Woman in Gold with Helen Mirren

Loved it.

It was fabulous.

There's some language.

I even watched Monuments Men the night before I watched Woman in Gold, just to get ready.

Helen Mirren is marvelous.

Enjoy.

Parenting Principles, Take One: Don't Use Shame and/or Manipulation and Call it Love. It Will Mess Up Your Kid.

I really don't get into parenting books. Perhaps that's because my first dose of parenting books were sleep training books. Which made me flustered because 1) I wasn't going to play by their rules and 2) Neither was the baby. So I tossed the books out and adjusted for each baby. Happy mom, happy babies, we're all good.

But occasionally I find a well-written something something about parenting principles that rings true to me. That I think back on. Here are the some of the best I've found recently.

Here's the first one I like: When A Parent's "I Love You" Means "Do as I Say".  by Alfie Kohn. The premise of this outstanding article is that if a parent uses approval and love to manipulate a child, this isn't good for the kid.

Then next one I like is a post from a popular mommy blogger, Sarah, of Clover Lane when she did a guest post at Power of Moms about raising teenagers. Here's her post.

And here's another one I've been thinking about. It's called "How to Raise a Future Victim of Abuse". (Obvious sidetone: The author wants to NOT raise a future victim of abuse.)

Goes along with this one: The basic premise is that discipline is necessary, shaming is not. Making a child feel bad about herself is a harmful way to manage her mistakes.

I just found this one this morning called "The Imperfectly Happy Family". The premise is that high family achievement standards from parents can lead to "discouragement, anxiety, and depression" in kids who feel like they will never measure up to these standards and are shamed about being imperfect. There is a better way.

I think these resonate with me because of what I have always believed about parenting. How I treat my kids will influence how they perceive themselves now and in their future. Even when I need to teach them, even when they mistakes, even if they are little kids or big kids with little or big mistakes: they will learn more from how I treat them than from what I'm trying to teach.

And this post isn't for anyone else (unless you find it helpful) but for me so I can come back to these articles again and again.

Christmas Read Aloud Favorites 2015

I try to be consistent with nightly read-aloud family story time in December. There are so many lovely books, both religious and secular, with charming and meaningful messages, lovely prose, and beautiful artwork. Here are some of our favorites. Most of these I get from our local library.

This first group are the fun-themed books with Santa, reindeer, funny characters, etc. It would be hard for me to choose a favorite.

Home for Christmas by Jan Brett
The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett
The Night Before Christmas by Jan Brett
The Night Before Christmas illustrated by Bruce Whatley
The Night Before Christmas illustrated by Cheryl Harness
A Creature was Stirring by Goodrich
Click Clack Ho Ho Ho by Cronin
Snowmen for Christmas by Buehner
Christmas Wombat by Jackie French (My older boys think this one is hilarious and they can quote it.)
Gingerbread Pirates by Kladstrup
Mr. Willoughby's Christmas Tree by Robert Barry
Houseful of Christmas by Joosse
Too Many Tamales by Soto
On Christmas Day in the Morning by Swet
The Twelve Days of Christmas Dogs by Conahan
Jingle Bells by Trapani (great for teaching about traditions in other countries)
Auntie Claus by Primavera
My Penguin Osbert by Kimmel
How do Dinosaurs Say Merry Christmas by Yolen
Olivia Helps with Christmas by Falconer
Mary Engelbreit's Nutcracker by Englelbreit
The Polar Express by Van Allsburg
Dinosaur vs. Santa by Bob Shea (ROAR!)
Oh, What a Christmas by Garland
A Homemade Together Christmas by Cocca-Leffler---really nice for talking about making gifts instead of buying them.
How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss

Next are the fun books, B list. Still good, especially for my younger two. Just not on my personal classics list. I wouldn't stretch myself to track these down, but they are worth checking out.

The Christmas Bears by Chris Conniver (The storyline is OK, but the illustrations are darling.)
The Three Bears Christmas by Kathy Duval
Merry Christmas Hungry Bear by Don and Audrey Wood
The Not Very Merry Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen
Christmas at the Top of the World by Coffeey
Santa's Stowaway by Dorman
Llama Llama Holiday Drama by Dewdney
Christmas Magic by Stainton

These next books are about Christ's birth, and/or have themes like charity and giving. I save these for Sunday story time especially.

Asleep in the Stable by Hillenbrand
Saint Francis and the Christmas Donkey by Byrd
Gifts of the Heart by Polacco
The Orange for Frankie by Polacco
The Little Fir Tree by Lamarche (This one makes me cry. Every. Single. Time.)
Spirit of Christmas by Tillman
Great Joy by DiCamillo
Room for a Little One by Waddell
The Crippled Lamb by Lucado
December by Bunting
Listen to the Silent Night by Mackall (artwork is lovely)
Christmas Is by Gibbons

Happy December! Happy reading!

Modern Mrs. Darcy's Audiobook List for Kids

And, of course, they'd be great reads as well:

Here's her list. 

We are getting through Jim Dale's versions of Harry Potter (which are marvelous), but I'm always on the lookout for good suggestions.

Quiet by Susan Cain, ah it's lovely

I finally read Quiet by Susan Cain all the way through. I'd been dipping in my reading toes here and there and when I had the flu a few weeks ago I could finally read it all the way through.

Quiet is about introverts. The way they process, the way they work, the way they are children, and the way they are adults.

The book was extremely validating, because I have always been and still am definitely introverted. I'm also social and friendly, and I used to be louder and very funny (now I'm just moderately funny. It's a Mom thing. I'm sure the rest of the funny will come back. It's in there.) which means that I can come off way more extroverted than I really am. But as I've said before on another blog: I've never wanted to be Cinderella on display as the center of attention all the time. I want to be the fairy godmother who gets to do her fabulous job and then go home, preferably to a cozy place with a hot bath and rooms with lots of books. And some quiet. Lots of quiet.

And that is classic introvert.

So this book was like finding my people. It spoke to truths I've already discovered for myself and how I navigate valuing people but needing alone time to stabilize.

One of the most fascinating part of Cain's analysis was that she linked children who are highly sensitive to adults who are introverted. As a mom of kids who veer more introvert than extrovert, this was very insightful.

All together just an interesting read. Cain isn't a researcher by training and so some of her conclusions are a bit of a stretch, but she is engaging and interesting. I bet she'd do better another time writing time around, but she did fairly well for this one.

Mariann, have you read this one yet?

Another Year, It's a Thinker

If you are in the mood for a thinking movie, try Another Year with Ruth Sheen and Jim Broadbent. The acting is marvelous, and the themes are timeless. It's slllllooooooowwwww. It's all dialogue and very little action.

There is language, though, and to watch it you'd think that everyone just drinks all the time. (Which is my complaint about the book The Girl on the Train which I can't and don't recommend. To read it, you'd think everyone is drunk all the time, lying about something, and being unfaithful to their spouse. Pretty dreary.)

But if you are a thinker for this movie, and can see drinking as a method to escape reality and a symbol of loneliness and desperation, then you can think your way out of the drinking scenes.

I've mentioned before that if you had a core group of smart people who didn't have time to read a whole novel but wanted fodder for a good discussion, a movie could do that.

This movie could do that. I'd actually like to discuss the themes with someone because I've been thinking about them all day. On topics like aging and loneliness and grief. Personal responsibility and the boundaries of friends/family. When is helping helping and when does it enable?

Ruth Sheen is marvelous. I've never seen her better than in this movie.

Anyone?

Have you met Iris Appel?

You should.

Go watch her movie. It's called "Iris". Netflix has it, you can even stream it.

Iris Appel lives in New York City and she's 94. She is a fashion icon, a geriatric starlet, and a smart, funny lady. Sadly, her husband Carl just died. He was almost 101.

This is one of those quirky, up-beat, off-the-wall documentaries that I search high and low for. The movie is really just Iris and the life she's lived. (Note: There is a little foul language. Two words, I think.)

Mariann especially, you will like this movie.

Enjoy.

Summer 2015 Read Aloud Winner---The Roald Dahl books

I've been reading the Roald Dahl books out loud to my kids.

Where have I been? Why didn't I know about these before? It's like discovering another color in the Crayon box that I never noticed. I called myself literate?

I have read to them The BFG, The Magic Finger, Danny The Champion of the World, and The Fantastic Mr. Fox. We just started George's Marvelous Medicine, and I'm really hamming up the wicked Grandma.

Sheer delight. My favorite thing is that my two middle kids sit next to me on the couch when we read. During the suspenseful parts they scoot closer and closer until I'm sardined.

"Are you scared at this part?" I ask.

"No!" they shriek, "Just keep reading!"

Deal.

Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures

I first heard of Mary Anning on page 257 of The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, one of my all-time favorites.

You can read about Mary Anning here: 

She's real. She lived in the 1800's in England and she discovered the first ichthyosaur skeleton.

When I learned that Tracy Chevalier used Anning as a heroine for some historical fiction, I was dubious.

I'm sure it was because I didn't really care for Chavalier's Girl With a Pearl Earring, even though reading Chevalier's book was part of the impetus for me traipsing to Den Haag to see the painting in person. It wasn't Chevalier's writing that I didn't like: I just didn't like the plot line of young-impressionable-female-pines-after-married-man-she-can't-have. Doomed from the start, no way she was going to win, I just didn't like it. Give a sister a break, give her a plot line that can turn out well.

But I was willing to give Chevalier a second chance, and her book Remarkable Creatures was much better for my plot requirements. No pining after married men, that was a good start. About women of intelligence interested in science, that was another good start. Decent storyline, interesting characters, good research about the time period.

Altogether, a good read. Good enough that I finished it, and good enough I may just go on a Chevalier binge and read the rest of novels. Not sketchy, OK for a book club.

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

I am years behind on my reading list. Since The Happiness Project by Rubin was published only six years ago, it's par for the course that I'm finally getting to it.

My sister Liz recommended this to me. Thanks Liz.

By now you (all three of you who read this blog) have probably read this book or at least heard about it. So you most likely know that Rubin took a year and worked on being happy. Made goals, made lists, decided what was most important to her. Kept the good stuff, tried to get rid of the negative stuff. Worked on being nicer, worked on being less critical. Practiced.

Now I must tell you: goals and goal setting is nothing new in Deborahland. I totally get goals. Make a list of how to get to the goal. Make a timeline for the things to get to the goal. Make sub-goals to get to the timeline. Make another list. Work on it again. Change the goal. Check off the goal. Revise the goal.

Make a new goal. I get it.

So I wasn't necessarily wow-ed by Rubin's method of "Make goals every month for one year."

However.

I do like Rubins. I like her voice. I like her intelligent allusions and her perspective. I like her attitude. I like her transparency. I like her adult civility, personal social responsibility, and over-riding politeness to her readers. These made the book both palatable and pleasant. There's some good common sense in here about time and money management, and how to get along with a spouse, and why to buy quality and not quantity.

Her first commandment is "Be Gretchen." So simple. Be who you are. For me, Be Deborah. I remember one very frustrating conversation I was having with a woman in one of my social circles who was organizing/guilting groups of women to come and make greeting cards at her house. Lovely for people who like to do that. For me, not an interest. She told Eric, "Don't worry, we'll get her (to come)."

But she wasn't going to get me because I didn't want to stamp and cut bunnies and glue them. I told Eric then, "I am not a twenty-three year old woman looking for hobbies to fill her time. I am a thirty-four year old woman who doesn't have time for the hobbies she knows she likes." Be Deborah. So much simpler this way. I think the best thing I did for my fortieth birthday was gave myself permission to dispose of any-long held obligations _______________ (hobbies, interests, likes, preferences, dreams, hopes) that belonged to someone else. I have my own. Flower drying? No. Zumba? Yes. Travel, yes, vegetarian cooking, yes. Social media vigilance? No. World religions and cultures? Yes. Being in charge? Only as a last resort. Taking time to laugh with and hug each of my kids every day? Yes.

Be Deborah. Brilliant.

There was also one nugget of good mom advice and here it was, "Some people exploit unhappiness for decades. "My mother always made a big point that she'd sacrificed completing her PhD program to stay home with me and my brother,' a friend told me. 'She was frustrated and angry, and she brought it up all the time. She used her unhappiness to control us and my father. We all felt guilty.'" (pg 217).

It made me remember once when my son looked up and said, "Mom! You are smiling!" I hoped that was comment on the moment, not a shock to him. A great reminder that my unhappiness and happiness affects my family, and so taking time to keep myself happy is a small investment with big payoffs. Blithering around unhappy also has consequences, ones I don't want.

You have probably already read the book, but if you haven't, I'd say at least skim it. It's at Costco for $8.99. You can pick it up when you get bread, milk, and bananas. And toilet paper and peanut butter. And trail mix and Dave's Killer Bread and the rest of your list.

So Happiness Project. Check. Now I have to go find that book about traffic. And Blink and Unbroken and the latest writings of the world's religious leaders.

The list goes on and blissfully on.

The Hypermesis Post, in honor of Call the Midwife

Did you watch Call the Midwife this weekend with the woman with hyperemesis? Caution, then, because the episode, and this post, has to do with symptoms of severe morning sickness. Proceed at your own risk. There will probably be details that are definitely considered TMI. 

I could totally relate to the parts where the woman in the episode was too sick to even make food for her child, where she couldn’t even see a cup of tea (even though I only drink herb tea), and the part where they asked, “How many times a day do you vomit?” and she said, “Twenty or thirty.”

Wow. Been there. And I realized that I wrote a blog post about hyperemesis but I never posted it.

So in honor of Call the Midwife, Season Four, here’s my hyperemesis post: 

I have been pregnant five times: three boy pregnancies and two girl pregnancies (one of which sadly ended on its own at week 18, plenty long enough for me to be morning sick).  

With my boys, I didn't feel great, but I could function. I was tired and queasy but life went on. Constant nausea, occasional emesis, then my energy was back by week 22.

With my first boy pregnancy, I still worked full-time feeling this way. With my boy second pregnancy,  I appreciated it when a friend brought me a meal once and I chased around after boy #1. With my third boy pregnancy, I hired a babysitter to come so I could take a nap a few times a week. I could feed my kids, I could get dressed and be out in public, I could go on vacation. Definitely do-able.

I think if this were the only type of morning sickness I’d ever experienced, I wouldn’t understand what those “other” women were talking about. The ones who say that morning sickness makes it so they can’t function and need help. If it were a judgmental day, I might even think they were over-reacting and being melodramatic. I would think they should just get moving, snack, stop whining, and they’d feel better.

But I have experienced something else. I have experienced hyperemesis with my two girl pregnancies, and it’s totally different. With my girl pregnancies, I throw up all day and all night. Every morning, I stop counting how many times I’ve thrown up when I get to five, and that’s usually before 10 AM. Here are the things that trigger emesis: smelling or seeing food, helping a child in the bathroom, getting out of bed, drinking water, moving. I needed medication just to keep water down.

I lived like this for weeks and then months, every day, all day and all night. Women with hyperemesis don’t just throw up food, but also bile. After bile comes blood. The throwing up isn’t the worst part; it’s the total body fatigue and dehydration that come after vomiting so many times that makes it impossible to just get up and get moving.  Hypermesis doesn’t come and go. There are no good days and bad days; there are only bad days. It lasts and lasts.

In hindsight, I really needed IV fluids and more medical treatment during both girl pregnancies, but I’d been lifelong conditioned that real women just suffer it out.

Well let me tell you.

Real women need help.

Because hyperemesis isn’t about mental fortitude. It’s not about wanting to be pampered. It’s not about making it up. But it is, quite literally, the inability to take care of children, the house, and even the woman’s own self. Hypermesis is not “normal” morning sickness. It’s not feeling yucky. It’s not throwing up once or twice a day and being tired and crabby. I had three pregnancies like that. But hyperemesis is not that.

I don’t like to ask for help and there are few people I feel comfortable asking help from. But I had to get over it and expand my circle of helpers, just so my family could go on.

Here are some lovely things people did to help me during my last hyperemesis pregnancy, two pregnancies ago: 

1. I hired a great babysitter to come in just about every day. Her job was to take over while I was incapacitated. She did. She'd stay for about four hours a day, and when she left, panic would set in. Truly, I could not have managed without her.

2. There is a lovely woman in my church congregation who came to my rescue at the hardest times. Her home is a safe, nurturing place and my kids love to be there. Once she brought them back to my house, carrying bags of homemade playdough and chocolate chip cookies. She said it was a pleasure to have them. I love that woman.

3.     Women brought our family meals. Mind you, I couldn’t eat them. I couldn’t even stand the SMELL of them, but my family still needed to eat. The meals would come, I would shut myself in my room (away from the smell), and my kids could eat a meal instead of having cereal for the second or third time in a row.  These loving women would bring the meal in, feed my kids, and clean it all up. These were especially helpful since Eric’s church work necessitates that he’s out of the house often until late in the evening. 

4.     Eric was the real champion. When he was home, he took over all the things necessary to care for the kids and the house. Those were the easy things he had to do for me. I will spare you the details of the hard things.

5.     One weekend Eric had to go out of town for business while I had hypermesis. A compassionate adopted “auntie” of my kids came to spend the night and watch over the kids/me. She took care of the kids and put them to bed while I was throwing up blood in the other room.  I truly thought I'd might spend the rest of the weekend in the hospital, and I was so comforted that there was someone to take care of my kids. 

Here’s how to help if you know someone that’s going through hyperemesis. Or even just severe morning sickness:

1. If she has kids, you can help with her kids. In her house or in yours. Just return them to her in a non-hyper state---even if you have let her rest, she still won’t have energy when you bring the kids back. She’ll still be exhausted. 

2.      You can feed her family. You can clean up after the meal because she won’t be able to do it. You can take out the garbage on your way out. 

3.     You can take her to the doctor because she’s too weak to drive herself and she’s not safe on the road. Bless the woman (see above list #2) who made herself available to drive me to my appointments when I had to see the doctor every Friday. Bless this woman doubly because these were the appointments where I found out every week if the baby I knew would pass away was still OK or not. Bless that woman for taking me and waiting with me when I was too sick to get myself there and home. Bless her. Bless her. 

4.      You can sit in her house for as long as she’ll let you so that you can be the one to get her kids a drink of water, help them in the bathroom, make sure they are fed . . . because what that woman really needs to do is lie still and not move.

5.     You can have a compassionate heart and not judge her---maybe it’s not as bad as she says, but maybe it is. Maybe she isn’t telling you everything. Look underneath her eyes. If you see little red dots all over, that’s from the blood vessels popping when she’s thrown up again and again. And again. 

6.     You can realize that the help she needs isn’t for an hour. She needs help 24 hours a day for weeks. Stick it out and be there for the long haul. One of my good friends did this for me during my last girl pregnancy. The list of what she did for me starts with, “Once she let me fall asleep on her bed while my kids played in the other room” and ends with “Then she fed my family every Sunday night for three months.” What a woman.

7.     Even if you can’t be at her side, try to understand her plight. Even if your morning sickness was something you could muscle through, hers may not be. This goes beyond soda crackers and will. 

8.     You can resist the urge to tell her that you had it rough and she just needs to get up and get going. That’s normal morning sickness. Hypermesis is something else.

I didn’t have hyperemesis this last pregnancy. I could manage through the normal morning sickness that isn’t fun. I didn’t need to ask for help and so I didn't.  But I remember the girl pregnancies oh so well. 

So if it's you who has hypermesis, ask for help. Ask until you find someone who will help you.  Hire someone to help you if you can. Ask your doctor for whatever medical treatment you need to get through. Lean on your husband. Let someone else take care of you, you really can’t take care of yourself.  It won't last forever, so just for now, find help. 

Mary Oliver, Dogfish, and River Styx, Ohio.

So lately I've been reading the poetry of Mary Oliver.

It's my end of the day prize, actually, from chasing kids and packing lunches and finding drinking cups (and sippy cups). I've been taking end-of-the-day moments to

just

read

one

poem.

Which usually leads to a few more.

Bliss, to be reminded that I can tear apart a poem and see why it works.

With Mary Oliver, they all work.

My favorites for today: River Styx, Ohio and Dogfish.

Brilliant.

Laura, have you done any poetry recently? You should try these.

P.S. Yes, Laura O, that's you. As soon as you come up from underneath all those packing boxes, I think you'd like Mary Oliver. Good luck!

The Lunchbox: A Gem of a Movie

I found another movie I can recommend to all comers. It's clean, it's classic, it's lovely.

It's The Lunchbox, which came out in 2013. You can look up the plot. But think "You've got Mail", but with a lunchbox, not email, and in India and way, way, way less peppy.

It's slow. It's slllooooowww. It's so slow it's scenic, but not boring scenic. Nice scenic.

It garnered all sorts of awards in all sort of film festivals, you can look it up on Wikipedia. But I just liked it without knowing about all those awards.

This is the first in my series called, "This Woman Has Got it Right"

I'm starting my own series, here in this blog called, "This Woman Has Got it Right".

Sort of my own Pinterest of well written things.

Oh, how I would love it if these were books and critical theory. But usually what I have time to read every day is a blog post. Yep, that's what I have time for. A blog post.

But some are good posts, and worth sharing.

Here's the first in the series in which Allyson Reynolds, who writes mostly about motherhood, writes about why she's not guilting herself or her kids over the chaos that comes from family living:

http://powerofmoms.com/2015/01/10-good-reasons-stop-house-shaming/

Here's my favorite part (and I quote directly):

"Does it bug me when the house is a mess? Absolutely. But do I expect myself and my kids to spontaneously clean up after every single mess like good disciplined soldiers to the exclusion of everything else? No way. And I refuse to let that expectation destroy my peace or my relationships with them any longer. There is so much more to life than a clean home."

I've highlighted my favorite line. Because our house, too, gets cluttery and crazy and there are piles everywhere of laundry and dishes and toys and school projects, etc. all over the house.

I like that Allyson points out that it's her reaction to the mess that makes the difference: she can react in ways that would destroy her own peace and tear at her relationships with her kids. Or she can choose another way.

As a mom, it's me who makes the call: I can be RIGHT and indignant that "This place is a mess" and throw a fit and say mean things or I can be kind in the way I react---kind to myself and kind to my kids. It's a mess. It happens.

What I'm realizing is that it's more important to me, especially in the case of my mess makin' kids, that I'm kind rather than right. My kids will not care if I am right, but they will long remember whether or not I have been kind.

Allyson Reynolds, this woman has got it right.

100 foot journey, Oh la la

Whenever I have a kid who gets the flu, I've learned to check two things:

1. Laundry detergent. We're going to need some. Lots.

2. My mental list for movies. I'm going to need some of those, too.

So yesterday my little guy came done with the flu---I'm not too worried, he's still running around crazy and is plenty feisty. Lethargic flu baby scares me, baby who still plays peek a boo with gusto, not so worrisome. We'll have to go out for more laundry detergent later, but it was a great timing for me to watch 100 Foot Journey last night, recommended to me by Fan #2.

Great movie! Charming tale of two restaurants, right across the street from each other, in small town France. Nothing earth-shaking, just a cute movie that's a perfect break. I thought the actors were better than the story and the script, and they carried what could have been a flop of a movie.

There's a second of vague innuendo. As in, sneeze and you will miss it.

Overall, recommended by me for a nice escape. Especially if you are taking care of someone who has the flu.

January 2015, National Geographic, Baby Brain Article

There's a great article in this month's edition of National Geographic about the development of babies' brains in their first year of life. Really fascinating stuff. You can find it here.

Shout out to my three fans/Have you noticed the blogging trends?

Meg in Sheridan, Katy, and Mariann are my three loyal fans, not related to me. Mel comes back too. Thanks guys.

They come back, even when I do what I have been doing, and take long hiatuses (Hiati? What's the plural of "hiatus?") from blogging.

And Katy even recommends my blog to people, even when I haven't blogged in three months. Wow. That's faith.

But Katy's faith in me is a great reason to come back to blogging. Because reading that book I just posted about and blogging about it was monumental, and so satisfying that I see it happening again soon.

My baby, who isn't so much of a baby, is turing one in a few weeks. And he mostly sleeps through the night, which changes EVERYTHING. And I foresee reading as a Deborah hobby coming back. And then blogging about reading. But I have been thinking about blogging.

So. New Topic.

Has anyone else noticed a trend in some of the popular mommy bloggers lately? It seems like a few things are happening in the mom blogs of MB who have become very popular and obviously blog for profit:

1. MBs are getting more protective of sharing their kids/family/life with the world. I wonder if this is the mom not wanting to share, or her kids getting sick of their lives broadcasted for everyone to see.

I've wondered about this: it's really cute when a mommy shares pictures of her messy three year old's banana plastered face, but what happens when this same kid turns into a 11 year old tween who does NOT want her life shared. Does NOT want her picture posted. Does NOT want her mother to get out the camera and when the mom does the tween screeches: "Don't post that on your blog!" What then?

2. The topic (a crisis, kids growing up, a remodel, learning about new place) is coming to a resolution. Harder to come with things to say when it's been worked through/discovered/done.

3. What used to be a cute mention of brands or toys is becoming an obvious sponsorship and it's annoying. (Buy this dress (I got one for free)! See this purse! Check out this soap maker and buy her stuff!)

As the reader, I feel like I'm being played---I come for substantial intellectual female thought and good writing, and what I get is an endorsement for something I a) Don't want or b) Suddenly notice that EVERYONE has because it's "individual." But then it's not individual, because everyone has the same "individual" thing because we all read the same blog which promotes the same thing.

4. It must be a catch 22 for some MB who rely on blogging for family income. Because, if this is their source of income, then they have to write what their readers want to read so they will come back and check out their ads (thus the profit for the MB). But in needing this income, it seems this stifles voice and creativity: "having" to blog makes the writing forced. And stale. And when I notice this, I don't go back---it seems trying too hard.

5. It's all starting to look the same to me. Cute kids in designer clothes at Valentine's Day! Cute kids in designer clothes at Halloween! Cute kids in designer clothes celebrating back to school! Cute kids at the beach! Cute kids at a family reunion! What we ate for New Year's! What we ate for St Patrick's Day! What we ate for our Fourth Friday celebration! We are smiling! We are always smiling!

Anyone else noticed any of these?

Maybe this is why I'm gravitating to sassy women of all ages who are solid writers. Seems like, whether they blog for profit or not, they still have things to say. I'm really coming to appreciate the women who blog from their perspective of being in their 70's: They aren't trying to impress anyone any more.

Take it.

Leave it.

All the same to them.

David Mas Masumoto and his delicious books

The only side benefit to the fact that everyone in our family had the flu over the Christmas holiday is that somehow this made it easier for me to find time to read. I was at my parents' house and my sister sent my mom and dad three books by David Mas Masumoto, a peach, nectarine, and grape farmer in the Central Valley who writes about his fruit farming.

The books she sent are:

Epitaph of a Peach: Four Seasons on my Family Farm
Wisdom of the Last Farmer: harvesting legacies from the land
and The Perfect Peach (a cookbook, with stories and sidebits)

I read the first, I'm almost done with the second, and I skimmed through the third.

Luscious and lovely. I loved them.

My own environment could have contributed to the whole experience.

My parents have some land. My dad has some fruit trees. (Snicker, snicker, that's a joke.)

My father has about 100 fruit trees, some thriving, some dying, most fruit bearing. Peaches, nectarines, pluots, apriums, plums, apples, a lone olive, and one persimmon tree he planted for my second son, berry brambles, and some other trees he says he got suckered into buying.

These trees are wintering now, and it was cold. Windy. Blustery. I sat inside the warm house, my kids squirreling around in the background, and I read about pruning trees and planting trees and summer days with sticky ripe peach juice dribbling down awaiting chins. And Dad's trees rattled and shook on the other side of the glass, their bare branches whipping in the winter wind. Masumoto's tales and telling of peach farming and life as a farmer resonated with this daughter of a "backyard" orchardist.

I do recommend the books. It seemed to me that Epitaph was written more as a series of short-essays pieced together sequentially to make a novel. Not that this is a distraction, necessarily, just an observation and a nice way for Masumoto to debut his writing.

Good writing overall, I'd say. And totally squeaky clean. You could take it to a church book group and no one would waggle a disapproving finger at you.

I think I want to own these three.