The F Word

My 6 year old daughter was recounting her day at school today.  She mentioned a few people and described them by their shapes - one woman in particular was the "F" word.  I asked her what that meant and here's the conversation that followed:

Me:  So, what is the "F" word?
DD:  You know - "fat" but I didn't want to hurt her feelings by telling her that.
Me:  Well, people are all sorts of shapes you know.
DD:  Yeah, some people are round like circles, some are like rectangles...
Me:  Yes, that's right.
DD:  And you, you're sort of a half circle.

I guess that's one way to put it. 

Where is the Off Switch?

"I wish I could not think once in a while"

~ MaryAnne Williams


Ahhhhh, wouldn't that be nice?  I've longed for an off switch for my brain since I was in college.  I was the responsible one; planning, saving, thinking, organizing, careful about my choices.   I had friends that used school loan money to go on vacation - Aruba and Hawaii to name a few.  They "deserved" it after all.  Me, well I did go to Ft. Lauderdale my junior year in college, drove down and split the room with two friends to save cash.  As I recall I brought a giant bag of grapefruit with me thinking I'd eat that for breakfast and save on eating out.

Another friend wanted to know if she was fertile so she decided after she was married to find out.  It didn't matter that neither she or her husband had good jobs; in fact her husband was still in college when she became pregnant.  They lived in her parents basement until her baby was about three years old because that's all they could afford.  She once told me "I can always continue my education at a later stage in my life;  I'm only fertile for so long".  I knew it was an indirect dig at my choice to wait to have kids.  Thankfully, even though I was in my late 30s before having my first baby I now have had two healthy children and a good, dependable job to help support them.  I have no regrets waiting and establishing myself in a career before hand.

I've saved for retirement since my first job.  Sure, I was only 23 years old but I listened when the old-timers at the office told me it was the best thing to do; that before I knew it time would be flying by and if I waited it could be too late.  So I did.  I also increased my contributions to absorb raises I received; I didn't miss the money since I hadn't see it anyways.  Another friend, she'd laugh and say "how do you know you aren't going to die tomorrow?"  Well... that's true.  But how do I know I won't live until I'm 85?  No surprise, I'd rather make the safer choice and save.  Funny, she started medical school married to one husband and finished it married to another.  Apparently in the second divorce she cleared a chunk of money (his since they were married hardly one year) and was able to pay off those school loans.  Funny how that works.

Which brings me to current day - raising two young kids with my husband.  I have less chance to stop thinking now that I'm thinking for both of us it seems.  Thinking about saving for college (again!), budgeting, making sure the property tax bill is paid.  Wondering are my kids developing normally?  Do they have good manners?  Should I sign them up for soccer?  Are they eating well-balanced meals?  Did they wash their hands before dinner?  None of these things would get done if I didn't think of them first and do something about them.  It's exhausting, as I'm sure many women would agree.  It also makes me all the more in awe of women who can do it alone; while my husband may switch his brain off when he gets home he does play with the kids, take them to the park, cook a good part of the meals and loves to read them stories before bedtime.  I'm grateful for that.

But I'd still, once in my life, I would like to know what it feels like to be able to turn my brain off.  Just for a day or two.

When Life Gives You Lemons

....step on 'em!

My Dad loves to send me those internet emails that go 'round the world. He has become a lot more selective, especially since I taught him to use Snopes.com. This was one he sent me this week. I liked the message - kind of the farm animal version of "Who Moved My Cheese".

"A donkey fell in a deep well. The villagers, not knowing if he had survived in good condition, decided to just bury him in the well.

At first the donkey was very upset and angry. "How could they do this to me? I worked hard for them and I never complained about the heavy loads. I was loyal and did a great job." he thought to himself.

As the shovels of dirt continued to fall on his head he realized that complaining and being angry was doing no good and certainly wasn't going to help him get out of the well. He finally decided that with each shovel of dirt that fell on his head he would shake it off and step up.

He continued to shake off the dirt and step up. By the time the villagers had thrown in their last shovel of dirt the donkey was able to step up and out of the well by himself."

Setting aside all my questions (how did a donkey fall in a well? If it was a dry well why wasn't it capped? If it wasn't a dry well why would the villagers risk their water supply by contaminating it with a dead donkey?) I liked the message: if you aren't happy with something that is going on in your life change it!

Quotable

"You don't fight ignorance with a sword or a gun. You turn on a light."

- Caspian Makan after his girlfriend Neda Agha-Soltan was shot and killed during the Iran protests

Quotable

"You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out."

- Warren Buffet

Quotable

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant"

- Robert Louis Stevenson

Happy Day

Happy 4th Birthday to my girl and Happy Inauguration to President Obama!


"Democracy is...the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people"


- Harry Emerson Fosdick (November 1925)

Merry Christmas

“Joy is not in things; it is in us.”

—Richard Wagner

Quotable

“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”

—Aristotle

Happy Thanksgiving!

An especially appropriate quote for Thanksgiving, don't you think?

“The ultimate test of man’s conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.”

—Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day founder

Quotable

“A clear stream, a long horizon, a forest wilderness and open sky—these are man’s most ancient possessions. In a modern society, they are his most priceless.”


—Lyndon B. Johnson

Quotable

“When we destroy nature, we diminish ourselves and impoverish our children.”


—Robert Kennedy Jr.

Quotable

"It matters if you just don't give up"

- Stephen Hawking

Quotable

"Maybe he is in a monster's mouth"

- My daughter speculating as to why her brother started crying while sleeping in his crib

Quotable

"The future belongs to those who understand that doing more with less is compassionate, prosperous, and enduring, and thus more intelligent, even competitive.”

—Paul Hawken


I really like this quote - it reminds me (encourages me!) why Hubby and I try to live the way we do. We bought (by today's standards) a small house, we try and live below our means (and resist the urge to "keep up with the Joneses"), so other than a mortgage we carry no debt. We recycle, Freecycle, compost and try to generally live in a way that is kind to the earth. We still have a ways to go, but we keep trying to get better.

The "less is more concept" applies mostly to our material possessions. When we lived in the house before this one - I called it Hubby's "bachelor pad" - it had two bedrooms, one bathroom, a teeny kitchen, living room and no basement - a total of 940 square feet. It was tiny! But it was cozy too and except for the limited closet space we liked living there. It was cost effective to heat and cool, not too bad to clean and maintain either - less square footage means less space to clean.
When we were looking for our current house (and I was pregnant) we kicked around the idea of staying put - after all, the family that originally lived in the house (in the 1950s) raised two children there. I don't know where they put all their "stuff" but then maybe they didn't have a lot of "stuff" to store - what a concept!

The people that sold us our current house moved to a home that they built; it is roughly three times the size of the one they sold to us. They only have one more child then we do and I often wonder how the heck they have filled all that space; lots and lots of stuff to be sure. Incidentally they tore down a house across the street to build this mansion and they are now our neighbors - sometimes it feels like we have their hand-me-down house. But when property taxes are due, I'm especially glad to be in the littler house.

I look at this way of living as a challenge - doing more with less; less space, less stuff, less waste and (hopefully) less expenses. Hubby and I were (are) intrigued with a concept that Sarah Susanka writes about in her book "Not So Big House Blueprint" . We hope that the popularity of her line of "Not So Big" books means that more and more people will come to embrace this way of living.

Now if only could get my brain wrapped around the idea of applying "less is more" to my chocolate consumption, but that's another post.

Quotable

“Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.”

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

This goes hand-in-hand with one of my pet peeves - apathy. People who don't care, are too busy, assume "someone else" will do it or "it's not my problem". It alternately makes me angry and sad. It also makes me a little crazy because sometimes I feel like I have to be extra vigilant about things to pick up the slack.

Quotable

“After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality and so on—have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear—what remains? Nature remains.”

—Walt Whitman