Fantasy Living

For today's version of Philosophical Friday, you get two related questions for the price of one!

1) If you could inherit a comfortable home in any city in the world that you could use but not sell, where would you want it to be?

2) If you could inherit a vacation home anywhere in the world in which you could spend one month a year, but that you could never sell, where would it be?

I'm going to take the first question literally and pick a city rather than a rural area or small town. I'm a city girl, anyway, and I'd love to live part-time in London. I visited it during college and I would love to go back--and then I could pop over to Paris or anywhere else in Europe while there. Hopefully I would be able to afford to travel there more than once every 15 years, though!


With all the exotic options available for choice #2, I think I'll have to stay in the U.S. and visit Carmel-by-the-sea in Northern California. It's beautiful year-round and my husband would love to play golf at Pebble Beach!


Where would you like your second and third homes to be?

The Habit of Obedience

Today while I was waiting to pick Miss Pink up from school, the song "Mary, Did You Know?" came on the radio. I love that song. Except for the Kenny Rogers version. Anyway, this version was Kenny-free, and I let it soak into my brain as I thought about Christmas from Mary's point of view.

Miss Pink's birthday is tomorrow. She was two weeks old on Christmas Day, and I thought I might die from sleep deprivation. In all the pictures that year, my face can barely form a smile. The best part was that we didn't have to buy Christmas presents for anybody that year, because what could be a better present than a sweet little baby?

Remembering my first Christmas as a mother, my heart swells with empathy for Mary. Whatever she knew, I doubt she knew it with mystical, angelic certainty. During her pregnancy, she must have been confused and exhausted and more than a little panicky. Maybe she thought during labor, "Why on earth did I say yes to that angel?" She must have looked at her infant son with an instinctual desire to protect him from anything that would ever threaten him with pain--and yet her mother love was mingled with the knowledge that her baby was not like other babies.

Think about it: all of us secretly think our baby is the most perfect one ever born, but hers really was.

Why did she do it? She had a choice--God always gives us a choice. She could have said no, and the shame of being pregnant before the wedding would have passed her by. The months of waiting which ended in giving birth in a filthy stable would not have happened to her. Her life would have proceeded as planned, without the divine disruption that changed everything.

Instead, she answered "yes" right away. There was no hesitation, no "let me think about it." No, Mary said to the angel, "Be it unto me according to thy word." She said, Yes. I am yours.

Such acceptance, it seems to me, only comes naturally when it has been practiced. Mary's ability to say yes to the ultimate request was made possible by all the times she had said yes to smaller things. She had made a habit of obedience.

Remembering all the times I've complained and whined and fought against God's will for my life, I am even more impressed by Mary's obedience. Too often obedience is seen as passivity; it's considered boring to be an obedient person. But when obedience demands the greatest risk of all, we realize that it's much more difficult and valuable than it appears. And that it takes practice. A lot of practice (well, maybe more for some of us than others!)

Thank you, Mary, for being obedient enough to bear the Son of God. And may I be willing to follow your example--whatever path I am asked to take.

Regular Exercise

This week I realized that I've done a pretty good job of keeping my New Year's resolution to go to the gym regularly. I don't say that boastfully at all--in fact, I'm pretty surprised at myself. For those who wish they could work out more often but are too busy, I understand why you can't, especially if you're a working parent. You come home tired at the end of the day, and you need to spend the last drops of your energy with your munchkins, not on the treadmill. But as a SAHM who spends way too much plenty of quality time with my kids, I figured that I had no excuse when I had access to a gym with inexpensive memberships and child care.

Of course, it's kind of disappointing to realize that I haven't lost any weight. I don't really HAVE to, but show me the woman who doesn't think she needs to lose five pounds, and I'll show you a man. (Kidding! If you have a healthier body image than I do and love yourself at your current weight, that's great.) Neither have I decreased my body fat percentage or even noticeably toned up. This is probably because I haven't pushed myself all that hard. One of my mottoes (I have many) is, "No pain...is good." I have worked up to increasing the resistance to level 4 on the treadmill and I can go 15 minutes on the elliptical machine now. One of these days I'll even be able to beat the senior citizens around the track! (Kidding again. I can totally lap most of them.)

Honestly, it's fine with me to only be moderately fit. I have no interest in running a marathon or even running at all. Another one of my mottoes is, "I don't run unless the safety of a child is involved." THEN I can haul butt. But I don't want to run for exercise. Runners always talk about how great it is and the "runner's high," but I've never seen one of them look like they're enjoying their run. They always have this grimace on their emaciated face, like it's a Death Run with armed guards forcing them to keep going beyond a normal endurance level. No, THANK you.

I'm most thankful that exercise has allowed me to stay in the same size of clothes while eating plenty of treats along with the healthy stuff that I do enjoy. Life without chocolate would be a life with no meaning for me, and if I have to sweat for an hour a few times a week so that my obsession and I can be together, well then, BRING IT ON.

Week in Review, 11/30--12/6

Another week flew by--at this point I'm just hoping to survive the next couple of weeks until Christmas gets here and we can enjoy the time with family!

1. I had no motivation this week. None, zero, zip, zilch. I kept us fed and with clean clothes--that's it. The house is very dirty, not just cluttered. But I am okay with it. I am going to do a little at a time and get things back where they need to be--and if I don't get everything spotless, that's okay since no one is coming over until Miss Pink's birthday party is over this weekend.

Priorities. I haz them. Sort of.

2. Mr. Blue is completely obsessed with The Wonder Pets show. I find myself singing, "What's gonna work? TEAMwork!" and "This is sewious!" even when the kids aren't around. (And as I twittered the other day, I'm worried about Ming Ming Duck. She needs speech therapy.)

A positive aspect of this obsession: the kids begged me to buy the Wonder Pet's snack of choice: celery. And they actually eat it for a snack. Amazing.

3. We went to Santa's Breakfast at our town's community center on Saturday to make some family memories. It's the kind of thing I always think, "Oh, we should do that" and forget about until it's over, then feel guilty because I worry that our kids are not going to grow up with any Meaningful Holiday Traditions. But I bought the tickets in advance ($3 and $4, so super cheap fun) and although my husband was rather Scrooge-like at first, even he had to admit that it was fun. After we had pancakes and sausage, the kids saw Santa and I got pictures of them sitting in his lap. It was much quicker and more personal than going to the mall. Mr. Blue had been unsure if he wanted to do it, but when he saw the very nice Santa with a kind voice, he went right up and climbed onto Santa's lap.

Then the kids painted an ornament and Miss Pink also made a beaded candy cane and got her face painted. An hour and a half later, we were back home with some genuine Christmas memories. Go me!

Philosopical Friday

With all the themed participatory weekly posts out there like "Works-for-Me-Wednesday" and "Friday Fill Ins," it occurred to me that I could call my posts that answer questions from the book If... "Philosophical Friday." But I'm sorry, I cannot call it Filosophical Friday because that would cause me physical pain.

Anyway, the questions are more hypothetical than philosophical, if that difference matters--although some of the answers may reveal your philosophy of life. I don't know; I don't know enough about philosophy. It's too deep for me.

Here's the next question.

If you could have stopped aging at any point of your life up to the present, how old would you want to remain?

I remember using this question as an icebreaker for our small group, and most people said they wanted to be young and relatively carefree (i.e. no kids) but still old enough to have a responsible job so they could have money, etc. So they agreed they'd like to be 25 or so.

Not me. I'd like to stay right where I am. I love being in my early 30s. I have more confidence and optimism than I've ever had, and I don't care nearly as much as I used to about what people think of me. I have good friends, an amazing husband, and the best kids I could ask for. When I was in my early 2os, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, I cried a lot, and I frequently agonized over whether I should go ahead and have a baby. (Answer to my younger self: yes, you nitwit. On one level, you will never be ready, but it's the best thing that will ever happen to you.) Plus, since I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, I didn't have a full-time job or the disposable income that comes with it.

So being 33 isn't so bad. I wouldn't mind staying here as long as Mr. Blue gets out of this annoying screaming stage.

What about you? Would you like to be younger or are you happier at your current stage of life?

Keeping My Fingers Crossed

All day I've been dying to blog about the possibility that opened up for me today. So of course I had no opportunity to write about it until bedtime.

But now I can! Today at the gym I started talking to the woman on the stationary bike next to me. She mentioned that she teaches for a homeschool co-op; she was an art teacher before she had kids, and the co-op hired her to teach their kids once a week. Obviously it isn't much money because it's only once a week, but she really does it to get her "teaching fix" as she put it.

I get that--I really do. For those who don't know, I taught a couple of years, then worked at Sylvan Learning Center while I went to grad school. I love to teach. It's in my nature; it's who I am. Here's what I don't like about the job: rebellious kids, paperwork, clueless parents, and long meetings. I always knew I wanted to be a SAHM, so it wasn't a question what I would do when Miss Pink was born. But when people ask me if I'm going back to teaching, for five years I've said, "Not if I don't have to!" Because whenever things got hard, I'd ask myself, "Would I rather be back in a classroom of eighth graders trying to teach them YET AGAIN the difference between 'their' and 'they're'?" The answer was always, "H-e-double-hockeysticks, NO!" and I'd go back to my screaming toddler with a renewed sense of gratitude. Because at least it was only ONE rebellious child, and she is mine and I love her with all of my heart, which somewhat lessens the desire to throw her off a cliff, and besides I am bigger than her.

So, no, I was not wanting to go back to teaching for a long time. This remained true even when I had Mr. Blue and we were up to two children and one mama. I can still take 'em, so I was good.

Lately, though, the "teacher" part of my brain has been partly reactivated because I've been doing some volunteer tutoring at Miss Pink's school. I just love working with kids in small groups. So I began to think of what I could do to get in a classroom part-time--and I thought I might start subbing at the school, which is so awesome that I would LOVE to be teaching there, but that couldn't start until Mr. Blue starts kindergarten. Because if I have to pay a babysitter out of sub wages, it wouldn't be worth it.

Anyway, to get to the point, this woman I met today said she thought I should check with the director about teaching for the homeschool group. It was her idea, not mine. I asked her if she thought they'd be interested in a creative writing workshop and she said yes, they love classes like that. I got so excited I almost fell off my bike (not really.) I have always wanted to do a real workshop but due to (stupid) standardized tests there really isn't time to allow the kids to really work as writers. I am trying not to be too excited but I am going to talk with them about the possibility of teaching it for the fall. It's good that I'd have that much time to prepare the curriculum.

Of course I know that I only want to do this if it's a good fit for me, but--the possibility of teaching something I've always wanted to, in a low-stress environment with a small group of kids, in only an hour or two a week so I can do it without putting Mr. Blue in day care--it's SO exciting to think that this is a possibility, if not with this group, then maybe with another. I think it really is true that when you're open to new possibilities, you never know what will come your way.

My Halls Are Decked (At Least Partly)

Well, I've succeeded at Officially Getting into the Christmas Spirit. It's always a relief when I manage to do it. One year it didn't happen until around December 20, and even I was worried. Of course, that was one of the years when we went on the Mandatory Ski Trips of Too Much Family Togetherness, which I do not have time to discuss today.

Here's how I know I'm ready to start feeling the Christmas love.

1. I start writing and talking in phrases with too many capital letters. (See above paragraph for examples.)

2. I'm mentally planning all the holiday goodies I'm going to bake. Let's just say that with everything I want to make, I need to be giving a LOT of the bounty away, or Mrs. Claus won't fit in the chimney.

3. I perked up quite a bit when Justin's side of the family decided that the adults wouldn't exchange gifts this year. Look, I'm not really a Scrooge, but gifts are not my Love Language (I wasn't kidding about the capitalizing) and the thought of planning, buying, wrapping, shipping, and let's not forget affording all of those gifts when like everybody else we're in a financial crunch--and doing it all by myself because that is apparently why men get married, not that I'm bitter after eleven years!--well, it was a relief, that's all. I will happily buy gifts for the kids and I'm making a photo book for the grandparents as I write this. And then I only have one Amazon order, one trip to Target (or an online order if my items qualify for free shipping) and one trip to Starbucks to make and that's it.

4. I'm listening to the Christmas music station in the car. I only change it on commercials and if "The Little Drummer Boy" comes on. I hate how that song gets stuck in my head. Ironically, I have a little drummer boy of my own this year. I'd rather listen to him than that song, actually.

5. Last year I read somewhere about reading a different Christmas story every night of December. And then I forgot about it until most of the Christmas books were checked out of the library. But yesterday at the library someone had left out a book titled "A Story a Day Until Christmas" and so we can do it this year! Mr. Blue was more interested in wrestling with Daddy, which is what they usually do on our bed, but you've got to start sometime. And Miss Pink enjoyed it.

5. I can't put the tree up for a couple of weeks because Justin is trying to see how much of the floor he can get finished. I told him he has until the second week of the month, and then it is going up no matter what. since the tree is the main part of my decorating. I just have never been able to get myself to put up a lot of other decorations. Today, I started getting out the Christmas hand towels and the candles and putting the china Nativity scene up on the mantel. (I just looked at the front door wreath which is on a shelf in the garage, and it needs serious help. I think insulation from the attic fell down on it. Yikes.)

So here I am, making a list and checking it twice obsessively, looking forward to good baking smells and the shining eyes of children, to ancient carols and new memories. Hoping to make it a December to remember.