Occupational Hazard

Still struggling with my voice. (Jenny, I have requested the book your speech-therapist friend recommended and am still waiting for it.) I've realized a huge part of my voice problems are because I have learned, over the last couple of decades, to speak from my throat instead of from my gut. I used to be in choirs all the time, and that gave me better training/habits in how to use my voice and have it come from my belly.

So what changed?

All I can figure is it's because of the lovely, wonderful, terrific, enjoyable pleasure of curling up on the couch with my kids and reading aloud to them. Snuggling on a bed for bedtime stories, or piled together on the couch to read chapter after chapter... the cuddling and the back-rubs and the blankets take priority over posture. And yet, the posture of reading aloud while curled up on the sofa meant that my lungs couldn't fill properly, my diaphragm couldn't do its job, and thus my voice was coming out of my upper chest and throat. And it wore out.

Now I have to straighten out those habits and set them right again. And it's hard. It means paying attention to my diaphragm when I'm singing instead of paying attention to the notes in choir, or the text of the hymn during prayers. It may even mean having to stand to read aloud to the kids. Bummers! But it's gotta be done if I want to keep my voice.

But yikesy, does the good new/old habit have to be practiced ALL the time? I am not yet ready to give up the joys of curling up on the couch with my kids to read.

Gum

People who have jaw-clicking in the family or other signs of TMJ trouble should NOT allow their children to chew gum. I didn't know this with Katie, and let her chew and chew and chew for years, thinking that it should be okay because at least she was chewing sugarless gum. I wish I had known then that the gum-chewing I didn't particularly like was something that was actually really bad for her and not just my hang-up.

Hey, you people with my genes! You know what this means when you bring my grandkids into the world!

Accepting However Many

I have often heard the line about "accepting as many children as the Lord gives." What I don't understand is why this would have to mean that the person was against the use of contraceptives. If God gives children (or not), then wouldn't "accepting as many as the Lord gives" mean that you don't kill the ones He gives? It seems to me that a couple that uses contraception still "accepts as many as the Lord gives" unless they get rid of the children who are conceived in spite of their attempts to the contrary.

Interesting Line

At choir tonight, we pulled out a book we hadn't used yet this year. I was flipping through it while the baritones were working on their part. It has Praetorius arrangements of chorales. The Easter piece is "The Clouds of Night Are Passed Away," and one of the lines is:

The Offspring of the virgin womb
is risen from the virgin tomb.

I just love that!!
I may be a poetry dunce, but THAT one even I appreciate!

Farewell, Clothesline

The days are getting shorter. They've often been gray and rainy. And they're definitely cool. It was just taking too long for the cl0thes to get dry. I'd leave them on the line all day, and as evening (and dew!) approached they weren't yet dry.

So I've been using the dryer in the basement. I'm not used to the smell of HOT to dry the clothes. I'm not going to like the gas/electric bill when it arrives. But, boy oh boy, you can sure get the laundry done quickly this way!! Only half a day to do four loads and have them all dry and folded. Wow.

Testing

Pastor has often talked about how "testing" in the Bible is to reveal faith. God doesn't "test" someone to trip him up. It's for the sake of showing him (and us) where his faith rests.

In the last couple of weeks, with the stories of the Israelites' wilderness wanderings, occasionally there were places where it says the Israelites tested God. At first glance, what would that mean? But as Pastor said, that too shows what someone believes. When the Israelites "test" God, it shows Him to be faithful to His promises. He does not punish them as they deserve (although He definitely chastises them) but rather holds faithfully to the promises He gave them. So even when someone tests God, it's about revealing that He sticks to what He said instead of treating us according to what we have merited.

He shows to man His treasure
of judgment, truth, and righteousness,
His love beyond all measure,
His yearning pity o'er distress,
nor treats us as we merit,
but lays His anger by. (part of TLH 34:2)

Only Two Adults into Canaan

Last week our Bible stories was about the spies coming back from scouting the Promised Land. Ten said the land was just as bountiful as God had told them, but they couldn't capture it. Caleb and Joshua said they would go into the land, and the Lord would give it to them, just as He'd said. The people agreed with the ten. God said, okie-dokie, fine, if you insist on it then you can all die out here just like you say I'm gonna kill you in the wilderness, except for Joshua and Caleb who will go into the Promised Land with your children.

At that point, we hadn't gotten to today's story where Moses profaned God's name by striking the Rock (instead of speaking to it). Earlier, when God said "only Joshua and Caleb; all the other adults will die in the wilderness" Moses had not sinned the sin for which he was banned from entering the Promised Land.

But God knew what was coming.

Happy Developments

Philip got a job. He starts tomorrow. It even has benefits.

We went to Erin's dentist today. Wow! We like him. And the hygienists. Andrew doesn't think he'll be nervous about his next appointment to the dentist. Furthermore, this dentist suggests repairing my broken tooth (which the old dentist said would not be done) so as to forestall the need for a crown.

The bummer from the dentist appointment was that Teeth-Rotting Girl had her first cavities in 2½ years.

"100" -- Jogging Path

It's been a while since I uploaded these pictures from the camera.


75. I've gotten so used to CAT TAILS that I can identify them in many different stages of growth. I was so proud of myself that I knew these were cat tails when they just looked like fat grass. With the weather changing, soon the "tails" will turn into ugly, falling-apart, beige, puffy messes. The cat tails are on the left. I never did haul out my field guides to decide what the yellow flowers on the right were. I was guessing it might be coreopsis or rudbeckia, but neither ID seemed right, and the longer it grew, the more sure I was that this was no version of either plant that I'd ever learned. So that one's still up for grabs.


76. GOLDENROD is pretty and does not deserve its reputation as a horrid and evil allergen. Actually, the goldenrod blooms about the same time as the ragweed goes nuts, and it's actually the ragweed that gets to us.



77. This is the one that confused me for the longest time. It's hard to see on the blog picture, but if you click on the photo you can see the tiny little flowers and the tinier little leaves in amongst the plantain and the pebbles.

I could've sworn it looked like chamomile. But it was growing right alongside the edge of the road, coming up in the gravel, just inches from the asphalt. When it first came up in June, it looked like chamomile. But then it started "blooming" (a word used very loosely in this context) and it didn't look anything like a tiny daisy. The "flowers" did look like the middle of a chamomile flower, but there were no white rays around the flowerhead. I puzzled over this plant and couldn't find anything in my nature guides. And then one day I was jogging, and I kept smelling Sleepytime tea. Huh? What's up with that? It HAD to be chamomile, but the flowers weren't right. So I put the power of the internet onto solving the puzzle ... as opposed to the power [boom! pow! zappo!] of my small stack of nature guides sitting on the science shelf. Turns out that this plant is PINEAPPLE WEED and it is a chamomile. It's just that this is a chamomile without white ray-petals attached to the yellow-green middle. Suddenly it all made sense. And the name is perfect, as the "flower" looks rather like a miniscule pineapple. For the next couple of weeks, I savored the Sleepytime aromas while jogging. But unfortunately, I dawdled on taking the camera jogging with me, so the plants got way pat their prime and the pictures didn't turn out too well. Suffice it to say that pineapple weed looks like any other chamomile that has been plucked-to-death by a love-sick girl who wants to know if "he loves me" or "he loves me not."

Costs at Work

There are a lot of hidden costs of holding down a job. There's the obvious: commuting and daycare and taxes. But there are also work clothes, the cost of paying someone to do jobs at home that you can't do because of the job, and the little "extras" at work that add up. These are things that need to be considered when a woman thinks about how much spare cash she might garner by taking on employment.

But what about Dad's costs in some of those areas? Gary was worried about those situations where it would be $5 here and $5 there at work. He even asked before he was hired, and was told there aren't very many of those. He doesn't have to go out to eat for lunch, so that's helped. There are occasional contributions for a thank-you gift for somebody or a wedding gift for a different somebody. There are [relatively infrequent] gasoline costs for team-building outings to the ballpark or the zoo or a restaurant.

This week, between a new program to get fit (with good-natured "fines" for those who don't do well) and a gift for someone on the team and a bring-hors-d'ouvres day, we realized something. Gary is the ONLY person on his team that is supporting a family. Everyone else that he works with has disposable income. Either his co-workers live with somebody else who has a full-time income, or they are single. No one else is using that income as the sole income to take care of a spouse and children. That puts a totally new perspective on "$5 here" and "$5 there."

When some friends found out a year ago just how little Gary had been earning as a pastor, they wondered how we had managed to eat, much less live as well as we did. Well, there was a lot of doing-without and a lot of frugality, as well as some generosity from fellow-saints. But it's easier to make ends meet when it's just you and your family. How do you fit in with the folks at work who let go of $5 as easily as I let go of a dime, and who don't understand how anybody could be so poor as to need that $5? And if you don't fit in with them, how do you do it without offending?

Apfelstrudel

We have been eating lots of vegetables from our CSA. With a freezer full of beef, a stockpile of flour and yeast, and weekly boxes of fresh veggies arriving, I haven't been doing much routine grocery shopping. This past week I was running low on several staples and hit up the store. Plums looked good and were cheap. I also bought the first bunch of bananas we'd had in several weeks.

Ohhhhh, fruit! I love fruit! I had forgotten how sweet and wonderful it is!

We were given a half bushel of awesome Macintoshes. We started with one of Mom's apple pies, and then a regular apple pie. We managed the next day to make a gallon of applesauce but, because the virus had a hold on me and Maggie, we didn't manage to can it or freeze it. That's okay: with the germies invading throats here, ready-to-eat applesauce in the fridge is providing some great (and easy-to-swallow) nutrition. We also made a strudel,

partially in deference to the word "strudel" being used so frequently in Maggie's Hogan's Heroes episodes, and partially because it's been many years since I made one, and I didn't figure the younger kids knew what a strudel was.

Today Philip was in need of an Apple Betty and asked for a recipe. Recipe??? For Apple Betty? Uhhhh.... I should probably figure that out. I tried to tell him the general concept that I carry around in my head for Apple Betty. But that is definitely one of my wing-it, do-it-by-feel sorta recipes.

Maggie loved the apple strudel. She wants to have it again. It's not like it's super-hard or anything. But after having made the strudels with Andrew, I am realizing again just why we have the cliche "Easy as Pie." The pie and the Betty are so much easier than the strudel. It's probably been a decade since I made the last strudel, and it may well be another decade before Maggie tastes it again. Isn't it a shame how much abuse she must endure?

Laundry Chute

I have loved having a laundry chute in the new house. No carrying laundry baskets up and down the stairs. Just drop the dirty clothes down the chute, and they magically appear in the laundry room. Living in the lap of luxury!

But with our first round of doozy-colds since we moved, I discovered a downside. There used to be a pile of dirty laundry upstairs, full of t-shirts and socks and jammies that are soft. Lots of times we could blow noses on those clothes that were already in need of laundering -- assuming of course they weren't so dirty that you didn't want 'em near your face. But now we don't have those t-shirts and jammies available. So today, when I folded the load of whites, I found NINETEEN cotton hankies. Nineteen. No wonder I'm getting sore from excessive nose-blowing.

A Female Vice-President

Pr Peperkorn linked to an article by Mollie Ziegler Hemingway (just can't get used to these young folks' married names ... including my daughters' ... but I'm sure I'll get the married names down pat quicker than the new hymnal ... ah, but that's another topic altogether).

Mollie makes excellent points about the double standard. Evangelicals are "supposed to be" upset about having a female vice-president because of the order of creation, and yet, who got upset about Nancy Pelosi as third-in-line? (Well, besides the people who object to her stance on the issues?) The media is hypocritically pointing out how Sarah Palin should be at home with her children, hoping people like me (who think she should be at home with her children) will be repulsed enough to refuse to vote, or to vote for Obama.

Now, really, how can they live with themselves? They're speaking publicly about how terrible it is that Sarah Palin is "neglecting her children" when THEY are the ones setting up daycare centers in corporate workplaces, and advocating killing children who are "inconvenient," and working for tax policies which force many women to feel that they must contribute to the family's income, and defending no-fault-divorce which has put many women in the position of having to provide for children after a man runs off. The typical woman journalist or politician has no right to question Sarah Palin. Now, I do. But I'm voting for her anyway.

I think that, sometime within the next 60-100 years, we will look back at history, and see this as a turning point in what happens to families. I think the outpouring of conservative support for Palin will make a significant change in how our country sees stay-at-home moms and the importance of committing ourselves to our children's needs (quantity-time, not "quality time"). The liberals have already jettisoned those values, but with Palin's nomination (even if she is not elected) I think the conservatives have put themselves in a position of defending the goodness & rightness of women being in the workplace instead of with their children. How many conservatives have been saying in the last month that it doesn't matter whether it's the mom or the dad staying home with the kids? How many conservatives have been saying in the last month that we women CAN "have it all"? How many conservatives have bought hook, line, and sinker into the liberal agenda for women's rights, and we don't even recognize it because we're crazy about this woman who is the politician most like Reagan we've seen in a long, long time?

Right now, we have a choice between Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin. That's a no-brainer. But someday I fear that a tiny minority of old-fashioned folks will look back and see how McCain's choice of Palin resulted in fallout to stay-at-home moms.

Playgrounds

You know all those wussy little playgrounds that decorate the parks now? For whom are they constructed?

It used to be that high slides and long-roped swings and complex climbing equipment would be enjoyable for pre-teens and even teen-agers. Of course, younger kids could play at the playground too, assuming they took on the equipment in a limited way, more appropriate to their smaller size.

But now the playgrounds are built for preschoolers.

What does that say about hurrying children? We are taking 2 yr-olds to the playgrounds now and expecting them to have all sorts of age-appropriate toys there, where 2-yr-olds used to ride in their strollers, play in their sandboxes, and have a small section of the playground that would work for them.

How many 14-yr-olds do you see at a playground any more? Not many, right? And yet, the 14-yr-olds who can still enjoy a swing or a slide that is grown-up sized ... aren't they usually the kids who impress you with how well-adjusted they are, polite to others, hard workers, and not little snits?

Steve

Lest anyone think I've forgotten, let me just say that I've refrained from writing or talking much this year on the subject. Although five years certainly eases the sting and the pain, it still amazes me just how vivid the memories of that hospice room can be ... especially at this time of year, especially with the statue of St Michael out. It's not a bad thing. Just very clear pictures in my mind of what everything looked like, what we sang that week, what we prayed, who was there, etc.

Ye meanwhile are in your chambers sleeping,
quiet, and set free from all our weeping;
no cross or sadness
there can hinder your untroubled gladness.

I Am Not Dead

I used a neti-pot and I am not dead!

Raw garlic slices taped to the skin behind my ears.
Raw garlic taped to my throat.
Making turkey soup.
Gargling with Listerine.
Going through cotton hankies like crazy.

You know I'm desperate when I finally phone my daughter and ask her for instructions on how to use a neti pot. No matter how many people I listen to extol the wonders of their neti pots (ahem: Rachel and Anthea) it still seems WRONG to me to pour water up your nose. Isn't that how you DROWN??? So after Rachel told me how to not drown, I proceeded to attempt this death-embracing concept of pouring water up my nose. I told Rachel where the list of insurance policies was. I told her to buy the cheap pine box. And as Maggie watched, asking questions about subtracting clock-times from one another, I hugged her goodbye and told her I'd see her in heaven someday. (She rolled her eyes.)

But now I can breathe out of both nostrils, and am alive to tell the story!

I think I'll have to not-drown myself a few more times today.

Dawdling

How can it possibly take TWELVE minutes to toast two pieces of bread and spread peanut butter on them? Twelve minutes! No wonder we get nothing done around here....

How does a mother speed up a dawdler?

Frost

Frost? Who said there could be frost this morning? What's up with this? Wasn't it just August a couple of days ago? Didn't I just plant the melon seeds and the tomato bushes a couple of weeks ago?

I don't know how, but it appears that the tomato vines lived through the night, in spite of the car windows needing to be scraped clean this morning. Tonight is supposed to be colder, though. If I want the tomatoes make it, I will have to remember to cover them this evening.

Can you believe it's frosting already?

(And to think they were talking about global WARMING during the v.p. debate last night. Sheeesh.)

My Fault?

As my husband and I were talking over some ...uh... "conflicts" we have had with other people (as in, when somebody bites your head off and you're not sure what just happened or why) we were struggling with how to cope with it. The best advice given to us seems to be to respond with something on the order of "Wow! That's just really inappropriate for you to say!" or "Hey, that was rude!"

In hindsight, that sounds good
because, after all, the comments we were considering really were out of line.

But in the midst of the attack difficulty, it never occurs to us to tell the person he/she is out of line. We just apologize or try to make it better or sit there dumbfounded. Why?

And then it occurred to me: our first inclination is to believe that we did do something wrong ourselves, that we offended, that we made a mistake, that we are the ones who owe the apology. But when you start thinking about it and realize what actually happened (especially when onlookers later confirm that the other person said something shockingly rude) you begin to think of all the things you might've said or should've said. But how do you go back and work out these situations? They're better dealt with when the problem arises. Thing is, we don't automatically think of the attacker as the offender, but always worry about what we did wrong ourselves. And like Gary said, would we want to be different? Do we want to have our default-response to be "It's your fault"? So how do we learn to respond with appropriate shock (and scolding?) to someone who deals with us inappropriately?

St Michael and All Angels

Tonight was our celebration of the Feast of St Michael, transferred from last Monday. The statue of St Michael killing the devil (somewhat similar to the statue pictured below) was placed near the processional crucifix, next to the pulpit.




We see the crucifix, the dead Jesus on the cross.
But what God was seeing in the same event -- the same dead body on the cross -- was the statue: the Angel of the Lord slaying the Accuser.
The two pieces of art there, in juxtaposition with one another, is beautiful. The message of each piece is what we see in the other one.