Social Media and Cell Phones

I reflect uneasily and often on the culture my children are growing up in right now. I'm not talking about the big news stories, actually, which are issues enough to manage in themselves; I'm just talking about technology.

Technology can be a great blessing.  And yet it can also be a terrible distraction.

Lately I've been trying to puzzle this out.  My sister has been texting me a lot, so I feel I've been on my phone a ton, because I want to be available to her. (She just closed on her first-ever home on Friday!  I helped her with house-hunting, financing details, insurance coverage, inspection report, and a million other little details.)  She is unmarried, and so in many ways I'm her support person. ;) 

And then there's social media. Instagram. Facebook.  Those are the only two things I do, but that's enough, and some days I am tempted to just get rid of it all and see what life would look and feel like.  It's a double-edged sword: on the one hand, I like the connection it can provide.  On the other hand, sometimes the connection is pretty tenuous and superficial.  On the other hand again, sometimes the connection leads to genuine help and encouragement. 

And there's a dark underbelly of social media, too: the combination of negativity plus the distraction/addiction that it can provide.  (Facebook was designed to be addictive!)

I am the type of person who loves meaningful interactions and conversations.  Interestingly, my best friends, most of whom do not live locally (only a couple do), are not really my social media friends at all.  I just prefer in-person discussions, deeper connections.  I think most of us do, when we step back and think about it.

And always underlying my analysis of this is the reality that my children, with every second of every day, are getting older.  Finn is a teenager now!  Annie is nine and a half!  I wonder how much time I have spent of their childhood distracted--?  I only got a iphone 2 years ago (right before my husband's surgery, because I knew that I'd need fast and easy communication with multiple people), but lo, that is a distracting device.  Before that, I found myself easily distracted by my ipod and even the laptop!  I keep notifications off on my iphone, do not have the Facebook app, and have it always turned off (so I don't hear any bells or dings), but it's still extremely distracting.  

When you are in the room with someone and they are on their phone--texting, scrolling, etc.--it can be so annoying.  And I think for children in particular, this must be particularly annoying, when their parent is on the phone.  Sometimes I will say "just a moment while I reply to this text" and I KNOW I am doing something helpful (communicating with another person about something--often something important, but admittedly, sometimes not), but my child has no idea.  They are not part of that. I don't want my children to recall me as someone who was so easily distracted by her phone/laptop/etc.

So where does that leave us?

I need to begin to pray for guidance on this. 

(A few years ago our internet quit working, and I didn't have a cell phone. I took our laptop to the coffee shop to answer emails 1-2x per week, and it was the best couple of weeks EVER! I loved it!  I asked my husband if we could just not fix the internet, but he thought that was unrealistic--because, given our situation, it really is. But I loved it.)

I'd love to hear what anyone else thinks/does about this pervasive cultural issue that doesn't look like it's going away anytime soon. How do we balance the people in front of us with the people behind the screen, especially when the people in both scenarios mean something to us? And how do we manage social media?  Do I just pretend that I don't have internet except for twice a week?!

It's a challenge for sure. 

Summer Plans

The days slide by so quickly right now!  I struggle to find time to sit at the computer and actually write anything, because my work at home is so demanding. 

It is good work and I'm grateful for it.

Finn and Annie are continuing to work on math.  (I just switched Finn to a new curriculum, in preparation for transitioning into high school math). He's on his 11th day of it so far and I am amazed at how much we like it!  Annie should finish on July 3rd, if she's diligent, and Finn will work steadily on math through July 31st.  We are taking about 5 weeks off from everything after that!

Annie just had her last violin lesson, and Finn's last piano lesson is next Tuesday.  

Summer is here!  Of course, summer isn't quite as normal as it used to be.  Our pool is closed, for instance (at least for now).  But we have some experience in changing our expectations, so the changes this virus has caused in our lives haven't bothered us all that much.  

We just returned from a trip to North Carolina, where my husband got a good report at UNC.  He continues to be cancer-free!  We are so thankful.

I've been thinking about how to make this summer full of little joys, learning experiences, and memory-making.  Finn turned 13 earlier this month, and it's never far from my mind how quickly my children are growing. I genuinely want to enjoy them before they are all grown up and on their own!!

One thing I am doing *NOW* and am almost done doing is all of my planning for the upcoming school year. My goal is to get it all done ASAP so that I have absolutely none to do when I'm "off" this summer.

So I'm compiling a summer list:

*listening to Anne of Green Gables on Audible (we have started it...and got a lot of listening done a couple of weeks ago when we pitted a lot of sour cherries!)

*doing a couple of dissection kits that I bought last year

*running through the sprinkler/doing outside play

*making a few journal entries into our nature notebook featuring birds (we are enjoying the company of a pair of house finches whom Annie has named Lily and James) and some of the flowers we have blooming in our garden

*berry-picking.  We've already picked strawberries, and some black raspberries.  Blueberries are next!

*Reading books.  We are finishing The Golden Goblet as a family right now.  The children and I are reading Little Women. I will probably draw from this list for more books this summer. 

*Harvesting and drying our own food. I bought a dehydrator and made myself ill on kale chips (kind of worth it, though--they were so good).  I've dehydrated all sorts of things, but I'm eagerly awaiting the cherry tomatoes.  I planted a lot of cherry tomatoes this year, mostly by accident--it's a long story--and look forward to a lot of dried tomatoes for my omelets all year long!

*Basketball together in the driveway!

*Badminton together in the front yard!

My children are fairly independent and do not require me to organize their days for them.  This is a blessing, but sometimes I have to remind myself to check in with them, sit down and read, and just spend time together.  They have their own agendas to accomplish most days, and I don't want to cramp those agendas, but I also want them to know that I'm here for them!  

When they are doing their own things, I'm painting dining room furniture.  One chair down, one chair almost done, and only 4 chairs and a table left to go.  (ha!)  Then I also may paint my coffee table.  

My own project list for this summer could be excessive.  I'm trying to keep it manageable! 

*painting furniture

*weeding and mulching my flower beds (and staying on top of the vegetable garden)

*re-organizing our schoolroom a little bit

*cleaning out our mechanical room (it always needs attention)

*organizing my laundry/sewing room 

I would love to paint our main room and our kitchen cabinets.  The walls were last painted 15 years ago, and the cabinet were painted 11 years ago.  They all need it.  I haven't decided whether I should tackle these huge projects yet, or wait until next year.

And, on a final note, today my sister purchased her first home!!  I am so excited for her.  I traveled to her city several times in April and May to housenhunt with her, and we finally found a home in her budget that had a full basement, 2 bathrooms, and was move-in ready, which all seemed like a total impossibility when we began.  She called me after the closing and was very happy!  My husband and I are giving her a lot of furniture from our home, so we are moving all that down in a couple of weeks: our dining buffet, my beloved barrister's bookcase (family heirloom), our downstairs sofa, chair and ottoman (we plan to replace our downstairs furniture with a sectional so that we all have a place to sit on movie nights), some paintings, and a bunch of stuff from my grandparents' home--a bed, a desk, a dresser, and a nightstand!  I hope to spend a couple of days this summer at her new house, helping her unpack, organize, and arrange.  After years and years of living in rental apartments, the fact that she finally has her own place is just wonderful. I am excited to help her with her settling in!

Happy Summering! 

Organizing the Garage

I am blessed by being married to a genius.  It's a running joke in our household, really: how smart my husband is.  He's a mechanical engineer, and those guys are handy to have around!  They're so capable.

My husband has few areas of weakness, but he'd admit that one of them is organization. Part of that is his brilliance: his mind is so good he remember details from decades ago. He has never, not once, used a planner, list, organizer, or calendar.  He doesn't see the point...whereas I depend on my plans and lists and calendar to keep me on track!  We are two very different humans in that regard.

Organizing is fun for me, but the garage has always eluded me because much of it belongs to my husband.  So many tools, mysterious gadgets and gizmos, random items.  I have tidily organized all the seasonal decorations, the gardening supplies, the canning equipment, the camping supplies, the recreational equipment...but I never have organized *his* stuff in the garage because I don't know what it is! It's all so elusive!

Over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, I decided that before we do any summertime projects, I would organize once and for all. My husband was off for four days. For three days (because I didn't work on the project on Sunday), he was on call to answer my questions. I learned SO MUCH!  I can now distinguish hex bolts from sheet metal bolts, hose clamps from speed clamps, punching tools from drivers, jigsaw blades from files.  I learned more about tools in the past week than I had in the past 42 years of my life.


(I can't find my "before" picture, but there was basically nothing hanging on the pegboard, and there was a 2'-tall pile of random everythings on top of the workbench. Seriously!)

And I organized every last bit of it! Every scrap!  I sorted, tossed, grouped, labeled.  It was so satisfying.

Now, at long last, my husband knows where everything is (he once famously had to go buy a tape measure because he couldn't find his tape measure!). And my children have already spent an entire afternoon at the workbenches, building medieval tools from duct tape and PVC pipe, while I worked in the flower beds.  "The garage is so great!" they enthused.  And when they were done, it was quick and easy for us to tidy up because the garage finally follows my rule: a place for everything and everything in its place.



Sigh. So much better!


(We also got rid of all the random paints we no longer needed!)

So now I've moved on to painting the dining room furniture (while listening to Middlemarch on Audible). It feels so good to work on projects in an organized, tidy space.  At last!!

The Birthday Turtle

Today my mother would be 72 years old.  

Twenty years ago today was her last birthday on this earth.  She turned 52.  She died unexpectedly 10 months later.

I took a beautiful morning walk today, but it wasn't until I sat down with my devotional and looked at the date that I realized today is May 23rd.  "Oh!" I exclaimed to my husband, "it's my mother's birthday!"

Then I got busy with my day.  I am helping my sister with a real estate transaction.  I also have a huge weekend project going: cleaning out and organizing our garage!

As I was working in the garage around lunchtime, Annie came running down to me from the side yard. "Mommy! Come quick! Quick!"

I walked to the front yard, where a little box turtle was making its way from our flower beds to our ornamental shrubs.  We exclaimed over it, picked it up, took video, talked in silly voices, and generally just stood and admired it for a little while.  Then we went inside to have lunch.

Later in the afternoon, my husband had the radio on as I was cleaning in the garage, and a song came on that my mother loved.  "Oh," I thought, "Mom loved this song."  And then like a little breeze that wafted past, I realized again, it's my mother's birthday.

And then I cried.  God had winked at me, and I almost didn't see it.

You see: my mother loved turtles.  She LOVED them!  She would pull over on the side of the road and move them out of the way.  She just thought they were so sweet.  And I've had some strange little turtle instances over the years since her death.  After my miscarriage, a turtle appeared in our yard.  One day in law school I was feeling miserable (not long after she'd died), and a turtle showed up right in front of the school.  Et cetera: this has happened multiple times, so much so that when I am unhappy, I almost long to see a turtle for comfort!

I just couldn't believe that when Annie came to show me the turtle, I didn't make the connection! I was so distracted with my tasks and activities (did you know that there are apparently millions of types of screws in this world?  and that I'm sorting them all? does everyone have a husband who has every type of screw ever known to man in his garage??) that when we were enjoying the turtle, I didn't even think of my mom. We see a turtle in our yard maybe once a year, maybe more like once every two or three or four years! 

And yet, on her 72nd birthday, God gave me this sweet little gift. 

It truly made my day!  

A New Book Challenge

Like many people, I have found that during this season of quarantine, I have more time to read books. (When I'm not trying to garden and paint furniture...!)

I don't follow the Modern Mrs. Darcy, but I recently saw, via Roan's blog, a 2020 reading challenge posted.  I thought it looked both intriguing and doable, and decided I would try to follow along as well! It apparently consists of 12 books over the course of the year, in various categories.  They are (with my own selections for each one provided):

A Book Published the Decade You Were Born: 100 Years of Solitude --this has been on my to-read list forever--literally since I was gifted it as one of my college "book bridal shower" gifts-- but I'm so intimidated by it.  However, I am going to rise to the challenge this year!   I changed my mind! I began reading Corrie Ten Boom's The Hiding Place, and I'm loving it!  I checked the date and it was published in 1971.  So I'm going to count that instead. :) Perhaps I'll still read 100 Years....but we'll see!

A Debut Novel: Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen

A Book Recommended by Someone You Trust: I already listened to Spoken from the Heart by Laura Bush, recommended by Roan, but my stepmother recommended Before We Were Yours, and I may try to read that also

A Book by a Local Author: I think I'll choose Factory Man, by Beth Macy, who is *somewhat local* to my area

A Book Outside Your Comfort Zone: I have no idea!  What's outside my comfort zone--that's not inappropriate?  I love all genres. I'm still trying to figure this one out......perhaps something related to the hard sciences.  I think I will read The Martian Chronicles. I forgot that I don't like all genres--I don't like science fiction at all (and definitely not horror), nor do I like dysopian books.  My husband has been saying that he wants Finn to read The Martian Chronices for a couple of years now, because my husband really liked it in middle school.  So I'll pre-read it and see if I think it will be a good fit.  

A Book in Translation: I am currently deciding this, but I think I'll pick a translation of the Illiad or the Odyssey

A Book Nominated for an Award in 2020: The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, since *everyone* has recommended this to me

A Re-read: Anne of Green Gables, with my children :) 

A Classic You Didn't Read in School: Middlemarch, by George Eliot (I just got this on audiobook today and am eager to begin it--I've wanted to read it forever!)

Three Books by the Same Author: I debated this one, but because I read and enjoyed Peace Like a River so much, I decided to also read So Brave, Young, and Handsome and Virgil Wander, by Leif Enger. I may do at least one of these as an audio book. 

*       *      *

A week or so ago I finally decided to take the plunge and try a free Audible trial. With that, I got 2 credits for 2 books.  The first one I purchased was Laura Bush's memoir, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  I wasn't sure I would really use Audible that much, and I wasn't sure I'd like audio books, but I found myself easily listening as I folded laundry, exercised on the elliptical trainer, drove 3 hours roundtrip to go house-hunting with my sister, or cleaned the kitchen! I'm eager to listen to my next free book--that's Middlemarch. At this point, I think I will keep the Audible membership because I'm enjoying these books so much. 

Ahh! Reading is such a joy. I look forward to many hours of books this summer--I hope the pool will open so that I can read by the water soon. :) 

White Bean & Ham Soup and Whole Wheat Rolls

Yesterday was gorgeous and springy, with lots of sunshine and birdsong. I spent the afternoon and part of the early evening putting in most of our garden.  I planted tomatoes, a couple of butternut squash plants, peppers, basil, and some late lettuce plants, and also sowed the seeds for three types of pumpkins, green beans, cucumbers, acorn squash, and more butternut squash. When I began, I thought, our garden space is so large, I certainly will have lots of room left but by dinner last night I was thinking we really need to till up another garden plot.

Here's the sketch of this year's planting!  I will be rotating in zucchini, yellow squash, more tomatoes, and more beans in a week or two.

I wanted to get everything in yesterday because I knew today was supposed to be rainy, and it is! In fact, it's both rainy and cold.  I had to wake both of my children around 8:30. We have spent the morning reading in separate corners of the living room while the washer and dryer do my chores.  It's not even lunchtime and I've already had a cup of coffee and a cup of Yorkshire Gold tea!  

Well: some days are meant to be quiet and cozy, so I'm just going to let this one unfold that way. If the rain ceases later today, I'll take my walk; if not, I'll just make peace with having a sedentary Tuesday!

One extra cozy thing to have on a rainy, cold day is soup.  I make lots of different soups, but this one is a newer favorite.  Although I tend not to eat much meat, this soup does contain ham, because it adds such a good flavor.  It's the simplest soup in the world to throw into the crockpot in the morning, and it cooks all day and infuses the house with coziness.  Later today I'll start a batch of rolls with freshly-milled wheat--another cozy touch, and another recipe I'll include below!

White Bean and Ham Soup

1 lb. dried white beans (great northern or navy) 

32 ounces chicken stock 

2 cups diced ham*

1 onion

3 cups water

Place these ingredients into a crockpot and turn it on high.  Let it cook all day; after a few hours I usually turn it to low or warm and let it simmer.  

Half an hour or so before serving, stir in 1c. of milk (or, if you're really needing some energy, heavy cream or half-and-half!). 

The recipe is deceptively simple!  I'm serious: this may be my favorite soup of all-time. The flavor combination is just so satisfying on a cold day. 

Easy Whole Wheat Rolls 

1 c. warm water

1/4 c. sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. salt

2 T. butter

1 packet (or 2.5 tsp) yeast

3 1/4 c. flour** 

Combine 1 c. warm water and yeast in a bowl, and stir.  Let it sit for a few minutes.

Add 3 c. flour and 1/4 c. sugar plus 1 egg and 1 tsp salt, then chop the 2 T. butter into bits and add that. Mix with a dough hook. (I have also just mixed by hand.)

If the dough is still too wet, add 1/4 c. flour and mix. It should form a ball that is not sticky. 

Cover with a towel and let rise 1.5 hours. 

Flour hands and punch down dough, then form it into a ball again. On a lightly-floured cutting board, cut the ball in half, then cut eat half in half again, and so forth, until you have 16 mostly-equal pieces of dough.  Form these into roll shapes and place in a lightly-greased pan.

Cover with a towel and let rise 45 minutes.

Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Optional: brush tops with butter when they are hot out of the oven. 

*      *      * 

I like to serve the soup and rolls with a side of fresh fruit (or a salad for grown-ups who like raw vegetables!).  And that's dinner here tonight!

*For the ham: I buy a ham and dice it (a laborious task made better by listening to something uplifting) and freeze in 2 cup quantities in quart freezer bags for the sole purpose of making this soup! Because frankly, we don't eat ham otherwise--but it's so nice to have on hand for soup.

**You may use all-purpose flour, or half all-purpose and half whole wheat; I grind wheat berries and make these rolls 100% whole wheat, but I don't think you can do that with store-bought wheat!

The Great Garden Expansion

One of my favorite things in the world is working in my garden.  I find it meditative, restorative, therapeutic, peaceful.....

When Annie was little I could barely keep my gardening head above water; the weeds got me every single year.  I was generally overwhelmed.

Now that my children are older, I've found that it's much easier to take care of my garden.  I have committed to mulching every year, and trying to keep ahead of the weeds--much easier now than it was even 5 years ago! We have flower beds all around the perimeter of our home and they include hostas, coral bells, peonies, ranunculus, azaleas, lilac, hydrangea, irises, Solomon's seal, artemesia, Jacob's ladder, ferns, Japanese silver grass, roses, tulips, daffodils, hyacinth, lilies, coneflowers, Shasta daisies, sedum, bleeding hearts, morning glories, lily of the valley, and more....and our newest flower bed, which runs alongside the patio we had built in 2017, contains rosemary, blue false indigo, Veronica speedwell, a dwarf butterfly bush, and my dear little lavender plants.

And it's good that I'm in this manageable place, because new things are coming here on the farm.

When my mother built this house in the early 1990s, she decided to fence in only a portion of the 1.25-acre lot that she owned.  She thought that mowing such a large piece of land would be too much for her (she used a push mower!).  So for over 25 years, we've had about half--maybe less--of our property fenced in as "yard," and the rest is just cow field! 

My husband decided that it was time for us to change the fence line. And that means my yard will grow from being maybe half an acre to being over an acre.  We had a surveyor come out last week and confirm the property corners, my cousin is going to put in the corner posts soon, and he'll get the fence changed as soon as he finishes haying.....

Our new yard (!) will include a portion of sloped, grassy land to the southwest with no trees, and then a steeper-sloped, rockier portion to the northeast with a couple of beautiful (blooming right now!) black locust trees. When I was young and my mother built the house, my room was the only room that faced these trees, and I romantically--I have some Anne Shirley in me--called it the "locust grove" and used to gaze at it out my window, imagining it as a romantic fairyland.

My cousin knocked down a couple of these mostly-dead fairyland black locusts last week with the tractor in preparation for the fence work, but we should be able to salvage two of the remaining trees; one is quite large and still very healthy; I need to check on the other one.



{the view from our front yard out to the locust grove. those peonies are so close to blooming in this photo--they just began yesterday!  the fence that is pictured will be gone soon....and I love the way the locust trees look when they are blooming!}

So I'm starting to look at these areas every day on my walks, trying to catch a vision for what to do with our newfound land. The ideas swirl! I know it will take me a while to create a vision and begin to implement plans; Finn and I signed up to take an online landscape design course to further our abilities in this department.

 It will be a long process; this year my sole goals are to have the new fence installed and to clean the brush and junk out of the fairyland, and get a feel for what I want to plant where, and when.  Next year, Lord willing, I hope to start planting in the fairyland.  The children and I walked out there yesterday and discussed it: our goal is to have a secret garden where we can sit and relax, and where no other house, structure, or human thing can be seen--just the long view across the fields, valley, and distant mountains.  That will involve planting a few hedges.  And of course, we want it to be pretty.  And peaceful.  And fragrant!

Will the new plan for the land involve cherry trees? A grape arbor? A greenhouse?  Will it involve a wildflower meadow?  An archery range? More lavender plants?  Shall I plant spirea, more hydrangea, quince? Should we expand our potager (this is what you call the vegetable garden when your son is a French scholar :))? Install a wisteria arbor?

Suddenly, an acre and a quarter seems way too small!