Oh, Baby!

Well, I'm ready to get back on the simplicity wagon. The house has gotten rather cluttered with STUFF. We need to convert the "study" into the nursury, reclaim the guest room, finish decorating for Christmas, complete the master bathroom, and set up a small desk area. Oh, and clean out the closets. So, I figure my best bet is to post photos and show progress. I'll start with the baby's room.

Here it is today. Believe it or not this includes quite a bit of decluttering.





Here is the baby's closet.

I'm back...

Well, its been two months since my last post. In that time I've worked like a mule at my (supposedly) 20-hour a week job, puked quite a bit, and completely ignored my garden. A few weeks ago my husband and I began to tell certain friends and family about the pregnancy. I also got to hear the babe's heartbeat a few weeks ago. Exciting times.

Lately I've completely lost all interest in things organic, gardening or simplicity and am just focusing on making it through each day. Just getting up and started in the morning is tough because of the nausea and by about 3 p.m. I'm usually ready to call it a day. In between those times though, I feel great.

So, I don't know where this blog is actually going to go. I think I'll just use it as a journal for a while.

Who are you...who hoo, who hoo?

It's been a week of mild nausea and reading about classical homeschooling for me. While I've been watering the vegetable garden and adding to the compost pile, I really haven't been seeking simplicity in any way, shape or form. I'm beginning to wonder if the title/subject of my blog is actual or aspirational. I suppose only time will tell.

I did have my initial doctor's visit this week which actually wasn't with a doctor. I gave a thorough medical history to his nurse practitioner and left with a backpack filled with books, pamphlets and coupons courtesy of Enfamil formula. Let the commercialization of motherhood begin!

Holding the peanut in my belly has reignited my interest in homeschooling techniques. I found a copy of The Well Trained Mind in the library where I work. I read it cover to cover and am now skimming it again. After exploring Charlotte Mason, Montesouri, unschooling, Enki, Waldorf, and other homeschooling approaches, the classical approach certainly seems the best fit with me. It is academically rigorous without losing sight of the fact that kids need to be kids. The authors argue against sending kids to college early or pushing them to be academic giants. Their focus is on using the trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) to teach kids how to think and learn.

Of course, before I start to teach the kid how to read, I need to first go through pregnancy and birth. Always getting ahead of myself!

Hello all you strange camels...

I thought it was time to explain the name of my blog. When I was in fifth grade, there was a bible competition at my Catholic school. Basically you studied the gospel according to Luke and took a test about the contest. I think I cracked a book once or twice and, not being a bible savant, didn't do so well on the test.

What I do remember about the episode was reading a passage (Luke 18:18-30 for those who want to play along at home), about a rich man who was asking Jesus how he could go to heaven. Basically Jesus told him to live a good life and the man said he was already doing that. Then Jesus seems to get a bit testy and tells him to sell all he has and give it to the poor. The man is crestfallen because he has so much and is reluctant to part with it. So Jesus says this to everyone who is watching:

How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Well, this scared the poop out of me as a kid. A camel CAN'T go through the eye of a needle. Impossible! I knew my family was wealthy...not Rockerfeller wealthy but we certainly were better off than a lot of the kids I went to school with. I was certain I was doomed.

Then when I got a little older, I read a commentary that explained that the eye of the needle was probably a reference to a certain town gate that was very low and narrow
and thus called "The Eye of the Needle" because pack animals had to be unloaded to pass through and even then they had to crouch. I liked the idea that simplicity and humility could be the point of the story and not that rich people automatically go to hell.

So the crouching camel image has become something of a symbol for me for simplicity, serenity, and spirituality.

If one is good, two is better, then three...

it
Cleaning up my bathroom counter yesterday and realized that it was time to get rid of my collection of positive pregnancy tests. We still aren't telling the extended family yet...hoping to wait until after my first doctor visit so we have something to report other than, "Yeah, we got two pink lines."

I'm feeling a bit pukey lately but oddly enough, when I made a big batch of frozen dinners yesterday nothing. I think it helped that I wasn't planning on eating the food that I was touching right away. Weird.

One thing that is very apparent is how parenthood really challenges my simplicity values. For example, I already know that I'd like to try cloth diapering. So I've made an online list/registry of prefolds, covers, etc. But in my heart I know I've crossed over from need to want in just making the registry. Something about it being 'for the baby" seems to give me liscence to run rampant with consumerism. Hmm. We'll have to see how this pans out.

September Morn

Ah, it is September! The weather here in southeast Texas is finally getting cooler which in turn brings out all sorts of changes in my mood. It is also the cusp of a long Labor Day weekend. Thank you unions!

My new vegetable garden has moderate results right now. Most of the radishes I planted are coming up and the carrots have little sprigs. I also have one collard green sprout and one cabbage sprout. But the lettuce, arugala, and spinach? Nothing. Perhaps I planted the seeds too early...it was a very hot August. Perhaps they were bad seeds. I got them from the sale rack at Home Depot. Perhaps they needed to be started indoors in a more gentle environment.

This weekend I'll go buy some more potting mix and start new seeds in my newspaper cups that I made with the until-now-unused Baccarat crystal tube vase we received as a wedding gift.

I also need to plant something in our front yard "bed" next to our entryway. It is only about 1.5x3 feet so a large plant may be out. But how crazy would it be to grow veggies there too? I suppose it can't be any worse than the weed garden that was there before.

As You Like It is one wacky tale

I'm in the process of reading Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales From Shakespeare in an effort to learn more about the Charlotte Mason theory of homeschooling. (Yes, I am researching homeschooling options for our yet-to-be-born child.) She advocated introducing young children to Shakespeare's storylines several years prior to studing Shakespeare's plays. The idea is that once you know the story, the antiquated language is easier to follow so kids don't really percieve it as impossible to read. Sort of a preemptive Cliff's Notes for kids.

So last night I finish the story version of As You Like It and I have to say that I forgot how convoluted and off the wall that plot was. I was a theatre major in college and ended up reading most of Shakespeare's plays but I must have been cramming the night I read that one. Dress up scenes, feigned romances, gender bending, and wilderness life, oh my! I couldn't help but think that Orlando's act of posting poems and messages of his love for Rosalind on every tree available was early blogging at work.

Why I Blog

In the past year so much has changed in my life. I left my job as editor of a women's magazine, got married, moved from Louisiana to Texas (managing to miss Katrina by a week only to get pounded by Rita), started a new part-time job, and bought a house. In the midst of all of that action, and without my monthly go-to-press deadline, I have found that my writing has diminished almost entirely.

At the magazine it was easy. Each month we had a theme like (Happiness, Creativity, or Family Fun) and I usually told my readers some funny or insightful story from my life that was related to it. But once I found myself allowed to write about anything at all, my creative pen suddenly dried up.

With all the extra time, I did find myself doing a lot of reading about all sorts of topics: simple living, organic gardening, homeschooling, educational philosophies, peace and justice theology, Catholicism, classical literature, the list goes on and on. With a new husband, a new role, and a new job that I didn't really define myself with as I had in the past, I found myself rediscovering my authentic self.

I've read that children of divorce tend to compartmentalize their lives as a coping mechanism to being a part of two families when growing up. This certainly rings true for me. I have certain strong beliefs that are seemingly incompatible with one another so my circles of friends don't often mix. At the same time, I find myself more and more interested in finding ways to philosophically integrate these parts of me into a whole...and I think writing this blog just may help me do that.

I fully admit to being an expert on pretty much nothing but opinionated all the same. I hope to write about my new garden and new compost pile, about trying to live a simple life and unplug from conspicuous consumerism, my efforts to improve my conscious contact with God, and to basically live a good life.

In the beginning...

When I was a little girl I used to draw out plans for my ideal home. First I would draw a large plot of land with a small house in the middle. Then I'd make areas for various fruit trees and vegetable plants. Of course I made areas for wool-producing sheep and egg-laying chickens. It was my own little self-sufficient homestead.

Imagine my surprise when, as a grown up, I find that what I was planning way back when was a model for a biointensive, permaculture garden. While in the process of building my raised bed and sowing it with seeds, I came across these two different, but compatible, concepts. As far as I understand it, biointensive gardening (a la Square Food Gardening) simply means learning how to use space very efficiently to grow more food in less space. Permaculture seems to be a little more philosophical and stresses working with nature's processes to produce food. I'm currently working my way through Masanobu Fukyoa's The One-Straw Revolution.

While he writes a great deal on the specifics of farming in Japan, I find that his approach to working with the earth most compelling. The way he describes "do nothing" farming (which actually does involve a significant amount of work), I can't help but compare his vision of holistic food production with the Garden of Eden stories in Genesis. Food is plentiful and requires work but no struggle.

Hopefully the radishes I planted are permaculturists!