I have been overwhelmed this last week.  I know part of it was not having Jake around for 3 days and there was another part that really had to face what living with a toddler is going to be like.  Now that were done with the nursing, she really isn’t a baby at all any more so we made some big organizational progress and packed up all the small baby toys and sealed up the baby clothes.  No more baby.  I know there are complicated emotions here, but there’s more to this story.

When Jake has gone out of town for business before, I’ve always lazied away the first few days then gotten my act together just before he came home–so the clean house would make him think that’d I’d been productive the whole time.  This trip, I cleaned the first day but by the time he came home, we’d degenerated into mild chaos again.

Cleaning is very near the bottom of the things I like to do list. Having a clean house is pretty dang near the top.  I’m so stressed when the house isn’t clean, and even worse so when I clean and can’t see the results a few hours later. Not only is it terribly discouraging, but it invariably sends me into a downward spiral of feelings of inadequacy.   I know that having a clean house doesn’t make me a better person, wife or mother, it just would be really nice if it was clean.

So–as I was clearing up the accumulated clutter this afternoon, I had a brilliant (perhaps) revelation.  I walked up the stairs, carrying my sewing machine and basket, and almost set it down next to the little storage cabinet in our bedroom.  My first inclination was to leave it on the floor and add to the mess on our bedroom floor.  Then, I thought, I bet it would only take 30 seconds to finish putting this away.  It took 26.

Most things only need 30 more seconds.  We rush around all day and when I finally get some no-baby time, the last thing I want to do is spend an hour cleaning up the day’s mess.  I think that if Jake and I each spent 30 more seconds at the end of each task, it will significantly cut back on the time I’m spending to clean.  And, most importantly, the time I’m spending feeling guilty for not cleaning.

I know I can’t make a major change right away, but my goal is 30 seconds/30 days of a clean car.  If we can do it there, I know I can bring the system into the house.

What works for you???  Is it possible to wrangle a toddler, run a freelancing business and keep the house moderately tidy?  I don’t need perfection, but I’d love to hear what you think.

There are LOTS of things swirling in my head right now that I’d like to put into a blog post. So many.

I want to write about

• How our list of prayers for the dead should really stop growing
• All of the preschools I’ve been visiting and how there should be one with this
• This Speaking of Faith interview with Barbara Kingsolver that I just re-listened to
  (and how it makes me want to grow more vegetables)
• My sinking suspicion that out life needs to slow down more–and I don’t think we’re that busy
• The latest book I’m afraid to read: Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life

But- I’m trying desperately to launch a new project out the door and know that I have to keep up here or I’ll lose all of you who never leave comments (bad you!) So, here’s a list of words another busy brain has been spouting:

Knows for sure:

Meow
Bath (this was her 1st one)
Mama
Dada
Nana
Papa
Auntie
Ball
Bear
Dog
Cat
Bubbles
Pool
Zebra
Bow (and she does!)
Mail
Peas
Please (sounds more like “eeeese”)
Elmo (Welmo)
did I mention Meow?
Hot
Brrrr (that would be cold)
NO!
No, mama.
Know? (with a raised shoulders and arms)
All Done
Blue (all colors are blue)
Noodle
Basa (that’d be kielbasa)
What’s That (was tat?)
More
Beach (sounds like bitch…)
Melon
Birthday Cake (birday cay)

There are some more words I’ve heard her mimic, but not say without prompting. Of course, I can’t remember most of them.

But my favorite thing I’ve heard come out of her mouth:

Renoir

I’m not joking. We look at impressionist paintings in a little book (in French!)

She’s a genius. Or at least a really cool sponge.

Of all the things I was committed to as a non-parent, it was the idea that I would raise our children to enjoy many kinds of food.  There was no way I wanted to relive my nanny experience–the kids would only eat strained spaghetti sauce, corn or broccoli and potatoes.  They also helped themselves to nearly a quart of ice cream every night and only got exercise on a concrete basketball court that was on a roof of their building complex.

Audrey still eats lots of different foods.

You could say we got lucky.  That’s probably some of it.  We also made it a huge priority from a very early age.  I made her baby food. I tried to introduce non traditional vegetables and meats.  We used green onions for teething relief.

I also clung to an article one of my college roommates brought home from an anthropology  class.  It talked about something to the effect of how Italian families never serve children separate meals.  Kids eat the same foods as adults.  There was also something as to how the father would star meals with a statement like, “Look at the wonderful meal Mama has prepared for us.”  It was all about how different cultures set the stage for eating and how, unfortunately, American society has not made eating well a priority.

Here’s an article in Gourmet magazine that sounds a lot like something I would have written. I hope the author gets her wish.

Audrey still often eats at a different time than Jake and I do, mainly because she’s been ready for dinner around 4:30pm for the last several months.  Still, last night, she and I sat down to bowls of creamy garlic chicken pasta.  Her favorite part was the broccoli.

Good old Relevant magazine has this interview with the Democratic nominee for president.   Does it assuage all my concerns?  No.  Is it as good as I think we’re going to get.  Yep.

We’ll see if Jake still hides my voting ballot come election day…

We learned a very  important lesson a few years ago.: Pay your web domain bills on time!   AND– make sure you are the one in charge of paying the bill.  Jake was the pastor of Rock and Roll church at the time and the guy who built our website had moved and wasn’t responding to our emails or calls.  Our rather popular domain name expired and was purchased out from under us.  Big bummer.

I did some serious linking in my last post to a certain powerhouse for prosphora information.  It seems the same thing has happened to them.  If you google “prosphora” you can still see the cached pages, but the front of prosphora.org has become a link farm.  I’m not sure what the story is, but I’d say get your prosphora information quick.

My mom thought my last post needed a link to where you can buy seals and I would have suggested that now defunct site, but here’s another link to buying Orthodox Holy Bread seals.  I recommend the plastic–it’s easier to clean.

Note: I have a very difficult time finishing things.  I started this blog post around 9pm on Saturday night.  I finally just got the photos up.  My recommendation– pretend you just traveled back in time.

Tonight I am making Prosphora, Orthodox Holy Bread that is used in communion/the Eucharist. Tomorrow, His Grace, Bishop JOSEPH, will be joining our little fellowship and serving liturgy. On a portion of the bread, he will call down the Holy Spirit and it will become the Body of Christ. This is a mystery of the church that neither I, nor the greatest theologian fully understand. How does the simple flour, yeast, salt and water that is currently on my kitchen counter transform into something so incredibly sacred? I don’t know. But, I am blown away every time I get the chance to bake this special bread.

I thought I’d share with you the process and my little recipe, born from some serious trial and error and a little help from Prosphora.org.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re still finding bits of sand in nooks around our house, but we’re back from six glorious days in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  My parents took us to the land of timeshares, swim up bars, and wide open beaches and I don’t think any of us wanted to come back.  Certainly not Jake.  He’s plotting his return.

I read some great books, did a little writing and took lots of photos.  This post is for the photos…

I have some very important work to do here:

Dad is cool:

They make the same look:

Already knows to pose for the camera:

Whoa!

Why do we have to go home again?

I love flickr and digital photography and the fact that if you hate looking at vacation photos you totally could skip this post and not miss a thing.

Ah, Cabo.

For the next week, we’ll be here:

(edit: so I broke a big web rule and just linked to a photo.  Sorry. I’m still on vacation but I promise a post on Monday.)

I doubt I will be blogging. But come by, you never know. I do know I will be drinking a lot of these:

I know my Orthodox readers won’t be shelling out any dough for this service, but I thought I’d inform the general Christian public that if you get raptured there’s now a company out there to make sure your friends and family get an explanatory email.  Yes, you read that correctly.  There’s a company that stands to make $40 from every believer in the rapture out there.  Youvebeenleftbehind.com is there for all your post rapture emailing needs.

Here are just a few juicy morsels from their website.  Take them as you wish:

“Programmed and run by Christians, for Christians “  I guess that means they didn’t outsource to Hindus in India?

“We have set up a system to send documents by the email, to the addresses you provide, 6 days after the “Rapture” of the Church. This occurs when 3 of our 5 team members scattered around the U.S fail to log in over a 3 day period. Another 3 days are given to fail safe any false triggering of the system.”   No off the grid team building exercises I guess.

“You remember how, for a short time, after (9/11/01) people were open to spiritual things and answers. (We are still singing “God Bless America” at baseballs’ seventh inning stretch.) Imagine how taken back they will be by the millions of missing”   I remember how my church at the time doubled.  I still have never heard a baseball crowd sing anything but the national anthem or  “Take me out to the ball game”.

If you’re interested in the historical Christian perspective on the rapture, the end times and the whole Jesus coming back business, check out this podcast:

This is where we’re at folks.

I did, however, have an extremely productive afternoon and was able to poke around on the internet after I got some work done.  Here are a few things for you to look at while we’re still battling molars and a cold and a general lack of sleep.

Anna Marie Horner. I wish I was more coordinated with the thread and the needle and the fingers.

NY Times Modern Love.  I’ll be blogging more about this tomorrow, hopefully.

The Belief Blog.  There are a lot of things I want to think about on here.  Very sacred and the profane sort of stuff.