Easter Reflection

This year, as I think about the Easter story, my mind keeps going towards the hours of the Last Supper followed by Jesus' arrest, and about three characters in particular: Judas, Jesus, and Peter. How the things they loved most formed their character and led them down their particular path. And how the Easter story speaks to all of us who identify most closely with Peter.

First, looking at Jesus - this is the path of loving others. He spends his last night before death washing everyone's feet, including Judas (!!).  He tells His disciples that they should be servants and that they should love one another, and He shows them how it's done. He willingly allows Himself to be arrested, knowing that this would be followed by death, doing it all motivated by love for His Father and love for humanity.

Second, looking at Judas - this is the path if you get caught up in the here and now, money, and only looking out for yourself. He sells out one of his closest friends, a man he greatly admired, for a small sum of money. This results in him losing all his friends, his life ending in disgrace, and his name remaining synonymous thousands of years later with the worst kind of betrayal. 

It is clear, looking at these two, which is the path of light and beauty and goodness, and which is the path of darkness and destruction. But as I think about myself, it's also clear that I don't live up to this example set by Jesus. I'm having a good day if I act like a servant towards those I love most dearly. If someone crosses my kids, or cuts me off in traffic, or makes work more difficult, the LAST thing I want to do is show them love and kindness, let alone lay down my life for them. (Of course you should still protect your kids, give someone a warning honk if they're driving dangerously, and zealously advocate for your clients or however it applies in your workplace - the problematic part is the simmering bitterness after the fact, the attitude of "How dare someone treat me that way?", the temptation to treat that person badly after the danger of the situation has passed.) I aspire to the beautiful attitude of Jesus, but I'm never remotely close to attaining it. This is why there's also great comfort in looking at Peter's role in this story. 

Looking at Peter - throughout the gospel accounts, he has lots of confusion but also great enthusiasm and love for Jesus. At the time of Jesus' arrest, Peter's ready to go to battle for Jesus, even cutting off a soldier's ear. (Again, confused about the right way to act, but with the best intentions.) Then, when Jesus is arrested and everyone scatters - and he is now exhausted, alone, devastated, and probably questioning everything - Peter acts like a coward and denies Jesus three times. When the rooster crows and he realizes what he has done, he weeps bitterly. He doesn't feel good about how he's conducted himself, he still has faith, but he's had a few hours where he acted in a way that all of us understand and none of us want to be like. The coward, the one who breaks down when the going gets hard, the one who needs his Lord because he's not strong enough on his own. This is a character I can identify with. 

And this is the person on whom the Lord builds His church. The important thing about Peter isn't whether he maintained a standard of perfection all the time - because he definitely didn't; he was impulsive, confused, and cowardly at times - the important thing was that he consistently maintained his faith, he consistently turned back to the path of following Jesus. The good news of Easter is that this is all we need to do - Jesus has defeated death, it is finished. And we can be part of this, even on our worst days, by putting our faith in this good news.

Happy Easter to all!

Thoughts on Kids Getting Older

I saw this meme on Instagram and it made me think about a variety of things, so thought I'd do a grab bag blog on our children getting older:

• It's good advice to savor the young years; older kids do move towards independence: My kids are now ages 14, 12, and 8, and so I can now agree with the above from experience - you do see a turn as kids hit the tween years. They are more content to spend time in their room rather than be by your side at all times, more eager to connect with friends, and much less bursting to share every last thought and feeling with parents. I have a heightened appreciation with our youngest that we are in our last few years of cuddles and reading picture books and having pretend play and receiving "I love you" notes on days that are not a designated holiday. This is all right and good, kids are supposed to grow and change and develop and move towards independence, but man it is also bittersweet.
• This is one of the very best things about homeschool: Part of what the meme above refers to is the choice of kids to retreat to their friends and their room, but part of it is an acknowledgement that as school and activities and friendships and sports and work ramp up, there are fewer hours spent every year at home. A huge, huge blessing of homeschool is all the time we continue to get as a family. Even with the kids fully in the world of activities and me back to work, we still get to spend hours together every day on school, eat most meals together, and spend whatever downtime presents itself together. I am so grateful for these bonus hours in the teen years.
• How's it going mixing homeschool and work? We've now been homeschooling with me returned to practicing law half-time for a year, and I think overall it's going well. Some weeks are absolutely crazy, but balanced out over time, it's a manageable crazy. I love my job and also still really enjoy homeschooling, so that helps propel all of it along. We still do a curriculum where I'm the primary teacher, but the kids are able to do more independent work at this point.   Outside of school hours, to their joy and somewhat to my chagrin, they do get more screen time than they used to - no more 1,000 hours outside. (Although I do hope to move school back outside with the return of spring weather!) And I'm grateful to grandparents and church groups for giving me some help with child care and transportation to events. As far as whether we will continue to homeschool - it's a yearly decision. Right now it's working well; each summer, we re-examine what works best for each kid and the family as a whole. 
• It's different with special needs: The numbers in this meme are going to look very different for parents of children with special needs, and this also brings a mix of feelings. Part of the assumption in this number is that kids will do things like get a driver's license, move out, and start their own independent life. For kids with special needs, this path often looks different - there will likely be a greater level of parent-child interconnectedness into adulthood. I don't want to comment too specifically on our situation, mostly because I don't want to place any limits on what time will bring, as J continues to achieve things that I wouldn't have guessed possible in the early years.  But I am trying to mentally prepare myself that as same-aged peers are thinking about jobs and college applications and first apartments, that our path is likely going to be different on those things. I do feel a greater level of peace after watching things play out over time that whatever J's adult life looks like, it will be good. God has taken care of him and of us through so much, and I feel confident that He will continue to do so.

So those are some of my thoughts about our current stage of life! Always love to hear comments from folks.

Perfect Is The Enemy of Good: A Food Post

It must be pointed out that the foods on the right are made up of ingredients as well.

I was recently introduced to the idea that some households are "ingredients" households and some households are "snacks" households. The idea is that ingredients households only stock unprocessed foods in the kitchen - if you want something like a granola bar or a cracker, it needs to be made at home from scratch. Whereas snacks households buy things that are already pre-made and processed, ready to be eaten as soon as they're home from the store.

When I look at this picture above, we have a lot from both categories in our kitchen after a grocery trip. So what to make of that? Here's my thoughts on the "ingredients v. snacks" line of thought.

(Note that this post is meant to be an encouragement for people who try to feed themselves and their families in a fairly healthy way but do not stick to a totally pure diet. I'm not trying to attack or engage debate with those who fall outside of this group, such as those who are on a pure diet and thriving, or those for whom getting any kind of food on the table is a struggle and parsing at this level is not manageable. If this is you, I would suggest that you stop reading this post now and just keep going with what's working for you.)

Some is Better than None on both Healthy and Homemade

We eat at home most nights, and our dinners are usually a mix of made from scratch and obtained from a package. Some examples of things that come out of a package every time for us and that are regular staples in our meals, are all kinds of bread, salad dressing, and rice pilaf. These usually go alongside some kind of meat and some kind of vegetables, and those things are usually prepared from scratch.

I know that some of these things only take a few extra minutes (salad dressing), while others are more of a lifestyle commitment (bread). Either way, I've found that the reality of life with kids is that you don't have a few extra minutes. With babies and toddlers, they generally need your attention at all waking moments, which overlaps 100% with meal preparation time. Now that we have school aged kids, I'm generally squeezing dinner prep in between finishing work and transporting to youth sports events. There are no extra minutes, every short cut matters, and I'm extremely grateful for the processed shortcuts that still allow us to eat together and at home most nights. And even if I had all the time in the world, I'm grateful that I don't have to use it to churn butter, milk cows, gather eggs, and harvest my own fruits and vegetables. There are already countless hours that go to planning meals, buying food, prepping food, and cleaning up after food. Thanks be to God for every time saver in the process.

Everything in Moderation

This is something that my family growing up modeled for me and I'm extremely grateful for that. It's a lot more sustainable to eat from all categories of food in a moderate way than to put full restrictions on whole categories. Here are some of the principles my parents followed that I also try to follow:

• Eat the healthy stuff first (particularly fruits and vegetables before sugar snacks), then you won't end up eating as much of the less healthy stuff.
• It's okay if there are ups and downs with the healthiness of particular meals. Some nights it's lean meat and vegetables, other nights it's pizza. I try to mix these within the week, recognizing that the meat and veggies meal brings more health value, while the pizza brings more joy.
• Eating not at a restaurant is likely already putting you ahead of the game on health, even if every single item is processed - it's likely still lower in saturated fat, salt, and sugar, with a smaller portion size. (And eating at a restaurant sometimes is good too, it's healthy to incorporate enjoyment and celebration in life!)

• 

  Officially taller than me now!

Special Circumstances

Let me tell you what it's like to feed a teenage boy who's going through a huge growth spurt (around 8 inches / 25 pounds in the last year), but still has an extremely restricted diet due to his food aversions. He is hungry literally all the time. He goes through around 50 bananas a week, 30 each of apples and oranges, and countless strawberries and grapes. His appetite is at the peak it will ever be in his lifetime, and I can't meet his calorie requirements through fruit and peanut butter sandwiches alone. This means he also goes through quite a lot of Chips Ahoy cookies and other snacks like that, probably way more than I know :). This is what we need to do to keep him healthy and growing, even though there is no nutritional site on the planet that's going to recommend this.

I always think first of our special circumstances, but I know special food needs come in many varieties, and until you've lived in and cooked for a household like this, you can't fully appreciate the magnitude with which you embrace any food from any category that will work for your restricted eater. I am grateful for all the foods, both natural and processed, that have kept Josh on his growth trajectory.

All the Good that Comes from Eating together

If it wasn't for processed food shortcuts, many families would not be able to pull off family dinners nearly as often as they can now. The good that comes from family meals is not just the health value of the food items on the table. There is huge value in the conversation that happens over the table. The eye contact, the laughs, the sharing. It creates family bonding and allows for the expressing of love and understanding. The more we can support family dinners in a way that works for busy, modern families, the better.

Conclusion

I agree with the idea that food is medicine and I don't mean to throw all healthy eating principles under the bus. But our society can get pretty all-or-nothing with healthy eating habits, making you feel that if you don't execute things to perfection, then there's no use making any efforts towards a healthy lifestyle. I think we should approach it exactly the opposite way. Celebrate the wins! Celebrate all the healthy food that you do get prepared and all the times that you do eat together as a family. Don't let all-or-nothing thinking derail your mood or your efforts. Bon appetit! 

Favorite Books 2024

Reading goals for next year!

It's the annual book blog, where I share my favorite books of the year and then ask you to please share yours! 

Here's the full list of what I read last year, if anyone wants to see it. This includes fuller descriptions of all the books mentioned in my favorites below, if you want to learn more.

I always start with a few thoughts on my reading life. The big change for me this year - in many ways, not just in the reading life - was going back to work after a fourteen year sabbatical. This has overall been a good change and maybe I'll say more about that in a future blog - but it has definitely changed my reading life. It's not primarily about time. Life is busy, but I'm not any busier than I was when I had two under two as a stay at home mom. But there's a lot less gas in the tank to read for fun, now that I'm back to reading court reports and orders and motions, even just on a part-time basis.

This makes me super thankful that half of my life is homeschooling, because that still includes a ton of the story variety of reading. And it also makes me super thankful to have finally picked up audio book listening last year, because this is a great way to keep moving through books, even if it mostly happens while you're multi-tasking with chores. I didn't make it through nearly as many adult literary / modern fiction books this year, and probably won't as long as my life includes both homeschooling and working. But one thing I've learned in the last fourteen years, along the lines of "the days are long but the years are short" - I've got many years left to be a reader, and only right now with my family at this stage. If you've got recommendations that work particularly well on audio, I would especially love to heaaer those.

Without further ado, here are my favorites of the year (each group in random order) -- 

Top 5 Fiction:

• "The Women" by Kristin Hannah - I love when a book makes you think about a specific group that you had never thought closely about before. In this case, it was women combat nurses who served in Vietnam - what that experience and then the aftermath was like.
• "Same as It Ever Was" by Claire Lombardo - I love messy family dramas that take place over time and include thoughts on friendship. 
• "The Sparrow" by Mary Doria Russell - Amazing world building, great exploration of philosophical and theological questions, really asks you to go to a hard place in questions about suffering.
• "Ordinary Grace" by William Kent Kruger - I love his writing style, his grace-filled take on people, and the way he weaves a story. "This Tender Land", also by Kruger, was also a favorite this year.
• "Table for Two" by Amor Towles - a collection of short stories. This is not his strongest work, but it was still very enjoyable - he could write a grocery list and it would be well worth reading.

Top 5 Non-Fiction:

• "The High Sierra: A Love Story" by Kim Stanley Robinson - What a treat when a great writer also has as a serious hobby something that you're very interested in and writes all about it! 
• "Lovely One" by Ketanji Brown Jackson - Absolutely loved this memoir by the currently sitting Supreme Court justice, especially reading her thoughts on balancing work and family, as well as learning that she has a daughter on the autism spectrum.
• "Rembrandt is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith" by Russ Ramsey - Two parts art history, one part how art applies to faith, really well done. 
• "Parenting with Hope: Raising Teens for Christ in a Secular Age" by Melissa Kruger  - good gospel encouragement for parenting years when you'll take all the help you can get.
• "How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen" by David Brooks - Good, research-based advice on having deeper, better conversations and relationships.

Top Five Homeschool Read-Alouds:

• "Astrid the Unstoppable" by Maria Parr -a perfect winter read, set in winter in Scandinavia; featuring a very fun protagonist and an unlikely friendship.
• "The Warden and the Wolf King" by Andrew Peterson - this whole Wingfeather series was fantastic - I would put this series right behind Narnia and Harry Potter as a must read if you are a read-aloud family. And this fourth book was the best of the series.
• "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" adapted by Michael Morpurgo - a really fun version of this Middle Ages adventure tale, the kids and I all enjoyed it all the way through.
• "Glitch" by Laura Martin - A fun book combining time travel, history, adventure, and friendship.
• The first 4 Harry Potters, a 4-way tie, by J.K. Rowling - I did this series with Zoey a few years ago, but Josh and Ivy are now very interested so we're going through again - it's incredible how well these hold up on a re-read, and how much groundwork you can see her laying when you know where the story is going. 

These were my favorites of the year. And now for the best part, please share your favorites!  Happy reading :).

Advent Post: Hope

It's time for the annual Advent post! Since I wrote about hope last month, I was planning to go on to one of the other attributes of Advent - peace, joy, or love. But my mind is sticking on hope. This month of December is so crazy with the frenzy of activities and gatherings and traditions that we can easily lose sight of what the season is all about in the first place. And, this season can feel so lonely as life changes and it's no longer full of frenzy. Coming from both of these angles, I've been thinking about where we put our hope during the holiday season, and what makes for better and worse sources of hope.

Things not to hope in: 

- Getting that perfect Christmas card photo. 

- Cooking the perfect Christmas dinner, to be served on the perfectly decorated Christmas table, inside the perfectly clean and decorated-for-Christmas house.

- Finding / being able to afford the perfect Christmas gift for your loved ones. Having everything purchased with weeks to spare. 

- Having a full slate of magic Christmas parties and activities. No one is sick, distracted, grumpy, or too busy to attend. Everyone is in agreement about which traditions are awesome and which traditions should be skipped this year.

Why not hope in these things? 

Because they may or may not happen. They may not be executed to perfection. They may be executed to perfection and nobody appreciates it as much as they should have. You the preparer don't enjoy it because you are so exhausted from the month long build up, and because the sky high expectations to create Christmas magic can feel unattainable. 

At this point, you might be thinking, "this was not the feel good post I was hoping to read just a few days before Christmas". I would say, first, you probably should not come to this blog for feel good Christmas posts :). Second, it's great to enjoy these things when they do work out. It's special to enjoy a holiday feast together with lovely decorations and festive music. It's fantastic to express love and generosity through the giving of gifts. 

Most of all, it's wonderful to cherish the loved ones with whom you do the celebrating. But here again is bittersweetness - the holidays are a time where the pain of missing a lost loved one is especially sharp, even as we love and enjoy those who are still with us. So while the people we celebrate with are undoubtedly the greatest gift this life has to offer, and a beautiful thing to celebrate and enjoy and be grateful for - they are not a source of ultimate, eternal hope. 

What to put hope in?

Thankfully, Christmas points us to the one thing that does give us this eternal hope. The baby that we celebrate has come to make a way for us to be restored to eternal relationship with God. He's come to rescue us from all the things about this life that are hard and broken, and to defeat death. 

And the thing that's cool about this hope is that it brings the other attributes of Advent. Because we have this hope, we can also have peace, love, and joy in the crazy Christmas season, and throughout this life. Sending you all of these things in abundance this Christmas season!

Hope through the Hard

I've been watching Battlestar Galactica this fall, and one of the big themes of the show is how much humans need hope. The show, in a nutshell, is about humans who are at war with robots they created, and most of the human species as well as Planet Earth has been wiped out in the course of this war. The remaining humans are floating around space in a fleet of spaceships - trying to survive, continuing to fight this war, looking for a new habitable planet - and trying to retain their humanity and find a reason to keep going as the days and months and years stretch on. Trying to find new reasons to hope when things they thought they could put hope in disappoint. (This is waaaay outside my normal type of show - space, sci-fi, and military shows are not my bag, and this one is all of those things - but it's so, so good.)

Though the conditions on this show are extreme, it gets at something that all of us know, or will eventually know at some point in life. Facing an impossibly hard circumstance. Figuring out how and why to keep going in the middle of it. Figuring out what we can put hope in that won't ultimately disappoint.

So, tying this to the month of Thanksgiving - I'm grateful for Bible passages that acknowledge the difficulty of life and offer profound hope in walking through that deep difficulty. These 3 in particular are sticking with me right now:

• Psalm 23 - This one acknowledges that we will walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. No glossing over hard times, no sugar coating how difficult they really are. But look at this list of all the ways God helps us through: he shepherds; leads; restores my soul; is with me; comforts me; follows me with goodness and mercy; and eventually, I will dwell in His house forever. I'm not alone in these hard things - God is actively helping me through, restoring the hurting parts, and continuing to give out so much goodness. What a hope, a God who helps me through hard times in so many ways.
• The Prodigal Son story (Luke 15:11-32) -  This famous story is about a father and two sons. One of the sons decides to get his inheritance early, part ways with his family, and go out into the world and live it up. Eventually he runs out of money and friends and hits rock bottom when he's sharing food with the pigs he's caring for. He decides to try crawling back to his family, expecting it to be a humiliating experience. Instead, his dad sees him coming from far away, runs out to meet him, throws his arms around him and is ecstatic to see him again. The father dresses the son in fancy clothing and throws a huge party with tons of great food for him. This one is hopeful to me because sometime we are in hard circumstances that are at least partly of our own making. In most situation, if you mess up badly, you can expect to pay the consequences - you might get fired, lose a relationship, lose a bunch of money, be looked down on by the people who know what you did. This father would've been totally justified in having a response like that - barring the son from returning, expecting him to apologize all over himself and grovel, treating him as less than for the choices he made - but instead, he is *delighted* to see his beloved child. He lavishly celebrates the lost son who has returned. It's a beautiful, unconditional, other-wordly sort of love. And this is the kind of love WE get from God when we turn back to Him after being absent, making a series of bad choices, thinking we knew the best way and then ending up in a terrible situation. What a hope, that kind of love.
• Revelation 21:4-5 says, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new.'" This is the promise of what we have to hope for, how things will eventually be. My job will be a thing of the past because there will be no more foster care, no more courtrooms, no more kids in heartbreaking situations. No more hospitals and cancer diagnoses. No more relational sadness, no more watching loved ones die. No more experiencing the breakdown of your body or mind. No more Kleenex, because no more sickness or sadness. This is a hope so big, so amazing, so beautiful that I can't wrap my head around it.

I am so grateful for these hopes, and I would love to hear what's bringing you hope these days. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Running Post 2024

It's that time again!  Every time I run a longer race, it makes me want to write a running post.  I'm aware that I have multiple blog topics that might be interesting to those who are also into the thing, but boring-bordering-on-annoying to those not into it, and running might be at the top of the list (followed closely by homeschool).  So I invite you to skip this one if reading about running is like nails on a chalkboard for you.

Why run during this busy season?  

I covered it some here, but my life is a like a big pile of puzzle pieces right now.  Not necessarily busier than anyone else with kids and a job / homeschooling, but lots to fit in every week going in many different directions, and anything that's an "extra" can only be added for good reason.  The good reason with running is that this is what helps me keep my head on straight for everything else. The crazier life gets, the MORE I need the activity that helps my brain feel calm, focused, and able to work through things. Plus, as an introvert, I relish the alone time where it's just me and my music.

For those who are contemplating running a half marathon, here's what it's like for the recreational, could-be-better-trained, over 40 runner:

-This might just be my over 40 personality, but I am prone to avoid all activities that involve changing your sleep schedule, strategizing to find parking, and standing in line for a Port-a-Potty. Somehow though, for races, this all adds to the fun of it. Running in a big pack of people is fun, the music is fun, the race bibs are fun, and picking out your music is fun.

- For the first 7 miles, you feel really good, and you have to use self control not to blast off to a faster pace.  You enjoy the scenery and your fellow runners and the funny spectator signs and the kind people at the water stations.

- Somewhere between miles 7 and 10, your body might give you the equivalent of the Check Engine light.  Something will start hurting.  At this point, you have to decide if it's a genuine injury, or if a slow down / stretch might help, or if it's your mind playing tricks on you and you should keep going.  So far for me, it's usually one of the latter two, and if you just keep going you will feel better (or numb to the problem enough to get through the race).  If you train really diligently and include stretching, strengthening, and active recovery as part of your training plan, then you might be able to skip this step.  But who has time for that?

- Miles 10-13, your body will for sure hurt, and you have to start finding little tiny mini-goals to keep going.  Just get to that tree in the distance; that water table down the block; another quarter mile on your Garmin.  You will also note that it hurts as much to walk as to run, so might as well keep running and get the better time.  

-Mile 13 - you see the finish line in sight and turn on the gas for 1-3 blocks.  It feels amazing to cross and get handed the finisher's medal.  I usually collapse on the grass for a few minutes, then find some water, then hobble to my car and start thinking about the next race :).  

For those of you who are wondering specifically about the Rock Reno Half Marathon, here's a review with some of the distinctives:

Time of year:  Early October is a great time for a half marathon.  As your training runs get longer in September, the mornings and evenings are significantly cooler.  The leaves are starting to change color, so it's pretty.  The only big wild card with this (in Reno) is whether there is a bad fire season, as that can really affect the ability to get out and do long runs in August and September. Thankfully, even with a big fire right in town this year, our air quality stayed extremely good.

Location: This one starts in South Meadows, goes up Veteran's Parkway, and then goes west along the Truckee River until you get to the Aces stadium.  Most of the half marathons in Reno go from downtown to Mayberry Park, so it was nice to get a little variety. It was also nice that 90% of the run was along bike paths. The view usually included either mountains or river, the second half had some decent shade, and the elevation was very gently rolling, no killer hills.  This was a point-to-point marathon, so they took us in buses from the finish line to the start - that was a pretty smooth process (except when the bus driver got lost and we did an over-the-curb U-turn, but what that lacked in smoothness it made up for in hilarity).

Atmosphere: Positive environment, easy access, on the small side (there were around 400 that ran the half marathon portion of this race).  They call this Rock Reno, but the only music was at the start and finish lines (however, that music was dope, credit where credit is due.)

Overall: This was well run and pleasant - if you live near Reno and this works out conveniently for your schedule, I would give it two thumbs up.