Health kick update

So I'm trying not to go overboard on this regimen, while still implementing some minor changes, since I'm convinced there's always room for improvement. The current rule of thumb is nothing too sweeping, nothing too drastic, nothing too expensive, nothing too complicated, and nothing in huge quantities, in case it doesn't work out, and meantime carry on with the research.

The obvious first step is the peanut butter. I was delighted to find that the completely natural stuff is available right next to the regular stuff on the shelf at Kroger, and for not too much more. We do eat some peanut butter, but not a lot (but we really should eat more!) so for now switching to good, wholesome peanut butter will not require too much of a sacrifice. Jane likes the taste of it, and I can't tell that much of a difference.

I'm not quite ready to swear off ever eating any hydrogenated fats or high fructose corn syrup ever again, but I am definitely wary of them, and I'm going to scrupulously read labels from now on and cast a skeptical eye on anything containing them. We'd better really love the final product if we do decide to go on eating it.

I was shocked and disappointed to find out how horrible the packs of hot cocoa mix are. It doesn't even appear that they contain real chocolate! There are few winter things I savour so much as curling up with a good steaming mug of hot cocoa. I will stop the ridiculous sugar dose, however, and try to mix up my own with cocoa powder and powdered sugar (alas! How many failed cups must I drink until I discover the correct dosage? 'Ah, too sweet.' 'Oh, too chocolatey') when the urge seizes me. Meanwhile, I am delighted to discover the delights of a good cup of tea. This is something I've brewed on occasion and always enjoyed, but I haven't really ever established a habit. I intend to do so now, especially as herbal teas offer so much for pregnancy. A delicate cup of hot tea with a touch of wild honey is now becoming my daily ritual.

I really want us to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. This is one concession, however, that my budget is not quite willing to relinquish. This is the worst time of year to be thinking about buying lots of fresh produce, and most of the stuff in the grocery store wouldn't be that fresh or nutritious anyway. So I've decided that I will start sprouting things on our countertops. My mom used to do this Oregon long ago, and I always loved eating the fresh alfalfa sprouts (not to mention watching them grow! I didn't even need a chia pet!) I need to find a source for alfalfa sprout seeds, and I may even try bean sprouts if I feel that ambitious. I would love to have two or three strainers going at once, so I have a tablespoon or so of fresh sprouts to eat every day. The kids will grow up loving them because they won't know any different, and they will think that leftover turkey-cream cheese-cranberry sauce-alfalfa sprout sandwiches are perfectly normal, which I do, because I grew up eating them, whereas Michael did not.

The grand prize of the last week and a half of health food foraging came in the jams and jellies department. We had just finished a jar of blackberry jam, and when shopping for replenishment I was not surprised to find most labels listing massive quantities of artificial sweetenings and preservatives. Now jellies do require a good bit of sugar to jell, but not all that fake stuff! Even the stuff billed as natural was pretty stiffly laced with unpleasantness. So I looked up a recipe for blueberry jam, and cooked up a batch! It was so easy. Not at all daunting, nor as tedious or cumbersome as I'd remembered, stirring for hours and hours over a hot stove while melting down apple peels for the pectin or some such. We still had several ziploc bags of blueberries in our freezer from last summer's catch, which I have been hoarding (and I am determined to stop hoarding things and start enjoying them! But that's a story for another post) but decided it was time to use up. The recipe entailed:

4 cups of blueberries
1/4 cup of sugar (I was amazed at this! Most jelly recipes I remember require about one part sugar to one part fruit in order to jell!)
1/4 cup orange juice (to simplify matters I just bought an orange and squeezed it fresh)
2 packets unflavoured gelatin (nothing sinister about this, as far as I could see; as Michael said, 'pure unvarnished horse's hooves')

I spent maybe half an hour on the whole operation, and ended up with a quart jar of lovely jelled-up blueberry jam. It's very tasty, and we've been enjoying it on pancakes and English muffins for the past week now. I am definitely going to make all our jam from now on, and wish only that blackberries grew as profusely here as they did in Oregon.

How I'm feeling today

'We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.' ~ 2 Corinthians 4:8

It's discouraging, to be sure, but I suppose it could have been worse. There have been elections much more victorious-feeling than this and others far more bleak and grim. This is about what we were all expecting, anyway, despite that valiant spark of hope that springs eternal in the heart of man.

Guy Fawkes Day!

Remember, remember, the 5th of November-
Gunpowder, treason and plot;
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

~English nursery rhyme

Go out and light a bonfire! Maybe even burn a modern-day terrorist in effigy!

I've decided...

...that the third trimester figure is my favourite look of pregnancy (with the possible exception of the first trimester figure, which is virtually identical to the normal figure look). The second trimester is my favourite feel of pregnancy. If I could feel as good as I do during the second trimester, and look like the third trimester (or, even better, the first - but I'm merely being hypothetical here, not unrealistic), then I'd like pregnancy a whole lot more.

The reason I like this look is that it's nice to look honest-to-goodness pregnant, thus finally eradicating the hesitant almost-questions and unspoken wonderings of whether the thickening waist simply betokens the fact that I've been putting on weight (or, horrors, still struggling to lose it from last time around!) Second trimester is just an awkward transitional phase, when I'm sort of outgrowing my regular clothes but can still wear them, only to look stout and - well, spilling out of my clothes. It's too soon for maternity clothes, though, and when I did try to wear them early in the second trimester I just felt silly.

I must point out that the only reason I like this look is because of the nice maternity fashions of the day. They are generally cute, trendy, and flattering, and do their best to make one feel happy to be pregnant. If I had to wear the gunnysacks and tents of even a decade ago, I'm sure I'd feel much less happy.

Food for thought

Recently I've found myself evaluating our diet and considering 1) how seriously to take concerns about health; 2) to what extent our food budget should accommodate improving the quality of the food we eat. I've gamely avoided the organics fad up til now, figuring that the dire effects of pesticides et al in the food are most likely exaggerated, very inconsequential, and certainly not worth the horrific additional expense to avoid. I've shied away from the nutty health movement, which I would (perhaps unfairly) summarise as consisting of soy milk, alfalfa sprouts, and flax seed, not for the cost reason but for the taste reason. I don't want a healthy lifestyle to be bland and boring. (There is an ongoing angst over the whole wheat flour issue, but that's a matter for another day.)

But when faced with the issue of quality over cheapness, I find myself at a real crossroads. It seems that I have been hearing from so many sources recently about the danger of high fructose corn syrup and certain fats (I really need to do a lot of research on fats and understand the difference between polyunsaturated and mono-, trans, hydrogenated, and so on) that I'm really beginning to contemplate what it would mean to cut these things out of our diet.

This website that I just discovered pointed out a very good thing about, for example, cheap peanut butter: look at the list of ingredients. You should be paying for peanuts and (possibly) salt. If your peanut butter is loaded with lard and icing sugar, you're not getting a bargain, no matter how much cheaper the junk stuff is than the natural stuff. After all, if you want to bring down the cost of the peanut butter, would you buy pure peanut butter and add lard and sugar to stretch it when you get home? Of course not. Then why pay to have the store do it for you?

Elsewhere I have read that if the list of ingredients contains words you can't pronounce, you probably shouldn't be eating it. Now that's perhaps a bit more extreme than I'm willing to get at this point (besides, who would know how to pronounce triticale without having heard it before?), but I thought it was an interesting bit of advice, anyway. Intrigued by this new thought process, I looked at the label of the bottle of lemon juice I keep on hand for drinking with hot water and honey to nurse those winter sore throats (so healthy of me, right?). The ingredients were water, lemon juice concentrate (?), and two preservatives. Now, obviously I must have bought this lemon juice because it was the cheapest bottle, and while I hate spending money, I hate getting ripped off even more. If I had wanted watered-down fake lemon juice, I could have bought Gatorade!

Furthermore, it dawned on me that I already make a budget concession for food quality when the driving factor is flavour, not health. We already consume only pure maple syrup, because we vastly prefer the taste to the fake stuff, even though it costs so many times more than Mrs. Butterworths. And we already use real butter for all everyday use and baking, because the taste and the texture is far superior to margarine. I don't even think twice about these 'splurges' in my shopping, because that's what we do and always have done and we take that for granted. I can't even imagine spreading margarine on a slice of bread. Suppose I felt this way about natural peanut butter? Suppose I had grown up preferring the unique texture and thought the packaged store-bought stuff was gross?

In theory, I'm all in favour of quality vs. quantity. I love the idea of savouring one good piece of dark European chocolate and truly appreciating a dessert over carelessly chomping down ten candy bars. I would love for my kids to grow up with a discriminating palate. But can we afford it? If I had grown up eating margarine, and now believed that butter was better for our health, would I bother to make the switch and learn to cultivate a taste for it, or just leave well enough alone? Is puzzlement.

Overheard on the walk

Me: Thanks for pushing the stroller!
Michael: Not a problem. Hey, thanks for holding the Baby!

Thirty days of nothing

A while ago I came across an article in which the author was challenged to undergo Thirty Days of Nothing, i.e. a period of thirty days in which absolutely nothing non-essential would be bought in the household. Only non-fancy food for the week (or even the day) ahead was allowed; no splurges, no discretionary spending, no drinks but water. This brought up all sorts of ponderings on simplicity and money management (on the part of the author, I mean, who thought it was a very good idea).

It was an intriguing idea, and I think it can be a good challenge for a family if the goal is experimentation and exploration. However, as a solution to out-of-control spending habits and impulse buying, it strikes me as a bit similar to yo-yo dieting: sure, it works in the short term, but it's not a plan that's realistically sustainable, and without an intrinsic change of heart and lifestyle, the bad habits and their bad effects are going to come right back.

This challenge would never work for me, or perhaps I should say it probably wouldn't be very helpful for our family, and not because I'm inclined to the whole impulse spending on non-essential items habit. Rather, I rely on purchasing non-essential items (by which I mean non-emergency items, in that I don't need them right away, but will certainly require them at some point, as opposed to frivolous junk) when the price is right, not when the need is high. By replenishing my stores of hand soap, dish detergent, tissues, tomato sauce cans, etc., when there's a great deal, I'm able to stockpile even if I didn't need them right away and insulate myself from unpleasant surprises when the common demand outruns the supply. If only I could do that with gasoline!

Perhaps a more helpful exercise for the would-be budget-conscious would be to curtail all superfluous spending for a month, and see where that leaves them. By superfluous I mean the truly non-essential items like CDs, candy, DVD players, and the like. This kind of challenge wouldn't really apply to our family since we hardly buy consumer stuff nowadays anyway. But, it is a big change from my former lifestyle when I was single, in which I bought stuff off of Amazon and E-bay whenever the whim seized me. So perhaps this challenge would have been an interesting venture back then. Nowadays my priorities are so patently different from building up a sound library and jewelry collection that I don't really need a challenge to remind me of it.

On the contrary, I'm getting more and more disenchanted with the Culture of Stuff. We have friends who are planning on leaving for the mission field within the next year, and it has been inspiring to observe how that expectation has changed their viewpoint on ownership. Pretty much everything they currently own will either need to be shipped overseas (and crammed into a far smaller apartment) at considerable expense or sold or given away within the year, so they definitely think twice before purchasing something and are certainly not in the mentality of mindless accumulation. That's such a great perspective, because in a sense we should all be aware of our temporary residency here and not set our hearts on treasures below. Not to say that we necessarily need to sell all that we have and give it to the poor; but it does help me not to get caught up in materialistic greed to view possessions as a burden requiring maintenance, and a short-term proposition, at best. And it is easier to vacuum and clean the house without so much furniture cluttering up the living space.

A quick succession of busy somethings

Lots going on and not much time to write about it leaves the impression that not much is happening around here. Not so. Quite the reverse.

* Last Friday we hired a babysitter for the very first time (as opposed to putting Jane in the nursery, or leaving her with friends) so we could attend a performance of Fiddler On The Roof at a small community theater about an hour and a half away. It was great fun to see, and the play was very well performed, though we were hard pressed not to compare it to our production last summer. As it happened, several other Fiddler alumni (among them, all three sons-in-law and the director herself) also attended this performance, so we had a jolly time discussing everything during intermission. We had seats on the very front row and enjoyed every minute of it, though it was after midnight before we got back.

* This weekend I will be working for my old company once again at their annual tent sale. I loved working there, and even though I actually worked there full-time for less than a year, still keep in touch with many of my former colleagues. They were all so helpful and supportive during my pregnancy, threw me a wonderful shower, and are always delighted to see Jane and me stop by. Except that it's been a few months since I've last visited, and I haven't happened to notice my latest news, so I think they're all going to be surprised when I show up this weekend sporting another baby belly.

* We still have not gotten into the habit of taking a weekly picture of us. This pregnancy is not going to be nearly as well documented as the last. But we already knew that successive children would never be photographed as much as Jane, so it's not as if we need to berate ourselves for falling down on the job. Good grief, they'll have older siblings to play with, blaze trails for them, and wear us down on rules for them, so I'm sure they'll be well rewarded for not getting such coverage on the photo department.

* I had another OB visit yesterday whereat I drank the nasty orange drink, and it really wasn't nearly as bad as I had been dreading. Either I had been building it up excessively in my memory, or chilling it first really helped. Still, I hope not to drink another one for a goodly long time.

* There is a new super Walmart opening just down the road from us tomorrow. Hurrah for local, convenient, and cheap supplies!

* It appears that we may be going abroad next year or the next, so I got Jane's passport photo taken last week and will take in the paperwork this week to apply. Maybe in five years, when this passport wears out, they'll have changed the rules back to allow smiling again. I am so glad I got my photo taken just before the rule change.

* The weather has taken an apparently irrevocable turn for the cooler, which is nice and cosy at this point. I'm still enamoured of fall colours and pumpkin-and-spice smells, and hope we can enjoy more crisp, cool, sunshiny weather and less cold, grey, drippy weather.

Jane and the jump rope

Yes, that really is an egg on her face

Jane and the camels

Jane and the ferrets

I can't resist...

What I have done is in bold.

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula - yeah, does having a pane of glass between me and the tarantula count?
07. Taken a candlelit bath
08. Said “I love you" and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea - okay, did the storm have to be at sea, or me while I was watching it?
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights - I wish!
15. Gone to a huge sports game (and survived the crush afterwards)
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa - next on my to-do list
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg [lettuce]
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby’s diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten tipsy on champagne - but only a very little.
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope - Halley's Comet!
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment - many, many times
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse - lunar and solar!
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day - oooh, this would be a good one
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer - good heavens, we must have six or seven!
40. Visited all 50 states - working on it!
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe - well, we had a car, but we got out a lot and walked around and wore our passports in a pouch! Does that count?
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach - not midnight, but night-time?
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs - by artist!
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day - mostly when sick
60. *edited* - Good heavens, what was this one? Now I'm dying to find out.
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain - but not upside-down
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites - kinda goes with the Great Pyramid thing
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight - D&D? Did Jane Austen even write a book of that title?
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie - do home videos count?
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest - well, but it was in a 4-H competition, and everyone was winning a first prize.
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an “expert”
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark
88. *edited*
89. Gone to Thailand - okay, what's with this Japan/Thailand/Great Wall theme? Why didn't someone write up a list with Greece/Egypt/Cyprus/Holland??
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents - in sand
93. Been on a cruise ship - honeymoon!
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children - working on it
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over - I did pick up and move to another city and just start over; thanks to the ambiguous placement of 'just,' this sentence is flexible.
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking - all the time. Why should that stop me? They can't hear me!
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication - just how large?
106. Lost over 100 pounds - cumulatively? Over my whole life?
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane - well, I was briefly allowed to take the controls in a private plane, but I'm sure the pilot wouldn't have let us crash if it had gone awry
109. Petted a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth - hand-delivered a calf while wearing high heels
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone - on me? Or someone else?
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced - well, when I bend over, then my ears are below my neck...
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild - surely some of the mushrooms they sell in the store started off in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states - ooh, this is a tricky one. I guess it depends on if you count 1) layovers in foreign airports; 2) driving through a state without getting out and stopping.
124. Visited all 7 continents - oh, come on. Who besides scientists would go to Antarctica?
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat – not so far as I know
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about - not sure about this one. I certainly hope so
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Petted a cockroach - yeah, with the sole of my shoe
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - what, never? No, never! Well, hardly ever.
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating - rabbit
137. Skipped all your school reunions - every family vacation is a school reunion
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office - precinct committeeman back in Oregon
140. Written your own computer language - Ha!
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream - but of course I am!
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts - well, I'm married to someone who has
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

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!

***********************************

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.