Oh how I love podcasts

I have an iPod now. I got it by giving it to my husband for his birthday. Only it wasn't really what he wanted/needed, so he passed it on to me and bought his own iPod. Which was sort of my plan anyway after agonizing for days over which iPod to get for him. I figured if he didn't want the one he got, I could take it.

Et, voila! I have an iPod.

And although I used to be a "music person" with the latest album from my favorite bands, I feel as though I have little to no space in my head for popular music since I had kids. Why is that, I wonder? I do enjoy my classical and standards, but I just don't ever really listen to my music anymore. What I really like these days is intelligent talk radio. Our NPR station here has talk from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. I love it. And if the NPR stuff is too violent or contentious or whatever, I will listen to Moody Bible talk radio (unless it also is too violent or contentious or whatever). I only ever listen to it in the car or after the kids go to sleep at home (because when they aren't asleep the last thing we need is more talking), but I do love me some good talk radio.

Which is why I am absolutely in love with the whole free-podcast concept. For some reason, my iTunes store is the UK version, so I first had access to all the BBC podcasts. They are wonderful. BBC Scotland has some great ones. And, of course, there's the NPR/PRI podcasts; I love getting The Splendid Table because we don't have that show on my current NPR station.

But my favorite so far is Pray As You Go, a podcast put together by the Jesuits in Britain. (These are the Sacred Space folks. ish.) It is such a great podcast -- scripture, gentle reflection, gorgeous music. Absolutely lovely.

I highly recommend it. And I would love to check out others that bloggy friends have found. Anyone else got any good ones to share?

Be prepared

If you have not heard about the boy scout who foiled an attempt to assassinate a president, click here. What an incredible feat, eh? Brave, brave kid. Be prepared, indeed.

Snippets.

• Daniel has graduated out of the travel system car seat. That means he weighs 22 lbs. He is a CHUNK. It's crazy how different he is from Annalivia. He is in 12-18 month clothes as he approaches his 9 month birthday. Annalivia was wearing 12-18 month clothing when she was 2 years old. Annalivia was always a 50th percentile child and for girls that's less than boys. Daniel has been at the 75th percentile and he's right on track, I guess. He seems huge. But maybe that's just because I tote him around.
• The farm that Dennis and I have coveted for almost 5 years went on the market this weekend. We have an appointment to see it on Saturday. If it is to be ours, a number of truly miraculous events will need to occur. We'll see how it all unfolds.
• We had a great visit from Annalivia's godfather, Jimmy, this weekend. It was lovely to see him.
• I preached a terrible sermon while Jimmy was at church. There were many mitigating factors, but it just stunk big homiletic doo-doo. One of my favorite parishioners came up to me afterwards and gushed on about how great it was. Then she called me today and talked to me again about how much it helped her and spoke to several circumstances in her life. I'm so grateful that God works. Even when I don't.
• Flylady and I are friends again. I'm sort of doing what she tells me to do. Whenever I do that, life goes so much better. I should just listen to her all the time.
• My childhood best friend and her husband, one of my dearests from seminary, and their family, are moving to the twin city across the river from me. He is going to be the associate at the Disciples church over there. I'm excited. Friends! Here! Less than 3 hours away! I'm giddy with excitement.
• I thought Annalivia was getting better at sharing things with other kids. She had done REALLY well at some different public places sharing toys and, um... intellectual property. But today I had some blood drawn at a clinic in Dixon where they have one of those intricate bead toys attached to a table and when we were leaving, she ran over to it and pushed a child who was considerably younger than she was who dared approach it. The mother looked like she was about to slap Annalivia so I grabbed her and apologized profusely while moving quickly towards the elevator. Luckily someone was holding the door so we had a pretty fast getaway.
• Today while hanging out at our favorite bookstore, Books on First, in Dixon, a place we go at least once a week which is entirely too often, I found out that Dixon has a free concert series put on by the Episcopal church called The Canterbury Concerts (I love those Episcopalians and their gift for naming.) I also found out that our area has a community concert association and we can pay for a subscription and get tickets to some very cool concerts. Last year, Eileen Ivers was one of the featured guests. I think we'll try to subscribe next season. I'm so heartened to find out, after 7 years of living here, that there is some underground cultural opportunities. Lovely.
• Today I got to meet Andrea for the first time! Our husbands drive to work together, so we probably should have met in person long ago, but we met first via blogs. Andrea is young and gorgeous and has a very handsome husband and beautiful, probably very well-behaved, children. (right, Andrea?) Her children were so sweet and her blog has a precious picture of them.
• We met Andrea when we all happened to be at Woods' annual Halloween thing for the kids of employees. This is the first year that we made the trip. Annalivia did pretty well saying, "Trick or treat, please." But not so well with, "thank you," "hello," "I'm fine, thank you," or any of the other social niceties. Daniel was just pretty happy, which was good.
• On the way home, I got to drive the van by myself and Dennis took the kids in the truck. 35 minutes of me-time. I spent most of it talking to Dad. It was lovely.
• We are now into week 4 of no television at our house. It is interesting how my desire for media has diminished to almost nothing. I used to be an information junkie -- on the internet a lot, listening to NPR constantly in the car. Now I get online in the morning, sometimes, to check email and then when the kids go to sleep. I do my blog-jog, but don't comment usually because it takes too long. So apologies to Heather, Amalee, Jan, Jill, Amy, Amy and Jim, Andrea, Kalin, More Cows, other Andrea, Dusty, Geoff and Holly. Among others. I read; really, I do. Keep writing.
• Even though I watch no television and spend less than an hour on the computer, I never get to read. How do you folks with 20 children find time to read? I need to know the secret.

Edited to add: The arm is better (thanks, Julie, for asking). I have a short cast on it and will, hopefully get it off on Nov. 7. The bone graft site is not so good. I still have burning, aching, shooting, prickling, any-other-sort-of-adjective pain every time I walk or stand for more than 2 minutes. I hobble around a lot, but I am choosing to believe that it will all be ok in the end. I'm alive. That's what this has kept in constant focus for me. I'm alive to enjoy my family. And that's more than enough.

It's about time

In my convalesence, I am reading the Anne of Green Gables series. Despite the fact that I could probably still recite the movie versions verbatim (except for that terribly disappointing third movie), because I literally, at one point in my life, watched the tape of these movies every single day, I am reading these books for the first time ever in my life. I don't remember now why exactly I haven't read them before, but I read through #1 today and laughed and cried and felt very ashamed by my negligence.

It's about darn time, eh?

In the meantime... vol. 3

Yesterday Dennis and Annalivia made the best brownies I've ever had in my whole entire life using this recipe from the Hillbilly Housewife (made with butter and 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour because that's what we had). Fudgy, delicious, chewy perfection.

I've had Nigella's.

They don't hold a candle to Miss Maggie's.

Seriously.

The. Best. Brownies.

E.V.E.R.

In the meantime... vol. 2

I'm highly drugged and unable to complete coherent sentences. So, in the meantime, here's some info I'd like to disseminate....

Lo about two years ago, I put down my self-imposed ignorance and isolation and introduced myself to the theological world beyond my comfort zone. Previous to that, I had convinced myself that most conservatives and evangelicals were uneducated and uninformed. Turned out that I was the one who was uneducated and uninformed. I was enjoying living in a little cardboard box that really only had room for me. I didn't even realize that poor Jesus couldn't fit.

Anyway, choosing to willingly expose myself to theology that stretches and challenges me has been a great instructor. I have greatly enjoyed the practice of holding seemingly incongruous thoughts in my head at the same time. I have learned so much from the Spirit just by approaching Christianity as something I don't recognize or have all figured out!
I've noticed that lots of Christian bloggers like to be stretched. But some of the time, exploration of difference in the blogosphere or anywhere on the internet, actually, becomes dogmatic debate. Chrisitians of any ilk have a tendency to lob theology bombs in these conversations and if we can be clever or sarcastic in doing so, well... more points for our side.
And while I'm all for a good arm-pumping, "BOOYAH!!" every once in a while, I want to point out something unique I came across yesterday. An excellent example of gracious conversation can be seen here and here. I can't really add anything to the discussion, because I think it is just one of those that doesn't resolve, but I am SO IMPRESSED by the respect shown in these women's views. And most of the commenters follow suit, I think. Well done, Makeesha and Angela. Thanks for challenging the box with such wisdom. Very, very cool.

But in the meantime... (part 1)

I'm home and having slept approx. 3/4 7/8 of the last 72 hours am doing well. Thank you for prayers, good wishes, etc. Someday I'll be able to type again, but in the meantime, I'm posting some wise, provocative and fun stuff I've found out and about on the web. Here is some particularly good and challenging stuff from Tonya's blog that resonates with this momma, at least.

I was talking with Catrina on the phone today about life and why some people find it easier to roll with the punches and come up smiling than other people do. We decided it has a lot to do with temperament and a lot to do with your understanding of God and a lot to do with your world view. And in Catrina's case, it has a lot to do with finding humor in everything:):):).

Generally speaking, I find it easy to deal with the boring, mundane and frustrating -I'm one of those people with an easy temperament type and I was raised well- so people who read my blog may look at me and think that my life is hunky-dory pretty much all the time. Well. It probably isn't. I just think it is.

I was telling Catrina that I look at my day sort of like this.

I see the children coloring nicely at the table for 5 seconds and I think "Ah. My life is perfect. Look at those beautiful children. They are so kind and good. I am the most blessed woman in the world. God is so good to me." That thought gets stuck in my mind so that the next minute, when Lyra writes on Solomon's page and he whacks her and she starts screaming, I just think "oops! we need to deal with this little problem so that these beautiful children can get back to their delightful day." Then I deal with the problem and go back to living the perfect life for the next 5 seconds until something else comes up that I need to deal with. LOL!

I guess you would call that optimism or ostrich-ism. Whatever you like.

My life isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination. It's not exciting. It's just a day to day walk of doing pretty much the same thing. I enjoy it because I have vision for what I am doing. I believe from the bottom of my heart that God put me in the place where He put me because He knew that I could not only get the job done, but that I could do it beautifully. I believe that it is my personal job to see that my home is a thriving, delightful, happy place for my family to live. I believe that it is my job to teach and train my children in love, love, love so that they have every opportunity to live without regret if they continue to follow God. When I set them down and let them go, I want to set them down at the highest point I can reach. I want them to have the very best of starts! I want my husband to find delight in his home. I want him to enjoy his children. I want to make his life easier and more beautiful in every way. I want him to be richer because I am in his life. I want to honor God by dying to my own selfish desires and living in obedience to Him. I want to become more and more Christlike every day.

This focus gives me unbelievable joy. It helps me to look past the circumstances of the moment, to see the goal and to go for it. I really believe that I have been given everything I need to do what I am doing really, really well!!! I want my home to be a reflection of the love of God, so that is what I aim for - when I'm in my right mind.

When I'm in my *wrong* mind, I start focusing on circumstances and I get ROBBED!!!! I mean really robbed of all joy. I can barely make it through 5 minutes without feeling like I am going to loose it at least once. Everything drives me nuts, even ridiculous things. My expectations rise and I start finding fault with the children instead of enjoying them (they leave their things everywhere, they are noisy, they are lazy, they are whiney, they are arguing...) oh, and their behavior is SOOO much worse when I'm off balance. (I can't even tell you how much further a smiling, playing, singing mother can get with her children than an annoyed, distracted, naggy one.) I get annoyed with Landon (why does he work so much, why does he not come to dinner when I call him...blah, blah, blah). I get annoyed with myself and I feel like I am ruining my entire family (I'm not consistent, I'm too busy, I'm not busy enough, I need to clean out the fridge and I hate cleaning out the fridge...). Do you see my point? When mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. I am absolutely the mood setter in my home.

Now, fortunately for me, I like being happy. I like feeling like I am getting ready to bubble over. I like having a song constantly on my lips. It's addicting. So I avoid focusing on my circumstances as huge obstacles and only think of them as opportunities to honor God. That makes them exciting. I start smiling and singing and taking every thought captive. I start doing my own job and leaving everyone else to do theirs (without putting high expectations on them), and in a very short time, I am out of my funk and back to my "perfect life".

When my focus is on God, my creator, my Lord, the one who died for me, the reason I am alive today both physically and spiritually, the one who has given me everything good thing that I have, I stop thinking about me and my own irritations or problems and I think of Him and how good He is. I think of how He has always come through for me with a change of heart when I am obedient and I think of how merciful He is to put up with all the times I forget to live in an attitude of thankfulness, even though I know better. Then I *want* to live to honor and obey Him so everything I do when I'm in my "right mind" is out of a heart of love for God, not out of obligation or even out of a heart of love for my family (although I certainly do love them!) It makes the biggest difference for me! I feel calm, I feel peaceful, I feel content and I feel effervescent. I laugh with my children instead of getting annoyed. I train calmly with a clear mind and with understanding, not in the heat of the moment. I am happy to see Landon at the end of the day and not just so he can take the kids off of my hands.

How did I learn this? I don't know. By the grace of God, for sure, but I don't know how or when I actually got ahold of this concept for real. It started growing in my quite a while back - at least 4 or 5 years ago, and it keeps growing. My problem is that since I know it - experientially - I am responsible for it. The days I go downhill by not keeping my focus right, I am responsible for that too. I can't bury this or try to play down my joy in order to keep stressed out moms who haven't found this truth to be self-evident yet:) from feeling bad about their daily troubles when my life "looks" so good. I have to try to share the wealth!!! I want everyone to be so joyful!!! It's available for every Christian. My temperament makes it easy for me. Other people will struggle more. You could name a plethora of reasons for this but I won't go into those here.

Okay, well I like to throw out the ole' "don't judge a person's life by the tiny slice of it you see on their blog" post every now and again. It's easy to read people and feel like everything runs perfectly at their house. Not the case in mine. Just so you know. I deal in the imperfect all day, but I'm happy anyway:):):).