FeedingOurLives.com

Baby to Toddler to Preschooler to Girl.

2013-05-24T00:56:00.001-04:00

It was a big day for us seven years ago!

I remember our drive to the hospital in eager anticipation of our little baby's arrival like it was yesterday. We didn't know if she was going to be a he or she, but, secretly, we were both hoping for a little girl! Five hours after we arrived at the hospital, after arguing with a nurse, calling in our good friend to act as our doula, having a little scare about my water, and blissfully receiving drugs, our little girl was born!

I remember holding my breath until hearing her scream. Oh, how we love to hear a baby scream at the beginning....and our little girl has never stopped screaming! Thankfully, these days it's usually screaming in playful joy with friends!

We called family. We called friends. We hugged. We snuggled. We saw visitors. It was wonderful!!!! Ya know, minus the whole broken tail bone, little blood issue, and other stuff.

This week we celebrated seven years since that memorable day. That day in which our lives changed forever. We celebrated at three parties this year, which might have been a little overwhelming for my husband and me, but she adored all the parties, presents, and attention!

She is a child who has a fabulous imagination, contagious laugh, strong opinion, curious mind, and playful spirit! She's a child who challenges us, stretches us, and encourages us to be better parents and better people. She's a child who loves strongly and deeply.

We are grateful God chose us to be her parents, and we look forward to another adventurous year together!

Fun Amongst Grief

2013-05-09T16:35:00.000-04:00

It's been a sad few months here at our house with too much death in the family. As the saying goes, though, weddings and funerals are great family reunions! I got to spend lots of fabulous time with my niece and nephew out of all the grief! I'm so glad I snapped this picture at the park!

A Dirty Start to May

2013-05-02T20:29:00.001-04:00

After a few days of dreary weather, we finally had sun today! Woo-Hoo!!! We had a friend visiting us today, and so we ventured outside to soak up all the glorious sun!!

And....since it was so beautiful, we ended up in the creek....3 times at morning, afternoon, and evening!!!

For our last creek adventure after dinner, we recruited more friends! This is what they looked like after hiking through the creek, catching tadpoles, surviving a collapsing bridge, and sinking in clay puddles! Needless to say, it was a glorious way to start our spring.

(Note: I know spring technically started a little while ago, but we're just now getting around to celebrating it!)

Being a Tourist in Your Own Town

2013-04-11T09:27:00.001-04:00

This morning we got up at 5:45am to leave the house by 6:15am to drive into DC to see the Cherry Blossoms around the Tidal Basin.

We have lots of Cherry Blossoms around our house, but there's something very special to see them in DC with all of the monuments, memorials, and water surrounding them! We are very lucky to live in such a beautiful city, and this morning we got up super-early to take advantage of living here! This morning we behaved like tourists!

When were you last a tourist in your town?

Organic Cannellini/White Bean Soup

2013-04-08T03:30:00.000-04:00

I was watching Mad Hungry on Hulu one evening when I saw her make this cannellini bean soup that looked so yummy! Since it was still winter and very cold here, I knew I had to give the recipe a try!

This is my version of her recipe (which is really Martha Stewart's recipe since Lucinda works for Martha....). You'll see that the reviews of this recipe aren't great, but I decided to try the recipe anyway. The verdict is that it's a light tasty soup. If you are a soup lover who likes heavier soups with meat undertones, then this may not be the soup for you, but if you like light soups, then you'll like this.

Make this recipe the day before, freeze it in portions for family dinners for quick meals, or serve it at big gatherings. It's a very versatile soup!

Organic Cannellini/White Bean Soup:
Ingredients:
2.5 cups dry organic cannellini beans (I used a 1 pound bag of beans)
water
3 TBS extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
2 organic onions, diced (about 2 cups)
3 organic garlic cloves, minced
7 organic carrots, peeled and sliced (about 2 cups)
1 can diced organic tomatoes, lightly drained (I prefer Muir Glen over Whole Foods 365 brand b/c there are more tomatoes and less juice)
1/4 cup fresh organic basil leaves, chopped
1/4 cup fresh organic basil leaves, chopped (you'll use these 2x so I have them separate on the list)
1/4 cup fresh organic parsley, chopped
1/4 cup fresh organic parsley, chopped (you'll use these 2x so I have them separate on the list)
1 TBS coarse salt
10 cups cold water
fresh parmesan
fresh ground pepper

Directions:
1. Soak your beans overnight (cover rinsed beans in cold water and let sit overnight).
2. Heat olive oil in a large pot and add onions and garlic.
3. When you smell the garlic, add in your carrots and cook for 5 minutes.
4. Add in the tomatoes, basil, and parsley and cook for about 3 minutes.
5. Add your soaked beans and the 10 cups of cold water. Stir.
6. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer, partially covered. NOTE: you need to keep this at a pretty strong simmer if you don't want your soup to cook for four hours (lesson learned)
7. Stir occasionally and cooked until the beans are tender and creamy, probably for about 2.5 hours.
8. The soup should become thick as the beans break down. You can add more water if you need to to give the soup more time to cook if it hasn't turned creamy.
9. Add salt to your taste.
10. Add the second round of fresh herbs.
11. To serve, drizzle with olive oil, cover with fresh ground pepper, and fresh parmesan cheese!

Update on Predictable Meal Planning Technique

2013-04-06T16:47:00.000-04:00

For the past three months, we have been using a predictable meal plan technique to feed our family. It has been WONDERFUL!!!! Absolutely WONDERFUL!!

It makes life so much easier to know that every Sunday is pizza night and every Friday is Mexican food night! Meal planning is sooooooo much less stressful, and my daughter even eats with less complaints than previously. She knows every Tuesday she's going to need to eat soup, and she just accepts it because Tuesday is soup day!

I highly recommend this approach if you're getting burnt out with meal planning because it will re-energize you!

Homemade Instant Organic Oatmeal Recipe

2013-04-04T16:22:00.000-04:00

I'm always on the hunt for new recipes, especially for breakfast! We've been eating a LOT of breakfast cookies, which we all love to eat for breakfast, but sometimes I would like to save those for a snack. That leaves me wondering what quick thing I can serve for breakfast....

I had the notion that I could find a quick, yummy way to have fresh oatmeal in the mornings for breakfast, but in the past, I've only cooked it stove-top each morning. I started looking around the web and didn't find an exact recipe I loved so I made one myself!

(dry mix in the storage bowl)

This is a very forgiving recipe....basically, you can make it however you like it!

Renee's Instant Organic Oatmeal Recipe:
Ingredients:
- 3 cups organic rolled oats
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1/2 cup organic dark brown sugar
- 4 ounces (about 1/2 cup) of chopped dried organic apples (*NOTE: make sure they are just apples and not apples cooked in oils)
- 2 ounces (about 1/4 cup) of chopped dried organic cherries (*NOTE: make sure they are just dried cherries and not cherries cooked in oils)

Directions:
1. In a food processor or blender, process 3 cups of organic oats until they are pretty fine.
2. In a medium to large sized storage container with a lid, mix together all ingredients. Store air-tight in the container.

(after it has soaked in boiling water; you could add milk if you like a moister oatmeal)

To Eat:
1. Scoop 1/3 cup of oat mixture into a cereal bowl.
2. Pour into the bowl 1/3 to 1/2 cup of boiling water.
3. Place a plate over the top as a lid and let sit for about five minutes.
4. Eat and enjoy!
*Alternately, you could make this in the microwave. I don't have a suggestion for timing because I don't have a microwave to test it out!

Other ideas for mix-ins:
- dry milk
- raisins
- cranberries

Homeschool Ideas: Electricity Lesson

2013-04-01T10:24:00.002-04:00

As you already read, we are officially unschoolers. This means that, when our daughter decided to fall in love with electricity, I jumped to figure out how to learn about it!

(Photo by: lydia_shiningbrightly's photostream)

This is how we've been studying electricity:

1. Snap Circuit 300 (my mom found these new on Ebay at much cheaper)

2. Playdoh electricity circuits

3. Electricity class at a local science center

4. Magic School Bus: Gets Charged

5. Electricity show by the Happy Scientist (we were just lucky about the timing of this one as he was performing his electricity show at a homeschool conference we were attending)

6. Energy video by the Happy Scientist

7. Books from our library:
How Ben Franklin Stole the Lightning (Schanzer)
Lightning (Seymour)
Blackout (Rocco)
Charged Up (Bailey) *****NOTE: This book does have false information in it so I don't recommend it
Switch On, Switch Off (Berger)
The Magic School Bus and the Electric Field Trip
Magic School Bus Electric Storm

How we became unschoolers

2013-03-28T07:14:00.001-04:00

We just got back from a homeschool conference, and, according to one seminar I attended, we are unschoolers. I'm still digesting this new label for two reasons: I hate labels and now I have one, and I was pretty judgmental about unschoolers when I first learned about them.

In short, unschooling is "allowing children as much freedom to learn in the world, as their parents can comfortably bear" (Pat Farenga).

When we left the school system, our daughter was in tears after school, in tears in school, acting out at home, frustrated she couldn't play to learn things, and mad that she was told to be quiet all the time. The way information was presented to her did not match her learning style or personality and it caused her lots of stress.

We began our homeschooling journey with a period of de-schooling. Basically, we replicated school at home with a learning routine. By February, she was sick of it, and I was sick of it! We scratched the learning routine and began unit studies. Unit studies worked for her and for me, but they were pretty time intensive to plan.

During all this time, I was faithfully shopping at our local thrift store to pick up books, games, puzzles, etc. that would help her learn things without her knowing she was learning things. I incorporated the games into the unit studies, had a list of activities and games posted in the kitchen for each unit study, and had a start/end timeline posted for the study.

(with Atticus, our friends' dog, while playing Sleeping Queens)

Come to find out, this was still a little too much for us to maintain. And that's how we became an unschooling family.

Now our days look very little like school. We start each morning laying in bed together with her reading to me and me reading to her. That's our reading time. We usually move to breakfast where we play some sort of math game or read Life of Fred. By then, she wants a break so she plays while I exercise. After that, we might do another school something: handwriting (only because she's determined to learn cursive), play another game that's more strategy based, pick an activity out of the "black box" I created with school games in it.

The rest of the day is spent with me facilitating her interests. For example, she's really into electricity right now so we've been playing with electricity, reading about electricity, going to classes about electricty, and watching shows about electricity. Of course, electricity flows (ha!) into the topic of energy so we cover energy, too.

So, this is how we've become unschoolers. She's happier for it. My husband still comes home from work and asks if we did any school work sometimes. I like the freedom we have to manage our own learning, but a lot of times I do wish we had a set schedule with set curriculum in a dedicated schooling room....but, then again, I hate rules not created by me so that probably wouldn't work!

Touring a Chocolate Factory: SPAGnVOLA

2013-03-07T03:30:00.000-05:00

Last week, we had the pleasure of touring SPAGnVOLA with Girl Scouts. Our troop headed north to learn all about chocolate, from the farm to the tasty confection!!

We learned about vertical integration, watched the chocolate liquor be ground, smelled the melted chocolate, and tasted the delicious bonbons, truffles, and chocolate bars. The tour guide (who was also the CEO/founder) was great with kids: he was enthusiastic, kept the information at their level while encouraging them to reach a little higher, and kept them engaged with all the tastings!

We left the store with a box of chocolates, knowing that we will appreciate where chocolate comes from a lot more than we used to appreciate it.

NASA plant study

2013-03-04T16:31:00.004-05:00

My body has been tortured lately by all sorts of foreign chemicals. It started with a reaction to a topical drug, and it has finished (hopefully) with a reaction to a new bed. In both cases, my body violently and dangerously responded to chemicals that it deemed unsafe and unnatural (hence, "foreign").

In my effort to heal, I have researched a lot about toxins in the home, and new beds are a huge offender of bringing in toxins.

One way to help eliminate toxins in the home is to open windows and let outdoor air inside. Another way to help clear the air is to have lots of house plants. I have sporadically been opening the windows in the house for the past few months, even with very cold weather!

Today, I went and bought new houseplants that research shows effectively clears the air.

(Photo by Juliejordanscott)

In 1989, NASA performed a house plant study: Interior Landscape Plants for Indoor Air Pollution Abatement. Basically, they were trying to figure out how to keep the space station air clean, and they hypothesized that house plants could remove major toxins. The toxins they studied were trichloroethylene, benzene, and formaldehyde, and they discovered that certain plants did better than others at cleaning the air. However, when you look at the findings, you can see that most all plants did help to clean the air.

I'm sure you're wondering which plants are best at filtering the air. This is a compilation of the findings by NASA:

English Ivy
Spider Plant
Golden pothos
Peace Lily
Chinese evergreen
Bamboo palm or reed palm
Snake Plant
Heartleaf philodendron
Selioum philodendron
Elephant Ear philodendron
Red-edged (Marginata) dracaena
Cornstalk dracaena
Janet Craig dracaena
Warneck dracaena
Weeping fig (ficus)
Gerber Daisy
Pot Mum
Rubber Plant
Mass Cane

"Girls Can Do It"

2013-02-28T10:27:00.002-05:00

My dad was in town last weekend, and he wanted to watch the Daytona 500. If he hadn't been here, we wouldn't have known that the race was on, and that would have been a big shame because Danica Patrick was racing.

We all watched it, including my daughter. I think the only reason she was interested in the race was because Danica Patrick was racing, and, even better, she was starting the race!

Why am I telling you this? Because this morning she came downstairs in another unique outfit, and she told me "I'm going to be a race car driver today." There was only one problem: she didn't have a race car.

Now she does! You can't see the steering wheel, but it's in there, too. She happily informed me that "Girls Can Do It" when she was talking about racing cars. She and her friend are upstairs decorating it now.

(And just for the record, moms can build race cars, too!)

Fourteenth Post in 'tuesdays with Morrie' series: The Perfect Day

2013-02-27T03:30:00.000-05:00

And the last entry in the series!!!!

The Thirteenth Tuesday: We Talk About the Perfect Day

"'Let's see...I'd get up in the morning, do my exercises, have a lovely breakfast of sweet rolls and tea, go for a swim, then have my friends come over for a nice lunch. I'd have them come one or two at a time so we could talk about their families, their issues, talk about how much we mean to each other. Then I'd like to go for a walk, in a garden with some trees, watch their colors, watch the birds, take in the nature that I haven't seen in so long now. In the evening, we'd all go together to a restaurant with some great pasta, maybe some duck - I love duck - and then we'd dance the rest of the night. I'd dance with all the wonderful dance partners out there, until I was exhausted. And then I'd go home and have a deep, wonderful sleep'" (Pg. 175-176)

I think that this illustrates a big difference between people who are dying and people who aren't: the people who are sick and dying just want a normal day again without pain, medicine, etc. while the people who aren't dying are often looking for some exotic perfect day.

If you could have the perfect day, what would it include? What would it exclude? How can you live that perfect day most days and not wait until you're dying?

Thanks for joining me on this journey!

Thirteenth Post in "tuesdays with Morrie" series: Forgiveness

2013-02-26T03:30:00.000-05:00

And the end of the series nears closer.....

The Twelfth Tuesday: We Talk ABout Forgiveness
"'There is no point in keeping vengeance or stubbornness. These things ... I so regret in my life. Pride. Vanity. Why do we do the things we do'" (Pg. 164)?

"'It's not just other people we need to forgive, Mitch,' he finally whispered. 'We also need to forgive ourselves'...'For all the things we didn't do. All the things we should have done. You can't get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened. That doesn't help you when you get to where I am'" (Pg. 166).

Forgiveness is so important to relationships, and it is so, so hard to do! But when we don't forgive, it hangs on our hearts and nags at us.

I wish forgiving others and ourselves was easier to do! Relationships would be so much easier if we could forgive in the blink of eye. However, we can't forgive easily. It takes time, and it takes effort.

How good are you at forgiving?

Twelfth Post in "tuesdays with Morrie" series: Culture

2013-02-25T03:30:00.000-05:00

Believe it or not, this series will eventually end! We're getting close to the end of the book. Today, they talk about our culture.

The Eleventh Tuesday: We Talk About Our Culture:

"'People are only mean when they're threatened,' he said..., 'and that's what our culture does. That's what our economy does. Even people who have jobs in our economy are threatened, because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture'" (Pg. 154).

"'Here's what I mean by building your own little subculture,' Morrie said. 'I don't mean you disregard every rule of your community. I don't go around naked, for example. I don't run through red lights. The little things, I can obey. But the big things - how we think, what we value - those you must choose yourself. You can't let anyone - or any society - determine those for you.'" (Pg. 155)

I'm repeatedly perplexed by people's need to be 'mean' to other people. I've thought about it often: why, when telling a story, does someone impress upon the fact that they got mean to resolve the problem? I don't think that Morrie may have a point about feeling threatened.

As a nation, we do feel threatened. We feel threatened by loosing a job and having financial insecurity. We fear contracting a health disease that could cause us difficulty finding health insurance if we loose said-job. Some of us feel threatened by the political decisions being made. Others feel threatened .....fill-in-the-blank!

But, is the solution to be mean to others? No! Please start being nice to others even if you feel threatened.

In regards to creating a sub-culture, that's the only way to find security!

Have you been mean to someone today? Was it really necessary? Did it really solve anything or did it just spread the feelings of being threatened?

Eleventh Post in "tuesdays with Morrie" series: Marriage

2013-02-24T03:30:00.000-05:00

Let's just jump in since this blog series keeps on going!

The Tenth Tuesday: We Talk About Marriage
"'...there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage. If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don't have a common set of values in life, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike.'
'And the biggest one of those values, Mitch?....Your belief in the importance of your marriage'" (Pg. 149).

I don't really know what I can add to this quote. It sums everything up quite nicely.

Tenth Post of "tuesdays with Morrie" series: Love

2013-02-23T03:30:00.000-05:00

Without further ado, here's today's topic!

The Ninth Tuesday: We Talk About How Love Goes On
"I don't think I will be [forgotten after I die]. I've got so many people who have been involved with me in close intimate ways. And love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone" (Pg. 133).

I don't think many people would argue about this statement. Our grandparents, friends, aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, brothers, and parents live within us constantly after they've died because we remember their love for us and our love for them. We remember family stories, ridiculous adventures together, and tears shared during hard times.

So, to me, the issue isn't how you stay alive after you're gone; it's how to you create those relationships while you're still breathing on this earth.

"'I believe in being fully present,' Morrie said. 'That means you should be with the person you're with. When I'm talking to you now, Mitch, I try to keep focused only on what is going on between us. I am not thinking about something we said last week. I am not thinking of what's coming up this Friday...I am talking with to you. I am thinking about you'" (Pg. 136).

Achieving being fully present is sooooooo hard. It's so easy to let your brain wander away during a conversation, or surf the Internet while you're on the phone with someone, or check a text message while you're in a meeting.

I want to become more fully present with the people I love. I want to truly hear them and listen to them. I want to teach my daughter that people are more important than electronics. And I intend to remind my friends and family that I expect the same in return.

Are you fully present in your relationships? Or are you checking your phone just in case something more important than your child/loved one/friend beeps in with a text?

Ninth Post of "tuesdays with Morrie" series: Money

2013-02-22T03:30:00.000-05:00

Mitch and Morrie continue their discussions about life, and in this chapter of the book they are discussing Money.

The Eighth Tuesday: We Talk About Money
"'We've got a form of brainwashing going on in our country,' Morrie sighed. 'Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that's what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. More is good. More is good. We repeat it - and have it repeated to us - over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all this, he has no perspective on what's really important anymore'" (pg. 125).

It is so so so easy to get swept away by the messages of STUFF!!!! I hate stuff. I really, really do. Even more, though, I really hate the constant advertising thrown at me and my family for stuff. And when I say constant, I mean constant. It's hard to walk out of your house without some advertisement screaming at you: a bus driving by with an ad on it, a radio spot, a car driving on the road with an ad wrapped on it, flyers on the telephone poles, etc.

I hate the ads. It makes me sick to be constantly inundated with ads because the ads encourage me to want more, do more, spend more.

How do you keep yourself from not buying into the culture and feeling that you constantly need to spend more?

Eighth Post in "tuesdays with Morrie" series: Aging

2013-02-20T16:47:00.000-05:00

Mitch and Morrie have already covered a lot of heavy topics: the world, feeling sorry for yourself, regrets, death, family, and emotions. In their seventh meeting, they discuss the fear of aging.

The Seventh Tuesday: We Talk About the Fear of Aging
"It's very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at 22, you'd always be as ignorant as you were at 22. Aging is not just decay, you know. It's growth. It's more than the negative that you're going to die, it's also the positive that you understand you're going to die, and that you live a better life because of it" (Pg. 118).

"The truth is, part of me is every age. I'm a 3-year-old, I'm a 5-year-old, I'm a 37-year-old, I'm a 50-year-old. I've been through all of them, and I know what it's like. I delight in being a child when it's appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it's appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own" (Pg. 120).

This is a very comfortable perspective of aging since it encourages you to embrace the idea that you have the choice to be every age. Our culture tries to persuade us into believing that aging means we're loosing something: good looks, vitality, opportunities for work, freedom, strength, etc.

By looking at aging the way Morrie suggests, we're actually gaining a lot by aging: wisdom, experience, the ability to be any age, the insight to choose how you want to live, etc.

Maybe we can follow Morrie's previous advice and not buy into the culture about aging! This is an area that I need to work on; I'm not embracing aging at all. In fact, I hate it. But, as with most of the lessons in this book, Morrie's thoughts have encouraged me to recognize that I have a choice in how I perceive aging. I really like how I can view aging as having the opportunity to be any age I want to be, up to my own.

How are you handling aging? How do you interact with people older and younger than you?

Seventh Post in "tuesdays with Morrie" series: Emotions

2013-02-19T03:30:00.000-05:00

Well, it's another post in the "tuesdays with Morrie" series. Mitch and Morrie are still working on figuring out life, and they are going to discuss emotions next.

The Sixth Tuesday: We Talk About Emotions
Regarding Detaching:
"'Take any emotion - love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on the emotions - if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them - you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.'
'But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what the pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, 'All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from the emotion for a moment...now I'm going to put that [emotion] aside and know that there are other emotions in the world, and I'm going to experience them as well''" (Pg. 103-105).

I think that this is a very important message. Personally, I sometimes fight an emotion because I want to be able to detach from it; I don't have the energy or the time to feel the emotion so I try to block it out. However, this quote makes me realize that maybe my approach has been wrong. Maybe I need to feel the emotion, recognize it, and then detach from it.

I love the statement that we have the control to tell ourselves that there are other emotions to feel. Isn't that a liberating thought? We can say, "Ok. I'm feeling grief. I know I'm going to feel it again. I know I'm going to be sad from this emotion again, but I'm going to choose to feel happiness right now because there are other emotions in the world than grief."

How are you at recognizing an emotion? Do you allow the emotion to fully show itself to you before detaching or do you try to block the emotion from coming in at all in an effort to detach from it?

Sixth post in "tuesdays with Morrie" series: Death

2013-02-18T03:30:00.000-05:00

Mitch and Morrie are on a regular Tuesday meeting schedule to talk about life. At this meeting, they talk about death.

The Fourth Tuesday, We Talk About Death
"The truth is, Mitch, ... once you learn how to die, you learn to live...when you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently...if you accept that you can die at any time - then you might not be as ambitious as you are...The things you spend so much time on - all this work you do - might not seem as important. You might have to make room for some more spiritual things."

I don't think any of us really like to think about death, but perhaps the awareness of mortality would guide us to a more chosen life. If we knew we were going to have to say goodbye to friends and family, would we spend more time doing something other than working?

I guess it's like that Tim McGraw song, Live Like You Were Dying.

Are you living like you were dying?

Fifth Post in "tuesdays with Morrie" series: Regrets

2013-02-17T03:30:00.000-05:00

The third Tuesday Mitch and Morrie got together they talked about regrets:

The Third Tuesday, We Talk About Regrets:
"...the culture doesn't encourage you to think about such things until you're about to die. We're so wrapped up with egotistical things, career, family, having enough money, meeting the mortgage, getting a new car, fixing the radiator when it breaks - we're involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going. So we don't get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, Is this all? Is this all I want? Is something missing?...You need someone to probe you in that direction. It just won't happen automatically...We all need teachers in our lives."

1. I think that the hardest thing to swallow about this quote is time management: "we're involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going." How do we find the time to stand back and ask if this is what we want? And, if we do find the time to ask that question and discover it's not what we want, then how do we find the time to change it in light of all the stuff that still has to get done?

We still have to have a house over our heads. We still need food on our table. We still need to pay taxes, bills, and medical expenses. Those things don't go away just because we want a change in our lives. So how to we find the time to change in light of all those things that have to get done?

2. The most revolutionary thing about this quote to me is that "we all need teachers in our lives." I used to love university life. I loved challenging my mind by pondering difficult questions. I loved arguing about research findings. I loved learning from my professors and being given tasks that seemed impossible to complete.

Even though I'm not in a university setting anymore, it doesn't mean I don't need a teacher, and I hadn't ever thought about that before. Yes, I seek out knowledge all the time, but I don't have a teacher anymore. Our culture doesn't value teachers into adulthood, and so many of us don't think about needing one. I think I need to find one.

Are you living a life without a teacher? If so, what do you wish a teacher would probe you to do?

Fourth Post in "tuesdays with Morrie" Series: Feeling Sorry for Yourself

2013-02-16T03:30:00.000-05:00

The second Tuesday of their meetings Morrie and Mitch get together (at least according to the book it was their second meeting...) to discuss feeling sorry for yourself.

The Second Tuesday, We Talk About Feeling Sorry for Yourself

"I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life. On the people who are coming to see me. On the stories I'm going to hear" (p. 57).

Obviously, this isn't a profound statement. The reason I chose it was because it does recognize that tears are okay when you're feeling like things are hard. But, then, you've got to pull it together and discover all the other stuff going on in your world. You have the choice to look at all the blessings in your life and discover why they are blessing to you.

Of course, this is much, much easier said than done.

Morrie looked forward to the visitors each day that gave him a sense of purpose and belonging. They gave him energy and strength. The visitors connected to his past life of teaching and mentoring, while including him in their current lives.

He accepted that his situation was awful, and he required himself to acknowledge it before moving on in his day.

For a long time in parenting, I've tried to hide my own tears when things are sad or hard. For some reason, I thought that I needed to "be strong," when in fact I was grieving or depressed. I have learned that hiding these emotions does absolutely no one any good at all. In fact, it harms everyone around me because I end up cooping up my feeling which makes me feel worse; my daughter doesn't learn that emotions are an important part of life; and my husband has no idea what's going on in my crazy head :)

How are you at allowing yourself to cry when you need it but then move on so you don't wallow in your own self-pity?

Third Post in "tuesdays with Morrie" series: The World

2013-02-15T03:30:00.000-05:00

We've finished up the introduction to the book and now we're getting into the "meat" of the lectures that prepared Mitch to write his final thesis. The chapter in the book is titled:

First Tuesday, We Talk About the World.
"The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in..."
His [Morrie's] voice dropped to a whisper.
"Let it come in. We think we don't deserve love, we think if we let it in we'll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said, 'Love is the only rational act'" (Pg. 52).

There are so many elements to this quote, but I'm only going to concentrate on three: love, being soft, and deserving.

Maybe we should look it at as all love of the world: love for strangers, love for family, love for friends, love for coworkers and bosses, love for acquaintances, love for [fill in the blank]. Or maybe we should personalize it more to just look at the love in our families, and how we give and receive love in those circumstances.

Maybe we should focus more on the part about becoming too soft from love. Is the fear of becoming too soft the reason so many people feel the need to show their power, exert their strength, and put down others? Is the fear of becoming too soft why others aren't kind to one another?

Maybe we should focus on the topic of deserving? Is it that people aren't living their lives in ways that make them proud to be loved? Are people feeling that they can't live up to the images of love as represented on television and the internet? Does this somehow tie into the issue of not buying into the culture from the second post in the series?

I am not writing this series to create answers to these questions. I'm simply writing this series to help me ponder them. I hope that you, too, will find benefit in pondering how you are relating to the world through love.

Second Post in "tuesdays with Morrie" blog series

2013-02-13T12:17:00.001-05:00

I just made the mistake of going to look at how this book is rated on Amazon. It has 4.5 stars, which is good, right? It shows that it's a well-loved book that over 2000 people have taken the time to review. Being the researcher, I wanted to see how many people didn't love it and what they had to say about it. Turns out, over a 100 people strongly dislike the book and have some pretty strong statements about why they dislike it.

(Did you get distracted and head over to Amazon? If you did, welcome back! If you didn't, way to stay focused!)

So what does all this have to do with today's post, the second in the series? Well, as it turns out, quite a bit!

Second Series Post:
The inspiration for this post is a quote from page 35-36:

"...the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We're teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn't work, don't buy it. Create your own."

The reviews on Amazon could have swayed me to read the book or not to read the book. The people who love the book strongly tout its life-changing messages. The people who hate the book equally tout the stupidity of those life-changing messages. All through life, you find people who support or judge your choices in life, just like those book reviews place positive or negative judgement on the book/author.

My argument is that the support or judgement you receive is often based on a cultural underpinning.

Some people like to go-with-the-flow and follow cultural norms. Others like to stop the flow and scream from a hill-top that everyone must STOP following the culture!!! My guess is that many of us feel torn regarding our cultural norms. We sometimes fight the culture, and we sometimes embrace the culture.

My family's experience is often that we are fighting the cultural norm. As I often say, sometimes I feel like I'm swimming upstream, all the time, because of how much we fight the cultural norm. We eat different foods. We haven't completed immunizations. We don't go to a classroom for education. We like to reuse products as much as we can. We buy things at thrift stores. We don't buy things that we don't need. We don't subscribe to cable.

To be fair, there are other areas in life that we follow the cultural norm: we bought a house; we own two a cars; we have three Apple products in our house; we like to buy our clothes at Banana Republic; etc.

When I read the list of how we don't follow the American culture perfectly, it doesn't seem like I'm doing anything all that revolutionary, but when I go about my day, sometimes I feel negatively judged like the 1-star Amazon reviews. I feel like I'm bucking the American culture by not falling in-step with it. And that can be a very tiring feeling.

When we choose to not buy a culture, we choose to take a slightly harder route in life. But, we get to be creative and find our own which is, hopefully, more rewarding despite it being harder to do.

When do you not buy into the culture? How have you created your own way of doing things?