Maybe I should retitle this blog something about poo. It seems to be a theme lately. Until I get a chance to start writing some of what’s dancing around in my head (and digital camera!), this is worth reading. (How’s that for a teaser?)
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00e54ee22f1c883401157
“The focus of our days is the dinner table, whether, as often happens in the winter nowadays, it is just Hugh and me or I am cooking for a dozen or more. When the children were in school I didn’t care what time we ate dinner as long as we ate it together. If Hugh were going to be late, then we would all eat late. If he had to be at the theatre early, we would eat early. This was the time community (except for the very small babies) gathered together, when I saw most clearly illustrated the beautiful principle of unity in diversity: we were one, but we were certainly diverse, a living example of the fact that like and equal are not the same thing.”
-Madeleine L’Engle, Glimpses of Grace (emphasis added)
I don’t have much time to write lately because of a swamp of school work, but I found this worth sharing. This is sort of the ideal I hold up of my family in ten or fifteen years – gathered around dinner, discussing sports, theology, nature, literature, and whatever interests my children will quite literally “bring to the table” of which I now have no concept. It is a daunting goal, but the beauty of this “unity in diversity” makes me want to strive towards it.
More on this as relates to communal living beyond the family later, perhaps.
I’ve been thinking a lot about food lately. I like to spend time in the kitchen, making good food from scratch (or close to it). Unfortunately, that often means something else in the never-ending list of house and school chores is being neglected. As much as I know I would miss all my kitchen comforts, some days I envy women whose work for the day is almost exclusively involved in preparing food for their families.
We’ve spent Mardi Gras at my parents’ house, away from all the festivities (and traffic) in New Orleans. My dad grew up on a farm in Mustang, Oklahoma, which is now practically a suburb of Oklahoma City. We were talking with him the other day about how his mother would provide a hearty, hot breakfast, a full lunch (fried chicken, potatoes, vegetable, etc.), and then a large dinner as well. The men would come in from the fields to eat lunch during the harvest. She got up before everyone else and started the stove on winter mornings. She butchered the chickens. I don’t envy some of the hard work she had to do, but I do envy having work with such a clear purpose.
We’re working our way, very slowly, closer to the land. Our little garden has produced well considering the neglect it has suffered. We’re looking at joining a CSA (community supported agriculture) group out of Baton Rouge, so we will pay a fee for the year and get fresh, organic produce every week in April through August. (This takes out the middleman and supports a small farm which doesn’t destroy the land, not to mention cutting down on the effects of transportation.)
In many places just getting food on the table (if there is a table!) is an all-consuming daily project. Where our food comes so easily to our tables, it is less appreciated. One of our plans for Lent is to eat more simply, and hopefully more healthily, and stick to a tighter food budget. Hopefully along the way, we can learn to be a little more careful in our eating, and a little more thankful for our bounty.
Craig stumbled on an interesting article the other day about the damage screen time (TV, computer, etc.) can do to the developing brain.? You can read the rest of the article here, but I’d like to share just the conclusion for its insights:
“We human beings are a strange bunch. We grind up grains that appeal to a dog’s extremely sensitive sense of taste and press these into shapes resembling cartoon bones. Then we package these cartoon bones in colorful boxes that appeal to human adults because dogs would never do such a thing. The same is true of babies. Babies would never buy Baby Einstein videos. They are too busy playing and learning from the real world. The real consumers of Baby Einstein products are not babies. The real target is parents and grandparents who want their little darlings to be the next Einstein. I’m quite sure that Baby Einstein products are well produced, colorful and captivating. But the medium is the message, not the program flashing on the screen. I prefer to squish peas in my mashed potatoes, thank you.”
-“Just Say NO to Baby Einstein”
By Michael Mendizza
His main point is that the real world is a much better educator for a child than anything PBS can dream up, but there are so many places to go with this!? First of all, it does say something about a society that views intelligence as a commodity.? We all want to get ahead, and we want our children to get ahead in their turn, and the best way to do that is for them to go to college, preferably on scholarship so we don’t have to pay for it, so we had better have them well prepared for preschool.? I want my kids to read early as much as the next parent, but because I want them to be able to enjoy books and grow from their own ability to investigate what interests them in these books, and if they end up at the top of the class, that is only lagniappe.
More importantly, the difference in Lucy, our two-year-old, between a TV-full day and a TV-free day is dramatic, at least in those little details we mothers tend to notice.? Like tantrums.? It would seem that less TV = fewer tantrums.? And as easy as it is for me to get work done while she sits mesmerized by hours of Elmo and friends, at the same time it is disappointing to realize that she is not interacting, or really acting at all, but mostly absorbing flashing lights.? (Sometime I will write about how close the “interactive” shows are to Ray Bradbury’s vision in Farenheit 451, but not today.)? Maybe it would be better for that load of laundry to stay unfolded if it means she gets to spend more time painting, playing with bread dough, or running outside.
So, for the time being, our TV has taken up residence in the bottom of our bedroom closet, and in the newly-cleaned out space next to its dark screen, Lucy has established a new place to hide and pretend.
Fly Lady? (the architect of my one hope of ever having a clean house) has a wonderful bit of philosophy: ? you can do anything for fifteen minutes. ? This is usually applied to dealing with piles of paper clutter, laundry, putting away holiday decorating, etc. ? But with a two-year-old and an infant, I’m learning how to do things for only? fifteen minutes, since that’s about the average length of time my hands are free before one or the other (or both!) is demanding attention. ? (more…)
Today is the feast of St. Lucy, our oldest daughter’s namesake. (It’s a little strange to call her the “oldest” when she is barely two!) So we got up early-ish and got to work on the Saint Lucia buns. We used cardamom instead of the traditional saffron, but they came out pretty well, and the house smelled wonderful all day! Then we had a big brunch to celebrate Lucy’s special day.
I don’t have any profound insights about it all, except that it was wonderful to make something special that actually came out right (I’ve had a string of culinary defeats lately) and how entertaining dough can be in little hands. Lucy made her own buns, which were not exactly traditionally shaped, but still tasted great! This morning reinforced to me the goods that come from simple things like hand-kneading bread and working side-by-side with your family. It is hard to describe the peace that came working in the kitchen in the morning sun, and the sense of accomplishment when we tasted what we had spent so much time and effort making. I don’t think I could do it every day, but it was a wonderful, relaxing way to spend a Saturday morning!
“In fact, we are always meeting in nature with admirable examples of the close correspondence between the forms of the organs and the offices they fulfill, even when these bring no actual benefit to the animal. The insects which suck nectar from flowers of a certain kind, develop probosces adapted to the length of corolla which those flowers possess. But they also develop a coating, quite useless to themselves, by which they collect pollen, and this fertilizes the flowers they will visit afterwards. … (more…)
The new liturgical year started yesterday, and I was thinking (I know it’s not an original thought) that it’s time for some New Year’s resolutions, perhaps of the liturgical variety.