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Today's history selections.

Week one of literature-based 20th-century U. S. history:

• I passed five blank cards out to each child and asked them to write the following dates on the cards:  1492, 1776, 1860, 1865, 1900.  We discussed each of these dates and why I want them to remember them.  (1900 is just a big round number, useful for that reason.  Last year, I made them memorize that McKinley was president in 1900.)
• I passed out another card and had them write "1918" on it.
• First we read about World War One.  We used Joy Hakim, History of US, volume 9, Preface, which explains the start of WWI and the Americans' entry into it.  Then I read selections from three library books -- almost any random WWI books will do -- to talk about trench warfare, submarines, and poison gas weapons.
• Then we discussed the "Spanish influenza" epidemic.   I read the short children's novel Hero Over Here by K. V. Kudlinski, which is the story of a boy who has to take care of his flu-stricken family and friends when the epidemic hits his town.  It's about 55 pages.
• Then I had them repeat the two things I want them to remember about 1918:  the end of WWI, and the flu epidemic.

It went by pretty quickly.  Next week:  WWII.  Part of it, anyway.

Back to school.

Light blogging today and probably over the next couple of days.  

I hope to have a post up on the next couple of chapters out of St. Francis de Sales soon.  

Yesterday I took the baby with me to the Mall of America -- on one of the last Sundays before school starts back -- and it was alarmingly uncrowded.   A few years ago I made the mistake of trying to go shopping (for myself) on back-to-school-sale weekend, and I had to stand in dressing-room lines everywhere.  Not so this year.  Retail must be really suffering.  The department stores were nearly empty.  Granted, I only covered the quadrant between Macy's and Nordstrom's, plus a little bit on either end; maybe if I'd wandered over by Old Navy or something I'd have seen a lot more people.

The only place I saw that was crowded was Nordstrom Rack (that's where Nordstrom puts their heavily discounted designer stuff).   

Found one pair of jeans for myself.  One of these days I might have to do a post on the oddities of shopping after dropping 7 pants sizes.  

Screening technique.

Christy P has a blog post up telling a story about her kids in which my husband Mark and I play a minor role.

Several years ago, before I had any kids, we had a visit from friend and commenter bearing and her husband who already had kids.  The visiting dad [Mark]  noticed the giant grated air intake vent in our living room and said "You should screen this because kids are going to throw stuff down there." 

We didn't do it. Our first child was a girl, and she never put anything down there....

Read the rest.

We often think that our parenting styles influence our children's personalities and behavior, but I think it's the other way around most of the time.

The thing is, I don't LIKE white cake.

Think of this as a creative writing assignment.

Somebody come up with a defensible theological reason why a chocolate-almond butter cake, or possibly a flourless chocolate torte, is an appropriate symbolic choice to make to celebrate the Nativity of Mary next month.

I am open to using white frosting, but not really.

Weaning.

My four-year-old is on the verge of weaning.  Maybe she already has.  I'm not sure.  She nursed yesterday.   The time before that was four or five days ago.

A couple of days ago I suddenly realized that, sooner or later, I will breastfeed her for the very last time.

And I'm not going to know it when it happens. 

Experience tells me it will be soon. 

She is, of course, old enough to remember all this.

I resolved right then and there that for the rest of the nursing times we have,  I won't wave her away, or grimace and say "Quit poking me," or try to read, or talk on the phone.  

I'll say yes, I'll smile, I'll cuddle her close, I'll look her in the eyes, and I'll stroke her hair.  

May she carry only memories of love and closeness with her into Big Girlhood.

Perfectionist.

Marybeth has some thoughts about perfectionism.

I was talking with a friend yesterday about how when a moving company moves you, they send 2 or 3 guys and they pack up everything you own in a day...  ONE DAY!.....  That's because they see it, they grab it, they pack it....   There is no sense of "I have 16 books from this 18 book set.  I should go look for the other 2 books so they can all be packed together."

I think that I have done the same thing with eating....  There have been times that I get so focused on what would be the perfect thing to eat, that I might nibble enough calories to qualify as a meal while I am searching for/preparing that 'perfect' thing....   All of a sudden, that doesn't seem so perfect, does it?  I am fortunate enough to say that I have not done that in some time, but that was a big thing with me....  

 

Exercise has been like that for me, too.  I waited the longest time to do ANYTHING because the time wasn't perfect and the routine is most definitely not perfect - I mean really - 10 minutes is hardly what I consider a great workout.....  Maybe it's 'Just Right' for my current physical condition, but it certainly does not FEEL perfect.....  

 

So, I think I have rambled enough here, but the main thing I want to say is do NOT be a perfectionist....  If you wait for perfection, you'll NEVER get it/do it/have it.....  You can certainly work towards perfection, but as we are all inherently flawed and imperfect, waiting for yourself to be perfect is setting yourself up for a failure....

 

Today I wanted to get the kids to a birthday party, twenty minutes away, at 1 pm.  I also wanted to swim, to pick up new books at the library, and to feed everyone lunch at home.

 

I keep forgetting to allow that extra 15 minutes in my schedule for the baby to nurse one last time.  So when I pulled out of my garage it was 11:06.

 

I told myself:  I will swim for exactly 30 minutes, not the 47 minutes it takes me to swim 1600 yards.  That worked okay.  I think I managed -- let's see -- 1050 yards.

 

I told myself:  I will take a really fast shower and not waste any time in the locker room.  That didn't work exactly, because I saw a bemused-looking older lady in the locker room, asked if she needed help finding anything, and wound up having a nice conversation about starting up an exercise program.  I'm glad I did.  I learned that her name was Rose, that she was 60 pounds into a hoped-for 100-pound weight loss, and that she recently joined the Y because she was tired of being home alone after having lost her fiance a few months ago.  I hope I helped her feel welcome.

 

I told myself:  I will tell the kids they can each pick out a movie, but they only have as much time as it takes me to return my books and pick up my holds.  That worked great.  Except I forgot to check if the movies were good choices or not.  We shall see when I get home and open up the bag.

 

I told myself:  I will just run through the drive through at Taco Bell.  Except the line was long, so we went inside.  That worked okay, though. Everyone had one thing.  Mine was a salad.  I could have made it something smaller.  I will probably have a mainly-vegetable dinner, and that will feel better inside.

 

I told myself:  I will only be 15 minutes late.

 

And I was.

 

Not perfect, but (since it was that same 15 minutes I forgot to schedule to nurse the baby), at least I closed all the balances.  And my engineering brain can be happy with that.

Introduction to the Devout Life: 4-2, "Courage in Devotion."

Moving on through the troubleshooting guide that is part 4 of Francis de Sales's work (which I'm blogging about fairly steadily), we come to Chapter 2, "Courage in Devotion."

This quite short chapter deals with feelings of discouragement early in the journey.

Though light is beautiful and lovely it dazzles our eyes if we have been in darkness for any length of time; we are always ill at ease in a strange country no matter how gracious and courteous its inhabitants, until we become familiar with them.   

It may well happen, Philothea, that having embarked on this new life, your soul may feel ill at ease and that you experience a sense of sadness and discouragement in bidding farewell to the follies and vanities of the world[.]

I don't think I am experiencing this in my current efforts, but I recognize it from my anti-gluttony efforts of a couple of years ago.  Even though I was mostly disgusted with my own behavior, at times I moped and mourned that I wasn't ever going to eat a whole pizza by myself again. 

(Boy, that sounds awful every time I type it out.  It's true though.)

I guess Francis means that we may pass through a stage of mourning for the life we've died to, and that we may worry that we don't know how to live our new life.  The old one, even though we've turned away from it for good reasons, is familiar to us.  We know it like an old house we've lived in -- exactly what's behind every door, how to turn the faucet just so to make the water come out as hot as possible, which stair will creak under our foot, where to put all our stuff.  The new one is going to take some getting used to.  Change is hard.

...[B]e patient a little while, it is of no importance, only the discomfort of unfamiliarity; as soon as it has worn off you will experience abundant consolation.

In other words:  You'll get used to it.

Francis reminds you that you have good reason to keep going, because what you've lost is so petty compared to what you'll gain:

At first you may regret losing the empty glory with which flattering fools rewarded your vanity, but would you exchange it for the eternal glory with which God will in truth reward you?  

The futile amusements of the past may return to tempt your heart back to them; are you courageous enough to buy them back at the price of eternal happiness? 

 Persevere and certainly your heart will soon be filled with such pleasant and delightful consolations that you will count the pleasures in the world but gall in comparison with their sweetness, and a single day of devotion preferable to a thousand years of worldliness.

So for mourning the temporal pleasures of the old life, Francis recommends thinking about the eternal benefits of the new life (note -- not the temporal benefits of the new life) and comparing the two.  

And what about the other problem, loss of courage?

Seeing the mountain of Christian perfection towering above you, you may doubt your ability to climb it; but take courage, Philothea.  

Unformed bees are called nymphs and at this stage are unable to fly for honey to the flowers or hills or mountains, but little by little, feeding on the honey prepared for them, they grow wings and soon are sufficiently strong to fly in search of fresh honey far and wide.

True, we are no more than such nymphs in devotion, we cannot fly as we would like to the mountain tops of Christian perfection; nevertheless we are beginning to take shape by feeding on our desires and resolutions; we are beginning to grow wings and so may be confident that one day we shall be able to fly.

Meanwhile, we must feed on the abundant honey provided by former spiritual writers, and ask God to give us "wings like a dove" (Ps. 54:7), that we may be able to fly in this life and reach eternal rest hereafter.

We can't expect to change completely overnight.  We are learning.  We are strengthening ourselves.  And it is on our own desires and resolutions -- all that stuff we figured out while we were reading the first three parts of the book! -- that we must feed ourselves to grow stronger.

Remember that by "desires" Francis means the spiritual goods that we wish to develop and that we really can put into practice -- meaningful, attainable spiritual goals.  By "resolutions" he means, I think I can generalize, plans about how to act in order to move closer to that goal.  

Can Francis possibly be writing to us simply this:  that when we become discouraged because the end goal is so far away, we must simply re-focus on the goals we can really get to, and return to our habits -- our small daily decisions -- the things we can do immediately because they are in our reach? 

Pounds of vegetables, because you asked.

I have my receipt in front of me, and I can report that I bought about 37 pounds of fresh produce today at the store.  Plus three pounds of frozen vegetables, a can of pineapple tidbits, and a can of basil-garlic tomato paste.

I just picked up my quarter-beef, which will last me a while, so it's not too surprising that the only meat I bought was in a package of hot dogs and four cans of Chef Boy-Ar-Dee (don't look at me like that, we start school next week and I need lunch to be reeeeeeeealllly easy).  The other processed foods I bought were Cheerios (baby now on solids -- must have Cheerios), hot dog buns (natch), and some frozen cheese pizzas and frozen french fries (see above re: lunch).  Then there was some milk, eggs, cheese, and yogurt, peanut butter, coffee, and baking powder.  That's it.  Total bill $122.66, enhanced a bit because I bought a few organic items.

But understand that I have a nice big pantry that we stocked up with canned-good and dry-good staples some weeks ago.  I never buy things like dish powder or toiletries at the grocery store, either.

Finally where I want to be, again.

Almost seven months after the baby was born, I've finally returned to my intended postpartum weight.  

Interestingly enough, it took me longer to lose those 28 pounds than it took me to lose the 40 pounds I lost in the first place, back in 2008.  What's the difference?  Well, I didn't really have a sense of urgency -- once I saw that the weight was coming off without too much difficulty, I felt content to let it happen slowly and with less effort.  I didn't regard it as a health problem -- postpartum weight is normal, after all.  I didn't do much other than stick to my habits (with some allowance for the need to eat and drink enough to keep up with breastfeeding) and watch the chart I was keeping, to make sure the weight kept going down.

Which means I am in maintenance again.

I am going to try staying at 112, four pounds heavier than I was before I got pregnant.  I figure I ought to be carrying a little more weight just because I'm nursing a young baby.  And, truth be told, I thought I looked too thin at 108.  Where I am now, my clothes fit fine but the edges are a little softer, I hope.

I feel so much more confident entering maintenance this time than I did last time.  Back then I was pretty bewildered by it (see here, here, here, here...)  But now I think I finally know what I am doing.  

I'm still working on the "printable version" project, by the way, but it's one of those few-minutes-here, few-minutes-there things.

"One raw, one plain, one fancy."

From a comment I made on an earlier post. 

It's a rule of thumb I use when putting together meals -- for getting three vegetable side dishes on the table with a minimum of fuss.

I don't always have three vegetable (or fruit) side dishes on the table, especially if my main dishes have plenty of veg in them, but it is nice to shoot for.

"Raw" includes most salads, fresh cut fruit, and also simple things like a bowl of baby carrots.

"Plain" is anything steamed, boiled, or roasted, either truly plain or maybe with a little butter or oil.  Roast sweet potatoes, plain microwave-steamed fresh vegetables, or cooked frozen vegetables.  Also something like applesauce would count here.  The essence of "plain," though, for the purpose I mean (not doing too much work at dinner time) is "simply prepared."  I didn't have to stir it or cut it up much or measure anything.

"Fancy" would be anything cooked any other way, or anything that required a recipe.  Sauteed broccoli with olive oil and lemon; cream of tomato soup; stuffed squash; marinara sauce.  That kind of thing.

"One raw, one plain, one fancy" puts a variety of textures (and usually colors) on the table without my overdoing it in the last minutes before supper.