photo credit: Vitorio Benedetti

But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I’m waiting for, that adventure, that movie-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets – this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of us will ever experience. -Shauna Niequist

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. -Bertrand Russell

Patience, he thought. So much of this was patience – waiting, and thinking and doing things right. So much of all this, so much of all living was patience and thinking. — Gary Paulsen

Again and again, the impossible problem is solved when we see that the problem is only a tough decision waiting to be made. -Robert H. Schuller

1: Middle of the day:

busy at home, missing your husband, or running around at work, running errands, getting it all done somehow. Traffic light, a break in the rhythm, a few seconds of resetting.

Stop. Look around at the people near you. Look at the life.

Don’t miss out on why you’re doing all the stuff you do.

2: Think of the last conversation you had with your husband.

Was it positive? Eh? What was that? I couldn’t quite hear you there…

3: Send a friend a text or FB message or voice mail just to tell her something you love about her.

4: Stretch the muscles in your neck and shoulders.

5: Dump the soda and drink a big glass of water.

6: Think about what you’ve accomplished in the day so far.

Quit being so hard on yourself and start appreciating what you handle in a day by taking two minutes to acknowledge it.

7: Think of one particular thing you love about your kid(s).

8: Write down one thing you want to do by the end of the day.

9: Dark chocolate is full of antioxidants. Just sayin’.

10: Get rid of all those papers

Smash Cards: Big Tech for Little People

Smash Cards work like this: your child, who needs to learn phonics, sits in front of your computer. She holds up two cards, which are “read” by the webcam. She gets to watch herself on the webcam as the Smash Cards are read, sounding out individual sounds and combining them into a word which is part of an interactive story.

I don’t know about you, but there is nothing my kids love more than playing games on my iPhone or messing around with paint or preschool programs on my computer. They’re natural at this technology stuff and the real treat of Smash Cards is that the kids themselves get to be part of the program.

It’s got addictive potential, and I, for one, am in favor of my kids getting addicted to learning.

Smash Cards are also awesome for learning English as a Second Language; they’re talking about developing two separate sets, one for ESL learners and one for phonics learning. I am avidly waiting for the phonics set for my kids. I’m hopeful that having it around means I’ll get to use my iPhone sometimes…

Smash Cards are in development, but you can surf on over there and watch a short video. They’re due out in August of 2011.

ALSO: since they’re still in development, now is prime time to give them some feedback. So Moms – would you be interested in a program like this for your kids? What are your thoughts? Any suggestions, ideas, or questions? Leave your input in the comments and I’ll pass it on.

When Annie approached me about participating in her Modern Homemaking REdefined series as a guest blogger, I was honored and excited, but also a little apprehensive. I loved the concept of finding the commonalities of women nurturing their homes and families in so many different walks of life. But, let’s face it. My lifestyle is pretty “common” as seeking commonalities goes. I’m a mother of three preschoolers who sends her kids to daycare while she goes to work at an office. Judging by the waiting lists on the daycare centers in my neck of the woods, that’s a pretty popular lifestyle choice.
So, as I was formulating thoughts about this essay and my approach to homemaking in 2010, all the same old ideas came to mind. Managing time, prioritizing schedules, getting dinner on the table, balancing work and the needs of children, getting to that 15th preschool party, figuring out what happens when the minivan needs to be serviced, determining exactly how many chicken nuggets can sustain one 5-year-old. Not necessarily ground-breaking and interesting stuff.

About ten minutes later, my boss of 16 years decided it was time to retire and close the advertising agency where I work. Yeah. Life has a way of making it interesting, doesn’t it? Over the course of a weekend, a conversation with the Queen of my current company, and some soul searching, I decided to take a trip down entrepreneur lane and start my own graphic design business. Presto, small business owner and work-at-home-mom all in one fell swoop! Can I have a moment, please?

Work opportunities change. Kids change. Schedules change. Choices change. Grocery prices change. Diapers and pull-ups change (constantly). Life in transition. Now there’s a commonality. As I started rethinking the new tenor of my life as a mom, designer, and homemaker as it crashes into the new title of business owner, this one fact began to rise to the surface. Change happens. It just does. We can resist it, but we can’t stop it. We can bemoan it, but we can’t squelch it. We can fear it, but we can’t insulate ourselves from it.

As I look at my life in the five years I’ve had my precious gifts (5yo, 3.5yo and just shy of 2yo), I see an endlessly flowing river of change. And, I see that each new stage of development and each new endeavor has brought frustration or worry, perhaps, but also joy and growth and the satisfaction of having made it through. I’m realizing that for me, modern homemaking is about embracing that life in transition. It’s about grabbing it and sucking the life from it, no matter how quickly it’s traveling. And come to think of it, the idea really isn’t all that modern. My grandmother did it and my mother did it through the constant changes of their times as well. Changing times and circumstances are certainly nothing new.

As mothers and homekeepers, however, it so often falls to us to make the most of those changes, those transitions that may be unique to our years and our families, but common among us nonetheless. I find myself striving in the midst of this inevitable change to create my own individual core consistencies– those things I want to remain constant about myself, about my home, about the quality of my children’s lives. In practicality, it’s about setting in motion the habits and schedules and even shortcuts that make that consistency possible, and about putting to rest the guilt to conform to some other Mom’s homemaking or parenting core requirements.

So what if Ore Ida or Tyson cuts my chicken and potatoes for me? At least I heard the continuing saga of rocket ships and sharks at the dinner table. So what if my kids find their way to bed some nights with sticky still on their cheeks. At least we found out how funny it is to drop your popsicle, pick it up again and pop it in your mouth, grit and all. So what if crumbs and dust bunnies live well and prosper under the couch? At least we know where all the spare Lincoln Logs and matchbox cars are stored. So what if all the lovely art objects have been relegated to the closet downstairs? At least we witnessed the coffee table tower-building feat of the century right up until the 2yo intervened. These are the core consistencies of what matters and what doesn’t. Nothing brings those constants front and center quite like change.

How will I respond to this new transition? How will it affect my home? My schedule? My ability to take care of my family financially, physically, emotionally? It’s easy to get lost or bogged down in this repeat-play in my mind. But, these are questions we all face–every day and with every shift in a thousand areas of life from jobs to marriages to gas prices to potty training.

For the past two years, I’ve chosen a posting “theme word” for the year that reflects something I want to pursue more carefully in my life. The 2010 theme word I determined back in December was “courage.” How could I have known that the events of this year would so strongly challenge that pursuit? Modern homemaking and homekeeping requires courage, to be sure. Courage in the face of change. Courage to pull from that change all the growing and teaching it has to offer. Courage to demand from that change the ability to keep what is worth keeping and release what isn’t. I hope that I can build from these transitions the courage to really live. To live in my own home, that place I’ve created. With my own benchmarks for success and my own set of constants. I hope we all can.

What do you need courage to let go of? What do you need courage to keep as part of your core?

Today’s 2 Cents Courtesy of:

Haley Mongtomery is a designer by trade, a creative type at heart and a mother in joy. She is the author of EyeJunkie, her personal foray into the art of paying attention — part mommy blog, part spiritual quest, part cultural record and part sarcastic word-play. When she’s not chasing three preschoolers, she’s usually writing sentence fragments or obsessing about life as the newly minted owner of Small Pond Graphics. You can follow her on Twitter: @itsasmallpond or @eyejunkie.

I’m trying. Really, people. For your sake, too, because I know you all desperately need my wisdom about natural living every Tuesday whether you like it or not. So I’m trying to make good choices for you.

Like today. 3′o’clock, I’m humming away on my Notebook ( eh… Netbook?), when the hunger rolls in. I perused the pantry and fridge, looking for something low-carb and low-sugar and still appealing.

I settled on an apple. Something to be said for apples. http://www.askdavetaylor.com/review_hp_pavilion_dv2_multimedia_notebook.htmlThey’re always better than you think they’re going to be. Except when they’re just a little too old and get mushy. Blech. But I ate an apple for my snack. That’s healthy and natural, so yay me making right choices.

I also quaffed 1/4 of a 2 liter (do the math, folks, that 1/2 liter) of Mountain Dew out of the bottle. Bad, Annie, bad! But I was tired. I needed my caffeination and it’s too hot for coffee. So, there it was, the Dew that’s been hogging space in my refrigerator for, oh, a month because I don’t even really like it and I don’t want it and I haven’t noticed it until today… well.

But I’m sitting outside on the porch enjoying the beauty of the day and admiring my little herbs which are finally planted (now that it’s almost June) and growing (I hope) happily in their new homes. So that’s two natural-ish things, and maybe they cancel out the Mountain Dew.

I don’t know what to tell you. You probably shouldn’t read these posts anymore. Because I’ll just be straight up with you: we’re going to be out running errands tonight, and I’m not doing a hippie-homemaker-pack-up-a-healthy-picnic-dinner-for-on-the-road. Instead, I have Steak’n'Shake coupons stashed in my planner…

I’m a fraud. I probably shouldn’t even have Natural Living as a category on my site. Now you know. Warn the others.

A while ago a light bulb went off and I decided to start making my own cleaning products at home. Okay, it really wasn’t a light bulb. It was more like major bolt of lightning, striking right down the middle of our expenses.

It really just ticked me off that I was paying so much for detergent, {laundry and dish}, our cleaning products and our fabric softener. It felt like I was just throwing money away. That crap is just ridiculously over-priced, and a lot of it is super chemically {of the “OMG I can’t believe that is really in there” kind of chemicals}…

So enter me with my bright idea. “I will just make my own.” My friends scoffed. Never had I had a friend actually scoff, but at this idea they did. They seemed to think that Walmart had homemade laundry detergent: the kind that comes in a cardboard box and says TIDE in big blue letters! I was determined. I figured it couldn’t be that difficult or expensive.

So, I did it. Here’s the “recipe” and you can see it is pretty basic.  There are so many different ways to make this stuff.  Me being me-{lazy} I picked the easiest one.  It works. Plain and simple.  Your clothes are clean, there are not chemicals breaking your clothes down {saving you money there as well!}, and it’s just a better way to take care of your stuff.

Rach’s Homemade Laundry Detergent

1 bar grated soap (I use the 3/$1 from the dollar store)
1/2 cup Borax
1/2 cup Washing Soda (Not to be confused with Baking Soda…)

Directions

Mix together until the grated soap starts to dissolve.
Use 1 tbsp./load
***The only place near me that I could find washing soda is Harris Teeter on the laundry aisle. Look up- You’ll find it on the top shelf. [Annie's note: I've seen washing soda at Wal-Marts in my area, greater St. Louis.]
I usually grate 6-9 bars at one time- this makes a HUGE batch that will last for 3-4 months! (Remembering that there are only 3 of us in the house and you only have to use 1 tbsp. /load.)

Once I started making laundry detergent at home I looked around knowing there had to be away to do fabric softener the same way {read: the cheap way!}. I googled it, {I google everything} and this was the simplest, cheapest one that I found.

All you need is a Downy ball, vinegar and any type of fragrance oil that you like. I know what you are thinking… and no, your clothes are not going to smell like vinegar. If you use this oil – Downy April Fresh fragrance oil – that’s what your clothes are going to smell like!
I mix the solution in a pitcher and just pour in the Downy ball- I purchase a 16oz. bottle of the fragrance oil approximately every 9-10 months.
You can do this even cheaper, and not use the oil- that’s just for your nose’s sake anyway!

Rach’s Homemade Fabric Softener

1 gallon white vinegar
2 teaspoons fragrance or essential oils

Directions

Mix essential oils into vinegar. {I mix in the vinegar jug then pour into a smaller pitcher just because it’s easier to handle!} Add to Downy ball and toss it in the wash!
Depending on what EO smell you use- you may need to use a little more- try a test wash first, then add a drop or two at a time.

Rach of Rach’s Blog Bite is a fun, real, and hilarious blogger who keeps me coming back to her blog just to see what she’s going to be up to next. As Rach puts it, she writes about “Misadventures from my kitchen, my attempts at getting crafty and other things I find I think I need to try!” She’s always trying new things, living and learning even when it’s messy, and picking up some great ideas and skills in the process. I’ve picked up some super recipes ( cookies to die for) and what-to-read tips as she shares from her kitchen and her 52-in-52 reading challenge. Great giveaways, too: I just WON my first-ever blog giveaway on Rach’s Blog Bite! Wheeee! Thanks, Rach! Go check out her site and I guarantee you’ll have fun.

So my original plan of having an issue every Friday is kind of… gone. Heh. Ah well. -Best-laid plans and all that. But here’s Issue #2, for what it’s worth. I do read a lot, more offline than on, and I love recommending books and blogs that I think others will enjoy…

[There's no Mr Linky. I'm simplifying things - such as my life  - so if you have reading to recommend,  or a similar post, or a book review on your own site, please leave  a link in the comments below! ]

#1: Reading about Writing

I don’t follow many writing sites, because it’s often just rehashed same-old advice. But Write to Done produces some gems. I find myself re-reading the posts to make sure I didn’t miss something good, like this:

“We have to write whether we are in the mood or not. If you write for your career, then writing must be a daily act of self- discipline, even when it’s lackluster and boring.” That’s from this post.

And this:

“When the writing day is over, make sure you’ve scribed something because one of the best schools of writing is writing.” That’s from this post by Daryl Sedore.

Good stuff. Worth reading if you’re a writer.

#2: A Book a Day. Or Just a Book. Or Two.

I read and reviewed Captivating by John & Stasi Eldredge this last week. I resisted it a long time, but when Thomas Nelson had the new revised edition up for review, I decided it was time. And it was. A great book with a good message that women need to hear.{End shameless plug for my own book review.}

I also read -Josephine Tey’s The Man in the Queue. I’ve never really been a mystery fan, either in book or movie form, but I figured maybe I just hadn’t tried the right one. I enjoyed Tey’s book but I can’t say I’m a convert. I’ve got one by Ngaio Marsh in my bag to take with me this weekend… we’ll see.

#3: Old Stuff from the Starred List

I’ve cut way down on the blogs I follow because there just isn’t time for them all, people. I feel a little guilty, being a blogger myself. Oh well. I can deal with guilt. I can’t deal with ten thousand blog feeds.

So once or twice a week I hop to my Google Reader and catch up. I skim. If it catches my interest, I read. If I really like it, I star. And then I share. Like so:

“Could it be enough to quietly sit and hold the baby and take care of the kids, or do I have a whole list of extras to do too?” From a post published several months ago, which I’ve read several times, which still makes me pause and think… Go read it all. [And kind of funny, I just realized that of my total 2 issues of Recommended Reading, this blogger has been in, yup, both! Hm. I must like her writing. Yup. I do. She might not know it though, because I'm what we here in the blogo-sphere call a lurker. Which I feel like I should feel bad about and I do, kind of, but not enough (apparently) to wait for my slow connection to load the page to leave the comment. And now I'm done talking.]

#4: Not Really Reading, Exactly…

I just had to add this. You can read about it, here, at the artist interview on The Artful Parent. But if nothing else, just go see this art by Tif McDonald. It’s beautiful and different and if anybody wants to buy me the dandelion one I’ll be forever grateful. I wish I had the money… Oh, I wish.

I’d never even heard of “encaustic” before, but I’m going to go scour Etsy for it now. Check you peeps later.

Oh, don’t forget:

What’s your recommended reading? C’mon, haven’t you read something good lately? Prove it. (Nyah nyah nyah. I dare you.)