We left around 9 a.m. for Shenandoah National Park, which is what R wanted to do for his birthday. He’s been there twice this summer (once by himself between jobs, once with the kids, though J turned out to be sick when they got there) but this was the first time with all of us. It’s a really nice drive. It’s about 2 hours which is too short to make installing the DVD players worth it. So instead we played games and told stories. Plus M gets carsick which makes the DVDs problematic. She actually rode in her booster in the front seat so she could see out. It was a beautiful day, low 80s, low humidity.

We got there in time for lunch at the lodge, where the food is “better than it has to be, and cheaper than it could be” (R’s words). The kids were really cooperative. Aside from a few cranky moments, they were stellar. After lunch we drove to Big Meadows to talk to the ranger, who recommended a hike up Stony Man Mtn. By the time we got there J was asleep, so MaDear hung out with him in the car (thank you!) while we hiked. It was perfect for C. M kept saying she was “tired” but I think she was actually bored. R was telling her the story of the tortoise and the hare, which is perfect for her because she hikes by hopping from rock to rock, balancing on boulders and stumps, etc., then saying “I’m tired!” C is definitely an example of slow and steady winning the race.

The view on the top of Stony Man is beautiful. We looked down on hawks soaring and saw huge shadows of clouds on the mountains below. The overlook is a rocky series of cliffs so I was glad J wasn’t up there. Meanwhile he had woken up and was slowly making his way up with Mom, so we saw him on the way down.

C really seems to “get” hiking. She and R climbed Lookout Mountain on vacation earlier this month, and R was impressed with her. We had left her tennis shoes at home on the trip to Montreat so we ended up buying her some actual hiking boots. Please please please let us be able to hand them down to M and then J, given the price…

After the hike we made a stop at the souvenir shop for a couple of trinkets, then started home. We told stories most of the way, which was one of my favorite parts. The kids wanted to hear all about when we were kids—were actually asking (begging) for more! more! more! I am writing this journal entry so when my kids find me uncool and boring I can remember that there was a time when they couldn’t get enough. Then I told them the stories about when each of them was born. M’s is the funniest and had them all cracking up.

As I wrote on FB yesterday, “Before I had kids, I didn’t have a lot of specific hopes for the experience, except that I wanted us to be a “storytelling family”… so I feel very happy this evening.” That about sums it up.

We’re looking forward to going back when the leaves turn!

At long last, I have started a blog under my own name. It’ll probably take a while for it to show up in Google search, so let me know if you’d like to know where it is. reverendmother03 at gmail dot com.

What a great journey it’s been. Almost seven years ago, I put up a silly bucket list of Christmas songs, and the thing just snowballed. This blog is what got me started writing again, helped me develop a voice and a discipline, and opened all kinds of doors and allowed me to meet some incredible people. I have very little patience with folks who talk pejoratively about blogging as self-indulgent and narcissistic. Sure, that’s out there, but for me this strange hobby has been life-changing.

That the blog has been pseudonymous all this time is a peculiarity. I’ve said many times that my goal has been to balance a desire for authenticity on the one hand with a need not to have my every thought Googleable by search committees and folks looking for a conference preacher on the other. As one pastor said in this article about clergy burnout, “Clergy have been seen as either superhuman who needed no friends, or subhuman who could exist without them — but certainly not human.” The article goes on: “Indeed, unlike doctors or police, for example, pastors are supposed to be people who have dedicated their lives to a spiritual goal and are not expected to focus on themselves and their own welfare in the here and now.” What could be more here-and-now than many of the I’m-gonna-go-crazy-on-these-children ramblings of this blog? Of course, part of my goal in writing these things is to demystify the life of the pastor, but let’s go a little slow with the little old ladies, hmm?

Several people have suggested that this blog would in fact be a selling point for a congregation. In some ways that’s been a temptation I’ve tried to avoid. If people find it and like it and want to know me better or hire me, fine, but that’s not the point. Like Anne Morrow Lindbergh, “I began these pages for myself, in order to think out my own particular pattern of living, my own individual balance of life, work and human relationships.” This space is precious to me; I don’t want to capitalize on it.

That said, if I’m truly going to be bi-vocational with writing and ministry, I need a public space to put stuff. So now I have one.

I’m not sure what will happen with this blog. I imagine I’ll still use it for random family musings and other stuff that’s less polished in form or thought. Though I probably will write less and less here as time goes on. And some stuff I’ve written here, I will move to ‘private’ and put up there. We’ll just have to see how it unfolds. I’ve known some bloggers whose work jumped the shark once they ‘came out.’ We’ll see… either way, I feel strongly that this is a step I need to take at this moment.

Whatever happens next, I’m thankful to my small but loyal group of readers. You rock!

Anyway, today I’m going to try something different than the binge-work-and-binge-play routine. Our approach today will be modeled after the pool schedule: kids play for 45 minutes in the ‘big’ pool, then at quarter ’til the hour the lifeguards blow the whistle and you have to get out for a break and for the adults to swim. So today the kids will have my undivided attention for games and stuff during ‘kid swim,’ but I need a short break each hour to put clothes in the dryer, do some paperwork, and the like.

We’ll see what that’s like. This is an example of my happiness principle of reframing what isn’t working. I might reach the end of today and decide that the reframing also needs to be reframed. But such is the improvisation of parenthood.

2. Speaking of happiness resolutions, it’s a new month for the Happiness Project which means a new set of resolutions. I find this fun—like a Happy New Year each month. Here are some of this months resolutions—a few that I’ve done every month and others that are new:
–continue to exercise (which I did 24 out of 31 days last month)
–check e-mail only at specified times during the day. I’m also trying something I read about recently, which is to wait until the next day to reply to e-mails. Batching e-mails takes less time, and a lot of stuff gets resolved on its own if you leave it be. Few things are truly urgent. (I do answer ‘pastoral care’ stuff the same day.)
–”is it true? is it kind? is it necessary?” in my constant battle against snark… though this resolution may not make me feel happier ;-D Of course as Gretchen Rubin says, Happiness doesn’t always make you FEEL happy.
–talk to strangers
–the hard thing is actually the easier thing (especially with parenting).

3. One of my resolutions each month is to laugh each day and to sing each day. Both lighten my mood instantly. To that end, R shared this video of a washing machine self-destructing. Be sure to watch the last 30 seconds:

You’re welcome!

I haven’t done one of these in for-EV-uh…. but it’s Friday afternoon and my brain is kinda fried for the day:

Kathryn posts this:
This Friday Five will post while I’m at the beach which for me is more than a vacation destination, it is a trip home. I have found it quite easy to wax nostalgic about the places I used to live (well, except for one) and have begun to wonder what it is I like about the place I’m living now?

And so I ask you to please name five things you like about where you are living now… and as your bonus - 1 thing you don’t like.

In no particular order:

1. I really love living in such a great tourist destination. Yes, the tourists can be a little obtuse (Metro escalators: stand right, walk left), but what an embarrassment of riches we have here. Culture, history… we try never to take it for granted. A couple years back, my brief dalliance with a church search committee in another state ended when I took C to Mt. Vernon—15 minutes from our house—and was like, “Leave here? Hell to the no.”

2. As much as I knock Suburban Sheol, I love that there are more than 100 languages spoken in the school system. I love seeing the women wearing the hijab walking in our neighborhood (though dang! the heat!). C has friends from Iran, the Philippines, Ghana, etc., and it’s no big deal.

A corollary to that: people here have lived around the world (whether with the military, State Dept., etc.) and while there is plenty of patriotism to be found, there is a sense of the global community that is very important to me personally (and to the survival of the planet, at the risk of being dramatic).

3. I got to go to this. As I wrote at the time, “It was the kind of day that solidifies a ‘place’ for a person. Today I feel like DC is my home and I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”

4. Having grown up in Houston, I absolutely love the four seasons. Yeah, summers are hot, but hey, summers are hot in Texas too, but without the balance of the other times of year. We get leaves. We get snow. We get amazing blooms of color.

5. I like the proximity to nature: the mountains, the beach… And although we haven’t taken advantage of this much, I love the proximity to great Northeastern cities like Philly, NYC, Boston…

Bonus:
Traffic and cost of living.

As for me, I’m just sick and tired… [lame attempt at humor]

I used to blog about, and think about, things other than kid illnesses. Wow, that was nice.

Though it may be torturous to do so, I’ve decided to keep track of these random viruses on a calendar. It feels like someone is sick more often than they’re not sick. Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that’s not the case, but let’s just say we’ve had one normal week since the middle of June. Pleasantly surprised is on the ropes at the moment.

Two weeks ago I had a bit of a nutty.

Early that day, I heard about a hoity-toity tall steeple church that hired a 29 year old single woman with half the ordained experience I have. Which got me thinking about the road I’m not traveling. Most of the time I don’t regret taking a different path, and kudos to them for calling a woman, but really. 29? Ordained three years?

About an hour after that, I got an e-mail from a colleague who works part-time and writes, who has way more writing gigs than there’s even time for! How very… nice… for that person. (Now rationally speaking, I know I’ve been there before, but I ain’t even close to there now. And besides, the pity party was just starting to get cranked up, and rationality isn’t invited.)

After receiving these two bits of info, I began to notice that J was wilting before my very eyes. I took his temp and it was 103.5 and I was like I’ve had it. When R got home from work, I left for a very long, self-indulgent drive.

One of my happiness resolutions is to “love what is” and I’m finding that my greatest spiritual challenge at this moment.

As I’ve said many times here, I’m not in a hurry for these kids to grow up. I love the ages they are now. But it’s no fun when they’re sick, and the constant petty illnesses get very, very, very… very old. They have no energy to do anything, and even if they did, they shouldn’t be out and about anyway. And if more than one of them is home that day, then we’re ALL stuck inside (which means you have to contend with the high-energy-I’m-bored kid and the don’t-want-to-do-anything kid).

Eh…

C, after she found me in a totally different room than she thought I’d be: “Wow Mommy, that was like a Jack-Jack maneuver.”

Date last night, followed by an overnight in DC courtesy of Priceline while kids had MaDear sleepover. Potluck here tonight with the PNC that called me one year ago this month. Phone convo afterward with a parishioner about life, death and the things that really matter. It’s a good life.

After buying tix to One Man Lord of the Rings a year ago–and then forgetting to go–we’re making another attempt tonite. #busynessfail #geeks

Am sitting with the swim team *kids* this time, who converse on a variety of subjects. #notgrumpy

Dear swim team moms: Yes, our kids are fascinating but are you capable of talking about anything else? #1ofthesenotlikeother #grumpy

Had a great time at media training today–kudos to Auburn Seminary for sponsoring such a great program. Mr. Olbermann, I’m ready for my closeup. Also had lunch with my mom. Great session meeting tonight too. Tired but happy.

The Signature Theater Open House was very effective because I’m ready to get season tickets now!

I don’t get being late to your own wedding. “We’re not really ontime people.” OK, but the 100 people in the sanctuary are. #ilovemyjob

J has his first sub-100 temp since Monday. In related news, his skin has never looked better after a week indoors.

There was an earthquake? I’ll take your word for it.

R just left with J for the ER–he hasn’t been able shake the fever he’s had since Monday, and it’s no longer responding to tylenol/motrin very well. On-call doc suggested he be taken in for eval, so off they go… say a prayer / think good thoughts / hold them in the light

If u want to help ur introverted kid make friends at the swim meet, give her your #iPhone & she’ll be the center of attn #mommyFTW

Waiting for C at her very first piano lesson. I think she has the world’s sweetest teacher.

Nothing says “Mommy, you’re supposed to go back to work tomorrow after a week of no daycare” like a kid w/ 103.5 temp! #mylifesucks

Kids will eat overripe bananas they wouldn’t touch otherwise if I slice them and serve them with toothpicks. #parentinghack

J finally learned how to open the door to his room. We’re in a new phase now. #goodwhileitlasted

‎”Our oil hit Texas beaches yesterday. Fortunately, in 20 years their school books will say nothing happened.” -#bpcares, a satire of BP on twitter

Block party: grill, potato salad, sparklers, music, neighbors. You’d think we were in the 50s, except for the multiethnic families and explosives bordering on the hooliganish.

From the writing retreat:

I’ve written 11,000 words this week, and have 40,000 words total on my ‘project.’ I celebrated with a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich.

One day left and my favorite pen ran out of ink. BTW, the Uniball Jetstream pen glides over paper and is worth every penny.

This is the Kingdom of Sh*tty First Drafts, and I am its Queen!!!!

Had barely landed when I got the news that J is sick with a fever. R will probably stay home with him tomorrow, but if anyone can help out a “single” guy in his second week of a new job, we’d be obliged. My guess is by Tuesday he’d be no longer contagious but still not feeling well enough to go to daycare. Comment here or contact R directly. ~Sigh~

Leave for weeklong writing retreat on Sunday. Received the weather report and schedule via e-mail yesterday. The former: highs in 80s, lows in 60s. The latter: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Feels downright sinful, but I intend to sin boldly that grace may abound.

—-

So this afternoon I worked up a sweat running all over the house to get the swim stuff together. Then I strapped three kids into the steaming hot car, hoping the silver buckles wouldn’t brand their bare legs. What kept me going was the prospect of cold water, but it was just somewhat cool and only marginally refreshing. Thus, I’ve decided that there is such a thing as “too hot to swim.”

‎”Consider the source. If you’re worried about someone who dislikes you, first ask yourself whether they’re an a******. If you don’t like them, and they don’t like you, that’s not a problem. That’s a mutual understanding.” -Mighty Girl

“We’re either in a café in Paris or a coffee shop in New Jersey. I’m pretty sure I just came back from the doctor with life-changing news.”

From a forward called “36 Rules of Life,” sent to me by a church member: “There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.”

I try to think about Glenn Beck as little as possible, but I have been pondering his recent comments on social justice. This article responds as well as I could ever hope to, but there’s something else I’ve been kicking around, a logical fallacy that seems very revealing to me. I know, I know, logic has nothing to do with affairs of politics and the stories we tell ourselves, but hear me out:

1. Beck and his ilk are quite insistent that they aren’t opposed to giving charity to poor people, they’re just opposed to the government being involved. It’s a private, personal thing, a choice that each individual makes to help another person.

2. And yet, Beck and many others on the radical right are just as insistent that we are a Christian nation. Not a nation of Christians, but a Christian nation. A nation founded on so-called Judeo-Christian principles.

Why, then, would these self-professed Christians be opposed to enshrining the teachings of Jesus and the scriptures into our nation’s laws? A Christian nation would demand nothing less.

One could conclude from this that the “Christian nation” thing is just an empty slogan used to enflame the culture war.

Or, one could conclude that they don’t really believe that Jesus calls us to care for the poor.

Fire away…

1. “Back to normal!” Not so much. J was sick all week with a very high fever—we even took him to the ER Thursday night because the meds weren’t bringing it down much anymore and we were in day five of this and our oncall ped suggested an eval. But he was OK, and is well now. Maybe his immune system is just really unhurried or something.

2. The whole “two day retreat” thing. Yeah, that did not happen. But it was a gift to have cleared my calendar on those days because it meant less shuffling.

But make no mistake, I pulled a nutty or two this past week. The timing was just amazing. Monday was my day off, so we were all here, and then Tuesday was going to be our “get back to normal” day. The fever came on late Monday afternoon and I was like OMG WTH SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?!? fdskls jkdhfbu vybeu ywba

I’m thankful to R for staying home with him one day so I could work, but working AND parenting nine days out of the last ten has almost driven me insane. R’s new job is actually more conducive to working from home than his previous one, but he’s still so new there (only a month), this was as it needed to be right now.

3. Last night R and I went to dinner and then to an open house at this theater. It was great fun. We really need to see more live theater.

4. C is doing well and having a good summer. She’s enjoying swim team and continues to improve her time bit by bit. She hasn’t done any Saturday meets, just the Wednesday ones, which suits us just fine, actually. She has started getting an allowance: $2.25 a week. The .25 is with the intention of her giving it to the church.

5. M seems really sharp to me right now. She has this stealth intelligence that picks up on everything and is making ever-more-complex arguments to try to get what she wants. She’s also very attentive to the chapter books we read with C. In addition to daycare this fall she will be in pre-K three days a week and I think that will be great fun for her.

6. Aside from his illness, J’s skin has never looked better. That points to his eczema being correlated to outside/airborne stuff, wethinks. But I am SO happy he is better. J’s default position is happy, and when something is wrong with my baby…

7. This should be a fun week. I’m not going to say things are back to normal. They will be what they will be. But tomorrow I’m signed up to attend this media training for faith leaders. Excited and nervous… should be a pretty intense day. Plus this week I start a six-week e-course in “Eyes of the Heart: Photography as Contemplative Practice”. My spiritual disciplines are pretty word-oriented so I’m excited to be doing something different.

2. I actually would be OK as a stay-at-home mother. Some mothers who work outside the home say they’d go crazy. I don’t think I would. But being a stay-at-home mother WHILE being a working mother is THE PITS. So when I got an e-mail from our DCP on Friday I gave a little cheer. She’s home! Back to “normal” next week!

3. Also watched a lot of our denomination’s General Assembly last week. (Which was described by someone I know as “religion meets C-SPAN.”) I agreed with some things they did and didn’t agree with others. About average I’d say.

4. Went to see Date Night yesterday. Wish someone had told me the first half hour was a documentary… actually it was a great evening at the drafthouse with R. I could see Tina Fey and Steve Carrell doing some more stuff together. They are a great team, very well matched.

5. I self-scheduled a two-day retreat to do some church planning and vision stuff for the next year. That’ll be Wednesday and Thursday.

6. I feel a long way from the writing retreat.

7. I’m on twitter now, with some ambivalence.