Category Archives: Random

Saying What I Mean

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The post to young mothers (about their husbands providing them a break) was written under a cloud of inspiration and attitude.

There have been a couple posts on my radar about “Mommy-time,” and they were what inspired the post, but before many more people read it, I feel like I want to explain myself.

I’ve mentioned before how much I thrive on positivity, and how I left a mom’s group once because they were too negative. The way this was typically manifested was in complaints about their lot as SAHMs and their husbands: Continue reading »

Ministering to my Husband

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I “let” my husband go out snowmachining today, and have seen such provision throughout today that I had another revelation.  Sort-of tied to my post below.

Partly I think that God is easing my way so that I’ll be more willing to allow Jay his own “Daddy-time,” and largely I’ve been thinking of what a gift it will be to Jay when he comes home (doubtless *exhausted*) and I can tell him that we had a very nice day.

I thought again about how I send up little popcorn prayers when I’ve left him with all three kids (not often– I usually take the baby) and how it is just the cap on a good evening to know things were peaceful while I was gone.

Helping my Husband Help Me
or Setting Him Up for Success

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Having store-bought bread doesn’t make my husband appreciate homemade bread more. Having *homemade* bread makes him appreciate homemade bread more.

I was just giving someone advice today about not making Daddy’s time alone with the kids a negative thing, and it got me thinking.

The Argument

There seems to be a school of thought that Mom should leave the kids with Dad whenever she feels like it, and if things fall apart or are really hard for the guy, that somehow this will make him appreciate her more, because he will now “identify” with what she (as a mom) goes through. These invisibles also imply the father will or should subject himself to this repeatedly.

Apparently this is a way to “prove” his love to you and/or his offspring.

I think this is incredibly unfair.

For one thing, most dads don’t have that presence like a mother’s that can near-instantly calm a child. Do you ever wonder why Dad’s always passing the kid back to Mom? Because it *works* that’s why!

So, anything Dad’s doing, especially with very young children, will be harder for him than for Mom. Also, unless he’s a SAHD, there’s no way he’ll have internalized preferences and schedules like the Mom, has. This is another strike against him.

It’s still fine to leave him alone in charge of the kids, it is still good for him, and for Mom, but for it all to go well (and happen again with minimum resistance) a little planning should be involved: Continue reading »

Debt-Proof…Reading?

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I read Debt-Proof Living from cover to cover while I was still at home. That is, before I was married. And I had *no* debt. And planned never to have any debt (“except, maybe, a house.”)

I have no idea why I did this.

Still not in any debt (except for that house-thing), but was thinking about her “method” of debt reduction as I was observing my stack of reading.

What if I could apply that system to what I’m reading?

To summarize her “method” (without reviewing the book or checking if this is a violation of some intellectual property law), the aspiring freeman destroys the credit cards currently owned (so they are unusable, and no longer racking up debt). Then the budget is designed to maintain the minimum payments on each card.

When the card with the lowest balance is paid-off, the amount that was being used on that debt is added into overpaying on the next-smallest debt.

In this way the payout remains consistent, but the pay-off continues to accelerate.

~~~

I will spare you (for now) the entirety of my reading list. Things get on my “list” by me actually starting them. The list is long and varied.

I liked this idea of looking for the shortest one first, in order to finish it and move my reading time on to the next-shortest.

This of course would somehow have to include Bible Reading time (as the largest debt) as frequently as “other” reading.  That is, every day of reading would include Bible reading.

The downfall of this is the reality of two things:

  • I really do read only one book at a time.
  • I am notoriously awful about not finishing what I’m on before starting something new.

Is this what you call serial monogamy?

Callings and Being: a patchwork of thoughts.

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God makes each soul unique. If He had no use for all these differences I do not see why He should have created more souls than one. Be sure the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you.

C.S. Lewis

I discovered this quote the summer after my freshman year in college, and latched on to it. I still love it.

  • What you do doesn’t determine who you are; who you are determines what you do.
  • No person can consistently live in a manner that is inconsistent with how he perceives himself.

Both from Victory Over the Darkness by Neil Anderson

I know some people take issue with his writings. I also still think these statements are valid.

His [Jesus’s] divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

2 Peter 1:3

We’re not just hanging on until we go home with the get-out-of- jail-free card he bought us. We have also been equipped to live this life while we’re here. He’s given us everything we need.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age

Titus 2:11-12

The same grace that called us away from what is destructive also trains us to live a life pleasing to God.

All this is mixed-in with my mis-reading of this post which gave me the great line:

We all have things that He [God] did not give us.

As a multi-talented (multi-interest) person, it is a good reminder. There are things I’m just not meant to do.

And because God’s design has purpose, the not is as much my identity as the doing. Or, so it seems reasonable to assume.

Something to think on, anyway.

Thinking About What Children’s Songs are Saying

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(I can’t believe this is my first post about music. Music is a *big* part of my life. But so is eating, and sleeping, and I don’t blog about those, so… Anyway.)

As a word-person I’ve always been very clear on any song’s lyric and content before letting my kids hear me sing it. My tip/challenge (as the nit-picky, literal-interpretor I can be):

Don’t just sing “children’s” songs because they’re children’s songs. Make sure you agree with their message too.

Many of them are sweet, and we can sing things that go over their heads if we feel like it, but at least let’s not be unaware.

The types of things I’ve modified:

  • Down by the Bay— the fun rhyming-song Raffi made popular (I’m not sure who wrote it.)
    • DH inserted, “back to my home I want to go” (replacing “Back to my home I dare not go.” Don’t we want our kids thinking coming home will be fun?).
  • Row Your Boat
    • Changed the last line to “life is full of dreams” (replacing “Life is but a dream,” an unhealthy philosophy that’s been around for centuries.)
  • Lavender’s Blue (dilly dilly)
    • “Call out your men, set them to work… while you and I… keep ourselves warm.”  (Oh, look, a new euphemism for Mom and Dad  to use.)
    • It makes me smile but also is something I don’t much want my kids singing.

Am I word-obsessed? You could argue that. Over-analyzing?  Probably.

But these are words I’m planting in my young children’s minds as the way things are. They know the bit about “A llama eating pajamas” is nonsense, because of the context, but they are only just entering the age where we can say, this part is real, and this part isn’t. And I’ve been singing to them their whole lives.

And they’re *really* not ready to understand that philosophy (somebody want to remind me of the name? I’ve mis-placed my book).

I prefer just to avoid the stuff I don’t want to explain later. And that, I guess, is my “standard” for now.

More ideas at Rocks in my Dryer.

~~~

Added 2-3-07:

If you’re looking for a playable collection of children’s songs here are a bunch with chords.

Personalizing Books

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I have something of a ritual I go through with books that I buy. Like many people I write my name in the front of the book, then I add the month and year (1/07) under my name.

Best as I can remember I started this the summer I was 19. I has attended a 2-week… camp? seminar? called Summit.  Where I bought a stack of books. I think I put the dates in as a reference point (8/98), to gauge how long until I finished reading them (some of them, never– they’re still sitting unopened on my shelves).

Since then the labeling seems to have become something of a “need” for me. I just finished dating a stack of books I bought in the last two months (vacation and going-out-of-business buying), along with several I’d found with no dates.  With those I had to do a little homework and associative remembering to nail down the exact months.

But with it done I feel a ridiculously comfortable sense of accomplishment.

~~~

My next big-deal will be finding a home for all these new acquisitions and loosening my hold on a few special ones I really did buy for the kids, so I shouldn’t hold too tightly to them myself…which means letting them endure

the comfortable abuse
of frequent use.

*sigh*

First torn page this evening. I see a sort of parallel between a nice book’s first tear and a guitar’s first ding.

Alaskan Snapshot

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My sister sent me this forward under the title, “Forget rednecks…here is what Jeff Foxworthy has to say about Alaskans…

Here were the ones (or their modifications) that rang the most true with me, along with my own.

  • If you’ve worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you may live in Alaska.
  • If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don’t work there, you may live in Alaska.
  • If you measure distance in hours, you may live in Alaska.
  • If you know several people who have hit a moose, you may live in Alaska.
  • If you have switched from “heat” to “A/C” in the same day and back again, you may live in Alaska.
  • If you can drive through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching, you may live in Alaska. Continue reading »

Gifts

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I might do another post someday about gifts, but for now I’ll say that my favorite kind to give or receive is the kind that “fits.” Something that the recipient can use or enjoy.Some gifts, I’ve noticed, are just given because it’s the way the giver expresses s/he values the recipient (I’m thinking here of the sometimes-useless wedding gifts every couple must decide what to do with).

There is a quote (in a slightly different context) in the book I read for Sunday school some months back. It was said to be an old Chinese proverb:

“Nothing can atone for the insult of a gift except for the love of the person who gives it.”

The author’s point is that the gift represents a need of the recipient, and insults by implying he or she can’t meet that need alone.

Especially in terms of the weird/useless gift category this proverb means something else to me: The love of the giver adds value to a gift that otherwise has none. Picture the wilting bundle of dandelions, their hollow stems half-crushed by excited little hands, being put in a vase on the table. Its whole value comes from

“the love of the person who gives it.”

Discovering Pronunciation.

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In my mind, the words collaborate and corroborate are tied together. I would always mispronounce corroborate as “coraborate,” with a short-a sound. Maybe this was just because I never saw them together in print. In fact, I can’t remember seeing corroborate in print at all. I certainly didn’t know how to spell it, and maybe that’s why I couldn’t pronounce it properly.

My mom has corrected me twice this month (once yesterday) and so I’m making a post to remind myself ;-)

Her correction yesterday (we were working on dishes in my kitchen) led her to reminisce about when I was learning to read, and the first times I’d come across one of those words that aren’t pronounced as they’re written.

I could remember two: Colonel (as in, Mustard) and quay, as in, a landing place. Both times I remember coming across the word and not finding meaning in the sounds from the page. And both times my mom would (without even looking– maybe with a smile in her voice) inform me of the proper pronunciation and say that’s just how it’s done, and I’d just have to memorize it.

She asked me yesterday if those things were troublesome (not her word), and I (in one of my moments of spontaneous discovery) said, “English is kind-of like a rich, eccentric old uncle. He sort of does what he wants and we just get used to it.”

I would add to that, the reason we put up with him is because he’s so rich. I wonder if we’d put up with so much if he didn’t enable us to do just about anything we want.