Bits and Pieces of Our -- No, My -- Days

Where have I been? 

What an insightful question.

I used to blog, right? And then, my children suddenly grew up, my youngest became a teenager, and I mostly clammed up about my girls because they were no longer kid-quote-fodder for my blog (other than sharing the occasional witticism.) There's plenty to ponder about raising teenagers and living with young college women, but not plenty to blog about. It's their life, not mine.

~~~~~

I haven't blogged much about homeschooling, other than books Ramona and I read together, because I keep thinking, "Do I have anything left to say about homeschooling? Haven't I already told everyone it's about Reading Aloud and Talking!? Isn't it all there in the archives?" Maybe, maybe not. I toy with the idea of a book about homeschooling. Not sure.

~~~~~

Then there's what I call Facebook-Creep. What I used to always, always post on the blog feels more like a quick FB post, so I throw it over there. Then I think, "What about the people who aren't on Facebook? Who don't want to deal with its ridiculous, wonky algorithm? Who don't want a social media platform deciding for them what's a 'top story'?" And I think, "Hmmm. I should blog more."

~~~~~

Then I think, "There are so many blogs, and so many who do it so well: homeschool blogging, read-aloud blogging, parenting blogging, bookish blogging. Am I just tired of blogging? Do I even remember how to blog about anything other than Poetry Friday? Not that there's anything wrong with that...."

~~~~~

Then I take a nap.

~~~~~

I will never stop writing. One of the reasons my blogging has decreased is that other writing--and the necessary promotion of that writing, i.e., my books, by way of radio interviews, etc.--has increased. I guess I'm just in one of those regular, "What am I doing?" phases that I go through.

~~~~~

Have been doing lots of radio interviews lately, to talk about You Can Share the Faith. Lots of good, thought provoking conversations about what it does and doesn't mean to evangelize, and about how what flows out of us is rooted in our own, ongoing conversion. It's always fascinating to me to hear people's reactions to this book. I think the cover, the font, the cups of tea, indicate something a little lighter, but I've been told that once people dig in to the book, they find the content to be much more serious than they'd anticipated. If you've read it and we haven't talked, I'd love to hear your take on that.

~~~~~

Coming up: I recorded a Fountains of Carrots podcast with Christy Isinger and Haley Stewart and, as always, enjoyed it immensely. They told me I'm their first return guest. Huzzah! An honor. And of course, it was a lot of fun to talk to them. I'll pass on the link when the podcast is released.

~~~~~

Hey, I think this is a blog post! I'll try to come up with another one. Before the next Poetry Friday.

In Which I Confuse Homeschooling and Wine

The delightful, lovely, and very kind Ana Hahn, from Time Flies When You're Having Babies, is doing a blog series -- "How Do They Do It?" -- about homeschooling. When Ana asked if I'd like to participate, I jumped at the chance to talk about one of my favorite things: wine.

No, wait.

I meant to say homeschooling. (Although I do mention wine in Answer #5.)

You can find my Q & A with Ana here.

Thanks, Ana, for running this series, and for such great questions!

And be sure to check out some of her other installments here, here, and here.

Top Ten Reasons My Blog Has Been Languishing

10. It's been hot this summer. Everything is languishing.

9.  My friend Paula was visiting from Chicago -- I was busy with her and Ramona was busy with Paula's daughter. I begged to accompany was forced to go with Paula to a cool old furniture shop and consider buying a gorgeous cedar chest that I don't really need.

8. I didn't buy the cedar chest but the mental wrangling took all my energy.

7. We had a bat in the house. Eeeeeek! We had a bat in the house! The screaming, the running, and the  feelings of disgust took all my energy (and just after I'd regained it following the cedar chest incident. Not fair.)

6. We have been shopping for a car for our teens. We've made do without a teen car so far, but we're finally all going in too many directions.

5. Visiting used car dealers should qualify us for an enormous discount off our time in purgatory. (This doesn't technically qualify as a reason for blog languishment. I just had to say it.)

4. We've been finishing up various summer activities: a cool "outdoor classroom" hosted by the Game and Parks Commission (in which Ramona romped in a delightfully big mud puddle), horseback riding, the water park before it closes. I'm trying to remember the meaning of the words "cook dinner" and we've been adding and dropping classes at the college for Betsy's early enrollment: Spanish! No, French! No, Spanish! (We've just registered, and this is crazy, but pick a language, and call me maybe....)*

3. I had to clean out a closet and put up some new curtains in the dining room because, you know, when you're writing a book it's easier to invent unnecessary organizational and cleaning projects that make you feel you're accomplishing something than it is to stare at the screen and ponder just the right word for that sentence in chapter seven.

2. On the subject of writing, a book, well, I'm writing a book -- and I have only so much room in my brain/time at the computer, and often I've spent it all on the book, which leaves my poor little blog out in the cold (or is it languishing in the heat?) If I spend entire days and nights at the screen, Ramona looks like this:

and asks, "Mommy, don't you love me anymore?" 

1. I wonder if that cedar chest is still there....

~~~~~~~~~~

*To be fair to Betsy, a fair amount of the switching was my doing, covering bases in case one or the other of the classes doesn't take off due to low enrollment. In other words, I'm making my daughter look indecisive for comic effect. This is totally unfair of me, although (in all fairness to me, as long as we're going for fairness) she did waffle a little, due to various considerations.  But it's my blog and it's hard enough to find things I can share about my teens without violating their privacy, so when I find something I can say, I say it. Even though I fully expect to hear, "Mom!" 

"I do not know which to prefer ..."

The beauty of blogging, or the absence of it.

Sorry.

I'm in a "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" sort of mood.

I've been AWOL from the blog again.

This time we were melting in Oklahoma with my sister and brother-in-law. (It's 112 degrees there today. I miss you, dear sister, but I'm happy to be home.)

I'll get back to blogging in a day or two.  In the meantime, here's the next book on the summer reading list:

Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal: 

Thanks to promptings from my friend, Danae, and Lesley at Wisteria and Sunshine, I picked it up. It's exquisite. I tried to describe it succinctly to my sister, but could say only, "She has a graceful relationship with food ... do you know what I mean?"

If you don't, you must read.

Guest posting at The Snoring Scholar

I added my two cents to Sarah Reinhard's "Looking Closer at the Hail Mary" series, and my post is here.

See the whole series of reflections here.

~~~~~~

And have a happy 4th of July!

(You can find me getting cranky over all the neighborhood noise, as usual.)

Dear Google Reader,

I don't even know where to begin.

We had a great thing going. Oh, sure, I know you had the same thing with just-about-everyone-else-on-the-internet, but that was okay with me. Actually, that was kind of the point. Sharing. Y'know? It was everything to me. How could you have missed that our relationship was all about the sharing? You never really listened to me, did you?

When you went through this mid-life redesign and pulled the plug on the Share feature, I was, to put it mildly, shocked. It took days just to get over the denial. ("You aren't really doing this. Tell me you're not doing this. If I just pretend you're not doing this, you'll come to your senses Won't you?")

Then there was the anger ("You will not do this! I will not allow this! You do not even understand what you're doing, do you?! Google, are you listening to me? I will not be ignored, Google!" )

Then came the bargaining. ("C'mon, G., I mean, c'mon. Let's just go back to the way it used to be. We were a team, an effortless waltz, can't you see that? I'll dump Facebook for good. Really. Totally. I'll never click a Like button again, and I'll tell everyone I've ever met about Google+ if you'll just give me back the Share bookmarklet. Please?")

You know what came next, right? And you know that you caused it. Yeah. The depression. Don 't deny your culpability here. I couldn't even blog about it -- every key stroke was too much effort. What was there to say, anyway? It was pointless. You weren't coming back and my life was forever altered. I had to learn a new way of being.

And finally? Acceptance.Yeah, I made it. I get it. You don't really care about my needs. I've moved on.

And now I'm going to share with my friends how I moved on, and how they can, too. First, I have to thank Lissa, who was (you cad) more heartbroken than I was. She suggested the Tumblr part of this idea, and for that, I must thank her. Her empathetic blog posts about our messy relationship were a salve for my denying, angry, bargaining, depressed self.

But (hey, I'm no longer bitter) back to what I did:

I already had AddThis on my browser. If you don't have it, it's quick and easy to add -- an effortless way to email links, send them to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc.

Then, I followed up on Lissa's idea about Tumblr for links. I quickly and easily set up a Tumblr page: My Shared Stuff. 

Then I went to the Tumblr Goodies page (just scroll down to "Embed your blog") and found the code to add to my sidebar so that you can now see my shared items from Tumblr here. (See over there? In my left sidebar? Under "What I'm Reading"? That's where you used to be, Google Share.)

Now, all I have to do to fling anything from  the web far and wide (all the places we used to go together, Google) is click on my AddThis button, click on my Tumblr button, and -- Ta-da! -- I'm a new woman.

(And, actually, it's even quicker than that -- on the Tumblr Goodies page, I found, right at the top, a "Share on Tumblr" bookmarklet. Just drag that to your bookmark bar and you'll be sharing in one click. You can skip AddThis altogether.)

It's a whole new relationship and I'm kind of walking on air here.

Oh, and as for you, Google Shared Items?

I'm going to wear red to your funeral.

~~~~~~~~~~

Updated to add a quick clarification:

I have not dumped Google Reader for reading, subscribing, staying current with favorite blogs, etc. I do not want to bother with a new reader, new subscription set-up, etc.  That's too much trouble and work. (Although, I did go ahead and set up a FriendFeed account, if that makes it easier for anyone else to share posts, etc. Still haven't fully investigated FriendFeed, though -- just an FYI.)

What I truly missed was an easy way to share an item from either a blog I'm already subscribed to, or from a random page I happened to land on. That's what Google Reader's universal Share bookmark allowed -- sharing from any page without first subscribing to it. That's the biggest convenience lost through this change.

Embedding Tumblr on my blog has resurrected that ability. I can now use either "Add This" or "Share on Tumblr"  to share anything at all, subbed or not, and it will end up both on my blog and on my Tumblr page (which can also be subbed to via a feed.)


(Photo thanks to Stock.xchng.)

Should You Be Wondering Where I Am ...

... I am busy pretending to be a mom-of-many.

Five extra kids here this weekend (two of them teens, so they're of course a huge help, along with my older girls) while their parents deliver their oldest brother to college.

Observations: 

~ The busyness of three-year-olds: How could I have forgotten? When they're not asleep, they're moving. Rapidly. (Plus, they're always cutely announcing what's happening: "Mrs. Edmitten! Tha's the dryer buzzing!" "Mrs. Edmitten! Your cat's in the window!") 

~ If you leave the Ivory soap bar within their reach, three little girls together in a tub will find a reason to rub said bar all over their hair. If anyone at Mass this morning noticed a dull film on those three adorable heads, you can blame me and my rinsing technique. 

~ College? What? Isn't that boy still nine years old? 

I'll be back soon -- the visiting kids head back to their house tomorrow and we'll return to our regularly scheduled small family. 

If you happened to view my Blogger profile recently ...

... you may have been confused to read this:

I'm home-sweet-home-schooled, I love the color pink, and just a few of my favorite books are: Harry Potter 1& 2 ... still have 93 pages left in the second book, but so far I love. it.  I hope you enjoyed your stay!

Apparently, this is what happens when you allow your eight-year-old to start her own private blog, which is under the umbrella of your blog's dashboard. Then, when your eight-year-old edits her profile, she accidentally edits your profile.

I also like pink, and I also enjoyed the Harry Potter books. But I was not home-sweet-homeschooled.

I did, however, enjoy my stay at Ramona's blog.

Why Facebook is like the swingset in the backyard (or, "Why must things keep changing?")

When I was a new mom, I had visions of meeting other new moms at the neighborhood park. On TV and in the movies, moms were always at the park. They went to the park with their friends, like Hope and Nancy did in Thirtysomething. (Hey, I know I'm showing my age but my oldest is 17 ... my ideas of motherhood were formed in the late eighties and early nineties ....) Or like Dustin Hoffmann and Jane Alexander in Kramer vs. Kramer (though I, of course, wouldn't end up eating pablum like Hope did in that one episode, and I knew I would never let my child fall off the monkey bars like Ted Kramer did.)

So, when I had Anne-with-an-e, I dutifully dressed her in something adorable and trundled her off to the park in her stroller. The hitch in my plan was that we lived in an extraordinarily small town. I was the only one at the park.

At least I thought the tinyness of our town was the hitch. Eventually, however, I came to believe that the real hitch was that no one needed to go to parks anymore. Everyone had her own swingset in the backyard. Why haul the kids to a playground when you could go just a few steps out your own back door?

My first reaction, upon discovering this, was to vow to never get a swingset of my own. I alone would uphold the American tradition and ideal of hauling kids to the park! I alone would continue to rely on parks in order to sort out life's greatest mysteries, as did Hope and Nancy, or to witness horrific accidents, as Ted Kramer did. Yes, I alone would do this!

And alone I was.  No one was ever at the park.

Finally, I caved. "Let's get a swingset," I said to Atticus, feeling that I was letting down an entire generation of both TV moms and idealistic rebels.

"Really?" he asked.

"Yeah," I sighed. "What's the point of going to the park in hopes of meeting new moms when they're all in their backyards? I may as well have the convenience of a swingset in my backyard, too."

So, we got a swingset. And eventually I was quite grateful for that swingset, especially as my children got older and I found myself saying things like, "Go outside and play on the swingset."

Fast forward to 2005. I start a blog. Lots of other people have started blogs, too. And we all visit each other's blogs and the blogosphere is like a big ole park. We hang out together on the merry-go-round of blogging and no one has a horrific accident on the monkey bars and everyone is happy. Then Facebook-the-Swingset comes along and ruins everything. Suddenly everyone has a Facebook page and we aren't all congregating around the water cooler (I know I'm mixing metaphors here but let me go ... I'm on a roll) of the blogosphere anymore and it seems impossible to keep up with everyone because we're all in our own backyards.

So, that's why Facebook is like a swingset and sometimes annoys me. Because I can't keep up with all the backyards.

On the other hand, I used to participate in some homeschooling e-groups and when I started blogging, I had less time for the e-groups and a woman I know likens blogs to swingsets, so what are you gonna do?

The world keeps changing. Just about the time I was ready to upgrade our swingset to a really good one, I realized that my oldest child was seventeen and hadn't used a swingset for about a decade. I guess that means that by the time I really, truly, fully embrace Facebook I'll realize that everyone else is communicating via some sort of electronic brain implant.

And I'll still be living in the past, watching Thirtysomething reruns and posting status updates on this ancient thing called a Macbook.

(Caveat: I said I'd start posting again, but I never said it would be meaningful stuff.)

Atticus Thinks He's Funny

He just walked through the room and asked what I was doing. When I said I was working on a blog post, he said, "You mean you still have a blog?"

Droll, my dear.

Last week I mentioned that once I finished a big project, I would actually post again.

I will. Because I do still have a blog.

Look Closely, What Do You See?

I know.

Nothing.

Here's a riddle for you: What do you get when you combine a deadline for a major writing project with allergy season?

Yes! You win! (Or lose, depending on whether or not you actually wanted to read something on this blog today.) You get Karen's blog looking like this:

And finally, what will you get when the writing deadline has passed, the allergy meds have alleviated annoying symptoms, and I have time to blog?

I'm not sure what you'll get, so stay tuned. You may get loads of posts on stuff I've been thinking about, such as "Things I've Learned In Times of Doubt" and "Why Facebook is Like a Swingset in the Back Yard."

Or, you might only get to hear about how I finally have a clean house.

Bits and Pieces of Our Days

I had a lovely post planned for Poetry Friday last week, but couldn't get it done because we were without internet access most of that morning. I have to admit that most of that morning felt like a month and a half. I am so used to high-speed-internet-instant-access-communication-at-my-fingertips ... it's always good to have it ruthlessly yanked from me in order to readjust my perspective. I was trying to make plans with two friends and their kids and I envisioned myself driving from house to house to confirm the meeting place when I remembered that I do have a phone. I picked it up and guess what? It worked. Sometimes those ancient inventions come in handy even as we chuckle at their quaint charm.

~~~~~

Anne-with-an-e took the ACT test on Saturday. She is Glad. It's. Over. We unschoolish night owls don't generally choose to be up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning, readying ourselves for something that involves math. The last time we did that was, oooh, let's see ... Never? Always a new adventure when one is homeschooling high school. At any rate, I'm really proud of her and she survived.

~~~~~

I am really proud of Betsy, too. Have I mentioned that my middle daughter has written two short novels? Two. I haven't written a single novel yet. I have some catching up to do. So fun to see her tackling longer works and now revising and editing. She brings a chapter of her novel to our writing group every week and she also has an online writing pal (Katie! She loves you!) with whom she exchanges work. Recently Betsy, Anne, and two other friends starting kicking around the idea of working together to write a novel. The authorial fun just keeps coming.

~~~~~

We finally saw Tangled. It was here-and-gone so quickly from our little local theater that we hadn't had the chance to see it.  So the girls bought the dvd and Atticus and I watched it with them last night. Great movie -- themes of light and love and sacrifice. Highly recommended.

(Eta: More discussion here.)
~~~~~

Other movies we've seen lately:

Get Low (Atticus and me) Beautifully filmed. Touching and lovely. But then, Robert Duvall and Bill Murray could sit in front of a camera and discuss their favorite heartburn relief remedies and I'd watch it.

Ramona and Beezus (whole family) Don't get me started. It wasn't horrible, and yet it was. Selena Gomez as Beezus? Kissing Henry Huggins? Really? This is a problem.

Elf  (whole family) Yes. We, too, couldn't believe we'd never seen it. "You sit on a throne of lies!" is now a frequently heard emphatic whisper around here.

Flipped (older girls and me) Loved it. So very sweet. Here's a great review from Roger Ebert.

The Goodbye Girl (older girls) They loved it as much as I've always loved it. They were delighted when I told them that Quinn Cummings is not only alive but has a hilarious and wonderfully written blog. As a matter of fact, if Anne-with-an-e's ACT score is delightfully high, I'll credit the QC Report. Anne read the rabbit posts while she ate breakfast that morning and her laughter had a whole lot to do with leaving the house in a buoyant mood.

I'm at Conversion Diary, reflecting on Our Father's Name

Last month, I mentioned that Jennifer at Conversion Diary was putting together a series of posts meant to reflect on the Lord's prayer, word by word. I loved her idea, especially because as I first began tentative prayer I did the same thing. (Pondered one word of the Our Father at a time, that is. Blogging wasn't a word yet.)

Not yet baptized, wondering if I had to go to a church, and reading the New Testament to learn more about this Jesus person, I'd sit down to pray and spend time with just one word of the Our Father. If you've never savored the Our Father this way, meditated on just a single word or phrase, I highly recommend it. You'll find thoughts, connections, and ideas that simply don't pop up in the middle of a rote recitation. (Not that rote recitation doesn't have its place -- in times of fear or crisis, when my brain isn't working well, it's a gift to have a string of real words at my disposal that are at once a cry, a comfort, and a prayer of supplication. And, of course, formal prayer is not automatically rote, but that's another subject.)

So, please head over to Jennifer's to read the whole series, and share in my thoughts on our Father's Name.

(Graphic is thanks to Jen. I'm not that clever.)

Saying Yes, Saying No, and Jennifer's Our Father Series

Why do mothers feel so guilty about being "only" mothers?  Why do we sometimes think that if our vocation and our work is "just at home" that we should be willing to also take on all kinds of other projects?

Isn't "Home and Family" a worthwhile project?

I think so. But I'd be willing to bet that most stay-at-home moms have felt guilty about saying no to volunteering, committees, and so on, even though we know that Overcommitted = Cranky.

I'm sure we've all heard the spot-on wisdom that we must sometimes say "no" to good things in order to properly serve the people and things we've said "yes" to.

And isn't the best example of that the Blessed Mother?

When Mary said "yes" to God, she was saying "no" to a lot of other objective goods, such as an ordinary marriage and family. But the Lord didn't call her to the ordinary -- He called her to the extraordinary. She said yes.

On the other hand, He has called many of us to the ordinary, and we must say no to the extraordinary (such as being, or trying to be, Superwoman.)  It's okay to say "No, I cannot be Superwoman", no to the many demands on our time that can distract us from handling that one big "Yes" that we signed on for.

Jennifer at Conversion Diary had a great post on this very subject recently.  Visit her post for the tips, definitely, but almost as good is the graphic she threw in.

~~~~~

And, speaking of Jennifer, she's doing a terrific series right now on The Our Father, Word by Word.  She's reflecting on the each word of the prayer, and has invited some guest bloggers to weigh in, too.

My turn will be coming up soon -- I'm delighted to be part of it, and I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, check out Jennifer's first installment : "Our."  And her first guest blogger, Marcel LeJeune is here, on "Father."

And, just to be clear on the whole Yes/No issue:

If, instead of throwing in a guest post Jennifer had asked me to join a year-long committee to investigate the feasibility of doing a series of posts on the Our Father, and needed me to make 110 phone calls to see which bloggers might be free, and if she wondered aloud if I might also have time to bake ten dozen chocolate chip cookies for the first meeting and also line up the babysitting, rest assured I would have said no to all of those goods in order to say yes to the best: writing a blog post.

It seems to me that I used to have a blog ...

... or was I dreaming?

I think I had an online spot wherein I thought about things and then wrote about them.

Lately, though, it seems that I don't have time.

Hoping that Time experiences some sort of warp that will allow me to do that again someday ....

#1 Lie Writers Tell Themselves:

"It's okay that I'm not writing this down ... I'll remember this idea."

No.

I won't.
I never do.
Sigh.
Must carry paper and pen while walking dog ....

I'm going to go write that down.

Great Catholic Toolbar

Very cool -- check it out here at Catholic Gadget.

Thanks, Faith & Family Moms!

The second part of Thursday's Faith and Family Live Podcast was about blogging moms, and Danielle Bean gave me the nicest shout-out near the end of the podcast. I was surprised and delighted. It continues to amaze me that people who don't have to like me and my writing -- my husband, my children, my best friend from high school -- actually do.

Disclaimer: This is not a Sally Field moment. Please don't imagine me gripping my Macbook and gushing, "You like me, you really like me." Nah, it's not that. It's just a genuinely pleasant thing to be surprised in that way. So, thanks, Danielle, and I seriously hope that if we ever get the chance to meet in person you don't have to take it all back.

Calling Your Attention to:

one of my favorite people, Alicia Van Hecke, who runs the Love2Learn website.

This post is a perfect example of why I love to read Alicia's blog. There's a link to an interview with Alicia about "The Catholic Home" in which you can hear her lovely, balanced, intelligent vision (and reality) of homeschooling and living the Catholic life with her children. There are bits and pieces of her day there, links to things like lovely journals and a self-test about sensory issues. Finally there is a gorgeous Cardinal Ratzinger quote.  (Though this was a "7 Quick Takes" post, and obviously varied for that reason, I think this post is representative of the rich tapestry that is Alicia's world.)

Disclaimer: 
This is not a paid advertisement for Alicia Van Hecke or for any product related to Alicia Van Hecke or Karen Edmisten or lovely journals or sensory integration tests. I just like Alicia a whole lot. (Insert appropriately cute smiley face here.)

Just Read the Book, For Pete's Sake

Do you ever check in on your blog stats?  And you see that someone spent an extended period of time reading your blog?

And so you say to yourself, "Self, that is so rewarding. I'm gratified that someone found something so worthwhile on my blog. That's why I do this. To be helpful."

And then you glance at their search words and discover how they ended up at your blog? And you realize their search words were "Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan" or "What is the plot of Escape from Warsaw?"

And you know that your ever-so-helpful words probably just ended up in some sixth grader's book report?

And you think, "I really hope you get caught," or, "Did you take out the part about Anne-with-an-e and Betsy after you cut and pasted? Because I hope you didn't."

Not that I don't want to be helpful.  I just want them to get caught before they enter a full-blown life of crime.  I'm talkin' about you and your ilk, Anonymous.

Thus ends today's cautionary tale.