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.