See our new organized space! Lots of pictures!

I took some pictures for another organizing/decluttering website, so I'll post them here too. we've been working in the garden all weekend. If these giant 10" long worms aren't evidence of amazingly healthy soil, i don't know what is. We got some crops in the ground today. The weather has been amazingly warm and sunny these past couple of weeks.

I wanted to embed this slideshow into my blog, but i'm too stupid to figure it out today and i'm annoyed now, so you'll just have to click this link.
http://www.flickr.com/gp/24328696@N04/fRR293

I really feel like our space is totally organized. We have cleared out so much stuff. It takes a lot less time to clean up now. It's great. Spring has the effect of making me see how depressed i've been all winter. I feel so great right now, like everything is going to work out and be fine.

Jay's homemade laundry soap turned out amazing. we are trying to figure out how many more things we can do ourselves...its almost like a challenge. jay is wanting to buy a table saw because he loves working with wood and he wants to build things like children's furniture out of used scrap wood.

merry post-holiday greeting

happy new year everyone...





















This post will serve as the substitute for the more traditional letter-in-a-christmas-card that informs everyone about what they have been doing. we have not gotten our act together to do anything for the holidays in terms of cards, baking, gifts, etc. I had big plans to bake stuff to mail to the far-away relatives, and never did get a chance to. We did give a few books this year, and i bought people some things in ireland (more on that in a moment).

we were really pretty pleased/impressed with how restrained our families were this holiday season. most presents were hand-me-downs or used, which was awesome. there was a minimum of wrapping paper, most of which was recycled, and the stuff for us adults was very small. still, it can be a bit overwhelming to consider that this (photo below) is what counts for trying for a very minimalist christmas. our entire couch was covered in presents for the kids.


we continue to be pretty non-committal about any gift-giving. we just aren't into it, and kind of refuse to feel like we should buy things for people and get all stressed about it. when the kids are older, i suspect that we will make some things, but right now that idea seems kind of ludicrous since we don't even get time to do dishes.

as for how things are going, the kids are doing well. as you can see, emmett is huge and has become an official toddler. he's 13 months old now. he runs around after elsie now and we've seen brief moments (of up to 10 minutes!) of them playing together and entertaining each other, whilst leaving us alone. hopefully it's a taste of things to come in the future. he also loves to eat everything and does a lot of babbling and playing with all sorts of objects. he understands what we say now and can follow simple commands such as 'hand me that ball'. he is much more eager to please, sensitive and compliant than elsie ever was. he will cry if we tell him 'no', whereas elsie never cared if we told her not to do something (and still doesn't!) elsie is growing bigger by the minute, and will be four in 2 months. she has started sounding out words, and can write her name and several other words. she loves to read still, and proudly announces that she now reads "chapter books" which she requests constantly. her vocabulary amazes us on a daily basis, saying things like "i have this memorized" and "is this a sand-hill crane, mama?" (today, she brought me a picture she found of a crane. where she heard about sand hill cranes, i have no idea). we've kept to our TV free lifestyle but do allow her to watch movies which we get from the library or video store. emmett hasn't watched any movies or tv.

elsie loves spending time down at her grandparents' house and we send her down there as often as we can. her behavior has gotten easier recently, and we've noticed that we aren't feeling like ripping our hair out quite as many times per day. the terrible threes are hopefully coming to a close.

my job as a teacher ended just before christmas, which is at once a relief, something sad, and something stressful. i really felt like i came into my own as a teacher toward the end, and i was sad to have to leave the job after hitting my stride. i was really enjoying my students. they were really sweet on my last day, many of them getting me christmas presents, cards, and flowers telling me that they will miss me and that they wanted me to stay. there were a few tears shed and i had a couple of students tell me wonderful things such as i was the best teacher they ever had (sniff). it was sad to realize i wasn't going to see them any more. it feels good to know that i really picked the right career and i learned a lot during these past months. i am excited to get a 'real' teaching job for next year or the year after.

at the same time, the job was taking a lot out of me, and it was very hard to keep up with.
jay has been doing some work here and there for his friend david, who just started a cultural resources company (david was the one who also got fired along with jay and 2 other people from AINW in august). in combination with substitute teaching for me, we are hopeful that we can make it through the next 6 months financially with both of us working very flexibly. it will be kind of nice to switch off working/staying at home on an as-needed basis. we have talked about moving to salem and renting a cheap apartment, while i sub there, but we are going to hold off in the hopes that jay will land a full time job in the next few months and then see if moving is necessary. the idea of moving is almost more than i can deal with. i'm just so sick of moving. but our place is kind of expensive and it would be nice to save some money. however, if jay does end up getting a job, it would be silly to move to salem and then to move back. we have some reason to hope that david will have a full time position for him in the next 6 months. i'm hoping that he can work and i can work part time, as i'd rather not jump into full time teaching next year unless i have to. i'd rather wait until emmett is 3 to tackle that. still, if jay doesn't have a job, we'll have no choice. subbing is OK money, but we might have problems when summer comes if jay doesn't have a job. we are trying not to stress about it too much. sometimes it just feels like we can't take any more changes and adjustments, though. nothing has been stable since August.

In other news, i just got back from an 7 day trip to ireland, which was absolutely amazing. My good friend roy got married to a wonderful irish woman, which was the reason for the trip. it was amazing and crazy to be by myself with no kids for so long, and offered me an unprecedented chance to think and take care of my own needs for a change. the kids and jay weathered it fairly well with lots of support from my family. i decided while over there that our family should not postpone happiness for some time in the future, when things might go a certain way; that we have each other, and in that regard we are very lucky and blessed. we are all working on focusing on the positive for now and realizing that everything is temporary. i felt very grateful and very, very fortunate to get to go on this trip and to be with my friends during this time.




the wedding feast in longford, ireland













roy and i at trinity college, dublin.











at some point i will post pictures of the kids and everything, but right now i don't think i can take any more elsie harassment about 'when will you be done?!?'

just one final thought: during these past few months it has become apparent to me that it is entirely impossible for people who are in a crisis to think about the environment, or anything beyond just their day-to-day survival. a lot of things fell by the wayside as we contemplated more important things, for example: are we were going to have to move in with my parents? how we were going to get health insurance? how we could afford to heat our house? etc. people all over the world, and in america, are in crisis and are just trying to survive. many, many millions of americans are only one paycheck or medical problem away from disaster. how can people think about their choices affecting the earth when they are just surviving? i know we didn't. we went back to whatever was cheapest/easiest, which always means less organics, more trash, less mindful consuming, etc. it's a pity, but its hard to imagine anything changing in a meaningful way while so many people are in poverty. its obvious that global poverty and environmental catastrophe are linked, and our family now understands the reasons for this first-hand.

here are a few pictures to appease the masses. thanks for reading this long ramble.

On being "successful"

Looking at those week-old pictures of the garden, it's hard to believe how much it has grown in just a week. It is even huger, bushier and more fruitful now than in those pictures. In fact, I do believe in about one week's time we should be eating some zucchini and tomatoes.

I have been doing really well at not driving lately. I've been walking distances up to about a mile and a half, and really enjoying it. I have been walking Elsie to swim lessons, walking to parks (even further away ones), and walking to the store. I've been taking the bus more, too. I don't think we drove all weekend, actually. We spent a lot of time at home getting work done, true, but we have really minimized our in-town driving. I think the last time I drove was sometime last week.

At Elsie's swimming lessons, I was chatting with another mom who had kids in class there. Through our various conversations, it became obvious that she was from...how shall I put this? Another socio-economic bracket (as they like to say at the Ed department at PSU. I guess it sounds a lot better than saying poor kids?) than we are. For example, her daughter goes to the private French-immersion preschool/K-8 school. Just out of curiosity, I looked up their tuition online and its a whopping $10,000 per year. So that means that they will spend $100,000 on their daughter's education before she even gets to high school! They have two kids, so do the math. You are looking at upwards of $400,000 before their kids are even in college.

Why do people spend so much money to get their child into a "better" private school? (I will discuss later about whether or not private schools really provide a better education than our public ones. Actually, we can discuss it now. No, they don't). I think people are compelled to spend huge amounts of money on their children because they really believe they are giving them a "leg up" in order to make them successful. I see people all over town wanting the "best" for their children, be this the latest gadget, or the expensive toddler music class (we got this music class for a Christmas present, and I was shocked to find that Elsie and one other boy were the only preschoolers in in the class. All the other kids were like 13 months old--babies! Why do parents think they need an expensive class for a baby to get a head start on music appreciation? bah!), the best private school, starting preschool at an early age, getting into a charter or magnet school, etc. But what is successful? For our children, or in life--how are we defining success?

Is it when our child gets into Harvard? Is the star athlete? The valedictorian? Wins the band competition? Gets a prestigious job? Makes a lot of money? Do we get to bask in their reflected glory?

I think these are the things a parent wants for a child usually without really asking why. For some reason talking to this mom last week, I had to stop and ask myself why. Why do they have a nanny, even when they are home? Why do they send their children to this extremely expensive private school where they learn an elite (but not very useful in America) language? Why do they live in the best neighborhood? Are their children on the fast-track to Princeton, whereas mine will have to "settle" for U of O (I mean, come on! At least go to OSU!) ? What do we really want for our children? What do I want for MY children?

When I stopped to consider this question, I reflexively answered "to be happy, of course!" As I'm sure pretty much any parent would. But I felt the need to go deeper. What if my child were happy never going to college, but working as a diesel mechanic? Would I consider my child a success at that point? I had to really stop and think, and I decided that yes, I would be happy about that. That I really don't care what my children choose to do, as long as they are truly happy. I mean, the real kind of happiness that so many Americans chase, but never seem to obtain.

And why do so many Americans continue to chase the elusive dream of happiness? I mean, its right there in our constitution. We are guaranteed the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness--not happiness itself. I really believe that the reason that so many Americans are miserable is that we have all--ALL--bought into the idea that material goods will make us happy. Even if we don't want to admit it. Deep down, it's there. We were raised with it. We were nursed at the teat of marketing and consumption. Nowhere does anyone say "Just be happy with what you have and who you are. Do it NOW. Just stop what you are doing and choose happiness in this moment." Just--stop. Stop trying to better everything. Stop trying to look a certain way, own a certain thing, get something done. Just be satisfied. Be completely satisfied with your life in this moment. It goes deeper than just defining success through material goods (and that includes money). The American definition of success and happiness rides entirely on things that are outside of yourself. Entirely on things in the external, physical realm (the good job, the nice house, the loving wife, the sweet car, the obedient children). Never on the simple act of just being. Just being who you are.

I am not a master of this mode of thinking, but I am trying. If my children can live that way, then I will KNOW that they have achieved true success, regardless of what circumstances their lives may take. When we stop the cycle of mindless consumerism, stop defining success and happiness as some kind of external thing that can be obtained (but hasn't been obtained yet!) we are setting our children up for true success, in a way that no $10,000 per year private school ever could.

Successful children

The crowd pleasers

This is also our family blog, I guess, so here are some recent pictures of the kids...