Let Pleasure Find You...

This is a writing prompt from a book I got for a friend recently. It says, "Let pleasure find you. What are some of your favorite pleasures?"

So, here's my list...in stream of consciousness order:

* Time with Mango
* Reading with Mane
* Having Vespera lay her head on me
* Getting to spend the afternoon with friends ~ I get to do that with 2 girlfriends tomorrow!!
* Phone calls from Montana
* Visits with my Montana-Friend
* Having people over to my house for the afternoon! (Thanks to my Bible study small group!)
* Finding great books at the library
* Good coffee
* Coffee shops with great ambiance
* The wind in my face
* Listening to the waves on a lake
* Walking in the woods
* Listening to good music really loud in the car
* Time to write
* Reading poetry
* Helping my kids through this complex journey of life & getting to see the results sometimes
* Knowing Vespera tells me the important things in her life
* Seeing Mane learn to read
* Sleeping next to Mango
* Hearing Mango & Vespera play guitar
* Watching soccer games
* Summer
* Camping
* Great books
* Making a meal that people enjoy
* Knowing my gluten-free bread is REALLY good
* Seeing my friends in good relationships
* Listening to Mane talk about God
* Sitting on the porch in the summer
* Mango's grilled food in the summer
* Road trips
* Knowing my family can get through a road trip together!
* E-mails from far-away friends
* A shiny teapot
* Following the Iditarod with Mane
* Learning about EVERYTHING with Mane
* Finding good book bargains
* Good deals at Savers
* Watching my kids with their friends...seeing their personalities come through, seeing how they engage with other people, and how people love them
* Listening to Spanish
* Hearing Vespera repeat a piece of advice I gave her
* Thunderstorms
* Sun-showers
* Growing a garden

...I need to head off to bed...anybody want to leave their own list in the comments? :)

Random pieces of relationship advice....

Since I find myself in the position of giving relationship advice to one who is near & dear to me lately, I thought I'd record it here...for posterity, I guess.

---> TELL the other person what it is you want & need. Don't expect them to read your mind. They can't do it. I promise.

---> Following from the last piece of advice, VALUE what the other person does "even though" you needed to tell them what you wanted/needed. It is the highest honor to have someone love you enough to do what you asked them to do. It means they have *listened* and they care.

---> Every relationship is a little like a cross-cultural relationship, even if you're both from the same culture & you speak the same language. You grew up in different families where words & actions have their own unique sets of meaning. Every person has their own unique sets of experiences & expressions of personality. This means you have learn the other person's "language."

---> Speaking of languages, I am a fan of the Love Languages concept. I believe that what speaks love to one person may not speak love to another, or, at least, it may not speak as loudly or as deeply. Different people have different needs in order to feel loved, cared for & respected. Briefly, the 5 primary love languages cited by Gary Chapman in his book are: words of affirmation, acts of service, touch, quality time, and gifts. Whatever you tend to do for other people is probably your primary language. It is one of the highest expressions of love to learn the language your partner speaks, especially if it isn't your primary language.

---> Allow yourself to be loved, even if it embarrasses you. It's really ok to let people love you and for them to show it in big, romantic, sentimental, and extravagant ways.

---> When it the presence of someone who loves you and whom you trust, there's no need to be embarrassed about expressing how you feel. They LOVE you, and they just want to know that you love them back.

Any questions? ;)

Dating News

So, Novio came over this afternoon before Vespera got home from school. They had a major misunderstanding last night, and though they worked through it last night over the phone, he came over today in person to re-connect. I chatted with him a little waiting for Vespera to get home from school. I told him I knew about what happened last night & wanted to know what his intentions were toward her because she cares for him a lot and, therefore, his actions carry a lot of weight around here. Essentially they need to either cool it or they need to be really invested because there isn't a whole lot of middle ground any more. Am I making sense?

Sooooooooo, anyway, I was sitting here in my living room with a pounding headache (another story), talking to Novio, and he looked me straight in the eye, as his own eyes filled with tears, and he said, "She means more to me than anything. I want you to know that I love her. I really love her."

Wow.

Ok.

I knew this already. But I hadn't heard it with my own ears. He was really nervous, but also quite sincere.

Just so you know, she'll be 18 in October. He'll be 19 in May. It's entirely overwhelming to me to be overseeing this kind of relationship. This has strong potential to last a really long time, and I can hardly fathom it. I've never watched a relationship from this angle before, never been so responsible for guiding and advice-giving. Its amazing and overwhelming. Really, it's kind of beautiful. Watching them has brought back a lot of memories for Mango & I.

It's hard, though, you know? You don't want to push your kids in a relationship, but you also don't want them to just give up. You want to see them learn to communicate & work through differences. But, all the while, they are so young. I'm not going to stay out of it & let them flounder around, but I also want to communicate that if this isn't the right relationship for them, they can get out. Tough stuff.

A morning person?

You know, I really *do* love mornings. I do. I woke up extra early on Wednesday to make sure I could borrow my neighbor's car to go to Bible study (and I had to call her before she left to take her kids to school), and I realized that I like it when the sun is just coming up & the world is hushed. It's the same way I feel about walking around the house in the middle of the night when everything is still and peaceful. It occurred to me that *maybe* I could transfer my love of late nights to a love of early mornings. It's entirely possible that I resist early mornings because people talk about getting up early as though there's something so virtuous about it, and I resist the idea that there's something more holy about getting up early than staying up late. It always felt so adventurous to stay up late in college, when I first became truly acquainted with the wee hours of the morning (those being 1am - 4am). Getting up early is really only an extension of those adventurous hours (5am & 6am). Of course, that would entail going to bed early and giving up my love of the midnight hours. Because God (and everybody else) knows how I feel (and act) when I don't get enough sleep. So, I have to trade. The late night hours make me think of the descriptions of Fynn at the beginning of Mr. God, This is Anna, and I feel connected to writers everywhere. Early mornings, though, make me think of Anne of Green Gables, gardening, dewdrops, and SUNSHINE. Hmmmm...I'm going to have to give those early hours some thought.

The Ocean & the Arctic

I have totally hit the jackpot in the last few weeks with books to go along with our homeschool lessons. As you know, we've been centering our lessons around the book Very Last First Time, and my plan was to study the ocean & the Arctic. We found two very cool books on just those subject, complete with experiments, projects & activities. Here's my shameless plug for those two books:



Awesome Ocean Science taught us to make rain in a jar & how to show that saltwater is heavier than freshwater! We also practiced fractions talking about how much of the earth is saltwater & how much of the human body is freshwater.

and



Let's Go To the Arctic tells a story of an Inuit family, and comes with activities related to animals and their adaptations to the cold Arctic climate, the arctic food chain, and the rotation of the earth! It also comes with patterns for some very cute paper dolls, which Mane is coloring clothes for as I type!

Quote Archive 1/14/08

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

~ Krishnamurti, as quoted in the book The Well-Adjusted Child: The Social Benefits of Homeschooling by Rachel Gathercole

Drawing With Children

Mane & I started using this book today. I'm looking forward to the adventure, though I've had little interest in drawing in the past. Mane loves to draws and is actually quite good at it, if you ask me. Mango, Vespera, AND Novio ALL also turn out some fantastic artwork. So, this is an adventure. We started lesson 1 today over some Good Earth tea with some classical music in the background. I know. I'm crazy. But, it's fun!