Everybody Loves Babies

And Lent continues.  For those that may have not been reading all of my lent related blogs, I have committed to not reading or watching anything fictional.  This has meant me being creative with the evening hours of my day, which were previously composed of TV entertainment.  I will admit that finding non-fiction books has been easy as the subjects available are varied, being forced to search out new genre's has been a fun challenge.

Currently I am reading through America's Women: 400 years of dolls, drudges, helpmates and heroines by Gail Collins.  I have enjoyed the women from history that this author has pulled out and highlighted.  The women that came over on some of the first ships to America and had to build a life from the dirt around them to the women that strapped themselves into corsets, attempting to squeeze out the perfect figure.  The rugged life of a pioneer is pointed out in the furniture that was available at the time, maybe one family chair and table and then the family bed.  No place for a women to sit down in comfort.  Pointing out that there was not much ease in the life of these early American women.  I will say that the author has a feminist bent, no wonder as she was the first female editor of the New York Times Editorial Page, but it is not overwhelming, yet anyway.
 
Conversations with my husband during this season have abounded, playing games (currently I hold the record of most won, but we have only played one game so that record is not worth too much), enjoying Everybody Loves Babies (click to watch the trailer) documentary and listening while my husband records his radio show.

What has come out most through this commitment is how relaxed my evenings feel and also the creativity that has been required.  I don't just fall to TV to entertain.  When I have laundry to fold I wait until one of my favorite afternoon radio hosts is on, Hugh Hewitt.  I call a friend on the phone and connect when down time presents itself or I read over old journal entries (I loved reading my entries from after my wedding day and during my honeymoon), listen to music and do my Biblestudy.

The noise level in my home has diminished, I feel that I can more easily hear God calling me with His still small voice.  Today, while taking trying to take a nap with my husband, I was reminded to pray for my neighbors.  They were having a fight that drifted to me through the ceiling and though my husband was snoozing away, I could not sleep.  Through this alertness God encouraged me to pray for my neighbors and the other residents in the apartment complex where we live.  This lead to questions of how I could be used to reach my neighbors for Christ, specifically using the upcoming Easter season as a way to start talking with about church and spiritual things.  The origination of these thoughts came from the sermon at The Chapel today but I feel that I would not have ruminated on them had TV been clouding my mind.

I am sure that you can all tell that I am also blogging more with my new found free time so I hope that some are enjoying reading as much as I am enjoying writing. 

Conrad Quotables

My little boy is two years old and as his vocabulary continues to expand, I am trying to hold onto and remember all of his fun new phrases and words.  Here are a few that have stood out recently.

When asked what a particular family member says, Conrad will respond with the following (these are phrases that we have trained him in, but I think they are still cute).
Question: What does Pappa (grandpa) say?
Answer: Hey Buddy!
Question: What does Grandma say?
Answer: The prince is coming!
Question: What does Mommy say?
Answer: Lame!
Question: What does Daddy say?
Answer: DUDE!

Coming home from a date night recently, my husband and I were talking to the sitter about how the night went.  It was stated that they were impressed with how polite Conrad was and they liked the songs that he knew.  They stated that at one point in the evening he said 'the B-I-B-L-E', paused and then loudly exclaimed 'BIBLE!'  My husband and I were very impressed, mostly because we had not taught him that song.  He must have picked it up on his own from the music he listens to while going to sleep and the songs sung during Sunday School.

He is on a song kick currently and will randomly break out into song while in the car, eating his breakfast or when asked to leave a birthday phone message.  The titles tracks are "Jesus Loves Me", "The ABC's", and when coxed he does a good rendition of "Happy Birthday".

I went running Friday morning.  Conrad was all bundled up in the stroller, knit cap on and everything.  We are going along and with my visor on, I don't notice the light mist that has started to fall.  Through most of the run I have been talking to Conrad about the cars that are driving by - he is partial to any big bus - and the color of the flowers that are blooming along the road.  At one point Conrad starts saying 'shower, shower'.  Thinking he is asking to take a shower when we get home, I tell him that we need to get back home first.  He pauses, and then points to the tray on his stroller and says 'water'.  It was at this point that I notice the mist.  Though I have tried to teach him about rain, poor San Diegan kid can only link water falling from the sky to a shower.

Handy Work

As my time away from fiction continued I found my hands to be rather restless.  As evening came along, and this is the time that was usually spent watching TV, I needed a project.  Over the last couple of months I had been making some scarves for my sisters.  They took me awhile to complete so I was not very anxious to start another one.  With my evening looming in front of me, however, I decided to jump in a try my hand at another crocheting project.  This time I choose a new pattern (and with the help of the internet, figured out the new stitch that was required) and got started.  Actually now that I think about it, last night was the second night that I worked on this scarf but I don't know that my previous blog talked much about it.  Anyway, this pattern turned out to be much easier then the ones I had done already and without a very interesting show to distract me, I was able to complete half of the scarf in two days, that is to say, two evenings.  The rest of the evening was composed of reading and enjoying a documentary on the Appalachian Trail.  For those that don't know, the trail goes through 14 states and takes most hikers anywhere from 4 to 6 months to complete, if they are brave enough to 'hike through' as they call it.  One couple that was interviewed had memorized over 200 birds calls in preparation.  Another hiker had started more in the middle of the trail, liked it so much and decided to finish.  The views that could be seen through the many mountains that are climbed were amazing.  A German women had decided to hike a portion of the path as a way to see a different side of America.  She seemed impressed.
Pictured  below is the scarf that I completed.  It was another successful evening without fictional TV!

Work

This seemed to be the theme of today's day of Lent.  Work consumed the day allowing me to be free of the temptation of sitting down and watching TV.  I have taken on a very part time job being the administrative assistant to a financial planner.  There is a learning curve involved and I am still behind the curve, so my day today was consumed with keeping my ears open to learn all that was being taught and then also try and get some actual work done.  I was successful and mailed out a packet to a client and then also got another client packet put together for an upcoming meeting, this was all after about 4 and a half hours of just learning.  On top of being trained in a new job I also had some water leaking issues at my other part time job, this required the maintenance man, a plumber and jack hammer.  All of the physical work was done by others but I was still involved in communicating with the tenant and staying informed about what was going on.  This was enough to keep me busy until dinner time, however, at that point I had a headache and just wanted to sit down in front of the TV and zone out.  I stuck to my commitment, however, and started making dinner and doing other various household chores. 
Since coming back from Montana (a trip taken recently to visit my sister) my son has been trying out a big boy bed.  That only means that one of the railings on his crib was taken off to allow him to get in and out of bed freely.  Since then he has only slept through the night once.  We have not been able to determine if he is falling out of bed or just waking up and wandering into our bedroom, needless to say, it has made for longs nights and I was ready to try a railing to see if that would help.  Three stores later we could not find a used one so we went home to see how the night would go.  All the shopping did help to distract me and keep me busy until Wheel Of Fortune came on.  That is our nightly routine if we are home in the evening.  A good educational show and I enjoy seeing what Vanna will be wearing every night. 
The rest of the evening went by with putting my son to bed, getting out my crochet needles and starting another project, and listening to my hubby while he worked on his radio show.  Then I did some reading and when my eyes got too tired for that I headed off to bed.  I am looking forward to all the extra reading time that I will be getting without so much TV taking up my evenings and I am motivated to get some games out of the closet and try to beat my husband.  For those that don't know him, he is a genius at games and the times that I have beat him I can count on one hand (and are usually documented with a photo so that I have proof).

Lent - Staying In Reality

One night I was laying in bed and my mind was racing.  I was thinking about my day and all that consumed it.  One thought held sway over the others, what was going to happen next?!  This was in regards to the show I had been watching earlier that day.  As I continued to lay there and think about this show another thought enter my head, this is not real.  The people in this show are not real nor the events that are happening.  I am thinking and being consumed by things and events and people that don't exist.  I enjoy TV, shows that are produced well and creative, movies that are intense, funny and make you think but it all was getting to be too much.  I needed to clear my head and get back to what is real and true.  Around the corner was Lent, though I do not participate in this tradition of fasting until easter regularly, I decided that this was the year.  I would give up fiction TV and books and only read and consume things that are true and real.  Biographies, documentaries, books that encourage or teach.  That is the goal.  Here I will try and document the things that I do in place of my routine of watching a TV show to fill in the time.  I was in Montana with my sisters for the first week of Lent so I allowed myself to start when I got home.  Day one was yesterday and this is what I did.
I found myself being bored and my husband on his way out the door to a Biblestudy.  Me and my son were home alone and temptation was there as no one was watching what would be taking up my time.  God gave me the creativity to make homemade granola instead, read some books with my son, color in his coloring book and then make some dinner.  My son was full of energy so we played a bit and then I looked for a documentary to watch and found one on Tsunami's.  In light of recent world events I thought this would be a good one to watch.  It was very interesting but very easy to pause and get my son ready for bed, read his Bible with him and then pray.  When my husband came home I was excited to talk to him about what I had been learning on my show but again it was easy to step away from the documentary and just talk to him about the evening that he had. 
The experience of Lent has been very positive so far and I am encouraged to see how God will continue to work through this commitment.  Already I see that God is challenging me, it has been raining and gloomy making it harder to go outside and be occupied with outdoor activities. 
I encourage you to allow God to work in you during this season of Lent.