On Roles

Over on the right side of my blog, I have a list of words that describe me- wife, daughter sister, etc. Which is the most important? It's impossible to choose. I inhabit each role all the time- because I am a wife does not mean I cease to be a daughter (happy birthday, Dad!) Because I am a gardener does not prevent me from also being a software engineer, though I cannot both dig in the dirt and program a computer at the same time. Other roles are less something I do and more someone I am- I am a Jesus follower in all of my roles. I am a deep thinker regardless what I'm doing.

Any role individually doesn't define me- together, though, they are who I am.

Inhabiting so many disparate roles isn't uncommon- everyone is a child, many are a sibling and a spouse, as well. Most have an occupation they get paid to do as well as an avocation they do in their free time. Being so many things- balancing these roles- isn't always easy. Doing or being one often precludes doing or being another, or at least takes away time from another.

So who am I? Where do I fit? Recently, I think I've found a good group- A new blog is starting up today called Homemakers Who Work. I'm excited to be a contributor to the blog- My introduction will post tomorrow, and I'll have a post on the blog every couple of weeks. My blogging-friend Kathie got this fabulous group together, and I'm looking forward to learning from women further along than I am.

Why 'Homemaker'?
When Kathie asked me to be a part of this group, I wasn't sure I was a 'homemaker.' I mean, my friends who are 'homemakers' stay home all day, cooking and cleaning and watching their kids. I'm in front of a computer all day at an office- doesn't that disqualify me? If a homemaker is more broadly defined as someone who "makes a home" and prioritizes home and family, I realize I fit that definition- enthusiaistically!

Why 'Homemaker who Works'?
Sure, I suppose you could call me a 'Systems engineer who cooks and cleans and gardens in her free time,' but if my priority is my family and my home, I'm more accurately a 'homemaker who works.' I know I work with men who would more accurately be described as 'fathers who work' than 'systems engineers who happen to have kids'- and I respect that they prioritize their home and family life above their work life. I hope to do the same.

Jump on over to Homemakers Who Work every now and then & see what we're ruminating about. Balance is hard, and I'm glad I've found a group with similar priorities.

Rearranging

Old view from the foyer:


New view from the foyer:


The piano in the top picture was moved to our bedroom for a variety of reasons, mostly due to two-year-olds standing on the pedals. Without the piano, our longest wall in the room was empty, giving the room an unbalanced feel. After a few configurations, this is how all the furniture landed. I like it, but am withholding firm judgment until we have our typical crowd of 16 people in the house, to see how it works with guests.

Memorial Day Weekend recap

Came home Friday.
Did laundry.
Went out to dinner.
Searched Goodwills for a blender. No luck.

Woke up really early Saturday.
Hung laundry to dry.
Worked out.
Worked in the garden.
Made a strawberry pie.
Went to church
Joined friends at a cookout.
(When we got to the cookout at 6:15, most of the food was gone!)
Played my first game of cornhole, ever.

Made a successful CVS run.
Worked in the garden.
Went to a family cookout.
Won a game of dominoes.
Spent three hours at the park with my nephews.
Took lots of pictures.
Discovered that little boys climb everything.
Crashed.

Worked in the garden first thing in the morning, between rain showers.
Went on a search for a bunch of lemons.
Also searched for a Best Buy with a DVD Josh wants.
Actually rested.
Went to cookout #3 on the farm
Ate grilled chicken that was walking around that morning.

Reveled in my wonderful weekend.
Remembered Josh's cousin in Iraq.
Also, I'm tired of hamburgers & amazed I didn't get sunburned.

What did YOU do on the long weekend?

Garden Update

Growing outside:

• Lettuce
• Carrots
• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Celery
• Cucumbers
• Potatoes
• Peas
• Beans (just planted as seed, so not sprouted yet)
• Dill
• Chives
• Cilantro
• Sage
• Thyme
• Strawberries (because the plants are just getting established this year, I'm pinching all the blossoms off, so no berries this year :-( )
• Raspberries (These are always growing outside- they're wild, but no less tasty.)

Growing inside:

• Tomatoes - These should go out next weekend. They're still pretty little, and the spot I want to put them is full of dill and cilantro, so I'm reluctant to dig those up. Tomatoes are more important than the herbs, though.

Not yet planted:

• Corn - This was supposed to get done this weekend, but due to three cookouts, a stubborn tiller, and rain Monday, it didn't happen.

Harvesting:

• Dill
• Cilantro
• Sage
• Chives
• Thyme
• Not Lettuce - the mizuna has bolted already, and the other lettuce is still too little, so I'm between lettuce harvests.
• Peonies

Jim & Meredith

Josh's best friend from high school got married this weekend in the South Bend area, and Josh stood up as his best man at the wedding. It was a beautiful, meaningful wedding, bringing in the couple's personality and the importance of the vows they were making to each other. It was neat to see the supportive families and church families surrounding them during the celebration.

A song sung while the mothers lit the candles by the Unity candle stuck with me- partly because I hadn't heard it before, partly because it's really sweet, and partly because I heard it rehearsed many times while hanging around the rehearsal and wedding preparations waiting for Josh:

Turn Around

Where are you going, my little one, little one?
Where are you going, my baby, my own?
Turn around and you’re two,
Turn around and you’re four
Turn around and you’re a young girl
Going out of the door

Turn around (turn around)
Turn around (turn around)
Turn around and you’re a young girl
Going out of the door

Where are you going, my little one, little one?
Dirndls and petticoats, where have you gone?
Turn around and you’re tiny,
Turn around and you’re grown
Turn around and you’re a young wife
With babes of your own

Turn around and you’re a young
Turn around and you’re a young wife
With babes of your own

Where are you going my little one, little one
Where are you going my baby my own
Turn around and you’re two,
Turn around and you’re four
Turn around and you’re a young girl
Going out of my door

This lullaby was sung to the bride and her sisters by her mother growing up, so it had special significance. Jim and Meredith have blossomed and grown together, and now they are headed out to their own life and adventures together- but first, they're going to Disneyworld!

My Trip Home

"These people are a heartbeat away from Hell ... These are the people Hell was made for."

"These people don't love their children. Instead, they will pay to have them killed."

Harsh words.
Angry words.
Hateful words.

Loving? Not even close.

Where did I hear these words?

Coming from a street corner, from a loudspeaker.
Being proclaimed by a man-
a man who claims to worship the same God I do.
Speaking them in the name of that same God.

"Warning: Graphic Abortion Images Ahead" read the very first sign, black with white letters. The sign wasn't placed early enough- a car full of small children wouldn't have had anywhere to turn off of the road before getting to the lines of protesters. A line of 6- or 7-foot tall signs that stretched for blocks and blocks on the busiest road in town.

It wasn't just today, either. A preschool teacher at the wedding I attended in town said she had to lie to her four-year-olds while they were playing outside. A plane flew overhead, dragging a banner and a graphic image. "What is it? What does it say?" they asked her. "It's too far away, we can't read it" the teachers answer. "We don't know."

The street preacher made me sad. Followers of Jesus are in the news saying things like he was saying, and all his followers are painted in the same way. Hateful. Unbending. Without compassion. This makes my heart hurt.

My guess is that Jesus would not have been standing out there with those protesters today, though, preaching Hell into the portable microphone, smiling, waving and giving thumbs-up to passing cars next to the huge signs of dead babies. It's not his style. He'd be a stone's throw away, alongside the girl graduating at Notre Dame today, who just found out she's pregnant and is unsure what she's going to do, with no job lined up and the area's economy the worst in the nation. He'd encourage Life with gentle words and a supportive touch. "Go and sin no more." "I will be with you always" "I have called you friends"

Jesus, Friend of Sinners.

This is the Jesus I follow.

Old friend, new life

This weekend, two couples we are friends with will be getting married. Unfortunately, these weddings are hours and hours apart, and my husband is the best man at the one in South Bend (I'll talk about that one next week, when I have pictures), so we'll be missing David & April's wedding in Carmel. I'm so, so bummed.

Once-upon-a-time, when I had just moved to Indiana, I started 7th grade at Clay Junior High. By the time I signed up for classes that summer, most of the electives were full, so I ended up taking two trimesters of Newspaper class. It was in this class that I met David.

Our paths and stories crossed many, many times over the next 6 years through junior high and high school. We'd have classes together. We'd go on the same church retreat. We pass each other in the halls. We were 'old friends' who never really hung out, but stayed in touch (without Facebook?! How is that possible?!) At the end of senior year, we ran into each other & went out for coffee to catch up, and share about where our stories have taken us thus far. Different paths, but still friends.

Thanksgiving break of my freshman year at college, I ran into David & his friend Jon (now a good friend!) at Best Buy. During Taylor's J-term, I went to visit him at Ball State. I heard the story of a major roommate swap after first semester, one that all parties were much happier with, & met Dave's new roommate. At the end of spring semester our freshmen year, David & his roommate came to visit me at Taylor. Early that summer, the three of us got together again & went to dinner and putt-putting.

Yes, David was setting me up with his roommate.
And, yes, it worked.
Three years later, minus a couple weeks, I married David's roommate Josh. (We had a roommate swap. Josh became MY roommate. :-P )

Fast forward another three years, minus a couple weeks, and it's David getting married this time.

A week ago, I made a trip up to Muncie to see April's senior art show. It was fabulous. She painted vintage portraits as a study in fully-clothed seductiveness, to show women could be sexy without undressing them. I loved the concept of the show, celebrating beauty-with-modesty, female beauty in the face, without the need to be scantily clad. Women don't need Botox or comestic surgery or microdermabrasion to be beautiful. The show was beautiful.




My friend David, the proud fiance, at the show:


The artist April:


Talking to visitors:


I'm so disappointed I'm going to miss celebrating with this couple as they take the next step in their life together. I wish them all the best, and know they have many beautiful, exciting adventures ahead!

Thinking movies

I like thinking movies.

At the top of my list of favorites, you'll see a movie about a giant invisible rabbit, a movie about industrial products salesmen, and a Holocaust movie that makes you laugh. I almost never like chick flicks, romantic comedies, or really very many comedies at all. If a movie makes me think, however, I'll be enthralled. Even movies that don't line up with my world view, like What Dreams May Come or Waking Life- these make me examine my own views, and remind myself why I believe what I do.

What are movies that make you think?

Post Plug

After seeing my good friends off to Missouri, I headed to my other good friends', the Farming Engineers', farm for a different sort of weekend activity. Go read about it on my food blog.

Some may think that helping with the "harvest" and "processing" of chickens would be a natural and safe appetite suppressant, and, while it was perfectly safe, I was definitely hungry after the afternoon in the sun! Luckily, chicken was not on the menu for dinner. I do have another 10 lbs of chicken in my freezer now, for the next time I get a hankering for poultry!

Good friends

On Mother's Day weekend, I had the chance to spend time with one of my only friends who isn't a mother. The list has grown very short- I have about four non-mother female friends. Seeing that my only child is of the four-legged furry variety, I obviously don't hang out with many peers.

This weekend I deeply appreciated being able to spend time talking to another married, childless lady with similar passions and values to myself. I seriously don't get that very often, and it was so, so refreshing. I was reminded that I'm not crazy, and that there's more to life than thinking about diapers and runny noses (I love you, my mommy friends! I hope you had an awesome Mother's Day! I love talking about childbirth and diapers with you!) She and her husband have so many adventures ahead of them, and I'm so excited to see where they end up and where God takes them. I'm so thankful for her insights and perspective. I'm so thankful for a friend who listens and understands, and gets excited at the same things I do. CS Lewis in The Four Loves said of friends:

Friendship arises out of mere companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, "What? You too? I thought I was the only one."

My friends who spent the weekend with me are not the only ones who are this sort of friend to me- I am thankful for all of you.

I'm thankful they put up with my cooking and our twin-sized guest bed. We can't compete with Vegas hotels, but hopefully the company's better :-P

I'm also thankful that our friends let us teach them some of our favorite games. On the list this weekend was Power Grid, Bohnanza Game, and Ticket to Ride.



I love extending hospitality. It's so fun for me. Anyone else want to come over?

Swagbucks update

So, I posted a week ago about signing up with Swagbucks... just a week later, I am 75% of the way to having enough points for an Amazon gift card! I am amazed how quickly the points add up- and I haven't been doing anything differently than my usual searches, except using a different search engine.

Adding Swagbucks as my Chrome default search engine is the primary reason this has worked for me- I've been able to search quickly without going to another special web page. A similar thing can be done in Firefox. I you can't figure out how to add the search engine to your browser's search bar, there's a Swagbucks toolbar- but I'm paranoid about installing anything extra, so I've avoided that for now.

I do have to say, I checked out the list of prizes, and the ONLY thing I'd want is a gift card. Everything else is really random- band posters, Star Wars toys, comic books, slot cars, POGS?! Do kids even play with POGS anymore?! Honestly, it looks like a collector trying to empty out his basement. Except for thr gift cards. I can get just about anything I want on Amazon- I'm excited about that!

Link love

• Ashley did a great pair of posts (here and here) on her weight loss journey, pre-pregnancy. Did she find the best weight loss supplements? Nope, just good old fashioned exercise and healthy eating! This is a goal of mine for the summer- I don't necessarily have a number of pounds I want to lose, exactly, but I do want to make exercise and healthy eating a more-regular part of my routine.
• Beth did an in-depth series on cloth diapering (What's Cheapest? What's Best? How To). Amazingly enough, I know an equal number of people that use cloth diapers as disposable. The cloth diapers definitely win in the CUTE category!
• I'm super-excited that my friend Larissa (one of my very few childless-and-not-expecting friends!) and her husband are visiting us for the weekend! Because I thought it'd be fun, I'm trying to plan a mostly-local menu for the weekend. I'll post the results of the experiment on my food blog. I don't have enough growing in the yard to make it a REALLY easy task, but I hope it will be fun and eye-opening.
• Speaking of eating locally, I just finished Animal Vegetable Miracle and loved it. Expect a review shortly. It has totally motivated me.
• Tonight, I'm going to Muncie to surprise a friend at her senior art show. Don't tell! Now, if I can figure out where on the BSU campus to park and manage to not get a ticket...

Girly stuff

Last week, I talked about actually hanging out with other women, something I do rarely. Here's some more girly stuff from a week ago:





This necklace and purse were given to me by my new friend Sarah. She's so crafty- she made these herself! The necklace works well for when I'm dressed up or in a more casual outfit, and I love the chunky beads. Anyone who knows me knows it's a rare day when I get excited over a purse- I was excited about a purse I got for Christmas only because it was fair-trade, which I thought was awesome. This one, too, is fair-trade, in a way (all the money goes directly to the person who made it!), and local! Of course, my favorite part about this purse is the durability and the size- compact. Just right for all I need to carry, and no bigger, and not so tiny I'll lose it.

Can you believe Sarah made these? If you want your own, check out her shop for these and other crafty designs!

Wow, I wish I could sew.

Book Review: Enough by Will Samson

To start, let's just say this book wasn't at all what I expected.

I had expected Enough: Contentment in an Age of Excess by Will Samson to be a long rant about how much plastic we consume, the Barbies and shopping malls that brainwash us into buying, buying, buying, and the awfulness of capitalism. Instead, in this fairly-quick read (just 160 pages) was a very thoughtful look not at WHAT we're consuming, but what it is doing to us- to our bodies, environment, economy, and community. The book is also very timely (as in, go read it NOW), talking about the recession that we are now in and some of the causes.

That said, this isn't a rant, or a scolding. Samson is writing to Christians specifically- he says so in the introduction. He expands on ways the consumer culture is ruining our churches and our spiritual lives, and suggests the alternative of Eucharistic community. At the end of the last few chapters, there are really, really practical suggestions that help combat consumerism in our lives. I appreciated the ideas like "Spend locally" "Eat together" and "Get out of your car". Stuff I can do, and stuff I can be aware of in my day-to-day, not just nice theories that I may or may not apply. Enough reminds me that I don't need to consume, hoard, or buy out of fear. If I trust God I have enough and that he will provide, I can opt out of the crazy rat race the rest of the culture is running. And I'm all for that.

Here's a few excerpts I appreciated:

"There is a saying in philosophy: Every ought implies a can. In other words, it is assumed that everything we should or ought to do is also something that we have the ability to do. But in America we seem to have turned that equation on its head: Every can implies an ought."

"If you want to understand that there is no ready access in this world, plant a garden. ... I also think of planting a garden as a simple step in the revolution to transform life from the erotic to the aesthetic. There is nothing sexual about my tomatoes. But there is something good about them. ... When cared for, they stand as a monument to the beauty of creation, with red and green and yellow, the burst to tell a story of hope for the future."

"Too many of us who were raised as "Bible-believing Christians" have often approached Scripture to affirm the things we wish to be against, and to provide permission for things we wish to do, like spending frivolously without concern for the future. But we do not have that freedom."

I'll definitely be including this one in the church library- if you're in the area, come pick it up! If you're not, read this excerpt.

Full of Wonder

On our way out of the gym, a little girl was walking across the parking lot with her mom.

Her mom was heading toward the car, but the little girl took a detour, and scampered over to a grassy median, plucking a fluffy white dandelion.

"I want a pony," we heard her say to herself.

She shook the flower in the wind, then blew on it, then started plucking the seeds off, determined to empty the flower and get her wish before running back to her mom.

That's wonder and faith and childlike determination.

It's in noticing little things like this, I am reminded of simple joys I overlook most of the time.