  43. He liked my novel, but also had incredibly useful and constructive things to say. (My current version is massively influenced and improved by two of his three general suggestions.)
  44. He was upset that it wasn’t all written yet. This is just the coolest thing to a writer: that a reader would want more.
  45. I love how patiently he endured my brainstorming about the pattern I am designing, letting me talk until the time I could actually start drawing and cutting and sewing.
  46. I love how like-minded we are. How there are so few things to argue about because we agree on all the big things already.
  47. I love the sense of security and confidence I feel just having him around.
  48. I love how it’s sometimes hard to make birthdays or special days extra special because we’re already doing nice things on normal days.
  49. I like it that he still tries.
  50. I love that he likes to be with me, and misses me when he’s gone.

There is a quote from Jane Eyre that summarizes very well my feelings about my relationship with Jay.

To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company… to talk to each other is but a more animated and audible thinking.

All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character– perfect concord is the result.

My Work

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Let me do my work from day to day,
In fields or forests, at the desk or loom,
In roaring market place or tranquil room.
Let me find it in my heart to say,
When vagrant wishes beckon me astray,
“This is my work – my blessing, not my doom –
Of all who live I am the only one by whom
this work can best be done in my own way.”
Then I shall see it, not too great or small,
To suit my spirit and arouse my powers.
Then shall I cheerfully greet the laboring hours,
And cheerfully turn, when long shadows fall
at eventide, to play and love and rest,
Because I know for me my work was best.

Henry Van Dyke

I got *a lot* done today. Forgive me a list of accomplishments.

  • Cleaned girls’ room despite their lack of interest/assistance
    • The lack of interest proved useful by allowing me to actively (not secretively) thin their playthings.
  • Tidied (that work looks wrong…) all the back of the house
  • Vacuumed the (finally!) cleared floors in back of house
  • Directed the girls’ finishing their daily chore (emptying dishwasher)
  • Defused numerous spats related to being tired and feeling “deprived” at not being able to play or go outside while they dragged their feet over getting their room finished.
  • Read with the girls

This all before noon. At noon, two little cousins arrived and began round two of my day

  • Babysat two extra kids for an hour– played outside with two babies and three preschoolers, got some great pix.
  • Made and supervised lunch
  • Read-to and got all three kids to nap at once
  • Cleaned both bathrooms
  • Swept kitchen and dining room (this has been daily through Spring season– I am very thankful for our new laminate floors)
  • Mopping kitchen and dining room (desperately needed)

All this cleaning was at the direct expense of cooking– I had nothing planned/ready for dinner and we ended up snacking/convenience-fooding our way through the evening.

But I really didn’t mind.

All this on top of yesterday’s accomplishment of getting *all* the laundry washed and folded has left me tired (a little) but very pleased with what I’ve accomplished.

First Lines

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Following Kaye’s lead, I am doing a first-lines post.

Only, to make my list unique (I have seen a number of these floating around in the last few months), I am choosing books I have read that I haven’t seen in a list of first-lines.

Most of mine are from children’s books, as I feel these are woefully under-represented in lists of merit.

Commencing:

Tawny shivered, not understanding this and not liking it because he did not understand.

Desert Dog by Jim Kjelgaard (a last name I still can’t pronounce)

The city was silently bloating in the hot sun, rotting like the thousands of bodies that lay where they had fallen in street battles.

A Voice in the Wind by Francine Rivers

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child anyone had ever seen. It was true, too.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

However perilous and astonishing the exploits of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society, each separate adventure always started off at a formal General Meeting. (Corporate rules and regulations, order and decorum, provide a solid foundation for individual heroism.)

Miss Bianca by Margery Sharp

There is no lake at Camp Green Lake.

Holes by Louis Sachar

Linderwall was a large kingdom, just east of the Mountains of Morning, where philosophers were respected and the number five was fashionable.

Dealing With Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

“She won’t be angry with me,” said Alicia. “Why should she, Kate? Every word I wrote her was true. This is the most horrible place in the world. You know it is.”

The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope

Long ago a river divided two kingdoms– one great and one small.

The Bridge by Jeri Massi

It was Old Bess, the Wise Woman of the village, who first suspected the baby at her daughter’s house was a changeling.

The Moorchild by Eloise McGraw

 

Parenting Info That is Actually Useful

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Many (if not most) baby/parenting books seem to emphasize their methodology to the point of threatening your child will be scarred if their method is not used (Catherine mentioned this at the end of February).

As a ray of sensible Spring sunshine, I offer today a list of books that are both useful and positive. No guilt-trips here (unless they’re carry-ons), and instantly usable information.

Rather cold toward co-sleeping and extended breastfeeding, but very sensibly combines the ideas of flexibly and scheduling for your baby.

Also offers “rescues” for correcting mistakes entrenched by “accidental parenting.” The original book is most accessible to new and/or 1st time parents, the other offers some more detailed approaches to specific problems.

I got this information from a class that then sent this DVD home with you. If you are afraid of colic (or think your baby has it) the techniques demonstrated here could greatly reduce your stress-level.

Demonstrates how to engage a baby’s calming reflex (did you know babies have a reflex to calm themselves like they have a rooting reflex when they’re born?).

Solid information about sleep itself to help guide expectations, and a detailed methodology of finding and implementing the possible solutions collected in the books.

The information is presented in a gentle, conversational way. The author acknowledges making the changes will require additional energy from already-sapped resources, and somehow that endeared her to me.

Simply the best book to give to your pregnant friend in her third-trimester or to any woman who’s just given birth. If it doesn’t cover everything, it does cover more than any other post-partum book I’ve seen.

Understanding the difference between disobedience and the process of growing independence. Discovering potential and clarifying expectations. Creating a sense of family. I really appreciated it.

Maybe some reviewer on Amazon can articulate it better, but this is definitely a user-friendly “keeper.”

A practical book presenting techniques for organizing and motivating your professional choice of stay-at-home mothering.

These are the books that work for me. For more ideas visit Rocks in my Dryer.

On my mind

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Stream-of-consciousness list.

  • Story for tomorrow’s post
  • Table book someone loaned me at church
  • *fussy* discontented boy in my lap
  • Jay does this with the baby too: Boy’s not happy anyway? I’ll just do what I want.
  • *cluttered* house
  • not wanting to scrape dinner together
  • run-down being up multiple times with babay
  • new bible study this morning
  • needing to find/call for info they asked from me
  • What is my Bible time supposed to look like?
  • Psalm 61 today. Read it out loud. Perfect for now. Love the line, “You’ve given me the heritage of those who fear your name.”
  • Lack of sleep
  • Guess there is one much-better-than-slapped-together dinner that wouldn’t be to awful to work on. (Bonus: it’s Jay’s favorite soup.)
  • Oh. And I promised Melody I’d make ice cream for dessert. That’s not so awful. I like ice cream.
  • I’ll try walking the boy again…

100 Things About Me

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Hmmm— So, I just found-out what all these 100-things lists are that I’ve seen on a bunch of blogs.

Apparently the list is supposed to coincide with one’s 100th post. So I’m quite late.

It is, I think, the ultimate vanity. But as that is largely the purpose of blogs anyway, I see that fact being constantly forgiven/indulged.

So, craving the same patience of my readers (and largely because Jay has asked me to make an annual habit of self-description–!– as a reference, I suppose) I present my 100 things.

  • Beginning with a thank you Prov 31 for the idea of organizing the 100 (some categories I borrowed, some modified), without which I wouldn’t have attempted this.

A. The things I pray most frequently:

  1. No-bad-dreams for my girls each night
  2. Safety for my family
  3. Wisdom for me and my husband
  4. Wholeness for my future sons- and daughter-in-law

B. Four Things I miss about growing up:

  1. Having rabbits, and their greenhouse as my “secret” place to get away
  2. Wrassling with Dad and my sibs
  3. Only one room to keep clean
  4. Hours of time to spend creating stories with my toys

C. Five things about my family:

  1. Jay and I complement each other perfectly
  2. I used to think I wanted four kids, but now three seems the perfect fit.
  3. My three kids were born in less-than 3 1/2 years
  4. Kids this close together fit my personality better than I could possibly have guessed
  5. We plan to homeschool once our children are older. Currently I am most intrigued by Charlotte Mason’s ideas.

D. Ten things I like to do (in no particular order):

  1. Read
  2. Write
  3. Explore (in every way– museums, woods, new–or old– houses, libraries, the internet)
  4. Sing
  5. Guitar
  6. Tell stories
  7. Listen to stories
  8. Learn new things
  9. Watching a T.V. series on DVD that I enjoy (Currently: Monk and House, M.D.)
  10. Watch good movies

E. Ten favorite movies:

  1. Undercover Blues
  2. Kate and Leopold
  3. Sabrina
  4. Oklahoma! (London version– there’s irony for you)
  5. Sahara
  6. Sense & Sensibility
  7. Stargate
  8. Singin’ in the Rain
  9. Bewitched
  10. Hitch

F. Ten favorite books, or, The minimum I’d want to start over with after a fire:

  1. A durably-bound bible (along with a good bookmark and a number of colored pens)
  2. The Perilous Gard
  3. Jane Eyre
  4. Professionalizing Motherhood
  5. Taking Charge of Your Fertility
  6. Good Poems
  7. Enchantment
  8. Favorite Folktales From Around the World
  9. Sea Wolf
  10. Devotional Classics

G. Nine Favorites:

  1. My Best Friend (Jay)
  2. Homemade Ice Cream!
  3. “Jewel” tones: saphire, ruby, emerald and amethyst
  4. Having the right answer at the right time
  5. Soft clothes
  6. iPod-accessibility and mixability of Music!!!
  7. Rose: Sterling Silver
  8. Wildflower: Iris
  9. Drink: Milk (1%)

H. Ten verses/passages underlined in my bible:

  1. Hosea 2:19-20
  2. 1 Corinthians 15:58
  3. Exodus 33:13-16
  4. Deuteronomy 4:29
  5. Ephesians 4:29
  6. Hebrews 12:11
  7. Psalm 139:14
  8. Phillipians 2:3-4
  9. Phillipians 4: 4-7
  10. Isaiah 43:1-2

I. Ten things I don’t like:

  1. Being misunderstood or misconstrued
  2. Being startled/caught off-guard
  3. Forgetting
  4. Thinking of something too late
  5. Saying something unkind
  6. Being tired
  7. Mashed potatoes
  8. Watermelon
  9. Dr Pepper (Whenever my Dad or husband don’t want to share their soda, this is what they get. I don’t like that either.)
  10. Wearing tennis shoes/sneakers with dresses or skirts

J. Ten random things about me:

  1. I’ve never dyed my hair. (One acquaintance from childhood adds, “You never needed to.” It’s blond.)
  2. I “collect” information: phone numbers, addresses, middle names and birthdays. Gift ideas too. It all goes into my palm. I love it when a friend says, “But how did you know?” and I can say,”You told me.”
  3. Music is in my blood. I can’t not-listen or not-make it. I *always* listen to the words.
  4. I don’t buy something because it fits a theme, I buy it because I like it. As a result my surroundings have always been… eclectic.
  5. I memorize relatively easily.
  6. I have vivid dreams. If I had time to write them down on first-waking, I’d have a lot more story seeds.
  7. I have pierced ears, but only occasionally remember to wear earrings.
  8. I understand the strength of my glasses prescription means I’m legally blind (without them, of course). I’m never up without them, even in the middle of the night. Continue reading »