Helpful hints (at least they helped ME)

The first half of this post I have been mulling over for some little time, debating whether to bother sharing it because my suspicion is that none of my friends out there are quite as obsessed with the sheer joy of finding bargains and free things as I am. =) But I love to share good news and spill over with enthusiasm about things that excite me, so I'll just toss it out there and hope that it proves useful to someone. There now.

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Walgreens Easy Saver Catalogue

For those fortunate enough to live near a Walgreens, I can think of no reason not to get excited about getting wonderful free stuff every month. I discovered this program by accident a year ago this month, very skeptically bought the stuff, got my money back, and have been an ardent Walgreens Easy Saver shopper ever since. Click on the Catalog button from the link above to see this month's deals. (Warning: this month is juicier than most. Some months there are just one or two items. Some months there are ten.)

In its most simple form, you can use it as a rebate. Simply buy all the items listed in the middle of the flyer, which are advertised as being free, from your local Walgreens; fill out the rebate form; and send away for your check. You will get a rebate check for the entire amount of the purchase, less, of course, sales tax. If you choose to follow this option, then you will probably only want to buy the stuff you can actually use (sanitary pads, toothbrushes, etc.) because you are going to be stuck with the cost of the sales tax.

However, the way I use the Easy Saver rebate is to elect to receive my rebate in the form of a Walgreens gift card instead of a check. If you choose this option, you will get not only your money back, but also a 10% bonus, which easily covers the cost of the sales tax AND the stamp used to mail off the rebate each month. Once you receive the card, you can choose to simply reload it in future months, saving time in the mail. I always get my rebate reloaded onto my card well in time to buy the stuff for next month.

Because I use this gift card system, I have a sort of 'revolving balance' with Walgreens on this rebate system, which enables me to buy every free item every month, no matter how useful to me. I gamely buy everything they offer and decide how to use it later. Some of the medications (cold, flu, nasal stuff, etc.) that we wouldn't use I can give away. Some items (reading glasses) I can donate to missionary causes. Some of the random stuff (hemorrhoid treatment, anti-itch cream) I can save for gag gifts and such. It's all free, and the more stuff I buy, the more of a balance I accrue on my gift card. I think I started off by spending about $25 on the rebate items the first month I tried it out, and I've now worked up my gift card balance to around $40. So I am still 'out' my initial investment of $25, but I've gotten a year's worth of free stuff for it, and anytime I decide to opt out of playing this game, I can choose to have my final purchase refunded to me in the form of a check, completely cashing me out and then some.

A caution: you do have to follow through with the rebate paperwork. I am not good with details, so I have to make myself fill out the paperwork the instant I return from shopping. The instructions in the flyer are pretty clear, but it is a bit of hoop-jumping: you have to fill out the rebate form, circle the items on the receipt, and write the offer numbers by each item. There is, thankfully, no requirement to include UPC symbols. I make a copy of the paperwork before I mail it, just to be careful. You must follow the instructions scrupulously, you must buy the stuff (and send off the paperwork) within the allotted time frame, and you must make sure that the item does indeed cost less than the maximum rebate amount. Walgreens is usually pretty good about making sure that if they advertise something as free, the price will be less than the rebate amount; but I still have to watch it and make sure I don't buy the wrong size shampoo and end up paying more than what I will get refunded.

A suggestion: if you want to start doing this, I'd recommend getting the check rebate this month rather than the gift card, because there's a lot of stuff this month and you probably don't need to wind up with a $50+ gift card. As mentioned before, most months aren't this lucrative, and sometimes I end up spending only $10 on one or two things.

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MotherLoad: A wonderful blog!

This is a really great blog that I recently stumbled across, and I've been lurking thereabouts ever since, especially on Fridays. Why, you ask? Because every Friday she writes a post featuring various free things you can sign up for, and I love getting free things!

At first, I must admit that I was a bit skeptical. I don't hold truck with handing out my personal information wholesale, and I'm very cautious about signing up for stuff online which may open me up to receiving scads of junk mail. But I tentatively signed up for something, and received my free sample in the mail so promptly that I was addicted.

Every week I spend about ten minutes online, filling out various forms and submitting them. Hardly a day goes by when I don't get something in the mail. I've gotten diaper samples, toothpaste samples, cute little .05 oz. deodorant samples, shampoo samples, and any number of other useful (and otherwise!) stuff. I haven't seen any increase in my junk mail, which isn't surprising since most of the forms ask me if they can share my email address/other information with other vendors, and I of course select no. These are reputable vendors, like Proctor & Gamble, so you know they won't sell your information without your permission.

Just to be safe, I use my rarely-used first name, so that any junk mail which does show up would be a dead giveaway. I also enter my throwaway Yahoo email address, when an email address is required. Very tidy and simple, very little time investment, very rewarding mail runs these days.

Movie diatribes

Yet another batch of toffee is cooling hopefully in the refrigerator, and I take a moment to document my thoughts on recent movies watched. The background is the receipt of another free trial offer from Netflix, which we gamely accepted on the premise that it would allow us to watch a few of those movies that we sort of wanted to see but certainly wouldn't have gone out and paid money to watch.

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Total Recall

Michael saw this movie many, many times when it first came out, the summer he spent in Alaska. He watched it so much because 1) he was desperate for movies to watch in Alaska; and 2) he was thrilled to be able to go to a movie theatre at all, movies having been off-limits for the past two years at Moody. So this film has sentimental value for him, and it was important that I understand where he was going with random quotes like 'Two weeks.'

By an amazing coincidence, I actually saw a preview for it when it first came out, just about the first time I ever went to a movie theatre, too: when my parents took me to see Driving Miss Daisy. Don't ask me how such a preview ever got in front of such a movie. Several key scenes from the preview made a strong impression on me and gave me nightmares for weeks, to wit: 1) People walking behind a screen and their bones showing! They were skeletons! 2) Someone's head landing in someone's hands, saying, 'Get ready for a surprise!' and then exploding.

I was relieved to discover that the movie is by no means as scary as my ten-year-old memories led me to believe. With Michael there to warn me when to close my eyes, I completely missed out on any gory scenes (Me: Is it worse than the Nazis' face-melting in Indiana Jones? Michael: Hmm, maybe about the same. Me: Okay, I'm closing my eyes. Warn me whenever it happens.) and was pleasantly surprised to find that: 1) the skeletons were just people walking through an x-ray machine, scanning for weapons; and 2) the exploding head was that of a robot.

The plot was interesting, in that it really kept you wondering; it reminded me a bit of a simplified Matrix, without the high-tech special effects. It was a fascinating premise, and made me question a little bit the boundaries of reality, perception, and how we can be sure at any given time that we are awake, aware, and in full possession of our memories.

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Pride and Prejudice (the new one)

I saw this with a girlfriend when it came out last year, and enjoyed it for what it was: it by no means did justice to the book, and certainly didn't seem to measure up to the spectacular A&E version, but felt like a good enough movie in its own right. I remember having a distinct impression of reading an abridged novel where the pace continues breathlessly and minor details are never sufficiently fleshed out, but I was so familiar with the story myself that my mind gamely filled in all the blanks, leaving me with a pleasant overall impression.

Well. Watching it again (and with Michael) was certainly a come-down. Second time through, it shone forth as a cheesy romantic comedy/period-piece-costume-drama-wannabe. Michael kept groaning, issuing eye rolls and such commentary as 'Oh puleeeeeze!' 'Yeah, right!' and 'You have got to be kidding me.' And I was much inclined to agree with him.

I can forgive the director leaving out so many characters in the interests of brevity. But the characters that were left were sadly undeveloped. Wickham never really makes that much of an impression on us as a good and wronged soul (nor do his initial attentions to Lizzie really show up much), so that his unveiling is surprisingly un-startling and unmoving. Bingley is an idiotic nincompoop. ('Yes. I mean, I'm glad....that is, I'm sorry you're ill...') Charlotte's pragmatism and calm philosophy are overshadowed by her desperation and fright. Lydia and Kitty never seem to register as that shocking of flirts.

The good things: the girls really looked like teenagers. Lydia actually looked her age. Jane was really beautiful. The impoverished gentility of the Bennets was well portrayed in the shabby everyday clothes they wore. Judi Dench as Lady Catherine was imperious and superb.

The bad things: the almost-kiss at the rain-drenched rotunda. The lack of explanations for the customs of that time. The incessant listening-at-the-door trick, which got real old real fast. The overdone melodrama (Lady Catherine's midnight visit? Darcy letting himself in the room, in the dark, to deliver his letter?) for the sake of inciting indignation or sympathy in the breasts of the audience. You know what it made me think of, through and through? One of those badly-done faux historical romances, with the rippling muscles and low-cut bodices on the cover, absolutely riveting questions on the back, and 20th-century characters capering about inside. It's as if the director thought, 'Let's dress them all up in old-fashioned clothes, give them English accents, and the audience will think it's about people in Jane Austen's day!'

Still, it was a pleasure to watch. It wasn't scandalous, it was clean and wholesome, the music was lovely, the scenery was English, and Keira Knightly is a delight to watch.

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Prime

I actually just saw the preview for this, in front of P&P. The plot, from what I could gather, involves a woman who meets and falls in love with a guy who turns out to be the son of her therapist, which apparently none of them figure out until far enough along in the movie so as to be embarrassing for all. Common enough fodder for your average romantic comedy, right? Right, so I forthwith had no intention of seeing it. But yesterday as I walked through Target I happened to see it on the shelf, so I picked it up and read the cover, from which I gleaned the following information: 1) The movie stars Uma Thurman and Meryl Streep. 2) The female character is a 37-year-old divorcee; the male character is 23. 3) The movie's title comes from the premise that both characters are in their respective sexual prime, hence well-matched for each other.

Ugh. I can't even work up enough ire to rant about the tragedy of boiling down the merits of a relationship to the purely physical, but it did make me wonder whether the movie-makers considered the characters to be remotely near, say, their emotional prime, their financial prime, their intellectual prime, their maturity prime? Probably not. Naturally we all know those factors have far less to do, generally speaking, with how we relate to other people and how well we get along in life, than does the physical aspect. That, of course, is the pivotal point upon which most good relationships are built.

Sweet nothings

Me (to Michael, observing that Jane was looking a bit droopy): Do you think she's ready to go down?
Jane (immediately perking up): No! No!

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Michael (to me): You have a hump on your belly...kind of like a camel, in reverse.

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Me: How do you pronounce vidalia onions? VIE- or VEE-? DAH-lia or DAY-lia?
Michael: Well, Bertie always called his aunt Aunt DAY-lia.
Me: Certainly we should sound British if at all possible.
Michael: Do they even have vidalia onions in England?
Me: Oh, well, there you go.

Overheard at playtime

Jane was languidly rocking in her little toddler rocking chair, while Michael pushed her and sang the words to Rock-A-Bye Baby. Or rather, he sang the first line over and over again, because she seemed to like it.

Michael: Rocka, rocka, rocka...
Me: You know, you're going to be in danger of the council.
Michael: Never mind! She doesn't speak Greek!

A somewhat indelicate topic

But one which demands addressing, nonetheless.

Last night we went to our electric cooperative's annual company picnic, mainly for the free BBQ dinner and promised Mayfield ice cream truck. We hadn't read the minutes, didn't pay attention to the meeting, and left before the final drawing for the grand prize.

We arrived in a somewhat frazzled condition, having been held up for two hours by a terrible wreck on the highway right in front of us. We didn't see it happen, but it must have happened just a minute or two before, as we could actually see clear highway ahead and saw the ambulances zoom past a few minutes after we came to a complete standstill. They actually stopped traffic going the other way so as to land helicopters on the road (why couldn't they have landed the helicopters on the road in front of the wreck? That was nice and clear), and cars were giving up by the droves, crossing the grassy median, and turning back for the last exit, nine miles distant. We weren't sure our car could handle the dip in the middle, nor were we sure how to get there from the wrong exit, so we stayed put and ended up sitting there for just over two hours.

So our condition upon arriving at the picnic, just before they stopped serving the food, was not ideal. Normally I try to avoid unsanitary bathroom conditions, but after spending longer in traffic than I even intended to be out, circumstances dictated otherwise. There was a small cluster of rented toilets off in a corner of the parking lot, and would you believe it, there were three for women and three for men!! Completely unsatisfactory for a crowd of that size, and sure enough, there was a whole line of women waiting while the men trooped happily in and out of their bathrooms. It infuriated me to the point of waxing philosophical, to wit: 1) Why would anyone manufacture male-specific portable restrooms? 2) Are they somehow cheaper to manufacture than the standard kind? 3) Why would anyone with any PR experience even bother renting male-specific portable restrooms? 4) Whoever ran the statistics for the planning for a crowd of this size? 5) WHY would it be cheaper to make a special kind of portable restroom for men only? Isn't standardization always the best method? And so on.

I was waxing eloquent to Michael about this later, and was considering researching the matter further, calling various port-a-potty manufacturers and demanding to know their costs of production for various units, when Michael informed me that, in fact, all the units were identical, and they were probably just labeled 'Men' and 'Women' because people are used to having separate, designated restrooms.

!!!

Sugar high

Last month at my checkup it was mentioned that next time, I'd get the horrid sugar water to drink for the glucose test at the next visit, and my midwife suggested that I could also take home a bag of jelly beans to eat instead, if I preferred. This got me all excited about the possibilities of eating sugar without drinking the dreadful fake orange juice, and I had just decided to make a batch of toffee for my glucose overdose, when I discovered, this last visit, that it had to be a very carefully controlled dose such that only a certain number of Brach's jelly beans would do. The hassle of tracking down the right brand and size and having to chew all those jelly beans in five minutes didn't seem worth it, so I resigned myself to drinking the orange stuff after all. However, having gotten all excited about making a batch of toffee, I decided to go ahead and make some anyway, which I did.

I have yet to find a good recipe for it; I remember that it requires roughly equal parts butter and brown sugar, which must be boiled for a certain length of time before being poured over chopped nuts and topped with chocolate chips, but the only recipe I found in all my cookbooks required corn syrup and water as well. This didn't sound right, but I tried it, and it turned out pretty well, although the finished product was a bit too chewy around the edges. Perhaps actually having a candy thermometer would have helped.

Trapped

Last night we were eating dinner with friends, and I discovered upon reaching home that I'd left my purse there. The friend graciously offered to drop the purse off at Michael's work today, so I should be reunited with it tonight, but in the meantime I am stranded at home without my cell phone, car keys, driver's license, library card, or any number of those useful things which make the world go 'round. I don't have a bicycle so I can't even bike to a store or the library, and I've gotten several notices that books have come in for me. It's a grey, cloudy day, perfect for curling up with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate, and all I can do is bustle around and clean the house all day. Alas and alack for pregnancy forgetfulness.

Halfway there

Baby is 6 1/2 inches now, or else 10 inches from head to toe. Apparently until 20 weeks, the length is measured from 'crown to rump,' because until then the baby is too curled up to be measurable full-length. Although I must say, there is nothing curled up about this baby. We may have thought Jane was an active one, but this child takes the cake. Whatever the 'quickening' is supposed to feel like, there is nothing fluttery about Baby's movements over the past few weeks.

Some people last week, even after seeing me, didn't know I was pregnant.

We still haven't started taking our weekly profile pictures. At this point, since we have no good 'before' shot, we may just not bother. Also, there is some debate as to whether these pictures ought to include Jane or not.

Sara and me with our babies

Audra and me with our babies

Courtney and me with our babies

Mrs. Hall: Turn sideways and bump bellies!
Courtney: There's nothing to bump.

Reagan playing Peekaboo with Jane

Jane, fallen asleep on the long drive home

Carry me back to Old Virginia

This afternoon we will set off for our family's annual Labor Day campout at a YMCA camp in Maryland. I'm a little nervous about the weather, as we are driving and it appears that we'll be following the storm (or vice versa) all the way up the coast. Yesterday heavy rains hit the Atlanta area, and traffic slowed to a crawl. Not fun for the poor little baby in the backseat, who already thinks a ten-hour-drive is quite long enough.

The following week Michael has computer training for work in North Carolina, and we decided that rather than drive home to an empty house for four days, Jane and I would hang out in Virginia the meanwhile and visit with friends and family before picking him up on Friday. We have no fixed engagements at present, but hope to see everyone while we're there!

So to speak

The other night we were reading Luke 6, about the ears of corn and the reference to David and the consecrated bread. (We're reading through the New Testament together in the ASV this time, for variety and a refreshing change of perspective.)

Me: Do you know what that's called in the King James version?
Michael: Shewbread, isn't it?
Me: With an E. And you know what I always say?
Michael: I think I heard this last time we read this...
Me (eagerly, before he can cut me off): There's no bread like shewbread!

On an unrelated note, I took this quiz online. Alas, I only scored 75% because I kept clicking on the Next arrow when no correction was needed, and the quiz read that as a skipped answer.

Maternal musings

- I just started wearing maternity clothes this week. I can still squeeze into most of my normal clothes, but I've decided that I'd rather look pregnant-and-hardly-showing than normal-and-rather-pudgy. Maternity tops have a way of subtly yet unmistakably announcing the baby's existence.

- After Jane was born, I was shocked and dismayed at the residual belly I was left with. I hadn't expected to lose all the weight immediately, of course, but I wasn't prepared for the immensity of the bulge. At the time I joked that I had reverted to three months pregnant. This weekend, however, we were looking over pictures of the first day or two, and I definitely looked far bulgier then than I am even now. So maybe post-partum actually leaves you looking four or five months pregnant.

- I'm glad Baby waited to launch onto its immense growth spurt until after the play was over. It would have been embarrassing to keep asking the costume people to take out the waist after every performance.

Free Pepsi!

I don't shop often enough at CVS to pay attention to the ads, but I just stumbled across their flier online and discovered that they have a terrific sale on Pepsi products this week. In a word - aside from the sales tax and the postage stamp for the rebate - free!

You buy four 12-packs of any Pepsi product for $10, and send away for a $10 rebate. Simple!

We're not in the habit of drinking soft drinks. But anything free is pretty irresistible! Besides, it's great to have soda pop to bring to potlucks and whatnot. I can hardly wait for Jane to get up from her nap so we can dash off to the nearest CVS and buy our dose of sugar water.

Nor iron bars a cage

On Friday we watched The Shawshank Redemption, a brilliantly made movie with way too much bad language and a horrifying depiction of prison life. It made me wonder how accurate to real life the portrayal of the brutality of the guards - and the unconcern of those in charge as to how the prisoners treated each other - is. The utter hopelessness and despair gave rise to the consideration of other imprisonments, which led to the random compilation of the Ten Worst Imprisonments of All Time. Except I couldn't think of ten right off. But for Jean Valjean it could be the Ten Worst Unjust Imprisonments of All Time:

- Judah's mother and sister, walled into the Tower, in Ben-Hur (Being bricked in! The leprosy!)
- Edmond Dantes in the Chateau D'If, from Count of Monte Cristo (The suddenness! The reversal of fortune!)
- Doctor Manette in the Bastille, from A Tale of Two Cities (Having to write your memoirs with your own blood!)
- Jean Valjean in Les Miserables (Well, so he did commit a crime, but in disproportion to the punishment. And having his footsteps so dogged by Javert!)
- Westley in the Pit of Despair (The Machine! The Albino!)
- The poor sap in The Pit and the Pendulum (Shivers!)

I'm sure there are others equally as horrible in terms of length of duration, uncertainty as to duration, suffering while incarcerated, and effects on family and fortune meanwhile.

Round Two

Now that the play is over, we can sit back, draw a deep breath, and prepare for the next big event looming on our horizon: the arrival of Jane's little brother or sister, coming February 2007. Jane will be an active almost-two-year-old, and no doubt much in need of a fellow child to share in the spotlight and spare her from spoilage. Alas for the new baby, which will have a hard act to follow to be as model a child as Jane has been. (Or perhaps its making its arrival just as Jane hits the vaunted Terrible Twos was a clever stroke of genius on its part.) We are all much excited at the addition and look forward to meeting our new little one next February.

Overheard last night

Michael (rummaging through the freezer): What's this?
Me: I don't know.
Michael: Good. Can we throw it away then?
Me: No! I'll work it off on my brothers next visit!
Michael: Do you actually like saving money, or do you just like feeling clever when you think you're doing it? Because it wouldn't actually cost us anything to throw this away.

Goodbye Dolly

Our final performance was on Saturday night, and with that last show ends an era of our lives - hectic, frenzied, short, but so much fun. We were delighted at how many friends turned up throughout its two-week run, and thrilled to have my family come down this past weekend to watch. They enjoyed it thoroughly, and when we got home that night at almost midnight everyone crawled out of bed to talk over the play in excited and voluble whispers (because the 'everyone' did not, of course, include Jane).

So now that's done with, and we are feeling a bit lost, rather like Bilbo once he got back from the Lonely Mountain. I hope we don't go off and do something rash and wasteful with our sudden influx of free time, like sign up for Netflix or something. Plenty of yard work and bills to catch up on.

And with all that excitement of guests and plays and Jane walking this last weekend, the thing I'm most thrilled about is the $100 Kroger gift card I won yesterday! I saw fliers at our local Kroger last week advertising a back-to-school day for kids on Sunday, and I determined to take all five of my brothers, who I was sure would appreciate meeting the Keebler Elf and the Mayfield cow and participating in the Oreo Stacking Contest and the Milk Mustache Contest. But little did I dream that a local radio station would be there passing out prizes just for stopping by! My mom had dashed to the store earlier in the day and ended up winning a box of pop tarts, so I made sure to stop by the table in hopes of a similar fate. It was the perfect ending to a perfect weekend.

No, actually the perfect ending came that night, when we celebrated my dad's birthday with chocolate cake and homemade ice cream. Hurrah for celebrations, and for causes for which to celebrate!

That bwessed awwangement...that dweam within a dweam...

Three years ago today was the happiest day of our lives, as of then. And the intervening years, swiftly though they have flown by, have only gotten better. Why do I love being married to Michael so much? Let me count the ways:

- Every so often he will remark, 'We haven't seen Pride and Prejudice in a while. It's about time to watch it again, isn't it?'

- I love to watch him play with Jane. She absolutely adores her Papa, and for good reason.

- He is always willing to help with the dishes if I had a long day.

- He always compliments my cooking and is impressed with the littlest things, such as homemade piecrust.

- He takes pride in ownership and maintains the house and lawn well, without making it an idol.

Oh, and speaking of P&P, on Monday night we watched Sense & Sensibility and I remembered having seen it first when it came out ten years ago, at which time I distinctly recall identifying more with Marianne. I didn't quite approve of the indecorous excesses of her behaviour, but I certainly sympathised with her passion for books and reading, romantic fancies, and volatile temperament. As we watched the scene of her meeting with Willoughby and her almost-swoon upon discovering that he reads and glibly recites Shakespeare sonnets too, I realised that my notions of felicity in marriage have changed drastically since that time. Ten years ago I probably would have placed a lot more weight on the discovery of shared interests, which after all is nothing but a happy coincidence. By far the most important element is the character; the personality is just frills.

When Michael and I first met and struck up correspondence, we established an easy rapport by email because we had read many of the same books and recognised each other's quotes and nonsense. (Gandalf: 'Think of the riddles they both knew, for instance.') But that has very little to do with the basis for our relationship. In our marriage, we don't spend a whole lot of time sitting around going off on quoting sprees. It's nice to have common interests, but those can grow over time, and indeed we have each been responsible for introducing the other to a lot of new horizons. How silly it would have been for Michael to have been waiting all those years for a girl who liked sushi! How silly it would have been for me to have put 'Has read Emma' on my List. In the end, it is far more significant that I married a man of good character who is deferent enough to learn to appreciate my tastes than it would have been to have snagged a guy who just happened to like the same things that, at that time in my life, were top of my list.

Here is Jane, right after a bath

Her hair is so fun to play with!

The show must go on

Five performances down, three to go! Last week was a whirlwind of dress rehearsals, performances, cheering crowds, and late nights, but this week promises to be a bit calmer: one show on Friday and two on Saturday, and then we're done for good. It's been so fun, but I'll be relieved when it is over!

I think I'm tired at the end of a show, what with all the dance numbers and quick changes, but I must remember that whatever I do, Michael does too, plus all the scenes he does on his own. We have several dance numbers together, and then he participates in several scenes involving mainly male characters. The second act is especially grueling for the guys, as they dash straight from the Elegance dance scene backstage to madly change into their waiter costumes for the intensely physically demanding waiter's Galop (involving seven sequences of jumping across stage in time, waving napkins and saltshakers and menus around, jumping up and clicking the heels in the air, and other equally exhausting vignettes), followed immediately by the somewhat slower but no less active title piece Hello Dolly! for which they had to learn a complicated dance step called the soft shoe, after which they dash backstage and change even more quickly into evening clothes for the riotous and energetic polka competition, after which the lights go out and we all immediately find ourselves standing on stage under the hot glare of the lights for about ten minutes for the courtroom scene. Whew! I get tired out just dashing back and forth to stage left and stage right in an attempt to meet him for a split second in the wings and apply the water bottle!

But it's fun and rewarding and brings the usual adrenaline rush, especially when the crowd really gets into it. Amazingly enough, there haven't been any major mistakes; all the main characters are remembering their lines or ad-libbing convincingly, and the occasional misstep that happens in a dance number is easily covered. As long as you smile brilliantly and confidently enough the audience will assume you know what you are doing.

Yes, it's been grand, and this coming weekend will be the crowning fun, but I think it will be our last play for a while.

The play's the thing

On Saturday morning we dropped Jane off with friends and spent the whole day rehearsing. We didn't see her again until almost 7:00 that evening. Then yesterday we dropped her off with another friend before church, and didn't see her until nearly 8:00 at night. I was so active and busy during rehearsals that I didn't have much time to think, but when we were driving to pick her up and when we saw how overjoyed she was to see us I simply couldn't imagine how people manage to leave their babies at daycare all day long. Today I am just drinking in as much as I can from my time with her before I drop her off at 5:00 to go pick Michael up and run a full dress rehearsal. We haven't yet run the thing straight through with no stops so we are not quite sure how long it will be with intermission, but it will probably top three hours. With 7:30 kick-off (of course we have to be there at least two hours in advance), picking Jane up afterwards, and the drive home, that means we'll be getting to bed around midnight every night this week. Michael will hardly even see her at all.

BUT! Yesterday we ran through it in costume for the first time and it makes it all seem so real! Suddenly everything falls into place, and though we still made a few mistakes, the director seemed to think that we are coming along nicely. Apparently, for some shows they haven't even come up with a final number until the Monday dress rehearsal before opening night.

Jane is being such a trooper. She seems perfectly happy this morning, playing with her toys as usual and chattering away merrily and primarily unintelligibly. She has become fluent in several foreign languages recently, including German (bitte), French (oui), Spanish (hola), and Swedish (ja).

The pace quickens

As if it ever slackened.

Today I earned a $25 dinner certificate for test-driving a minivan at a local Toyota dealer. We received a mailing advertising the promotion, and after calling to verify the validity of the offer and the lack of strings attached, Jane and I were off to inspect the goods. It was such fun to get to try out a new car and enjoy all the bells and whistles, and because I was clear on my intentions up front, there was no pressure at all (which usually would scare me away from taking advantage of these kinds of promotions). I told them when I arrived that I was there for the free gift certificate, that we weren't in the market for a new car today but might be interested in purchasing a minivan in a year or two, and that I'd be happy to scope out the options so we could be aware of what was out there. The new vehicles these days are really amazing. I wonder, if everyone in America immediately bought a brand-new car AND always fastened his/her seatbelt, what the auto fatality rate would drop to. As the salesman explained all the features and all the hidden airbags/curtains/protective pockets, I wondered how anyone could possibly die in that car.

This week we have a slight breather from play practise. Last Saturday was our last free day (and only in many weeks) before the final grueling lap. On Saturday we have a complete run-through with costume changes; Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday are full dress rehearsals; Wednesday is opening night; Thursday, Friday, and twice on Saturday are performances. And amazingly enough, with the exception of this Saturday (panicking a little bit on that score), we have childcare completely lined up for Jane for both weeks. It helps that family is coming down the second week to take turns watching Jane and watching us. It will be fun! But I will be glad when it is over.

Bigger isn't always bad

I stumbled across this post and, while charmed by the general call to de-clutter and not lay up excessive treasure on earth, felt that the adulation heaped upon the French for their simplicity and small-mindedness was a bit over the top.

It's all well and good to heed the call to the simple life, to make do with less and be unwasteful. Certainly in America we could do with a little dressing down, and I agree that most people today have way too much junk on hand. But it's going a bit too far to assume that since having too much (stuff, space, etc.) is excessive and oppressive, it must therefore be better to err on the side of asceticism. What we want is a happy medium - not too much, not too little: just right.

There is no virtue in making do with less for the pure sake of self-denial. In other words, smaller living spaces/appliances per se are not inherently better than larger ones. It's a question of what you need and what you can prudently manage. Glorifying simplicity for simplicity's sake, as if that were an end in itself and necessarily more virtuous than complexity, harks back to Henry David Thoreau and his ilk.

The western European notion of smallness fits a very definite mindset, and it's not necessarily geared toward functionality, convenience, or practicality. Much of it is simply rooted in tradition and bounded by the limitations of the past: way back then, that was all they had room for, and they've never bothered expanding their horizons since then. Having a half size refrigerator certainly will limit the amount of groceries you can stockpile, which works out just fine for the shrinking family size of western European nations but isn't so handy for the healthy American homeschooling family that may jolly well need - and put to good use - that extra chest freezer.

There is something undeniably charming and quaint about making do with small and even cramped spaces, but why would you willingly force yourself to make do if you don't have to? I've been to Dutch bathrooms, and there is very little charm in trying to squeeze both hands at once under the tiny (cold water only) faucet in the typical powder rooms. Why build like this if you don't have to?

I'm all for using good taste to drive the selection of your clothing, and relying on quality, not quantity. But I'd rather have my decisions driven by taste and preference rather than necessity, and stock my few well-chosen articles in a closet roomy enough to be comfortable. Choosing to live with small closets in order to force you to make the right decisions about your wardrobe seems a bit like stapling your stomach in order to ensure that you don't eat too much.

Having less stuff than you need to operate at full efficiency can be just as disastrous as having so much extra stuff that your actions are hampered by your possessions. If a full-size dishwasher saves you time and effort, then buy one! If you'd rather wash your own dishes and a big dishwasher would just get in your way, then don't buy one! But priding one's self on one's small dishwasher or washing machine is just plain silly.

Mother Teresa gave away all that she had and lived a life of strict poverty, and yet she was no more virtuous in her generosity than was the Good Samaritan. Sometimes it helps to have big houses and ample possessions, if you can use those things to serve others and advance the kingdom of God.

Back...sort of

We've had a seemingly unending stream of houseguests over the last few weeks, and while it's been enjoyable to host people, it does take a toll on the spare time. Since our primary guest room also houses the computer, snatches of computer time have been rare and short. Therefore emails have not been answered promptly and blogs have been neglected.

Things might reach equilibrium again but for the fact that Dolly rehearsals hit crunch time this weekend. Opening night is in three weeks, so the pace quickens.

In other news, Jane's top words are Uh-oh and Mama, in that order. The garden, for lack of watering, is pretty much dead.

The license plate game

This is a fun game that my family has played for years. You can also play it as a board game using scrabble pieces, but it's best for enlivening any driving trip. You simply form a word out of the three letters on the license plates of passing cars. The rules are simple:

1) The word must be at least four letters long.
2) No proper names or contractions allowed.
3) If two words contain the same number of letters, the shortest word is determined by alphabetical priority. (So for AGE, Ages beats Sage, even though it has two syllables.)
4) The letters have to appear in the word in the order that they are on the plate. But they can be anywhere in the word.
5) The shortest and the longest words both win. (This is great for playing with your spouse in the car [a non-speaking baby in the backseat doesn't count] because you both win, all of the time.)

It's fun to take this one step farther and make words out of initials. Since most of us (with the exception of certain Italian spaghetti-lovers) have three names, this works out perfectly. The point is to invent the cleverest and pithiest word, not necessarily the shortest. A few quick examples:

MLF = Mellifluous
SLJ = Um...well...her maiden name was a cool Silver...
SEM = Semantics
RLR = Ruler
JRP = Jurisprudence

The days are getting shorter...

And a much-needed rain has rescued us from what threatened to be a drought, which was a dire state of things, to be sure, because it never drowses in Georgia. I hadn't been as faithful in watering my garden of late, and things were looking rather blighted. The one advantage was that the grass had stopped growing, and thus needed no mowing.

Family came down last week and stayed until Sunday morning, and Jane certainly enjoyed all the attention. We went blueberry picking on Saturday, set out to pick a gallon, and got carried away and came home with two. Now I know it's not proper to talk about prices, but I simply must crow at the tremendous bargain. The blueberries were $6/gallon, and when we went to the store later, we saw them for sale at $2.99 for 1/2 pint. Now by my calculations that is $6 a pint, and considering that there are eight pints to a gallon, we really made out like bandits! Some we sent home with family, some we made into blueberry muffins, some we fed to Jane, but the majority we froze.

Then this morning I scooped up ten half gallons of milk about to expire, at such a terrific price that I couldn't resist even though I knew I had no room in the freezer. So when we got home I unloaded the freezer, rearranged everything, condensed, sorted, and curtailed, and ended up cramming most of it back in, giving up on a few non-essentials like bread crusts. Bread crusts are all very well and good, but would I hang on to bread crusts over milk? There was plenty of room in my freezer once I gave up the bulky junk! It seemed like a perfect object lesson to me about how we cling stubbornly to the dross and pass up the really good stuff in life.

Maybe in five years you'll catch me wearing a pair of gauchos...

A few of my fashion backtracks, to wit:

-When they first came out, I decried 3/4-length sleeves as looking unfinished and silly, causing the wearer to look like a gawky adolescent who had outgrown her clothes. But I finally tried some, and decided I like the look, and now I have several such sweaters of my own.

-When they came around again (because apparently they lived another life as pedal-pushers in the time of Jackie O.) I thought the same thing about capris. If you can't afford to buy pants that go all the way down to the floor, then just stick with a short skirt!! But I finally started wearing them, and found them nice, light, comfortable summer wear, and of immeasurable value to tall people who want to be vague about hemlines.

-When they first made an appearance, I poked fun at chunky square-toed shoes, because they looked so trendy and apt to disappear in a season or two. But they didn't, and I gave them a cautious try, and decided that they were very comfortable and far more sensible than the pointy-toed formal shoe look, which required only a jingle bell and a matching jester hat to complete the look.

So now I'm thinking that: 1) gauchos are just a throwback to culottes, which were hideous enough in denim and corduroy but are pretty bad in this modern knit, clingy and snug in the wrong way; 2) skirts should be skirts; shorts should be shorts; any unhappy compromise is bound to please neither; 3) but they look so silly!

Never say never is, however, my new motto, so I can't say I'll never wear them.

Things that annoy me

-Reading non-words in print, such as 'instinctual' or 'administrate.'

-Hearing Ann Coulter described as 'beautiful,' 'blonde,' or 'rail-thin.' In my opinion, she's not that gorgeous, she probably dyes her hair, and she's so thin because she smokes a lot. Now I really shouldn't carp about her looks, because I truly do agree with most of what she says, but I'm so annoyed by the simpering sneer she adopts whenever posing for a photograph.

-Invisible spiders (Indian name: Spiders-Who-Hide-Under-Leaves) on bean plants that jump out at me whenever I'm not wearing gloves.

I'm sure there are more, but that's all I could think of on short notice. Ugh. Back to proof-reading sappy moralistic children's books.

Not that it's any of my business...

The only thing about the Jolie-Pitt baby hoopla that interested me enough to irritate me was the statement by their apparently famous and accomplished doctor (so hand-picked that they flew him all the way to Africa to deliver their child), something along the lines of: 'The baby was delivered by a planned cesarean due to a breech presentation.'

Good grief! You'd think these people would be rich enough to afford a skilled enough medical team that could handle delivering a breech baby naturally! To be sure, many in the medical establishment believe that a breech presentation means an automatic cesarean, but many other skilled and experienced doctors and midwives are adept at working with the mother to turn the baby, and even - as long as there is no danger, such as risk of the cord being wrapped around the baby's neck, which should be evident from a quick sonogram - delivering a breech baby.

But then, we weren't really counting on celebrities to set good examples and be sterling role models for the rest of us, were we?

Hello summer!

Michael and I auditioned for our church's summer dinner theater, which will be Hello Dolly! this time, and were cast in singing and dancing roles. Very fun! The rehearsal schedule has started up in earnest, though, and it's shaping up to be a busy summer.

We watched the movie before auditioning, and were very disappointed at first - cute, but forgettable is what I thought of it. Clever songs and dialogue and all, but pretty lame plot, not to mention Barbra Streisand. But we heard from so many sources that the play is far removed from - and vastly superior to - the movie, that we decided to give it a go.

Performances are the first and second weekends in August, so we have just under eight weeks before the parade passes by.

Pictures...finally!

The happy couple(s)

Jane and Meredith.

The usual suspects.

Crunchy Cons

I'm reading this new book by Rod Dreher about the organic, natural, alfalfa conservatives and why some elements of what we'd consider flaky left-wing philosophy - environmentalism, small-town farming, expensive organic produce - are really conservative ideals in nature, and how the modern conservative movement when taken to the extreme seems strangely isolated from Christian ideals.

A very interesting read, and I find myself agreeing with a lot of what he says. For instance, it's considered fashionable in conservative circles to sneer at the excesses of the environmental movement and put down the validity of global warming claims, etc. But there's nothing Christian about adopting an arrogant contempt for the environment, in mere snide reaction to the dangerous philosophies that would over-glorify it. And I for one agree with his point: I have very little patience with those people who seem to delight in antagonising the opposing cause with such bumper stickers as I love spotted owls - fried, because the fact of the matter is, some degree of responsibility is called for. That's what taking dominion is all about.

But, as it's the negatives that jump out at me and demand my attention and disagreement the loudest, I'll point them out here.

On page 46, he recounts his shock upon learning that a family he knows had been featured in the local paper, facing hard times because their business has been suffering. Unbeknownst to him, in their financial straits they had been relying on the state's Children's Health Insurance Program, a government subsidy of low-income families. The Republican legislature had led to cutbacks in the program, forcing the family to choose, as the author put it, between 'filling their children's teeth or their bellies.' His wife called up the family and offered to help financially, but the family graciously refused, saying that they would manage by having the mom go to work to help support the family. The author denounced the Republicans who pushed through the cuts, pointing out that they were sacrificing family values and undermining the institution most necessary for society to conserve, on the altar of efficiency.

Now, I agree that capitalism can be brutal, and that as Christians we should not be intent first and foremost on efficiency and saving money. We are warned in Scripture about setting our heart upon riches, and cautioned not to love money. But I can't agree with the author's scathing rebuke of the policy that would deny government subsidies to (even well-deserving) poor families. He is confusing individual virtues (charity, self-denial, forgiveness) with institutional requirements (honesty, integrity, responsibility). This is a common enough mistake, but it can be very dangerous when Christians try to apply individual Christian virtues to the government. We as Christians are called to be forgiving, but we as officials are called to be just. It's not up to the courts to forgive offenders; it's their job to punish wrong-doers.

This is a hard situation, and this struggling family certainly has my sympathy, but look at the situation. Even their friends didn't know the financial struggles they were going through. Why hadn't they made their needs known to the church? As pointed out, the friends offered to help them out, but they turned them down, choosing instead to have the mom go to work (which is a tough decision) rather than to take 'charity.' But they were already taking charity from the government! Why was it okay for the government to pay for their kids but not the church family? The author rips into the Republican government for not acting like a compassionate church family should do, when the family denied their church family the opportunity to demonstrate generosity and love to them by turning to the government to meet their needs first.

Second, the author lauds the whole organic, natural, non-processed food movement, and explains how they bought their food at farmer's markets, first in New York and then in Dallas. He explains how horrible the commercial mass-produced food market is (granted, hot dogs are nasty things), and encourages everyone to make the sacrifice to shop organic and natural:

To be sure, this costs more money. I wince when I have to pay almost twice the price for a roasting hen from Texas Supernatural Meats as I do for the same chicken from the supermarket. But that price difference is about the cost of a single venti latte from Starbucks. If you do an inventory of where the family's food budget goes, it's not hard to find ways you can save by cutting out unnecessary and even unhealthful food (chips and soda, for example), and apply that money toward buying ethically and nutritionally superior food. And there are ways to save money in other areas of the household economy - the entertainment budget, for example - to free up funds to purchase healthier food. It's all a matter of priority.

'If anyone says that being crunchy is fine for those who can afford it, you have my guarantee that they have no idea what they are talking about....'

Well, excuse me, but I know exactly what I am talking about when I say that being crunchy is fine for those who can afford it. Now before I go off ranting and raving, let me remind myself that this author is addressing the majority of Americans who are living in mainstream culture, complete with 'McMansions,' SUVs, and an addiction to eating out, in hopes of persuading them of adopting a more sensible lifestyle. All well and good. But that being noted, I shall continue with my rant. Now then! I've already done careful inventory of our family food budget, and I know exactly where the money goes! The fact is that we don't have the wiggle room to pay twice as much for our chickens, because we're not already in the habit of splurging for venti lattes from Starbucks. We've already cut our expenses pretty much to the bone, and I guarantee you that there's not the price of an organic chicken coming out of our entertainment budget. Chips and soda? Ha! Of course it's a matter of priority, and my priority is to have the money to pay for groceries at all, on one income, considering that we're not bestselling authors and columnists.

Sorry, that was a little snide, but my point is that you can never tell someone what is best for him, because you can never assume that you know all the facts about his situation. It's all well and good to say what worked for you, and to enthuse on the benefits that came to you from cutting out your Starbucks habit and putting that money into organic chickens, but don't go around assuming that everyone else is as irresponsible as you were before your eyes were opened.

But other than those two irritations, it's a very good book so far. Back to reading it.

And a good time was had by all

This weekend we had an impossibly long to-do list. We had a significant amount of fencing (garden, not rapiers) to run, a garage-door opener to install, a lawn to mow and spread chemicals on, and various odds and ends which had crept up on us. So when Ron and Catherine called us up to see if we wanted to spend the day in Helen, we immediately said 'Yes!' Why not seize the day?

Alpine Helen is a little Bavarian town about an hour north of here, very quaint and full of cute shops and delicious fudge. We spent the afternoon wandering around, poking into the shops, admiring the scenery, eating free samples of fudge, and taking pictures of the babies who played together so nicely.

Splashing in the fountain.

No, Catherine and I did not plan this. =)

And what are those babies looking at?

Books and blinders

This last weekend we finally attacked the daunting project of moving books and shelves around. We'd been avoiding it for long enough, on the reasoning that before we did any major furniture moving we wanted to buy a carpet cleaner and clean the carpets thoroughly, since we need to do that anyway and it makes sense to do it before any moving so as not to move heavy stuff twice. We still intend to purchase a carpet cleaner when a good enough deal comes up. But we cannot let that be an excuse for avoiding necessary work any longer.

So we moved the two bookshelves in the office up to the bonus room, and moved two bookshelves from the nursery into our bedroom and another two into the office. Now the nursery actually has wall space, allowing us to move the crib out from in front of the window (my nightmares about shattering glass falling over sleeping Baby as clumsy burglars trip over her in the middle of the night are now over) and making the room safe for Jane to crawl around in without everything being a no-no.

The first half of the job took far longer than it had to because we kept stopping and flipping though books. Eventually we learned better and strictly charged ourselves to concentrate on getting the job done, deciding what to keep later. But I read quite a bit of interesting stuff, including an extract from a political science textbook from one of Michael's old classes. Because of the subject matter I was sure it would be controversial, but as I read it it actually made a good bit of sense.

Basically, it presumed a hypothetical race where a white runner and a black runner are competing, only the authorities make the black runner run with weights. Naturally, he falls behind. Eventually, the authorities decide that this is unfair, and take the weights away, but the black runner is still behind. What should they do? Would it be fair to let the black runner catch up? That might reduce the inequity of the overall race, but would that be fair to the white runner, who after all didn't make the rules in the first place? Maybe the white runner really was faster, anyway.

Of course, it was presenting some of the dilemmas of affirmative action, which I still don't believe is a good solution. History is full of inequality, and there is no way any 'authorities' can even things out by changing the rules around to let anyone 'catch up' to anyone else at any given time. The best thing to do is to make sure that the rules are as fair as possible, right now, and let things take their natural course. However, the little analogy did help me to understand some of the reasoning behind some people's philosophy, and to resolve more than ever not to be so wrapped in my 'right' way of thinking that I miss out on the opportunity to hear what the other person is saying. I likely won't change my mind, but I might learn something about the other side, and I certainly wouldn't get anywhere with smug self-confidence or antagonising patronage.

However, this in turn made me question how far to go in any sort of open-mindedness. Obviously I want to be teachable where there is room for error. But I don't want to be tossed about by every wind of doctrine, susceptible to the least convincing. At some point I must keep my blinders resolutely on and not even consider veering from the path of truth. How tightly these discernment blinders must be kept is a puzzling question.

Let me count the ways

Last week Michael called me from work to say that he loved me. It was very sweet, sincere, and much appreciated, and indeed was the sole purpose of the call. But it reminded me of another conversation I overheard once, when I worked next door to a person whom I'll call Mr. H, which conversation I overheard because Mr. H was fond of using speakerphone:

Mrs. H: Hello?
Mr. H: (pause) I just wanted to call you and tell you that I love you.
Mrs. H: Riiiiiiiight. You hit me by accident on speed dial, didn't you?
Mr. H: That too, but also I love you.

Not for the faint of heart

This may be the worst thing I have ever heard of. It's worse than the Black Death.

You really should not click on the link. But if you do, don't read the article.

Ever since I read it, I've been experiencing some of the symptoms. So far, just the itchiness.

Short stuff

- Something is chomping its way through the green beans. I went out and bought a powerful insecticide today, in case it's bugs, and I'm dreading having to buy finer fencing should it turn out to be rabbits. Michael thought I was being overly dramatic when I told him how perturbed I was that wild animals are devouring our food supply. Ha! I'll fight them to the death (theirs, at least) over this matter of property rights.

- It seems impossible to find properly fitting sheets for a deep mattress. We have only one set that works, which was a wedding present, and I jolly well wish we'd snapped up a few more sets of the same kind. I have bought several sheet sets over the past couple of years, only to be disappointed in the size of the flat sheet. Sure, they make the fitted sheet big enough to fit over the deeper pocket, but forget to lengthen the flat sheet accordingly, so that there is never enough overhang to tuck it in. Very frustrating. If any of you happen to spot a queen sheet set boasting a flat sheet with dimensions of 105 inches in length, let me know and I'll buy it.

- I'm reading through Anna Karenina right now. Bleah. It's very depressing. Is anyone going to end up happily ever after? Probably not.

- But the dreary, complicated, fatalistic Russian philosophy is nicely counterbalanced by the sarcastic and comical Tristam Shandy, of which I've read only a few pages but which already had me laughing out loud at the author's account of his certainty on the date of his conception:

"My father, you must know...was, I believe, one of the most regular men in every thing he did, whether 'twas matter of business, or matter of amusement, that ever lived. As a small specimen of this extreme exactness of his, to which he was in truth a slave, -- he had made it a rule for many years of his life, -- on the first Sunday night of every month through-out the whole year, -- as certain as ever the Sunday night came, ---- to wind up a large house-clock which we had standing upon the back-stairs head, with his own hands: -- And being somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age, at the time I have been speaking of,-- he had likewise gradually brought some other little family concernments to the same period, in order, as he would often say to my uncle Toby, to get them all out of the way at one time, and be no more plagued and pester'd with them the rest of the month."

The May Tea Party

To celebrate Jane's first birthday, we had a tea party consisting of luncheon, tea, and parlour games. It was a splendid success, and though the guest of honour didn't quite catch the drift, she very much enjoyed the guests and all the attention. We dressed up in hats and gloves, and then ate delicacies aplenty, and after feasting retired to the drawing room to play the Poem Game, and then we gave our guests their gifts (because we want to start a tradition of holding birthday parties in the hobbit style, where the guest of honour gives gifts to the guests), and then we ate cake. It was all very pleasant and jolly.

The cake

The guest of honour amusing herself while I frost the cake

The tea service

The princess

The feast

The little ladies

The guests

A mouse has cut the wire. Goodbye!

Oh, how I hate doing without the small comforts of civilisation to which I have grown accustomed! A terrific thunderstorm came through on Tuesday night and knocked out - not our electricity, but something almost as bad: our cable connection, which encompasses our phone and internet. Thus I was stranded and isolated all day, on a day on which of all days I most sorely needed a computer, to print off the free ice cream coupons for Jane's birthday, to renew my nearly-overdue books at the library, and to cancel our free trial subscription to Netflix before it stopped being free. Many frantic cell phone calls were made to Michael at work, who went on in to the office anyway because he couldn't do anything until the cable company came out to fix it.

Meanwhile I discovered all sorts of other random things that the power surge had fried:

- The dishwasher. Now we're back to handwashing dishes. I used to do this all the time until I got pregnant and became too tired to keep up, at which Michael took over and used the dishwasher, and I found it so convenient not to have a drainboard and dripping dishes on the counter at all times that I fell into the habit. Of course the dishwasher was full up of dirty dishes when this was discovered, so I had a huge backlog to catch up on. Now it should be easier to keep up.

- The garage door remotes. The opener still works from the button on the wall, which means I can open it before setting off and then, after backing the car out, push the button and make a mad dash while ducking under the falling door. This is rather exciting at first, but it's not so exciting to get back in again, which requires turning off the car to free up the front door key, opening the front door, going around and opening the garage door, and pulling the car in. I would personally be inclined not to bother and simply park the cars in the driveway until the door is fixed, but it's getting to be hot season now, and Michael will not have this.

- The sound card on our downstairs computer, and pretty much everything on the upstairs computer. My grasp of all this is a bit more vague, but since I never use the upstairs computer and all our stuff is stored on the downstairs computer, it's not an insurmountable tragedy.

All of these things will be fixed or replace in good time. Meanwhile I'm just grateful to have phone and internet again. I can see clearly now!

Mayday

Today should be a day of sunshine and flowers, of cupcakes and lemonade. But it's grey and chilly weather, and I'm forced to wear long sleeves and socks instead of the traditional flowered prints, short sleeves, and sandals. Blah.

Yesterday we went to an air show at Dobbins Air Force Base. We got there just in time to see the grand finale, the Blue Angels. I think I've seen them perform once before (a long time ago, in Oregon, we went to air shows fairly frequently), but if so, I wasn't sufficiently impressed. They are spectacular and breathtaking. I wish we hadn't forgotten to take our camera, because there were so many photogenic formations! I shall just have to go online and order a poster of them. To my surprise, it turns out that they are military planes, which is why the air shows in which they perform are generally free.

While we were there, we wandered around looking at various other birds on display, climbing inside the cockpits of some and admiring others from a distance. I did not know this, but apparently there is ongoing friendly rivalry between fixed-wing pilots (airplanes, etc.) and swing-wing pilots (helicopters), sort of like between the Army and the Navy (there is also apparently some rivalry between the Navy and the Marines, but that's not official, because technically the Marines are a branch of the Navy). Michael exchanged a bit of good-natured chaff with one of the helicopter pilots, who said he had heard them all but still laughed and told us a few.

Q: How do helicopters stay up?
A: Well, you might think it's the propeller, but actually they're so ugly that the earth's gravity naturally repels them.

Growth spurt

Any time Jane's behaviour alters or her routine changes or she seems fussier or hungrier or sleepier or less hungry than usual, we explain it away by remarking, 'Oh, she must be going through another growth spurt.' This time it is unmistakable. For about the past two weeks, she has been uncharacteristically ravenous, and solid foods have moved up from being experimental occasional snacks to becoming an essential source of nutrition and sustenance. She can down half a baked potato or a small bowl of oatmeal in one sitting, and has become hooked on homemade yogurt.

The other night, when we went out to dinner, she was so well behaved: I kept giving her cucumbers from the salad to chew on, which kept her entertained for long stretches. I didn't think she actually ate much of it, merely gnawed on it, until later, when she made a very unladylike digestive sound while I was in the vicinity of her mouth and I distinctly smelled cucumbers.

Meanwhile, the garden does well. The tomatoes I started have all officially died, so I ran out yesterday and bought two flats of seedlings from Walmart. It was so pleasant to plant them with my new gardening gloves (and just last week I read that a lady does not get dirt under her fingernails by way of wearing gloves!) and kneeling pad. The two hills of squash are sprouting and flourishing, and there are volunteer vines all over our backyard. For the past couple of years, it has irked me so much that we don't have a compost that, if at all possible, I have taken pains to throw organic waste out in the back instead of dumping it in the trash. I know there have been various pumpkin and zucchini scrapings over the past year, so I'm assuming we are seeing their descendents, hardy and vigourous, making their way in the world. It's too bad squash isn't nearly as nice as tomatoes, but at least it's nutritious, versatile, and prolific.

Freedom!

Growing older has its advantages, after all.

Both Cold Stone Creamery and Baskin-Robbins offer a free ice cream cone on your birthday. Hollywood Video offers a free movie rental. And various restaurants offer various incentives, ranging from a song to a free dinner and dessert. I spent a little time looking online, and have determined where we shall go for dinner tonight.

It all seems too good to be true. But it's not. Jane and I spent a happy hour this morning earning Starbucks points for walking around a mall (I'm sure it's a merchant-driven incentive to motivate people to window-shop) and eating a free ice cream cone. And you can even sign up your kids in the birthday club at the aforementioned establishments! Next week, Jane and I are going to 'share' a cone for her birthday.

This and that

I planted our garden (consisting of tomato and pepper seedlings, and two hills of squash) last week, and the little plants are coming along nicely. Crops of weeds have sprouted up like anything, though, and astounded me with their rapid progress; hence the phrase, 'Growing like a weed.' Why aren't my little tomato starts flourishing this profusely?

I also planted three blueberry bushes last week. I've been wanting blueberries for years now, and though it was an unpropitious time (none were available in January, the proper time to plant, and I waited too long on a promised plant sale that never materialised), I felt I must do it now, or risk losing the inertia forever. You are supposed to pinch off the buds the first year, but I can't bear to kill off all those baby blueberries, so we're going to harvest all two cups of the blueberry crop this summer or die in the attempt (they will - not us).

I received a yogurt-maker as an early birthday present, and after considering not opening it until my actual birthday, opened it anyway. I've made four batches of yogurt in the last week and am thrilled with the notion of turning cheap, marked-down, about-to-expire milk into fresh, nutritious, bursting-with-the-right-kind-of-bacteria yogurt. It's a little tart, not being doped up with fruits and preservatives and sugar like the store-bought kind, but I am determined to get used to it and cultivate a taste for the tangy stuff. Also I am determined to teach my children to appreciate it, just as I am going to cook and bake for my children without sugar (Ha!) so they will grow up healthy and never know what they are missing. It's too late for me, of course.

Overheard last evening

Me: Well, that was a nice day of rest.
Michael: Yes, and we didn't fight even once.
Me: But we never fight!
Michael: Oh, come on. We argue all the time.
Me: No, we don't!
Michael: As I was saying...

Gag law

Last night my car was in need of gas. Now the price has been rising something awful here, and I've been checking this very handy website that lists the best prices in the area. The problem is that the website is not always current. According to the site, the best price was at a gas station about five miles away, but since my experience has led me to believe that our neighborhood Kroger gas station is usually cheaper than that one, I wondered if the site was simply inaccurate. Rather than drive five miles out of my way to check, I decided to call and find out so I could comparison-shop. And what did the station manager tell me? That it was against the law for him to give me the price of gasoline over the phone!!!

I am aghast and shocked beyond measure at this appalling state of things. I am assuming that it is a state law, since I haven't heard anything about this on a federal level (but if it is a national law, and everyone else already knows all about it, please do clue me in), and I already have a call in to my GA state legislator to find out the details on what this law is, when it passed, who sponsored it, and who's behind it. Clearly it's an unfair attempt to smother competition and healthy shopping, perhaps lobbied for by the oil industry, perhaps by the gas station owners. As a consumer, I most definitely have a right to know what the price of any item is without driving out there to inspect the shelf myself.

I feel like the avalanche of ents after entmoot. I will take this law down.

Overheard last night

[Note: the bathroom scale has been reading 5 lbs. lighter for several weeks now.]

Me: Did you adjust the scale recently?
Michael: Yes, I fixed it today.
Me: Oh. But it's been off for several weeks now. Did you adjust it awhile ago?
Michael: No, I'm sure you knew that the earth's gravitational field was deteriorating, so that's probably it.
Me: Oh, and you just need to adjust for it, like Leap Year?
Michael: Something like that.

He is risen indeed!

Last year we spent Easter Sunday in Holland. We inquired at the little hamlet where we were staying and ascertained that Easter services were held in the little country church down the road at 10:00. Accordingly we went there the next morning at 10:00, only to discover that Daylight Savings Time (or whatever they call it over there) comes a week early in Europe, and we had missed church. That is probably the only time in my life I can recall missing church on Easter Sunday.

This year we have a baby on our hands, and we made it to church (Michael even sang both services). Also we are having friends over for a proper Easter dinner of ham and green beans (or, to be Seussian, green beans and ham) this evening. I love Easter!

Spring is here in shoes of green

I love this time of year. The trees are in full bloom, the grass is green again, and flowers are everywhere. The only drawback to an early spring is that the height of the blooming misses my birthday.

When I was growing up in Oregon, the cherry trees were always in full bloom right around my birthday, and it was a tradition to take a birthday picture of me among the blossoms. When we moved to Virginia, the spring came a bit sooner, and the cherry blossoms were long gone by late April. So my birthday pictures were taken in front of the dogwood.

Now that I live in Georgia, spring comes sooner still, and hardly any blossoms will be left at the end of the month. Our dogwoods have been blooming for two weeks now, and are already mostly leaves. Last year we were lucky to find a flowery bush to pose in front of. We'll probably have to resort to the same sort of thing this time around.

Death and taxes

Last week we finally got around to doing our taxes. And can I just say, Hurrah for the child tax credit! If you had a great insurance plan (to cover the cost of delivery) and lots of generous friends (as we did) you could actually make money off of having children, despite all those pretentious studies in magazines that prove the average cost to raise a child is $164,000 or some such nonsense.

And as for the other sure thing...most of the tomato and pepper sprouts I started from seeds have withered and died. Bother. It all comes of too much forgetting to water.

Eleven months old today

Recently we took Jane to an Underwater Sea Odessy at our church. Watch those toes!

Outside of a dog

1. How many hours a day do you spend reading?
Oh, goodness, it varies so much. Right now I get about 1-3 hours, but that doesn't include online. And it's gone up a bit since I can trust Jane to crawl around and play quietly with toys in the background; previously reading was limited to her nap time, which needed to be dedicated to other chores.

2. How fast do you read?
Very quickly. My all-time benchmark is finishing all 1200+ pages of Les Miz in two days (but that was back before I had a job and could stay up half the night).

3. What is your favorite book?
The Bible, of course.

4. Who is your favorite author?
Mmm, that's a tricky one, but I'll go with Jane Austen.

5. What is your favorite action/adventure novel?
And we have a five-way tie between The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Prisoner of Zenda, Scaramouche, Beau Geste, and A Tale of Two Cities.

6. What is your favorite mystery novel?
The Eleventh Hour.

7. What is your favorite romance novel?
Pride and Prejudice, far and away.

8. What is your favorite character novel?
But all of the people in my favourite books are characters!

I would say either Little Women, the Little House books, Caddie Woodlawn, or the Grandma's Attic books, because they're all excellent moral character books without sounding a bit preachy.

9. What is your favorite fantasy/sci-fi novel?
Sci-fi would be Asimov's Foundation trilogy. Fantasy would be, of course, Lord of the Rings.

10. What is your favorite history book?
No contest - The Story of Liberty.

11. What is your favorite biography?
If a biography of a pretend person counts, then Ben-Hur. Otherwise, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch.

12. What is your favorite other non-fiction book?
Probably Stepping Heavenward, in sheer terms of how many times I've read it.

13. What is your favorite play?
The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde. Other plays by Oscar Wilde rank very high up there, as do a few plays by Shakespeare and Moliere. Gilbert and Sullivan go without saying. Of course, I love a lot of the plays that were turned into movie musicals.

14. What is your favorite of the genres mentioned in questions 5-12?
As if I could answer that!

15. What is your favorite type of character?
The one I married: clever, intelligent, handsome, dashing, witty, charming, gallant, thoughtful, and surprising.

16. If you could host a party with 7 literary characters, who would they be and why?
Eliza Bennet, because I want to meet her.
The Princess from The Lady or the Tiger, because I want to ask her which door it was.
Anne Shirley, to make me feel better about forgetting the sweet potatoes and setting out the wrong napkins.
Atreyu from The Neverending Story, because every good dinner party needs an adventurer.
Dad Gilbreth from Cheaper by the Dozen, because he would be the life of the party.
Henry Tilney from Northanger Abbey, to talk nonsense and make us all laugh.
Tommy Hambledon from Drink To Yesterday, because I need another Brit and and another gent.

17. Do you like film adaptations of books? If so, which is your favorite? Which is your least?
Yes, if they're done right. Not if they're mangled. Perhaps my favourite is Mary Poppins, which I actually like better than the book, one of only five such cases known to man. As for worst, it's hard to differentiate between so-bad-because-it's-such-a-badly-done-movie, like those dismal 50s-60s attempts at Prisoner of Zenda, Pride & Prejudice, and Little Women, and it-would-be-a-great-movie-if-it-didn't-steal-the-title-of-the-book-to-which-it-bears-no-resemblance, such as Lord of the Rings, Count of Monte Cristo, etc.

18. Who is your literary role model?
Eliza Bennet, because she is intelligent, pretty, modest, and confident, but is open to reproof and improvement.

19. Which literary house would you like most to live in?
Probably the Last Homely House. I'd have the best neighbors. Of course, Cair Paravel wouldn't be too shabby, either.

20. Which literary couple would you like most for parents?
Probably Percy and Marguerite Blakeney, or Tommy and Tuppence. I like books that have a romance between married couples.

21. Pick 3 literary characters you would like to have as siblings.
Michael Geste, Caddie Woodlawn, and Christopher Robin.

22. Who is your favorite literary villain?
After Rupert of Hentzau? Probably Messala.

23. Name a character that most people dislike, but that you do not. Why do you like them?
Ooh, I much prefer the reverse, of explaining why I don't like all the characters that most people like! But definitely Boromir. He's far under-rated, especially in the movie. I love the bit in the appendices that says something along the lines of, 'Faramir believed that his older brother was the most valiant in arms in all of Gondor, and Boromir thought so too.' He's brave, patriotic, loyal, cynical, and dislikes Aragorn, which is enough of a recommendation in its own right.

24. Which minor character deserves a book all to themselves, in your opinion?
Puddleglum, certainly. Also Tom Bombadil. Also Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - oh, wait, they already got that.

25. Which character do you identify most with in literature?
Emma Woodhouse.

26. If you could go into a novel, which one would it be and why?
Ooh, tricky, tricky! If I went into a novel, I'd have to be sure to go in as the right character, with the right location and social standing and amount of wealth. But it would probably be an English 18th-century novel.

27. Do you prefer hardback or paperback?
Hardback.

28. Do you like dustcovers?
Yes, they make fabulous bookmarks.

29. Do you like introductions, forwards, afterwards, and appendices?
Depends on how interesting they are. Usually they are boring, in which case I skip them.

30. Do you like reading literary criticism?
Sometimes it gives me insights and good ideas, but most of the time it just frustrates me.

31. Do you like new or used books? What about ex-library?
Yes.

32. Are you likely to buy new books without having read them, or would you buy a used copy (or check it out from the library) to see if it is good or not?
I would never buy a new book never having read it. That's as dangerous as ordering something brand-new from a catalogue you've never tried the clothes of before.

33. Name 3 - 7 books that you rarely see on people's favorite book lists, that are high on your own.
Skipping through all the ones that appear on other people's lists we arrive at:

Lost Horizon
Winnie-the-Pooh & House at Pooh Corner
King Solomon's Mines
The Last Days of Pompeii
Our Mutual Friend
Queen Margot
The Accidental Detectives

34. Which is your least favorite book of those that are considered "classics"?
The Iliad and the Odessy. Still can't get through them.

35. Do you like books read aloud, or do you prefer silent reading?
Both very much.

36. When you read, do you see things in your mind like a movie, or just in vague pictures?
Both, although seeing a credible movie version of it tends to mess with this phenomenon.

37. Do you like to read in silence, or with backround noise/music?
Doesn't really matter.

38. Can you read in the car without getting carsick?
I never get carsick.

39. Do you go to booksales?
No, but I'd like to. *sigh* I really should not buy any more books until I have bookshelves for all the ones I've got.

40. Name one literary quirk of yours.
I obsessively count commas. Usually it's pretty subliminal, but if a sentence has seven or eight commas then I have to go back and make sure all the clauses come out right.

At least I won't be so surprised by spring forward this weekend

There is absolutely nothing to do at 7:30 in the morning. This is after I've had breakfast, waved Michael off, read my Bible, and fed my baby. It's too soon to put Jane down for her morning nap; too early to go shopping; too chilly yet to do anything outside; too soon to sit down to a nice little second breakfast on the lawn; and far too early to call any of my friends to chat.

Recently Michael couldn't find his other pair of jeans, and asked me if they might be in the laundry. 'Maybe,' I told him. 'Just wait a few days, and it will all come out in the wash.' (Ha, ha!) But they didn't turn up, so yesterday I checked my closet and pulled out a pair of Wranglers with rolled-up cuffs that were definitely not mine. I remember now that a few weeks ago, when we were doing yard work together, I grabbed a pair of jeans that were so big I assumed they must be a spare pair of grubby jeans because I had to roll up the cuffs. Oops.

Mumble's the word

So I went to the dentist this morning to fill some more cavities. (This cannot keep up much longer; at some point I am bound to run out of original tooth material.) Two of the fillings were so shallow that I didn't need any anesthesia at all, which was nice, because I hate the taste and the numbness. But the others left me feeling predictably rubbery, and I kept gnashing my teeth all the way home and not feeling a thing other than dull impact. I couldn't even apply lipstick properly: I tried putting the stuff on, and then simply could not purse my lips to rub it in. But I did make such hilarious faces in the rear-view mirror while trying that I couldn't help but laugh, which was a healthy thing.

And now I've discovered that I can't whistle properly. Now I have an inkling what Botox patients feel like. I ask you, why would anyone do that to herself?

Goodbye to a dear friend

They never quite leave us, our friends who have passed
Through the shadows of death to the sunlight above;
A thousand sweet memories are holding them fast
To the places they blessed with their presence and love.

The work which they left, and the books which they read,
Speak mutely, though still with an eloquence rare;
And the songs that they sung, and the dear words that they said,
Yet linger and sigh on the desolate air.

And oft when alone, and as oft in the throng,
Or when evil allures us, or sin draweth nigh,
A whisper comes gently, ‘Nay, do not the wrong,’
And we feel that our weakness is pitied on high.

We toil at our tasks in the burden and heat
Of life’s passionate noon. They are folded in peace.
It is well. We rejoice that their heaven is sweet,
And one day for us all the bitter will cease.

We, too, shall go home o'er the river of rest
As the strong and the lovely before us have gone;
Our sun will go down in the beautiful west
To rise in the glory that circles the throne.

Until then we are bound by our love and our faith
To the saints who are walking in Paradise fair;
They have passed beyond sight at the touching of death
But they live, like ourselves, in God's infinite care.

~Margaret E. Sangster

A day of pleasant bread

It's the small things in life that really add up to more than the sum of their parts and make the world go 'round. Yesterday was just such a day. Jane was happy, I was happy, the First Day of Spring was rainy so I got to wear my beloved winter sweaters for at least one day longer, and we snapped up tremendous bargains while out and about.

In the first place, I've been looking for invitations for a shower I'm co-hosting soon. Something simple, elegant, classy, and not too expensive, while not looking as if it's trying not to be too expensive. Last week I saw a package of simple white embossed blank cards that I can print off my own invites on, and decided to get them, but also decided to wait a week first. Yesterday I went back and found a box of those very invites, opened but with all the cards and envelopes, marked down to $2.48. Yippee! I felt as if I had just saved ten dollars, but since we are now officially on a budget the extra money was not spendable but goes toward next month's gift allowance.

I hate budgets. Somehow we've made it thus far in our marriage without anything etched in paper, our general rule of thumb being to spend as little as possible and use the rest for savings, giving to missions, buying new cars after destructive car wrecks, etc. But this book on finances that we've been reading strongly recommends a fixed budget, so last week we itemised all expenses and actually drew up a budget. Ugh. Whether we'll actually stick to it is another matter.

The morning of errand-running was topped off in fine style by a free cup of premium roast coffee from McDonalds. I had found a coupon in the Sunday paper (which we do not pay for but which persists in showing up in our front yard every week, so I gamely flip through it and clip coupons for anything free), and having spotted a McDonalds while out and about, whizzed through the drive-thru and collected my token. Then it was such fun walking through Target, holding a cute baby in one hand and a styrofoam cup of coffee in the other. Only a straitened and sheltered youth could eke such feelings of opulence and luxury from a disposable coffee cup.

Beware already

I give you a few random quotes in honour of the Ides of March.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar....

~from Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare


Claudius: What'll ya have?
Flavius: Give me a Martinus.
Claudius: Don't you mean a MartiNI?
Flavius: If I wanted two, I'd ask for it. By the way, could I have a bite to eat?
Claudius: Sure thing. What'll ya have?
Flavius: I could do with some pizzum.
Claudius: Don't you mean pizza?
Flavius: If I wanted more than one, I'd say so.

~from Rinse the Blood off My Toga, by Wayne and Schuster.


"The first date in English History is 55 B.C. in which year Julius Caesar (the memorable Roman Emperor) landed, like all other successful invaders of these islands, at Thanet. This was in the Olden Days, when the Romans were top nation on account of their classical education, etc....
"Julius Caesar was therefore compelled to invade Britain again the following year (54 B.C., not 56, owing to the peculiar Roman method of counting), and having defeated the Ancient Britons by unfair means, such as battering-rams, tortoises, hippocausts, centipedes, axes and bundles, set the memorable Latin sentence, 'Veni, Vidi, Vici,' which the Romans, who were all very well educated, construed correctly.
"The Britons, however, who of course still used the old pronunciation, understanding him to have called them 'Weeny, Weedy, and Weaky,' lost heart and gave up the struggle, thinking that he had already divided them All into Three Parts."

~from 1066 And All That.


A Pict Song

Rome never looks where she treads.
Always her heavy hooves fall
On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;
And Rome never heeds when we bawl.
Her sentries pass on -- that is all,
And we gather behind them in hordes,
And plot to reconquer the Wall,
With only our tongues for our swords.

We are the Little Folk -- we!
Too little to love or to hate.
Leave us alone and you'll see
How we can drag down the State!
We are the worm in the wood!
We are the rot at the root!
We are the taint in the blood!
We are the thorn in the foot!

Mistletoe killing an oak --
Rats gnawing cables in two --
Moths making holes in a cloak --
How they must love what they do!
Yes -- and we Little Folk too,
We are busy as they --
Working our works out of view --
Watch, and you'll see it some day!

No indeed! We are not strong,
But we know Peoples that are.
Yes, and we'll guide them along
To smash and destroy you in War!
We shall be slaves just the same?
Yes, we have always been slaves,
But you -- you will die of the shame,
And then we shall dance on your graves!

~by Rudyard Kipling

Give me a sign

Last night Michael was telling me about this book his boss had mentioned, which advocates teaching your babies to sign so you can communicate with them before they can even speak. It's a fascinating idea, and I know I just heard about this recently, maybe chatting with someone at church, so I was already intrigued with the idea.

He brought the book by this morning, and I read it with great interest. Apparently infants' manual motor skills develop far sooner than the speech capacity, and babies as young as six months can be taught to sign! Jane is ten months old, so she should pick it up in no time. Today we learned three signs ('We' as in me, with Jane very soon to follow) and are going to rehearse them until Jane is fluent.

Part of why this fascinates me so much is that sign language actually counts as another language. Infants who sign are already bilingual when they begin to speak, and therefore have an advantage in learning another spoken language. This book uses the symbols of American Sign Language, which is something I want my kids to know anyway. This way, we get a head start on the learning and can actually have conversations meanwhile!

I am very excited about this. Will keep you posted as to whether or not it works.

A quick post

Busy times make few blog posts. We had houseguests this past weekend, which means that the fridge is satisfyingly full of leftovers that will probably last the whole week. We went to Kennesaw Mountain on Saturday, where we had a picnic, toured the museum and Civil War battlefield, and climbed to the top and back. Babies who hate being trapped in backpacks will gladly cheer up as long as you stop at every tree and let them pat the trunk and try to eat a few leaves. Two water bottles do not contain enough water to keep you hydrated for a mile-long hike.

On Sunday Michael sang in the church choir for the first time. We've started going to church on Wednesday nights, which is when choir practice is held, and even though it makes for a very long Wednesday, I've really enjoyed it. I think mid-week service must just be a southern thing.

Jane is officially crawling now (previously it was just a very adept scoot) and has a new friend: Ethan John Owens, born to Benjamin and Amanda last Friday.

The other 6:00

Ever since Michael started his new job six months ago, he's been getting up earlier to compensate for an hour-long commute. Fortunately, there are several other co-workers who live at our exit with whom he can carpool, which saves on gas, time (HOV lane), and stress in only having to drive once a week or so. Plus he has more time now to read on the drive.

Last week, one of his fellow carpoolers, who also happens to be his boss, offered the challenge that they all start getting up at 5:00 and spending that extra hour in prayer. Previously, I slept right through the alarm and only got up when it was time to get ready for my day and feed Jane, around 7:30-8. I do need more sleep than Michael, but switching to that wide of a divergence would probably not be a good idea, as if I'm too caught up on sleep I might be likely to stay up late talking and thus hijack Michael's resolve on early rising. The only solution is to make sure I'm as sleepy as he is when it's time to sleep.

So for this past week, Michael has gotten up at five, and then awakened me at six, and I have fixed breakfast for him, which we eat together. It's been very nice to have breakfast together and to be able to serve him a hot meal, and then I have a bit of quiet time after he leaves and before Jane wakes up.

What I'm most struck with is how long the morning is when it starts that early. I'm hungry long before lunch time, and I have to be careful, when running errands, to make sure that the stores are actually open. Apparently only grocery stores and pharmacies are usually open before 8:00 am.

Here it is 10:00, and I've already been awake for four hours. Jane is already down for her morning nap, and I've gotten groceries, cleaned the kitchen, de-boned the chicken from last night, and read a good bit. One can certainly accomplish a good bit with an early start. Even if I have to compensate with a nap this afternoon, I'll still feel ahead.

We'll see how long it lasts. I really hate the new system during the first ten minutes of the day. But after that, the advantages are manifold and glorious.