Book Review: The Astor Orphan

Photo from Salon review

Two stars of five

The Astor Orphan is a memoir written in the same genre as The Glass Castle and Welfare Brat, both of which were considerably better than this one.

Alexandra Aldrich is sympathetic, and although we are roughly the same age, I often found myself wanting to adopt her and give her the sort of nurturing that all children deserve. But as a memoir, The Astor Orphan is too thin for the breadth that she's attempting. The story connects Aldrich's 1980's childhood with her forebears, but few of the characters are fleshed out. Her mother is cold, "icy" as the jacket text describes her, but there must be more to her, since Aldrich claims to want to rescue her from the father that she (Alexandra) seems to mostly adore. The relationship with her grandmother is complex. Although she's at pains to show Grandma Claire as a resource and a figure of relative security in hr life, many of the incidents described that involve Grandma Claire are brutal. With every vignette I wanted to know more about the situation, to get the details of how it worked out, to understand the players more fully, and with every vignette, I was left hanging. While these stories may have been complete in the author's mind, I felt like she didn't communicate that completeness in the story.

This incompleteness totally culminated in Alexandra Aldrich's "escape" to boarding school. How good an escape was it? What did she do with her new liberty? Did she go home for Thanksgiving? What did she discover about herself, or come to understand about her father, by attending his alma mater? How many of the dire stories that he told her about his time there did she experience for herself? Did she ultimately "rescue" her mother and attain the sort of orderly life she had been craving? The reader never finds out, because the story closes abruptly, when she is deposited at the Brooks School for the first time.

Finally, the prose itself: spare; simple sentences; a little repetitious. I liked it in a way, since the spareness of it felt straightforward and refreshing, but it also felt like a mask. I appreciate that the subject was difficult for Aldrich, that perhaps in some ways she is still too close to the material to write it as openly as she may have intended. But if she was ready to write about her unconventional childhood, then I wish she could have written more fully and openly. It's unfortunate, perhaps, that The Glass Castle was so extraordinarily good and written in a generous and evaluative spirit, because every other "deprived childhood" memoir that comes after it almost necessarily suffers by comparison. If Alexandra Aldrich writes a follow-on to The Astor Orphan, I'll read it, because I sincerely want to know how one hangs on to the precious parts of a heritage and discards the corrosive elements of it to emerge as a whole person. But perhaps she isn't ready to write that story.

Getting My Feet Under Me

Part of our daily school commute, I'm so lucky!

In spite of the fact that I still can't find my John Lennon calendar, this move has been perhaps the smoothest that a cross-country move mid-school-year with three school-aged children could be. Our new community has been incredibly welcoming and the town itself is the best-kept secret in the country. Although we froze our tuckuses (my 5-year-old's favorite new word) off in February and March the spring has been absolutely beautiful. Our walks to school take us through the city's largest park and along a pond and creek full of ducks and geese. The creek is crossed by a series of architecturally interesting and diverse bridges, some of them quite elaborate and all of them well-maintained. Many of the houses are historic -- dating back to the 1850's and earlier -- and the entire area is set off by mature trees, daffodils, and tulips.

Tiny ducks have hatched!

That's the up side.

The down side is particularly sad given the loving care that has been tended to the appearance of the houses, park, and historic downtown where we spend most of our time. The park is PACKED every weekend, and for a large part of each day; runners, walkers, toddlers and their caregivers. But the sides of the stream are littered with plastic bags, drink bottles, and random trash. There's even a discarded Big Wheels tricycle tangled in one of the trees at the water's edge. Cigarette butts litter the gutters along the road where smokers toss them out their windows as they drive. One of my to-do list items is to buy each of the children gardening gloves so they can help take on yard-cleaning duty from all the trash that blows into our bushes from the street.



I feel like I'm living in one of those great fraternity row houses in Athens, Georgia that look beautiful, and ought to be beautiful, but have been abused by residents who don't know how to care for such a treasure.

The sight of all this trash, of the thousands of plastic bags leaving the grocery and hardware stores each day, of the styrofoam take-out containers we're handed at restaurants, has made me disheartened. Now that we're away from Marin County and I am seeing more clearly what consumption looks like in our country, and I have to admit, it has brought me down. The effort to do better is going to be a lot harder than I was accustomed to when I was part of the Marin County Kumbaya Patrol.

So the challenge is to build a set of routines that bring the new culture and our family's values into harmony. In the meantime, the setting certainly provides incentive...

Vaklempt

I'm not myself lately... A key element of my home office has not been found since the move.

My John Lennon calendar is missing.

Friends, I will try to return to my regular postings as soon as I'm able, but first I must find John. Until then, I can be found frantically tearing through the remaining boxes in my office.

Please keep John and me in your thoughts.

Book Review: The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women

In an effort to improve my fiction writing, I'm working on more short stories. And in an effort to improve my short stories, I picked up The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women. I learned a lot, not least of which it takes a lot of skill and attention to craft a short story that is vivid and meaningful at the same time. There are some gems in here, though I gave the collection overall only three stars out of five. At 400 pages, the editor could have chosen only the best ones and still had a substantial collection.

NOTE: A few spoilers follow. I've camouflaged them, so if you don't mind reading them, simply use your mouse to select the gap portions and it will be readable.

Overall, the collection was uneven. Generally it was arranged from the weakest stories to the strongest. The first few stories were so weak that I wondered if this was all that was expected of women in this genre, which was depressing.

"Field of the Dead" started strong and the action was gripping and fun. The punchline, however, was disappointing at best, and, frankly, a plot hole to my mind. How would the village audience have seen Thom the child mummer given what we discover of him at the end? But I could almost forgive it since the world Kim Lakin-Smith had created was so vivid and the action so urgent.

"Collect Call" was so trite it barely merited inclusion, and does not merit comment by me.

"Dead Flowers by a Roadside" again was trite, more touching but ultimately didn't take the reader anywhere interesting.

"The Shadow in the Corner," written by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915) was interesting because it was very vividly a product of the period when the author lived, and the characters were clear and intriguing, but this one also didn't really go anywhere, and especially not with Daniel and Mrs. Skegg, whose reactions to the events of the story would have brought meaning to the tale.

"The Madam of the Narrow Houses" was an interesting premise, which contrasted what we think we understand of people with what they actually are. I would have liked to have seen a little more consequence to the story.

"The Lost Ghost" was touching, an American story written in roughly the same period as the Braddon tale, a meditation on compassion that endures beyond ordinary bounds.

"The Ninth Witch" is a spare tale that lasts over a long lifetime. The premise was interesting: the foundation of a myth set in some post-apocalyptic time that the main character doesn't fully understand. This one too has a plot consequence that negates a claim made at the beginning of the story and isn't dealt with. By this time though I was getting a little fatigued by pointlessness of some of these stories so I may not be giving it the credit it deserves. 

"Sister, Shhh..." was depressing and sad, seemed to have been more toying with the idea of LDS fundamentalism than the characters themselves. And didn't go anywhere I wanted to be taken.

"The Fifth Bedroom" was a proper ghost story, with an innocent but embittered young woman, a very bitter and not at all innocent ghost, and a swindle. Maybe not the deepest read in the volume, but a proper ghost story, with atmosphere, beautiful pacing, and a heartbreaking ending that was worth the read.

"Scairt" was a parent's worst nightmare with a miraculous ending. 

"Seeing Nancy" was in the same vein as "Scairt," in some ways; but the protagonist is taken in and the terror of the tale is in many ways set to occur after the story closes. 

"The Third Person" was a cautionary tale about a woman who loans her flat to an unfaithful wife. It was tremendously vivid with an absolutely terrifying ending.

From here the stories started getting a bit stronger, more pointed, with characters who changed and sometimes even grew. If the first half of the volume was a bit of a slog, from here the stories were more interesting, more thought provoking, and harder to put down.

"Freeze Out" was a family tale in which all was not as it seemed.

"Return" was the tale of a highly dysfunctional family forced to confront their dysfunction in an unconventional way.

"Let Loose" by Mary Cholmondeley (1859-1925) was another proper ghost story in which the arrogance of a young architect sets an evil loose on the world. This one was reminiscent of the atmosphere in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

"Another One in From the Cold" revisits the bloodbath of the First World War and the ways in which contemporary people romanticize real sacrifice when they fail to understand how real history was to the people who lived it. The situation in which the protagonist is set to bring closure to a lost soldier is perhaps not totally unique, but is told in a way that makes the soldier's situation important, urgent, even; when the story comes to conclusion it is clear that the protagonist is set on a path she wouldn't have chosen on her own, but to which she is committed. This was perhaps one of my three favorite stories in the volume.

"My Moira" was a fun read, a contemporary story set up in a time and place that will feel familiar to many readers, but with just enough twist to make it fantastic. Another of my favorites from this volume.

"Forget Us Not" was one of my least favorite; in the vein of "Dead Flowers by a Roadside," the protagonist is unable to move forward from a devastating loss until she gets a ghostly visitation. Though both were competently written, the premise just felt stale.

"Front Row Rider" had a twist that gave me that little ah moment that George Saunders is necessary to a successful short story, but it did not make my top three; it was competently thought through and executed, it just kind of lacked bite.

"God Grant That She Lye Still," by Cynthia Asquith, (1887-1960) covered that charming 1920's or so period that was lacking in the book up to this point, and was very nicely paced. For theme it echoed "The Fifth Bedroom," though the protagonists in these two stories, as in "Forget Us Not" and "Dead Flowers by a Roadside," had different fates. 

"The Phantom Coach" by Amelia Edwards, 1831-1892, was fun to read but not terribly cohesive. It had a big "so what" in the middle that spoiled the story for me, although the main character's dawning terror and attempt to save himself were nicely drawn.

"The Old Nurse's Story" by Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) has everything in it that makes me enjoy Gaskell's novels. She is homely, she values family, she values respectability and moral uprightness. She is plain spoken and her heroines strive to do right in spite of all the many obstacles she throws in their paths. If all of literature were like a Gaskell novel then literature would not be nearly so fun, but to sprinkle a little in here and there, like including one of her stories in this volume, is a refreshing breeze that reminds you that not all the world is full of lonely, bitter, cynical people. One of my favorite parts of the story was when the Old Nurse told the children she was speaking to (the offspring of the little girl in the story) that though they were cute, none of them was even remotely as precious as their mother had been as a child. It made me smile, and also it laid the foundation for how devoted the nurse was during the events of the story.

The final three stories were all absolutely good, and the two contemporary authors represented here, Gail Z. Martin and Gaie Sebold, created such vivid and intriguing worlds that I'm putting their novels on my to-read list.

"Among the Shoals Forever" followed a pirate with magical abilities who is part of a secret organization to protect the world from dark magic objects. In the story he is hunting a powerful necromancer with the assistance of a ghost, a vampire and a voodoo high priestess. The story is set in Charleston (colonial Charleston? Certainly pre-Civil War) and beautifully contrasted the young man's character with the urgency of his mission. I'm hoping that some of Gail Z. Martin's novels follow Dante, Coltt, Evann, and Sorren.

"Afterward," by Edith Wharton, was a very fun read. Ned and Mary Boyle buy their dream home in rural England with money from a fortuitous business endeavor, the Blue Star Mine. One of their requirements for the house was that it be haunted, which the friend who helps them find the property promises it is -- "Oh, there is one of course, but you'll never know it." When Ned disappears mysteriously mid-way through the story, Mary searches frantically, until she realizes that he is the victim of the haunting they had mocked. Lovely point in the story is when Mary realizes that she had been enjoying the fruits of her husband's work without ever having a clear idea of the means by which he had attained their good fortune. This, to me, was the meat of the story and gave it its power.

"A Silver Music" by Gaie Sebold promises a much richer world than just a short story can properly contain, so I hope to find more of it in her novels. A cynical detective investigating a murder finds that what he had thought were two mutually exclusive worlds had come together in a gifted young man who sparked love in a most unexpected corner. While it might have been a conventional detective story in any other setting, Sebold gave this one a richness and poignancy that really elevated it. 

So there you have it... Three stars altogether, to balance the ones that weren't worth the time against the ones that are sending me deeper into their authors' canons. It should be noted that there is a whole series of Mammoth Book of... volumes with various themes. Happy reading!

Move Update

With thanks to
alalara.deviantart.com
for the "free to use or share" artwork

I was all about congratulating myself on the great job I'd done purging. We came in almost 5,000 pounds below the moving estimation of 20,000 pounds. The estimate was almost 3,000 pounds below our shipping weight when we moved from Georgia to Virginia -- twelve years ago. Pre-kids, too.

I practically dislocated my shoulder patting myself on the back when our packers announced we had only 120 boxes. We moved to California with over 400 boxes. Not quite six years ago. With two kids rather than three. After I purged about three rooms worth of belongings in preparation for that move.

Well, folks, I'm unpacking now. Including the boxes from the storage unit, which of course the packers didn't count, I think we still came in under 200 boxes. But I'm sitting in my office looking at THIRTEEN BOXES OF BOOKS (not to mention the ones in other parts of the house) and I'm thinking maybe I could have done a little better.

Now, I have experienced purge regret. In a burst of enthusiasm when I first encountered the Zero Waste Home I purged a ridiculous number of shoes. Later that same season I found myself wishing I could have half of them back. There is one particularly adorable pair of wedge-heeled loafers that I will never be able to replace that would have gone beautifully with some wide-legged jeans...

I digress.

It will be interesting to see how much I unbox that I could have left behind. Now that the kitchen is in functioning order I will start trying to take pictures, and once we find my husband's camera I'll even try to make them good pictures.

In the meantime, look around the space you're in and find fifteen things you can part with. Imagine yourself unboxing them after a move (preferably when you're looking for something vital, like the bath towels), and think what you'd feel like if you opened a box and found that item looking at you.

If it hurts to think of parting with it, then imagine yourself using it. While unpacking my kitchen boxes I found all my canning equipment and immediately got excited, picturing myself as once again the Mad-Scientist-Mom whose favorite holiday reading was make-it-don't-buy-it cookbooks. I envision teaching my children confidence and self-sufficiency while we labor over bubbling pots together. (This is dangerous, by the way; my daughter will now only eat salmon and broccoli prepared by moi.)

I'm unpacking more than just boxes. I'm unpacking the life we intend to build here, from the practical to the playful. When I'm knee-deep in packing paper, with many more boxes before I sleep, it helps to remember that bigger picture.

Book Review: Cleaning House

One afternoon I found myself with an hour to spare in a part of town that made it inconvenient to go home before I had to pick up a kid. There happened to be a bookstore right there. And so I found myself, for one glorious hour, browsing a brick-and-mortar bookstore for no other reason than that I could. One whole hour spent just wandering shelves, looking at titles, flipping through cookbooks and pondering new releases.

Which is how I found this:

We're preparing for a cross-country move with three kids, and I thought Kay Wills Wyma's Cleaning House: A Mom's 12-Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement would be a great resource for how to motivate the kids to give me the help I need to make this process go smoothly.

Wyma claims her Experiment was prompted by her 14-year-old son's off-hand request for a Porsche for his 16th birthday. She came up with a twelve-step program to teach the children the hows and whys of self-sufficiency. Each month was assigned a step (see below for a list).

Each month she announced, via a pseudo-democratic family meeting, what the project of the month was. She heard the groans, the protests, and the eyerolls, and she persevered. She gave each child his or her own container, put a dollar for each day of the month in it, and then set them to work. If they failed to do the required job they lost a dollar for that day. At the end of the month they kept whatever remained. As the year progressed, the chores that had been practiced the month before were retained, so that in the first month they were earning a dollar a day just for keeping their rooms neat, and by the end of the year they were keeping their rooms neat, doing their own laundry, helping to plan, prepare, and clean up after meals, and more, all for that same dollar. Halfway through she also instituted a jobs board that enabled kids to earn extra on additional projects.

It was generous of Wyma to give readers insight into her family. I always appreciate hearing how normal my kids are -- other people's kids give more or less the same kind of trouble in more or less the same proportions as mine.

It also was reassuring; my kids have been helping set the table, clear dishes, make beds, dust, sweep, empty the dishwasher, sort dirty laundry, fold and put away clean laundry, and help out with the grocery shopping since they were very small. Wyma's kids didn't know what produce was. So at least I knew I hadn't been slacking as much as I feared in the personal responsibility aspect of child-rearing.

But as interesting as I found Wyma's insights, the book was lacking as a parenting guide. It really is just an account of how things went for one family. Her kids never failed; the dollar and her word seemed to be sufficient motivation for them. If I promised my kids a dollar a day to clean their rooms and make their beds, I'm pretty sure they'd earn only maybe half the money (at best), because they are so unaccustomed to having a regular income. Not getting a dollar they wouldn't have gotten anyway makes little impact on them. Nobody in her family ever seemed to balk at whatever she was asking of them, or if they did she didn't talk at all about how she coped with the resistance. They complained and maybe rolled their eyes, and then they did it.

They also never seemed to fail even when they made the attempt. Failure happens, even when the kids are moved by a generous spirit, as when my six-year-old broke a glass while emptying the dishwasher. He was so excited to help and show how capable he was that he was moving fast. The look on his face when he dropped it was heartbreaking. Of course he was barefoot, so my reaction was "DON'T MOVE!" because I was afraid he would step on the glass and cut his feet. But he heard yelling and thought he was in trouble. When we got everything cleaned up he said "I guess I should just go back to putting away the silverware." Of course I reassured him and he got over it; the point is that her kids rarely failed at what they attempted, except from resistance or laziness (as when they were cleaning the bathroom), nor does she address how to draw the line between a job done poorly but with good intentions and a job just flat out done poorly.

Another difficulty I had with this book is that her conservative political bent sometimes manifests as though her kids are liberals (she actually uses the word "socialists") who expect handouts, while she, the responsible conservative, wants them to be responsible for themselves. As a liberal, I really object to her position, but since it doesn't cover the majority of her book, just kind of flavors it, it is not a reason to avoid it altogether. I do want to point out,  however, that liberals want their children to be as empowered and capable as conservatives do, and that if she does continue writing like this that I would find her work more compelling if she left the liberal-conservative thing out of it. And also, used the word "socialists" correctly.

I'm not sure if Wyma meant Cleaning House to be a parenting book or a memoir; she did almost no research to support her assertions. She mentioned Michael Gurian's Wonder of Boys a few times, but it sounded like she had heard it recounted to her, rather than read it herself. There were a few other snippets of professional advice scattered throughout, but mostly it was the anecdotal sort from other families, so helpful, but not necessarily authoritative. Surely over the course of a year she could have read his book herself (especially since he blurbed hers for her)? And perhaps one or two others on similar topics?

Overall, I'd give Cleaning House 3 1/2 stars out of 5. I take a full star off for not being specific enough about resistance and failure, and half a star for putting a conservative slant on a topic that does not need to be politicized. If you'd like a jumping off place for helping teach your children to be useful, confident adults, you could do worse than this book. I just wish that Wyma had done rather better.

*Kay Wills Wyma's Twelve Steps: 

1. Making beds and keeping clutter off the floor
2. Planning and cooking a meal, cleaning up kitchen afterwards
3. Working outdoors
4. Making income
5. Cleaning the bathrooms
6. Laundry
7. Small maintenance/repair jobs around the home
8. Hospitality
9. Working as a Team
10. Running errands
11. Service to others
12. Good manners

Changes in the Air

I started Day 7 of my Advent Gratitude intending to write about how grateful I am not to be a minimalist. Because I am blessed with an abundance of office and craft supplies, I could contribute to our school book fair's organization and marketing without having to sap the money we raised for the library. I had a fantastic time working at the book fair, was inspired to read lots more books, and felt really confident in making recommendations to our customers.

In the middle of all those warm feelings, we learned that the job my husband had been pursuing was actually offered to him. We're moving to Maryland!

I'm excited for this new transition. We'll be driving distance to family again, so no more relying on airlines and all their restrictions to maintain our most important relationships (and foster our kids' sense of family). We have friends a short distance away that I'm looking forward to reconnecting with, and the town we're moving to is diverse, but with a long history, has amazing restaurants and tons of character, and should be really fun to get to know.

We made a quick trip east to find a house. We are buying again, although we'd left that decision till we saw what was available. The new house fits the lifestyle we've been trying to build here for the last few years beautifully. It's older, and needs my loving care (unlike the Big House or the rental). It has a giant yard, with plenty of space for the kids to play like crazy and for me to start another kitchen garden (or, down the road, maybe even chickens!).

It is bigger than the rental, nearly as big as the Big House, but we didn't choose it for sheer size. The layout of the rooms is more in line with our needs. There is space for my husband and I each to have our own offices again. This was of very great concern to us as we searched for a new home; we have such different styles in how we use our workspaces that it's not comfortable to either of us to be together. Rather than having three living rooms, as we had in the Big House, we have one living room, one dining room, and a kitchen with enough room for the kids to have breakfast while I make lunches, but not so much space that we need two complete dining sets. Crucially, the house has a basement. This is not the sort of amazing man-cave basement with the wet bar and the giant movie projector, but a simple, large, dry space with walk-in storage for Christmas supplies, etc., and open space for the kids to play.

Best of all, the house is in town, walking distance to a huge selection of local shops and restaurants, as well as the kids' schools and my husband's new office. We won't have to be car-dependent (as much, at least, as we have been). The kids will be able to hang out with their friends without tons of scheduled playdates, and I'm looking forward to their developing the independence, confidence, and spontaneity that comes with personal mobility.

I am not a minimalist. I don't want to be a minimalist. I am grateful to have had the experience of our little rental house to help me be able to shape our priorities, and I am grateful for the liberty that this upcoming transition will bring me. As I navigate this transition I hope to continue to share the lessons I've learned here with all of you. And I hope you'll follow me to Maryland as I continue to learn to make our life the richest, fullest, kindest life we can lead.

Advent Gratitude, Day 6: Books Again, and Boys

My first grader is learning to read. It's the coolest thing in the world, and I love being a part of it.

We recently arranged an elaborate hand off on a Kindle so I could get an upgrade (thank you, family!!) This sparked Duncan to ask when he could have a Kindle of his own, like his big sister. Answer: When he could read chapter books as well as Charlotte. This seems to have lit a fire under him, because he has been very patiently and laboriously working through a Junie B. Jones story. Have you read Junie B.? She uses lots of big words, like actually, situation, and frustration. As in: "he got frustration in him."

The cool thing here is that the method of instruction used at our school encourages kids to use the pictures to deduce words that are giving them trouble. Not so many pictures in Junie B., so D is having to remember phonetic rules and rely on reading a sentence to the end to deduce a hard word. Which he is doing, with a degree of patience that my daughter never, ever exhibited. It is fun to watch and a relaxing way to spend an afternoon snuggling my growing guy.

Quentin distinguished himself at school today by making a BB gun out of paper and craft tape. Complete with a little paper BB. He couldn't even get out the door before he was telling me about it. I checked with the preschool teacher to make sure he hadn't violated some kind of school rule (as he certainly would have been doing at the elementary school), and then spent a few minutes apologizing for my violent boy. The other moms laughed. Another boy picked up a six-foot-long fallen branch and began threatening our sons with it -- so I felt much better. Then I put Quentin in the car and listened to a dissertation about the nature of and uses for BBs all the way home. It's nice that he falls in the fat part of the bell curve.

I'm looking for a reasonable follow-up to Warm Bodies. I'm contemplating another zombie book (but I'm also a little bit afraid to), or maybe Gone Girl or the Rob Lowe biography I'm supposed to be reading for book club (which, by the way, ladies, I am so grateful for all of you as well!!). Any thoughts???

What are you grateful for?

Advent Gratitude, Days 4 & 5: Books and Girls.

I didn't write a post yesterday because I was totally absorbed by a book that I found because of my Day 3 gratitude.

Can I just say... WOW.

Warm Bodies is a debut novel by Isaac Marion which, fortunate man, was not only optioned for a movie but actually previewed at the Breaking Dawn Part 2 screening I saw on Sunday. The preview looked fun (see the trailer here), but the book is a lot more. (Isaac Marion has a blog, rather more sporadic than this one, for anyone who wants to connect with him.)

The idea behind Warm Bodies is kind of Zombie Romeo meets Post-Apocalyptic Juliet, but the book reaches deeper than that, into the path to apocalypse, the difference between a zombie and a human, the nature of hope, and the elements of a high-quality life. Don't read this book because you want to read a zombie novel -- although Marion offers a witty, funny, compassionate first-person perspective on zombie existence. Read it because it's a damn good read.

I also finally finished Lytton Strachey by Michael Holroyd. Lytton Strachey was a contemporary and close friend of Virginia Woolf's, a fellow writer and, in fact, was even momentarily engaged to her when she was still Virginia Stephen. He was also a homosexual who was 13 when Oscar Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labor for a homosexual love affair. He is famous for his dramatic and subversive biographies of the lions of the Victorian age, and for his rather Byzantine personal life. This 700 page tome took me a looooong time to finish, so I'm grateful for Holroyd's insight into Strachey's life and character, and also that I can recommend a movie, Carrington, to anyone who is interested in the gossipy arty bits and willing to pass on all the thoughtful analysis.

So my gratitude for today is my girl, and her girlfriends. Those zany, goofy, silly girls spent a long afternoon at my house today, and they wrestled in the backyard, did homework together, dressed up and put on crazy makeup, pretended to be zombies in the front yard, baked cookies and ate them, played "Call Me Maybe" at top volume (but only once, thank goodness), and generally behaved like girls having a wonderful time. They never beat up on any of the little brothers who couldn't resist their crazy energy. When they left, my girl hugged me and thanked me for their fun day, cleaned up nicely, ate her dinner, and passed out in bed 45 minutes earlier than usual.

I like making my kids happy. Sometimes they surprise me by making it easy to please them. I am grateful.

Advent Gratitude, Day 2: Yes.

View of the houseboats
on the Bay Trail

It was a day of YES.

I heard Quentin squirming on the floor of my bedroom where he was camped for some reason, but instead of getting up with him as usual I said YES to more sleep and had the pleasure of waking up ninety minutes later to my husband delivering a fresh cup of coffee to my bedside table.

I'd made plans to see Breaking Dawn Part Two with a friend, and when she called to adjust them a bit, I was able to say YES to an early lunch and matinee. She chose the lunch location and so I got to enjoy a really delicious tomato soup and brussels sprout salad at a new restaurant that I wouldn't have tried otherwise. YUM and healthy too!

When I got home from my date my daughter asked if we could take an outing on the Bay Trail. YES meant I raced my kids and held my husband's hand for a few minutes, and got a little exercise which made us all more cheerful.

I could have said NO to any of these things. I could have acted JUST from responsibility, kept my eyes on my to-do list, gotten the laundry done and the sheets changed. But I said YES. I am so grateful.

Advent Gratitude, Day 1: Bridge, Not Barriers

Photo Courtesy of Peter Nijenhuis
(Creative Commons Free to Use or Share)

Friday I took my visiting family members, my husband, and my kids for a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. I've walked the bridge many times, a few times with a kid in tow, but my husband never had, and neither had his mom.

It beat the daylights out of spending the day throwing elbows at Target or Best Buy (we saw the crowd control barriers when we took the kids shopping for their grandparents on Wednesday), it only cost us the little bit of money we spent getting greenscreen pictures of the kids taken for the Christmas cards, and I for one (perhaps the only one) really enjoyed the five mile walk the outing entailed.

So my first day of gratitude is multilayered: I'm grateful we had family visiting to share that great outing; I'm grateful that all the members of our family are healthy enough to undertake that big walk and still be happy (and happy with one another) when we got home again; I'm grateful for the afternoon nap that followed; and I'm really, really grateful to be satisfied enough with my lifestyle that I don't want to be chasing down crazy sales in an environment that absolutely kills the pleasure of the long holiday weekend.

What are you grateful for? Share in the comments -- and let's spread some of this contentment around and share it on your social media field of choice as well!!

Thankful

One of my friends is posting a gratitude a day on Facebook as a nod to "Thankful Month."

I wish I had thought of that.

So I'm thinking I'll adopt December as my gratitude month, as an antidotal lead-up to the consumer frenzy known as Christmas shopping. As my own little protest against the insanity of Black Friday, I'll start a post a day of thankfulness, every day from Black Friday through Christmas Day.

Are you in?

Share your gratitudes in the comments below, and please, share the joy with the rest of the world. Post on Facebook, or Twitter, or when you meet a friend for coffee. Let's not let consumer craziness rule our holidays any more.

REST & BE THANKFUL
(the remainder of the transcription explains who built the road and left the stone, dated 1814)
Argyll, Scotland

You Don't Have to be a Domestic Goddess to Make Homemade Broth

Homemade Broth

When you think of stock, which of these comes to mind? 

I used to buy stock as a staple. It has about a thousand uses, not least of which is making homemade, custom-seasoned soups in 30 minutes. As I've gotten more and more aware of how many insane things are in our food chain (thank you to every parent of a child with significant allergies that I've ever met, for starters), I got a lot more careful about reading labels. I expected to see something like "water, chicken bones, carrots, celery, onions, salt, pepper, and seasonings" when I read the ingredients list, but here's what I actually found:

...and that's for a premium brand stock! Sugar? Yeast? Organic chicken flavor? What IS organic chicken flavor?

The same brand discloses the ingredients list of their beef broth as follows:

• Beef Stock (Water, beef stock powder)
• Beef Extract
• Autolyzed Yeast Extract
• Sea Salt
• Garlic Powder

I don't know what "beef stock powder" or (especially) "beef extract" are, and I'm not sure I want to. According to Livestrong, autolyzed yeast extract is a kinda-sorta natural form of monosodium glutamate (MSG) and is used in the same way. Many other brands actually use MSG; Campbell's discloses the following list of ingredients on their beef broth:

• Beef Broth
• Yeast Extract
• Salt
• Hydrolyzed Yeast Protein
• Monosodium Glutamate
• Caramel Color
• Hydrolyzed Soy Protein
• Hydrolyzed Wheat Gluten
• Dextrose
• Flavoring (This one right here is a personal favorite. Why even bother???)

Just tackling one word that occurs in this list three times, hydrolysis, according to Livestrong,

Hydrolysis is a method of extraction that boils the soy protein in a vat of sulfuric acid. Manufacturers mix the resulting acidic substance with caustic soda to neutralize the acid content. While hydrolyzed soy protein contains most of the nutrients and health benefits of soy, when you consume this type of soy you also consume the unhealthy chemical byproducts of the manufacturing process. According to "Soy Protein and Formulated Meat Products," the potential harm of consuming hydrolyzed soy protein comes directly from the hydrolyzation process.

Um. Ick.

(Note that I'm choosing Livestrong as a resource for this information because it's very readable and has external links that can refer readers to more scientific sources if they so desire.)

Caramel coloring is another one of those "ingredients" that has a wide range of uses and a varying range of toxicity, with certain forms of it listed among those products disclosed as potentially carcinogenic or reproductive toxicity. Regulating agencies recognize four classes of caramel coloring based on their manufacturing process, but since packaging only discloses "caramel coloring" without disclosing which class, the consumer has no means of knowing if s/he is consuming a relatively benign form or a much more toxic version. (See the Wikipedia link for more information.)

OK, so I can never buy packaged broths again. But I still love my speedy soups, and broth is still a foundational ingredient in a lot of home cooking. So. Here's the solution.

1. Get your self a nice-sized container that you don't mind dedicating to the freezer. For this purpose, I don't mind plastic since the fact that it will be living its life in the freezer means that the chance of chemical leeching into my foods is significantly reduced. I do not like freezer bags because they can't be reused, and the Zero Waste Home groupie in me objects to them. But as a size guide, the gallon-sized bags would be about the volume you're looking for in your container.
2. Every time you plan a meal around a meat item, try to make it a bone-in version. In fact, even if it's going to be a boneless dish (like a nice chicken piccata, yum), buy the bone-in version. It's less expensive than the boneless purchase and you can put those bones to good use.
3. Whether you have the bones left over at the end of the meal or take them out as part of your prep, toss the bones in the nice big container in your freezer. I usually mix pork and chicken in one container (makes for a lovely, rich stock) and keep the beef bones separate. If you have roasted (or bought) a whole chicken, put the entire carcass in there, including any aromatics that might have been in the cavity. You can add the skin as well, if you'd like, but keep in mind that it's going to add a lot of fat to the broth that will need to be skimmed off. Additionally, I usually keep salt out of my stocks so I can manage the taste of my finished soups; skins, especially of bought rotisserie chickens, are generally highly seasoned, so you'll want to take that into account as well.
4. Hopefully, every week the night before trash day you do a fridge clean-out. During that fridge clean out, you will inevitably come across a couple of carrots or celery stalks that are floppy and not that appealing, but not really so bad off that they need to be tossed. Great! Pop those in the bowl with your bones. Every time you stem mushrooms, pop those in the bowl. Garlic, ginger, and leftover herbs all play beautifully in homemade broths. 
5. When your bowl is full, put the entire contents in your slow cooker, add a few peppercorns, any other aromatics you might not have put into your freezer container, and top off the crock with plain cold tap water. If your container had only bones and you're making the stock for a specific recipe, it can be helpful to check that recipe for specific aromatics -- carrots, celery, leeks, onions, garlic, ginger, etc. -- that might help to make your finished product really stellar.
6. Turn the crockpot on Low and let it cook 12-24 hours, or on High 6-12 hours. 

I have a six-quart crock pot, so when I cook like this I end up with a little more than four quarts of stock. I keep mine in mason jars. I usually use up my stock quick enough that it's not necessary to freeze, but if you make yours to freeze, be cautious about your containers. I learned the hard way that mason jars sometimes crack in the freezer (I think I have better success freezing in mason jars when they've chilled overnight in the refrigerator first). It is possible to buy BPA-free freezer containers, or you can just use your delicious ingredient in the same week that you make it.

Note that a beautifully made stock like this one will yield a high gelatin content (from the bones) so when it is cold it really will look like a semi-congealed meat Jello, which sounds awful. But once you heat it in your soup, it will be flavorful, rich, and satisfying. 

Bon Appetit!!

You Don't Have To Be a Domestic Goddess To Make...

Chocolate Syrup!

Here's the recipe:

1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup cocoa powder (some recipes specify dutch-process)
pinch of salt
1 tsp of vanilla extract

1.  Water and sugar in a saucepan. Heat gently to a low boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.
2.  Whisk cocoa powder into the syrup and let simmer gently for a few minutes to thicken.
3.  Stir in salt & vanilla.

Enjoy!

Finished syrup will thicken as it cools.  I found out the hard way that chocolate syrup should be refrigerated even though the components don't need to be. Don't make my mistake!

The whole recipe takes about six minutes to prepare. In fact, I am usually making the syrup while I make the kids' breakfasts on school mornings because I have just discovered that we're out as I was trying to prepare Quentin's chocolate milk. Syrup stirs into warm milk more efficiently than cocoa powder. Because my kids don't actually like milk very much, chocolate milk was the alternative to no milk at all; but that doesn't mean I have to feed them high-fructose corn syrup out of a bottle that leaches BPA.

And speaking of BPA, part of what I like about this recipe is that it makes it possible for me to avoid another plastic bottle. I can buy the salt, sugar, and cocoa powder from the bulk section of our grocery store, so I avoid almost any kind of waste at all (my vanilla comes in a glass bottle). Plus, I can customize the syrup.

Options:

• Although this syrup is quite rich and chocolaty, you can up the luxury factor by reducing the sugar (slightly) and increasing the cocoa powder (slightly) to make it even richer.
• Add-ins like a touch of cayenne pepper, cinnamon, or alternate flavors like orange or almond extracts bring a grown-up touch to the syrup. 
• Instead of using orange extract, simmer a few strips of orange zest in the simple syrup, and then fish them out before adding the cocoa powder. (you can do the same with a cinnamon stick instead)
• This chocolate syrup is also yummy in coffee, over ice cream, mixed in your favorite chocolate martini recipe, in sparkling water for an Italian soda (would be divine that with orange flavoring), or as a glaze over cakes and muffins.

Bonus: If you are going to make a chocolate martini or an Italian soda, you can make a rimming powder by running a quarter cup of sugar through a tiny blender or food processor and then mixing with a tablespoon or two of cocoa powder and/or ground cinnamon (to taste).

Why not to buy chocolate syrup:

1. The plastic bottle is unnecessary waste. Even if you go to the trouble of cleaning out the bottle so it will be recycled (dirty bottles won't be), the squirt top will not be recycled. Not to mention that you have bought and paid for a bottle that could be leaching BPA into your syrup. Yum!

2.  Convenience. The ingredients have a long shelf life without getting icky. I always have cocoa powder on hand, I always have sugar, and I always have salt and vanilla. Ergo, I always have chocolate syrup available. If I always bought my chocolate syrup, I would risk not having any available for that third child who has been patiently waiting for the hot cocoa, only to discover that he's going to be getting gypped because I ran out halfway through making the second kid's cocoa.

3.  Convenience II. Chocolate syrup dissolves into milk way better than cocoa powder and sugar, meaning no disgusting bitter lumps surprising picky kids.

4.  Quality. I love chocolate. I do not love sugar. Call me crazy, but I don't actually have much of a sweet tooth. Making my own means my chocolate syrup actually tastes like chocolate.

5.  Ingredients. See what you're paying for when you buy commercial chocolate syrup:

HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP; CORN SYRUP; WATER; COCOA; SUGAR; CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: POTASSIUM SORBATE (PRESERVATIVE); SALT; MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES; XANTHAN GUM; POLYSORBATE 60; VANILLIN, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR

No Soup for You!

One of my husband's favorite childhood recipes is turketti. It was originally a use for leftover Thanksgiving turkey, and consisted of spaghetti, chopped turkey, shredded cheddar cheese, and canned cream of mushroom soup, all mixed together and baked until it is gooey, golden, brown, and delicious.

These days we serve chicketti year round -- no need to wait for turkey to show up at Thanksgiving when the kids enjoy grilled chicken almost every weekend. But it's not the meal my husband remembers. To his horror, I don't buy canned cream of mushroom soup anymore. Between the BPA of the plastic can liners, the fact that soup cans are not recyclable in our area because they are a fused material (aluminum and plastic), and the unnecessarily extensive ingredient list*, I have determined that cream of mushroom soup is a product that doesn't deserve shelf space in my pantry any longer.

The product I offer these days is actually more upscale, just as tasty, just as delicious, and only two steps more complicated than my guy's childhood favorite.

My New Chicketti Recipe:

8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
2-3 tbls butter
2 tbls flour (optional)
2 tbls sherry (optional, but delicious)
1 tsp. thyme (optional, but delicious)
1 c. milk (to make this extra creamy and delicious, substitute up to half the milk with heavy cream)
2 c. shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 400F.

1/2 box pasta, cooked (I make the whole box and reserve some plain pasta for my sauce-phobic middle child)
However much pre-cooked chicken you might have on hand, chopped into bite-sized pieces

Saute the mushrooms in the butter with a little salt and pepper. When they are tender, sprinkle lightly with the flour and stir well until there are no lumps. (Proper chefs remove the mushrooms to make the bechamel, but I'm a home cook). Add the milk and sherry, if you're using it, and heat gently until the sauce has thickened. If you omit the flour from this step the sauce will be much thinner. I have seen roux recipes that call for whole wheat flour, but it's such a small amount I just go with all-purpose.

As you would do when preparing lasagna, put just enough sauce in the bottom of an 8x8 glass pan to lightly cover the bottom. Add 1/3 of the pasta, then toss 1/3 each of the chicken & cheddar cheese on top of the pasta. Repeat pasta, chicken and cheese layers for remaining ingredients, EXCEPT for the final cheese layer. Before laying down that last bit of cheese, pour the remaining mushroom sauce evenly over the entire dish, THEN lay the cheese down. Bake 20 minutes, and let cool 10 minutes or so, or until the dish is no longer nuclear hot.

NOTE That this is an excellent make ahead dish and freezes well. If you are only going to make ahead by a day or two, cover with foil rather than plastic wrap before refrigerating. Baking time is if you bake immediately after prepping the casserole.

If you prep and then freeze, defrost as completely as possible to protect the glass dish, and bake covered 40 minutes, then uncovered 15-20 minutes. If you oil the inside of the foil before baking, the cheese won't stick during the covered portion of the baking.

Variations include adding chopped broccoli or spinach, changing up the type of cheese (I would pay my family to let me make it with Swiss cheese, but so far I don't have any takers...), chopped bacon or high-quality ham, sun-dried tomatoes... basically, if it tastes good to you, odds are it will taste good in this casserole. If you're low on milk, I have made this dish with good homemade stock instead of milk, though it will be less creamy (or you can blend stock with half & half or heavy cream).

What other variations can you think of?

If this sounds like delicious comfort food in the middle of a busy week, please share with others!

*Ingredients in Campbells Cream of Mushroom Soup:
CREAM OF MUSHROOM SOUP (Homogenized Milk, Water, Sliced Mushrooms, Roux W/ Oil (All Purpose Flour (Bleached Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Canola Oil), Water, Corn Starch (Derived From Waxy Maize), Roasted Mirapoix (Roasted Vegetables (Carrots, Onions, Celery, Garlic), Water, Dextrose, Salt, Onion Powder, Canola Oil, Maltodextrin, Sugar, Natural Flavors, Xanthan Gum, Disodium Inosinate/Disodium Guanylate, Potassium Sorbate, Soy Lecithin, Caramel Color, Ascorbic Acid, Smoke Flavor. ), Diced Onions, Canola Oil, Kosher Salt (Salt, Yellow Prussiate Of Soda.), Roasted Garlic Flavoring (Roasted Garlic, Water, Vegetables (Onions, Carrots, And Celery), Dextrose, Salt, Garlic Powder, Canola Oil, Onion Powder, Xanthan Gum, Disodium Inosinate, Disodium Guanylate, Potassium Sorbate, Natural Flavoring, Corn Syrup, and Caramel Color. ), Vegetable Base (Sea Salt, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Dehydrated Vegetables (Parsnip, Carrots, Pumpkin), Dehydrated Parsley, Olive Oil, Spices (Pepper, Thyme, Coriander, Mace).), Ground White Pepper)

What's for Dinner?

The always hungry SoRMuiJAi

Do you hate it too? That question... the one that pops up every single day right at the witching hour.

What's for dinner?

It's almost always demanded by a kid who has just been nagging me for snacks and turned her or his nose up at whatever healthy options were offered. Most likely whatever I answer (so long as it isn't pizza or boxed mac and cheese) is going to be met with a whine and followed by "Can't we go out to eat?"

No. We are not going out to eat.

or

But you like chicken cordon bleu.

Oh, you don't make chicken cordon bleu? Neither do I. Although if I did it would probably be a family favorite.

Anyway... I was asked that question one time too many when my third child was an infant, because I totally threw in the towel and subscribed to a menu-planning service that came with a grocery list. You could select what types of meal preferences you had (vegetarian, kosher, etc.) and the menu list would arrive in my email inbox, weekly, complete with grocery list. All I had to do was print the whole thing out, check the grocery list against my pantry and refrigerator, and follow the directions.

It was perfect for a very intense year when I didn't care a whole lot what went into my mouth. The menu I selected was a "healthy" option created by a registered dietician, and basic enough that I could adjust it for the 5 year old and the 2 year old without having to make anything extra. For times when I had guests coming, or knew I'd have a little help, I could also purchase the directions for make-ahead freezer meals that could be pulled out at and prepared at short notice.

After about a year, though, I noticed that it was pretty repetitive. I get bored easily and by the time Quentin was two I was feeling more capable of taking back the menu-making responsibilities. I really enjoy cooking and I love to eat. I'm willing to try unfamiliar flavors and recipes and I enjoy cooking blogs, so I didn't need as basic of menu planning as what I had been using during the "barely keeping my head above water" period. At the same time my husband's travel started picking up, so six nights a week of planned dinners was a little more than my family could use. So I liberated myself.

I do my grocery shopping on Mondays. Sunday nights we all contribute our requests for the weekly menu based on the schedule for the week. Friday is always pizza & movie night, which simplifies things a lot. My four year old always asks for shrimp, which I honor once a month. I do not plan for weekends, which evolve based on opportunity. I have developed a hard line about dinner. I am not a short order cook and what is on the menu is what is offered. There is not a whole lot of compromise going on, but I'm willing to take some pasta out before adding sauce, to serve vegetables raw, or to add dressings or dips on the side, if they require little prep. Surprisingly, my kids are becoming more adventurous in their tastes, which I attribute to their having a say in the dinner plan. We talk a lot about flavors and preferences, and I am pleased to say that Quentin, who had formerly declared vegetables his "emmamy," ate three servings of roasted broccoli for dinner earlier this week.

I'm going to take credit for that achievement.

Mechanics: 

• Friday is pizza night
• One vegetarian dinner per week (at least) 
• Try to aim for one meal of planned-overs during particularly busy weeks
• Sometimes I use cookbooks or my Evernote recipe system to help with planning
• Keep an eye on other people's menu mentions on Facebook (we usually have Taco Tuesday the week after my cousin announces it...)
• When all else fails, raid the freezer for my husband's spaghetti stash and cut up a head of lettuce

If you don't have it in you to make your own weekly meal plan, or if you'd like to see some samples of how others manage it, there are lots of menu-planning services to choose from. Some are free, others you have to pay for. Many of the paid services include a free week or two so you can find out if their ingredients and prep times are consistent with your own preferences.

I used Saving Dinner, which is associated with the FlyLady, for anyone who might be familiar with her. It is the only one I can speak to directly, so I won't recommend any others. However, if you Google "menu planning service" you'll find a list so huge that it might make you prefer to order take out. Alternatively, you can check out the blog 100 Days of Real Food. There is a page of menu plans, and also a very informative post, "Product Review: Meal Plan Services."

 Planning meals a week in advance has saved me money -- as much as 1/3 of my previous grocery bill -- and prevented food waste. It's made the witching hour a lot less painful. It's easier to stick to my grocery list knowing that I have a plan for eating what's on the list; extra purchases are likely to end up on my thighs. I'm going to even stick my neck out and say that it's helped my kids to be more adventurous eaters (they are nagging me for a "build your own salad night" this week) and best of all, it has freed my brain up for interesting problems like the plot of the novel I'm worrying over.

How do you manage "What's for dinner?" (Please feel free to share favorite outsourcing options!!)

The Zombie Apocalypse is Here

Last night I listened to the vice-presidential debate on NPR while I made dinner and wished I was drinking. It was entertaining -- high energy, full of zingers and what was supposed to sound like substance. At one point my husband commented that it sounded like a brawl.

Neither of us was motivated to actually watch the speakers.

This morning the aftermath was about "who won." I heard Joe Biden say malarkey and stuff, sounding like he had to try really hard to not drop an S-bomb on a vice-presidential debate. Now that would have been entertaining. I heard Paul Ryan giving us earnest evaluations of what could have been done and what should have been done, while imagining those startling blue eyes looking at the camera. The guy would make a very compelling Law & Order attorney. Biden referred to Benjamin Netanyahu as "BeBe" over and over again, emphasizing what close friends they are, and Ryan recited a really impressive assortment of statistics. And I had not the faintest idea if anything they said was relevant or reliable.

Dinner was late last night because I wanted to hear the debate (we'd skipped the one that Jon Stewart claims Obama didn't really show up for). My blog post today is late getting out because it started out as a rant, and then I tried to correct it into something useful and got caught up in hours of fact-checking. As it turns out, if we want to evaluate anything these guys tells us, anything at all, we have to run it through the fact-checker. And then there's the question of which fact-checker, because apparently they all have biases, too.

So, frankly, I gave up. I'm sorry, but you're going to end up with the rant.

This week, I forgot to show up for my youngest son's pre-K breakfast, because I had two other obligations that same day. This morning, my kids overslept (because they got dinner late because I was listening to the debate), so I forgot that it was my morning to help out with the school traffic duty. I wrote a to-do list that failed to mention that I need a babysitter for tomorrow evening and therefore the one I was able to hire will be working different hours than I had intended, with consequences that will be determined tomorrow. Now, I know I should be on top of things, but the message here is: my life is full. My government has its responsibilities and I have mine. I am doing the best I can to make my corner of the world a better place and to be an informed citizen, and if the people who want our votes were doing the best they could, that would not mean that I have to spend twice as much time reviewing fact-checking organizations about issues on which I have only the fuzziest understanding to determine if the guys on my ballot are equipped to do a job I know I can't.

Here are some terms we use to describe elected officials:

• Representative
• Delegate
• Civil Servant (ahem) 

Those functions aren't functioning.

Here are some issues that I really, truly care about:

• Shifting federal support of agribusiness to farming (if we must subsidize the national grocery bill) so that poor people who can't afford to vote with their wallets can still afford to eat safe, healthy, sustainable foods
• Spending some money on support of our infrastructure so that we're more than one 6.0 earthquake away from the end of American life as we know it (as any viewer of the Disaster Channel... I mean the History Channel... can tell you)
• Spending some money on healthcare -- in a RATIONAL way -- so that providers can make a reasonable living and pay off their student loans, and people of all income levels have access to healthcare. Like they do in industrialized countries. 
• Empowering people to explore sustainable living practices, including changes in energy policy, so that when that 6.0 earthquake does take out our quivering infrastructure it doesn't mean the end of life as we know it.
• Education is the future of our country. It should not be the first thing cut in a shortfall.
• Please can we not be at war anymore, can we stop pretending like being at war is irrelevant, and can we support the soldiers and their families who have been carrying the total burden of war for the rest of us for the last ten years? 

Here are the things that I don't want to see as front-burner election issues:

• Abortion. Yeah, I said it. I believe whole-heartedly in women's and children's health issues, and I don't think that those are being served by everybody getting all hot and bothered by one aspect of it. If we put our money where our mouths were back when "safe, legal, and rare" was the watchword, then it would be. And we wouldn't be getting beat over the head with a hot-button issue when our national quality of life is in free-fall (see above)
• Same-sex marriage. Yeah, I said that too. Certainly I have my views on same sex marriage, as does pretty much everybody else. And they're sort of irrelevant in many ways. If the history of marriage shows anything, it is that the condition of marriage is a progressive one, and we don't need the President getting tangled up in it.
• The precise unemployment rate that we should be at on any given date. If you can name me one non-economist voter who has the means to determine if we should be at a 6% or an 8% unemployment rate given the amount of the stimulus (which is its own can of worms, but this is a soapbox, not a cargo container), then... it won't matter because I can't tell if that person is pulling it out of their ass anyway. 

Hot-button issues are clubs that candidates and the media have used to beat us into mindless zombies who are willing to trash talk our fellow citizens, in sometimes extraordinarily brutal language, for favoring the other guy. They distract us from the fact that we are eating fake food, paid for in part by the federal government, which will make us fat and sick and send us off to the doctor in our polluting cars because there is no safe way to make even a short trip on foot or by bicycle, except for in very limited urban settings. We are a crowd of spectators, treating the future of our country like a pseudo-intellectual sporting event rather than the building project it truly is. And the sad thing is, I don't know how we will ever be able to grasp the difficulties of our own situation in such a way that we really can become the country we claim to be.

Who won the debate? That depends on which zombie you're rooting for.

Turned the Page... Again

Improving the lighting in my photographs
should be an additional checklist item.

Another month, another picture of John Lennon to preside over my writing space... where has the time gone?

In May, I turned the page on my calendar and used that action to organize my priorities for the month. Then I fell off that wagon and never returned to it in this forum (though I am a lifelong list-maker). So I'm going to re-collect myself and set some goals for October. Please hold me accountable!

Firstly, I'm going to prioritize my writing first rather than third, because it is the area in which I have been struggling most -- and where I am most likely to procrastinate. Seriously, for having written for as long as I can remember, I am absurdly intimidated by a blank page. Fifteen minutes ago, when I contemplated getting back to work on my current short story, I had butterflies in my stomach. Fight-or-flight feelings. A strong urge to find the nearest bag of chips.

However, I will be attending my first-ever writing conference, on self-publishing, at the end of this month, so I'd like to have something substantial to share with the other professionals I'll be meeting there. (This plan also makes me want to break out in hives, but in August I said that one of my goals for my kids is diligence in the presence of failure or uncertainty, and since I probably can best teach that by demonstrating it, I'm going to swallow those butterflies as best I can, ignore the call of the chips, and set pen to paper.) And once I push past that first fifteen minutes of panic I actually really enjoy writing.

Ergo, writing goals for this month:

• Write one blog post at Simply Richer Living per week (sorry for downgrading the expectation since May; it's very important to me to get the fiction well-established, and my time is somewhat limited this month)
• Calendar the blog posts in advance so I am more prepared to complete them
• Write a rough draft of "Rasputin Wakes Up" (you can follow my progress if you want to help keep me moving)
• Polish up the rough draft of Rasputin into something I feel good about sharing before October 18th
• Finish my commentary on a project a fellow writer entrusted to me an embarrassingly long time ago (sorry, Nicole!!)
• If I finish Rasputin before October 18th, then I have a choice of two other projects to tackle, so I should have one of those in progress for the remainder of the month.
• Post completed word counts on this blog so I have real-time accountability

The other area where I'm really struggling at the moment is household management. Only... it's not the management part that's giving me a hard time, so much, as the labor. I should make some goals for staying on top of the laundry and the cleaning. I really should. But I'm not going to. Because those plans seem to overtake my writing plans, and the work always seems to get done somehow, even if it is only on an emergency basis because Duncan is out of pants. So I think I'm going to bow to my inner sloth and liberate myself from making a home management checklist in favor of the things that are really important. Like writing. 

Or my children. Here again, though, we seem to have found a rhythm that works. I'm not worrying about playdates because my little one is seeing his friends every day at school now, and there really isn't time available for additional playdates. My six year old has found bliss in the after-school childcare program (free till four o'clock!!) where he can compete in a real Beyblade stadium against all comers every afternoon of the week. And the walkability of our neighborhood means that my oldest child can invite friends over for playdates whenever she wants without having to rely on me to do a whole lot of arranging anymore. No one is nagging me for anything except more electronics access. Time together is guaranteed by the various activities and responsibilities we have now that school is in session, and things feel generally pretty good. No checklist required.

My last significant endeavor is weight loss. That is just not happening, though I have gotten the afternoon binge habit under control. I have come to realize that I require a certain level of physical effort to feel good, and that it has to happen very regularly. For the most part I'm getting that level of activity, but the exercise is now a daily activity -- almost like taking a shower -- and I have to protect the intensity. So... I bought some new pants, I'm going to always keep an eye out for ways to make the workouts high quality and regular, and for the rest, just let the chips fall where they will.  I'm only human. 

Do you have goals for October? If you're looking for some jump-starts, here are a few suggestions:

• The October Buttoned-Up Challenge will get you ready for the (gulp!) holidays before it becomes a crisis
• FlyLady's Challenge of the Month is reducing paper clutter
• The Year of Less is taking on a Sermon On The Mount Challenge, a spiritual discipline intended to remind us that "Where your treasure lies, there your heart will be also," (some of you might recognize this as Dumbledore's epitaph in Harry Potter) in preparation for celebrating the holidays in a more meaningful way than the usual purchasing frenzy.

Junk Mail

The one thing I did well at the Big House was to reduce our receipt of junk mail to a tiny, tiny trickle. It was such a tiny trickle that we received no mail at all probably two or three days a week. Given the amount of paper that a family with three school-aged children can generate, this made a significant dent in the amount of garbage that required my attention on any given day.

Now we're in the new house and we are coping with the junk mail generated by the previous inhabitants. This is not a commentary on their habits or values. But wrestling with the volume of junk mail that other people are accustomed to was a bit of a shock. I'd taken the reduced inflow for granted.

I have said before that living a simple life requires diligence in your willingness to say NO. We have built an intrusive culture in the last 20-30 years. Not only do we let advertising into our homes through television, radio, and magazines (including the internet versions of those media), but we've got people literally calling our homes, knocking on our doors, mailing things to us, and even standing outside our favorite stores demanding things of us. Whether they're charming or pitiful or earnest or demanding, they're intrusive. I just want to go about my business. I want to choose my own businesses to patronize, my own charities to support, and my own causes to champion.

GET OUT OF MY FACE.

I'm learning the art of the firm NO. It has to be very, very firm; any sign of sympathy or wavering only invites more charm or puppy-eyes.

No Means No.

I've been busy with other things and automatically recycling the catalogs without thinking too much about them. Until this weekend. This weekend, whichever kid carried in the mail actually grunted from the weight. The main offender was a pair of Restoration Hardware catalogs, bundled together in a plastic sleeve, one of which was 690 pages. There were four other catalogs in the stack, and, oh yeah, my husband's paystub.

That's it. I'm done. Time to take action.

My previous success at stopping junk mail required a visit to only two websites.

DMAChoice.org is a generalist site. You create an account tied to an email. After activating the account, you individually choose each type of mail -- credit card offers, catalog offers, magazine offers, and other -- and choose to block either ALL new offers, or only offers from specific companies.

You can't actually block credit card offers directly from DMAChoice.org. When you select credit offers, you are referred to an outside site, OptOutPrescreen.com, where you are asked for a lot of detailed personal information, including address and social security number. This is terrifying, so I checked around. The best source I found for the reliability of the website was actually the Federal Trade Commission website: it issued an alert titled "Where to Go To Just Say No." Not only do I love the title, but it is the first hint I have seen in quite a long time that the government actually cares about the quality of life of ordinary Americans.

In the course of my research, I saw conflicting claims that opting out of prescreened credit offers can raise your credit by as much as 20-30 points. This is unconfirmed. Some say that it only helps your credit by keeping you from accepting new offers, others that it helps by keeping organizations from pinging your credit report without your knowledge (too many hits on your credit report can impact your score). The FTC alert only addresses the impact of unsolicited offers can have on your quality of life, and that is my motivation for blocking the offers. Simply opting out in itself does nothing to your credit score, so the effect, if it exists, would occur over time.

Finally, there is CatalogChoice.org.  I love Catalog Choice. It blocks individual catalogs. It is the source  for blocking the individual publications that pass through the DMAChoice net. These are companies that you, or the prior resident of your abode, have done business with, but which you no longer want to hear from. They offer a pretty detailed list of reasons you can give for refusing mail from an individual company, ranging from "I want to help the environment" to "I prefer to do business with this company online only" to "the person on this catalog doesn't live here anymore/is deceased." (!!) As with DMAChoice, you create an account tied to an email, and then you use the actual catalog to stop receipt. When I first started working with Catalog Choice in 2007 a lot of the companies required me to follow up personally, either through a phone call, a visit to their website, or an email directly from my email address. Catalog Choice was, and remains, incredibly helpful in working through those obstacles, but it is a tribute to the organization's effectiveness that when I added the nine catalogs I was blocking from our address today, three of them had standard acknowledgement messages pop up on the Catalog Choice website thanking the user for letting them know our preferences. There will be no wait for my preferences to take effect with those companies.

Who says one person can't make a difference?

My other favorite thing about Catalog Choice is the statistics they display on their website. I don't know if they're accurate, but they give me warm fuzzies. Over the last five years I have requested that 46 catalogs be blocked; probably a third of those are marked as "Waiting Confirmation" (from the company), but I no longer receive the item. So I don't know if the unconfirmed items are included in my personal environmental savings. As of today, this is the impact on the environment from catalogs blocked through Catalog Choice:


FULLY GROWN TREES: 783,532
YOU SAVED 2

POUNDS OF GREENHOUSE GAS: 326,333,345
YOU SAVED 671

POUNDS OF SOLID WASTE: 115,680,782
YOU SAVED 238

GALLONS OF WATER: 785,922,380
YOU SAVED 1,615

(Environmental impacts calculated using the EPN Paper Calculator)

I say again: Who says one person can't make a difference?

Happy Blocking!

If you found this information useful, please Like on Facebook or reTweet -- help spread the word so we can continue improving our personal quality of life and impact on the world around us!