Blogging confessions, part 2: "Blenvy" is dangerous

Blenvy (n.)-- 1) A feeling of discontent or longing that is aroused after reading someone else's blog.
2) The desire to live another's blog-life, to have her readership, to take pictures like her, etc.
3) The overwhelming desire to redesign one's own blog after seeing another's blog.
(Derivatives) Blenvious.

I coined this word (fun SAT word... neologism. It means a newly-coined word. Thank you for your patience. The English teacher will now sit down) back in 2006 when I first started reading friends' blogs. A quick Google search today revealed that some other people are using it, too, though. I'm going to pretend that I was the first person to think of it/use it in context/use it in conversation. I feel like Shakespeare now.

Pardon me while I adjust my frilly collar.

The thing about blogging is that while there is a presumption of honesty associated with it, it can be whitewashed to either present the blogger in a better light or to avoid the unpleasant truth. I think we're all a bit guilty of this. I have to laugh sometimes when I'm reading a real-life friend's blog and see either a dramatically revised history or complete omission of truth.

I can picture all of my friend's wondering... is Lisa talking about ME here? Don't worry guys. I'm not going to call out anyone publicly, lest I've misrepresented myself on here! Plus, I'm certainly not writing this maliciously (I happen to like my friends!), but rather to muse on this phenomenon of only seeing what the blogger chooses to present.

Knowing what I do know, though, about the actual facts that have been amended or omitted makes me realize that there's no point in feeling blenvious about the lives of those I only know from their blogs.

The woman with the hilariously witty commentary might use biting words with her husband and children. The woman with the fabulous photos might not make her husband's breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday, instead telling him to buy it himself. The woman whose spiritual life I admire so much might presently have her own demons to battle and a past she'd rather forget. The woman with the perfectly organized and decorated house might be having marital issues or health problems.

Or maybe she just does like I do and cleans the one spot she's using as a background in her picture...

Wishing for someone else's life is futile, because 1) it just ain't gonna happen and 2) there's a good chance that one's own life is just as exciting and wonderful as other people's real lives. So, in a note to myself as much as everyone else, stop being blenvious, kiss your family extra today, and enjoy the wonderful gifts and life you have!

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Homeschooling discernment series: The plan

Do you know how much brain power it takes to think about writing about thinking about thinking about homeschooling?

Even more brain power than you just used trying to understand that question.

However, I'm done with the initial processing and am ready to dive head-first (ouch!) into thinking about... you know...
 

HOMESCHOOLING!

(Sidenote: If anyone's children watch Sid the Science Kid on PBS, know that as I was writing that, I was saying it in Sid's voice-- "I want to know all about... HOMESCHOOLING!")

 

For my little family of four, this isn't currently a pressing matter, given that my oldest will not be entering Kindergarten until 2013. However, I know how quickly time has been flying by with two kids, and if we're lucky enough to add more to the mix, it's definitely not going to move any more slowly.

Here's my plan for the series, in no particular order:

1. Provide links to a number of Catholic/Christian-based homeschooling programs, homeschooling blogs, homeschooling books, and general advice and information about homeschooling.

2. Examine the financial implications of homeschooling, with regard to possible lack of second income and saving for college expenses.

3. Have guest posts from people who are considering homeschooling, people who currently homeschool, kids who are homeschooled, and people who would not homeschool their kids or are against it. I think this might provide a well-rounded view.

4. Compose a list (or chart for Lauren!) of the pros and cons of homeschooling vs. public schooling vs. private schooling, based on everything I learn.

5. Have posts on Wednesdays, and possibly Fridays (for guest posts only, if I have enough to warrant an extra day!). This will all start next week.

To give you an idea of where I'm coming from, here are some reservations I currently have:

- A high school teacher with my experience and education can make, in this area, around $40,000/year. I would not plan to work until all of our children were in Kindergarten, but even if we have more kids, this would likely mean I could make a couple (or several!) hundred thousand dollars to set aside for college education.

- My husband is not totally on-board with this. He's open to considering it, but I know I couldn't do this without his complete support. This is one of the reasons I'm doing this series!

- We have very highly-ranked public schools within minutes of our home. Everyone we know raves about how much their kids love the schools and how much they're learning. Would my children be best (or at least very well)-served there, with religious supplementation at home?

- I don't know how moms get a break, or even go grocery shopping or to doctor's appointments without having all of the children in tow.

- I loved going to school. I learned so much from my different teachers and benefited from learning from a variety of adults. This also helped me immensely as a teacher, knowing what styles of teaching I found most effective. I think it's important that children learn to respect a number of authority figures.

- I have a tendency to procrastinate. Will this hinder me in teaching my children? Will it enable them?

- Who will my children befriend? How will they make friends? Will I make them socially-awkward around their peers?

These are some of the questions and concerns that I need to address. There are so many positives to homeschooling, but I need to make sure that it's the right decision for me and my family.

Dive on in with me!

Baby Jesus tastes like... pears?

In an attempt to make his First Communion about 7 years too early, H endeavored to devour our Little People Baby Jesus. Yep-- swaddling clothes, halo, hay, and all. When the tasting was complete, our sweet Lord looked none the worse for the wear.

Though I do notice that he smells like pears now.

H then moved on to a camel, shepherd, and policeman.

What? You don't remember the policeman in the Nativity story? 

He's the one who issued the noise citation to the angels singing their heavenly praise after curfew.

Why red wine is infinitely superior to white wine

While cleaning and reorganizing my pantry this weekend, I accidentally broke a bottle of white wine. Chardonnay, to be exact.

I don't even really like Chardonnay.

I find it too art-gallery pretentious, too sweetly "daytime wedding" reception-y, and far too uninspired.
,
Red wine has personality. It's bold and brash and just tempts you to spill it on your clothing, rug, or furniture. It leaves stains on the countertop when tiny droplets slide down the side of the bottle after you've poured the third glass.

Chardonnay just stinks when you spill it. Trust me. I spent quite a while picking up glass fragments and mopping up the river of wine. Even after you couldn't see it, you could smell it.

Had I broken a bottle of red wine, like a good Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon, at least there would have been an element of drama.

There she stood, surrounded by broken glass. The blood-red liquid pooled at her feet as she glanced about desperately for help. "Merde," she thought, cursing at herself in French, "There goes my $14.00 bottle of relaxation therapy."

See? I told you red wine is better.

Blogging confessions, part 1: Art imitates life

I've been thinking... again... way too much.

But there's an interesting phenomenon occurring in my blogging-life that is perfectly echoed in my real-life.

I have no group.

It's been like this my entire life, and I don't know what it says about me that I can be a part of a group, but still very much apart from the group.

I went to a small Catholic school from kindergarten until the eighth grade, and I could hang out individually with almost any of the girls (and most of the guys), give or take a handful that I thought were mean.  When we went on to the Catholic high school, many of the girls from my junior high stuck together in a clique. I still hung out individually with them, but wasn't part of that group.

During this same time I played fast-pitch softball with a local team and was popular on the team, but given how they went to local public schools and I was in Catholic school, I was never a part of their group really.

I had two very close friends in high school with whom I was part of "LL and Cool J," based on our initials. Even then, though, each of them had their own groups of which they were really a part.

I was a cheerleader, in the Honor Society, in Girl Scouts (oh yes... even as a freshmen I had every senior on campus buying cookies from me come Spring! No way was I embarrassed, when every Varsity football player was scribbling down his number and cookie order), involved with Church, on Student Council... and yet I always wondered what it was that made me always feel like I was on the periphery of every group. I was eagerly welcomed in to pretty much any group I wanted, but never felt like a card-carrying member.

Even in college, in my sorority, I had a few very close friends, but once again they typically belonged to other groups. On the sorority Executive Council, five of the eight of us still hang out regularly... I was one of the other three. The same with the Catholic church organizations, orientation camps at which I was a counselor, freshman leadership groups, honor groups, etc... I watched as seemingly everyone else made circles of friends, while I felt like I was a Venn Diagram, intersecting the circles but not being a circle myself.

 (I'm the green "sustainability" intersection. Thank you to the University of Hawaii for having one of the first Venn Diagram images that I found on the web)

As a consultant for my sorority, I was forced to be on the periphery by the nature of my job. After that year, I taught high school and had friends, but still not a "group." If you look at the bridesmaids in my wedding, while they are all friendly to each other and very comfortable hanging out together, they're still "friends through Lisa" in that I'm not sure if they even have each others' phone numbers.

I've seen a huge number of my friends go on to join churches where they became a part of a marriage group that has lasted for 5+ years, or Moms groups that developed out of their churches that meet-up and even celebrate their childrens' birthdays together.

And now, to add insult to injury, I find the same thing occurring in the blogosphere! When I read the blog rolls of many real-life (RL) friends, I see the blogs of their RL friends, with whom I know they get together in large groups. Some friends from our church in the town in which we used to live have regular Bunko nights, and I see their names on the blogrolls and pictures of their weekly/bi-monthly/monthly get-togethers. It's interesting-- even though I have (had?) PCOS and took a while getting pregnant a second time, I don't feel like I can fit into the "Catholic IF" circle because I had no problem conceiving my first child.

Do I need a hobby? To start an Ulcerative Colitis group? Start an anti-Prednisone group? Find other stay-at-home-moms who are battling scorpions and potty training, hopefully with success in both areas?

Get off the Internet completely so I don't have to think about this?

Does anyone else feel this way?

(Crickets)

Maybe this is just me. Independent. Easily blending but never fully belonging. Not minding (much) being alone, even in a huge group.

I should have been a spy.

Homeschooling discernment series

So, I've been pondering and praying about just thinking about homeschooling, and now I think I'm ready to talk about it and write about it. In fact, I'm thinking of doing a (weekly?) series on this discernment process/fact-finding mission. Would anyone be interested in hearing my thoughts?

(Silence)

Bueller? Bueller?

Hmm.

Well, my plan is to continue to do research, compile a list of Catholic/Christian homeschooling blogs, and interview homeschooling mothers.

That's as far as I've gotten for now.

Whew.

However, I feel it necessary to refer you back to THIS post.

Think what you will.

Vision of her teenage years

C just woke up from her nap. Typically she calls for me (there's a gate up because otherwise she won't stay in her room) and wants me to get her out of her room.

Not this time.

Oh, no, friends. After calling for me, she asked me to fix her gate (it wasn't on perfectly straight) and get her some more water. After I brought it to her, she said thank you, gave me a kiss, and shut the door. For all I know, she's on the phone with boys and trying on make-up while listening to rap music on her iPod. Ok, not likely given that she's not even 3 yet, but I can see the future and it's not pretty.

Yeah. You're welcome, kid. It sure was fun being needed while it lasted.

"Mad Mel" and Catholicism

I don't want to hear the tapes.

You know which tapes I'm talking about.

The ones that are all over the Internet and that are talked about on the radio and that are front and center on grocery store tabloid magazines.

The ones where Mel Gibson allegedly has a complete breakdown and spews the most horrific vitriol at his ex-girlfriend, the mother of one of his children.

I have no idea if these tapes are real. And even if they are, I have no idea what kind of provocation led up to the kind of rants that are apparently on the tapes.

The one thing that I keep hearing, though, is how he was "such a devout Catholic." This is being used to denigrate the Catholic faith and is fodder for jokes.

Catholic bloggers have been quiet on this issue.

Not me.

If these tapes are authentic, the verbal abuse and hate speech on them represent the Catholic Church and my faith no more than do the actions of priests who have committed atrocious acts against children and teens.

Teachers who abuse and have sexual contact with their students do not represent the teaching profession of which I was a part. They are horrific aberrations in a noble profession.

Married men and women who cheat on their spouses without remorse do not represent healthy marriages.

I hope these tapes are proved to be fakes. But if not, I pray that Mr. Gibson will find healing and redemption in the true Church.

Amusingly annoying

I've noticed the oddest phenomenon in the blogging world. Well, technically I've seen it on other popular websites that allow comments, so I guess I shouldn't limit it to blogging.

FIRST!

Over and over again, I see people writing

FIRST!

when they are the first person to leave a comment. Often, that's the only comment they leave.

FYI, there is no prize for being the first person to comment. There is no recognition or respect given to someone whose only contribution is to write the word "First." What a waste of time and keystrokes.

But my favorite scenario has to be the following...

Take a look at comment #8. This makes me laugh. Bet she felt silly when she went back and looked at all the comments.


Edited to add: And for the record, also "amusingly" annoying is the fact that my blog feed still continues to update about 10 hours (at least) late. NO idea why. The Kitchen blog shows posts immediately. My private blog, if taken public, shows posts immediately. I may be pulling all of my hair out this next week if I can't figure it out. However, I am in need of a haircut, so this may be a two birds-one stone kind of situation.

Recycling, Mama-style

H just spit up some breastmilk.

Into. My. Mouth.

Hey- you give a little, you get a little.

Getting crafty

So, I don't have time to mop my floor, but I have time to do an art project. Go figure.

I take no credit for the idea for this; I found the tutorial at Under the Table and Dreaming via Tatertots and Jello-- that's the site on which I was a WINNER (my look book will be another post).

Anyway, I LOVE how this turned out! Not only does it help me keep my menus straight for the week (granted, this means that I actually have to plan ahead of time for seven straight days), but it's so cute. Everyone who comes over comments on it and asks me where I got it. Lisa's House of Wonders, I tell them. That's what M would call "Lisa-humor." That's another way of him saying that I'm likely the only one who thinks what I've said is funny.

Silence...

Moving on! Here's how I made the menu board:

1) I started with an old frame.

My mother-in-law gave me this old frame when I broke the glass in another frame, so I could see if the glass would fit. It didn't. So, this nicked-up frame was just taking up precious space in my house.

2) I "updated" it with brown shoe polish. Not because I'm crazy-creative, but because I don't own brown paint. Or brown stain. But I do own brown shoe polish.

Look how nicely it buffs up! I feel like the polish gave those nicks wayyyyyy more character. They now have a purpose in life, and we all know how good that feels.

My purpose in life?  

Not mopping the floor right now.

3) I glued burlap to the frame backing, added "MENU" in sticky letters left-over from days when I dealt with high school freshmen who couldn't stop talking and before I dealt with a two year old who can't stop talking. I printed out the super-cute letters for the days of the week, cut them out and glued them on, and then replaced the glass. Finally, I wrote out my menu directly on the glass with a dry-erase marker!

Don't judge me by my pathetic dinner planning that week. We had been out-of-town the weekend before, my husband had a work dinner one night, and we went out of town at the end of the week. I worked with what I had.

4) I hung it up. Whoo-hoo!

I'm still feeling super self-conscious about showing you the menu. Does it help if I tell you that, in the last five days, I've made homemade chicken pot pie (with homemade pie crusts, too!), chicken enchiladas, hamburgers, ribeye, baked sweet potatoes, and (more) chili?

That made me feel a bit better, at least. Thanks for indulging me.

Blog roll, eye roll

My silly feed to blog rolls is still not functioning properly. It's a "known problem" with Blogger, but selfishly... I don't care! Someone fix my Blogger issue!

Ok. Whew. That was good to get off my chest.

In other news, I just looked at the label list on my sidebar and had to laugh. In middle, in this order, was:

Gardening  Scorpions  Marriage  Poop

Hmm. And apparently I write about them equally. Interesting.

Note: I just now linked the scorpions and poop sections for you. 5 seconds later, my daughter informed me she had to go. As in now. Nope... she already went. This is my life. Time to keep an eye out for more scorpions.

One more test...

of my blog roll feed... Maybe it's fixed now??

Empirical evidence that God exists

Remember how the deer ate MY RED HIBISCUS? Well, praise the Lord-- it's blooming again! 

Do you still need more evidence He exists?

Check out this proof:

 Perfectly formed to hear the whispering wind and the singing birds and the silence of His voice

 Precious fingers made to serve their Maker

Chubby little leg rolls and teeny-tiny boy toes to follow Him

I have to admit, after having a girl first I was wondering how I'd take to a boy, someone whose inner (and outer! Boys pee everywhere on a changing table!) workings would be completely foreign to me. But, oh, how I love being the mother to a precious "little man"!

On my bookshelf

I am a self-confessed bibliophile (this is not something you need to report me for to Child Protective Services... it just means I LOVE books!). My former roommate, Lauren, tells this story about me:

(Using Lauren's words here...)

"Lisa would walk into the living room in the morning and ask me what I was reading. I'd tell her and we'd talk about it for a minute and then she'd go on with her day. Around lunchtime she'd come through again and ask what I was reading. I'd tell her the same thing I'd said a few hours prior.

Oh, she'd say, You're still reading the same book?"

Now, I don't know if that exact conversation really ever took place, but she always tells it just about like that. The thing is, I DO love to read (heck, English was one of my majors and I taught high school English for several years, and even taught a University English class!), but I rarely get to do it anymore. For the past few years, especially since having children, my reading has been limited primarily to parenting/children's health books (Hello, Caring for Your Baby and Young Child, 5th Edition: Birth to Age 5, I'm talking about YOU, my love!), marriage books, spiritual reading, and The Economist (ahhhh... I love me some Economist! And their punctuation... sigh. I can't get enough.). Granted, when I was nursing C every two hours right after we moved, I read all of M's Hardy Boys books from his childhood and all of my Jane Austen (and Janet Evanovich!) books, but besides those and a smattering of other books here and there, I've been rather book-free for a while.

However, the last month has brought some wonderful books into my life, books that made me think and laugh and think some more. Books that I wished weren't just library books, so I could make notes in their margins, and pick them up again on rainy days when the kids were napping.

1) Same Kind of Different as Me- It's set in Fort Worth (hometown shout-out!) and opened my eyes to a new world in what I'd always considered a very familiar world. Plus, one of the doctor's mentioned in the book was at my wedding, and another doctor in the book was my gastroenterologist! It's such a moving story and I'm still trying to process what I read and figure out how to incorporate the lessons I learned into my own life.

2) Animal, Vegetable, Miracle- LOVED this book. I read just a chapter a night, so it took me forever (forever for me means about 2 weeks). I'm thinking I may need to buy my own copy so I can reread and ponder and reread and do something about my ponderings. The book is nonfiction (like Same Kind of Different as Me) and chronicles a year in the life of Barbara Kingsolver's (Bean Trees, The Poisonwood Bible) family as they tried to eat locally by growing their own veggies and fruits, raising chickens and turkeys, and buying (almost) solely local-grown foods. This idea had already been tumbling around in my brain for quite a while, given that we have access to lots of fresh, local veggies and fruits (and olive oil and wine and eggs and cheese! I live in a great part of the country!). The biggest sacrifice for me personally would be...

Can you guess?

Bananas. 

Oh, how my entire family adores you, you gorgeous golden-skinned fruit!

The book really has made me think a lot about the cost of my food, not really in terms of what I'm paying with cash, but what I'm forcing the world to pay: water/gasoline/harmful pesticides used to grow and/or transport. Kingsolver has a great example about the calories (energy) used to transport some food vs the calories (energy) I am getting from the food. In some cases it's just ridiculous in its lopsidedness. Kingsolver makes very valid points about eating seasonally, and points out that we accept the fact that bathing suits are not for the middle of winter, but we still want to eat strawberries (or other such summer fruits and veggies) out of season. I know I'm going on and on about this book (it should have gotten its own post!) but one more thing: Kingsolver comments on how various locales around the world have stopped growing things that grow best there and growing a variety of things (different types of grains or potatoes, etc) in favor of growing what the "rich countries" want, which is damaging on all fronts and is a poor use of resources. Ok, I'll get off this topic now. Read the book and report back. I'll be looking online for heirloom tomatoes now...

3) Reed of God- I've mentioned this before, but Lauren is leading a discussion of this book about Mary. I'm sticking carefully to the reading schedule (one section a week), so I'm getting to read each section about five times a week! It's an easy-to-read book and despite being written on the eve of WWII, it is completely relevant to today's world. We're only on the second section, and discuss it starting on Thursdays, so there is plenty of time to jump on in! For the record, this is NOT a library book, which is good because my fines for writing all over the book would be astronomical.

I also read The Memory Keeper's Daughter, but found myself skipping pages at times because I could already figure out where the book was going, and I wanted to get to the "good stuff." 

Ooh... hummingbird outside. Gotta get out with C and bird-watch now!

Huh?

I made scrambled eggs and homemade bread for C this morning, then asked her what kind of fruit she'd like. We currently have peaches, nectarines, pineapple, apples, and honeydew melon. If she wanted strawberries, I froze some last week so I could thaw out a handful. But no. She requested...

Giraffe fruit.

No idea what that means. 

She got pineapple instead.

We're just fancy like that

And on H's menu today, aside from several servings of organically-produced lait à la mère, is organically-grown, smoked carrot purée.

What? Smoked carrots?

Yes, friends. Smoked carrots. It's a specialty of mine.

What? You've never made ME smoked carrots before!  (Lauren scratches her head and wonders how she missed this amazing dish of mine since we lived together longer than Britney Spears and Kevin Federline were married, and they managed to produce two children in that time)

The dish is made like so:

- Boil water on stove
- Add carrots to steamer pot and cover
- Check multiple times (after expected cooking time) to see if the carrots are soft enough... nope
- Start a load of laundry and walk outside to check the weather
- Notice a scorpion that must be killed immediately
- See a neighbor and feel the need to commiserate about scorpions and weather
- Mention that the kids are still napping and that you're making...
- AGH! 
- Run into house and sniff
- AGH!
- Lift up steamer pot and peek at boiling water empty, burned pot
- Check carrots. Soft enough? Yup. Smoky? Ah, dang. They are.
- Realize your son hates every single solid food you've ever given him. Feel like crying because all of the money you saved making your own baby food will now be wasted.
- Purée and freeze the smoky carrots anyway
- Serve warmed smoky carrot food cube to son and brace for being projectile-vomited on
- WHAT? He likes it? He LOVES it? He wants MORE? Praise the Lord!
- Realize your son has gourmet tastes
- Look up "smoked carrots" online and find a recipe for Smoked Carrot Bisque. 
- Look up Culinary Institute of America. Ponder whether you or your son should enroll. Decide to wait until he can walk before making any major decisions for his life. Decide to work on not burning pots before you enroll yourself.