Remember Who You Wanted To Be

Somehow I earlier this fall I happened upon Gretchen Rubin's Twelve Personal Commandments. The idea resounded with me. Calling them commandments felt icky to me but the idea was bewitching. It reminded me of another bewitching idea I had happened upon several falls ago.

I hate bumper stickers. I could rant your face off about that, but why? In the fall of 2004 I was a newlywed and living briefly in a Holiday Inn. I came home from work one day and in the Holiday Inn parking lot I saw an old beater with a bumper sticker on in that read "Remember Who You Wanted To Be." The idea resounded with me. It was the first bumper sticker I had ever seen that was worth the glue that held it to the bumper. It has haunted me ever since.

I have seen what it looks like when people forget who they wanted to be. It is sad. It musty and dank and depressing. It is everywhere. I knew the moment I read those words that I didn't want to forget who I wanted to be. What I have never been confident about was how I am supposed to make sure I remember.

I think that is why Gretchen's commandment idea was so poignant to me. What do I do in day to day life when I want to remember something? I make list. I write it down. That is what my personal commandments are - a list to help me remember who I wanted to me.

After I made my list I still grappled with my uneasiness with the word commandment. It is a loaded word. I toyed with other words like reminder or principle but they didn't capture the point of the exercise. Commandment is the only word...commanding...enough to express what I want to do with this list. I want to command myself to remember who I wanted to be.

Not in a biblical sense but in a military sense. My mission is remembering who I wanted to be and these are my marching orders.

Sir, yes, sir!

1. Be here now.

2. Give grace.

3. Laugh.

4. Let your smile make you happy.

5. Suffer long.

6. Don't assume another's neurosis.

7. Play along.

8. Empathize.

9. Go outside.

10. Say I'm sorry.

11. Care.

12. Choose and offer freedom.

But Seriously...YAY FOR OUTSIDE.

We had some kind of lentil soup for lunch. It came from a can from Trader Joes. I realized pretty early on in soup season that making soup from scratch at lunch time was not the best use of my time. So cans it is. More important though is where we ate lunch. Right here:


Our brand new picnic table that Ron bought for us yesterday. I am so excited to eat outside with my family. I want to do it all time. Today after the girls finished their lunches they took their messy fingers and their messy selves to the yard and played. Ron and I just sat there and finished our lunches while watching the girls play and talking like grown-ups. Normally, when the girls are done we have to be done too because we immediately have to clean them up so they don't track even more yogurt and jelly and spaghetti sauce and yucky yucky all over the house. Not when we are outside. Yay for outside.

But seriously...YAY FOR OUTSIDE. It is glorious lately. Everywhere I look I see spectacular trees outside my windows. The air feels amazing. Afton asked me in the car today why God made fall and all I could say is that it was because He wanted to fill our hearts with wonder. Why else?

Anyway, I'm not sure what we are having for dinner tonight but I am pretty sure I know where we will eat it. God is showing off out there right now and I don't wanna miss it.

Happy Fall Ya'll

Seasons change, children grow up, we grow older, the world stays on track, all things pass, time marches on. God is so good. He's so good to me.

1. Ron won a free lunch for 10 at Chipotle for dropping his business card in a bowl by the checkout. Today the girls and I met Ron and his co-workers there for lunch and enjoyed his winnings.

2. Here is our pumpkin that I told you about last time. We named him Simon. Afton kisses him every time we leave the house and assures him that we will be back soon. When we do come back Ponder greets him with a smile and a wave and a special little "Hi!"



Also, Happy Birthday in two days to my sweet husband who did such a good job carving it and who does such a great job being the man of our house and the delight of all our hearts around here.



3. This time of year someone around here always a runny nose or a cough or has had a one off vomiting episode or something. I think that is true for most households with young children. The colder months are fun months, but they are also the months of the sickies. If you are like me you spend a lot of time guessing and trying to figure out if the symptoms du jour are a big deal and especially if they are contagious. I can't tell you how many Sunday mornings we have gone back and forth over whether or not the symptoms one of the girls was showing was reason enough to keep them home from church. I hate to be the mommy that spreads germs around the town so many play dates and trips to the library or play ground have been scratched due to what were probably innocuous little symptoms. I just know how hard it is on the whole family to have a really sick kid so I never want to be responsible for someone else's family having that fortune. More than often I err on the side of caution so we spend a lot of the sickie months indoors. In our own doors. Anyway, this year, the nursery at the church where I attend Bible study handed out a sheet at the beginning of fall listing the symptoms that preclude a child from attending their nursery. To me it has been so helpful! I thought there might be some other mom's who spend their time waffling on just how sick or contagious their child is and would find this list helpful too. A child is likely too contagious to be hanging out with other kids if he/she has any of the following symptoms: 1.) Has vomited or had diarrhea in the last 72 hours. 2.) Has had a fever in the past 24 hours. 3.) Currently has a yellow or green runny nose.

I hope that list will be as liberating and informative to you as it was too me.

4. Speaking of sick little cuties H1N1 made a visit to our house last week and hit our precious little Ponder pretty hard. If anyone ever wondered what swine flu looks like one year here is a picture taken on day three of her bout with it after her fever had broken and she was on the upswing. As you can see she is still look pretty rough!


We are all doing fine now. In fact thanks to Tamiflu none of the rest of us got symptoms at all and Ponder was back to herself about four days from the onset. There are all sorts of rumors and bad press going around Tamiflu and for all I know some of them may be true, but all I can say is it seemed like a miracle drug to us during that week and I am sincerely thankful to God for it. We are so blessed with health in my little family and it humbles me and makes me truly grateful.

They Make Everything We Already Enjoyed So Much More Enjoyable.

1. Today for lunch my children ate cooked carrots and whole wheat tortillas. They had water to drink, which they hate, but I am trying to teach them to love.

2. Here is a thought that has been bungling around in my head for a few years and I have decided to release and share. When your loyalty to someone or something for whatever reason requires you to hate or at least not to love someone else (particularly another Christian) I think it stops being loyalty and starts being sin. I would like to hear other thoughts on that.

3. Ponder is obsessed with feeding herself now. Pretty soon I won't have anyone to feed at the dinner table. I will just sit there and eat. Amazing thought really! I haven't done that since August of 2007. Even after the baby is born I will have six good months where my only responsibility at a meal is to eat it. Pretty exciting!

4. I caramelized my own onions last night. They were quite good, thanks for asking. The thought of doing that a year ago would have terrified me just because it sounds fancy and I am afraid of doing fancy stuff. I have learned, though, pretty much everything I ever try ends up being easier that I thought it was going to be. Except labor. That was much, much harder.

5. We are going to "make puckins" with Afton tomorrow. That's make pumpkins for those of you who don't speak two year old. I love how easy it is to get her excited about things. She is pumped about "fall time". All she knows is that involves "puckins" and "rainbow trees". What a precious delight having little children is. They make everything we already enjoyed so much more enjoyable. Well, maybe except for sleeping.

Sunny & Fair.

My trees are gold and crimson,
My weather sunny and fair.
There is a play pen in my living room,
Toys everywhere.
It wasn't always this way.
It won't always be the same.
Oh, but today is beautiful.
Today I'm glad I came.

My Apple Pie Baking Playlist

When I baked my first apple pie last week my husband said, "That's not usually your style to bake a pie from scratch in the middle of the afternoon. Mmm. But maybe it should be." I wouldn't mind afternoon pie baking to become "my style" and so with the baking of my second ever apple pie a few days later I created this play list. Anything I am going to do repeatedly has to have its own playlist, right? For me it created the perfect apple pie baking atmosphere.

Another Day In Paradise ~ Phil Collins
Just Like A Woman ~ Bob Dylan
Born Country ~ Alabama
Coal Miner's Daughter ~ Loretta Lynn
Kiss An Angel Good Morning ~ Charley Pride
Elevator Love Letter ~ Stars
Once You've Loved Somebody ~ Dixie Chicks
Today My World Slipped Away ~ George Strait
Let's Embrace ~ Joseph Arthur
Mountain Music ~ Alabama
New Soul ~ Yael Naim
If You Ask Me To ~ Celine Dion
Forever Young ~ Rod Stewart
That's The Way Love Goes ~ Merle Haggard
The Good Stuff ~ Kenny Chesney
Time After Time ~ Cyndi Lauper
Too Busy Being In Love ~ Doug Stone
Tubthumping ~ Chumbawamba
Something Happened On The Way To Heave ~ Phil Collins

Happy Fall!