… in which we provide photographic evidence of the horror.

LightHusband got a bee in his bonnet this morning and emptied our freezers (3 … one small chest freezer and two frig-freezers) on to our washer and dryer.  The inventory system was not working.  The LightChildren are now compliant with the challenge. They will not, however, provide an inventory for said challenge. Ungrateful wretches. Once all of the frozen food was on the washer/dryer, he photographed it (while I hid my head in the sand). He then reorganized it all in the 3 freezers. Here are the photos of our frozen food, the pantry and our refrigerator.

Note: not all boxes and bags are full. For instance, there’s a huge bag of frozen chicken breasts in there that only had two breasts in it. I do realize, however, that this does nothing but incriminate me.

Believe it or not, our frig is beginning to look a little empty.  Okay, not empty … but at least we are using stuff instead of just piling leftovers in that never get eaten.  Now they get eaten.

The top shelf is almost all condiments (because LightHusband is having a love affair with condiments and hey, at least I know where he is at night). The big red tub is dog food.  Yes, there are 3 jars of maraschino cherries.  A failed holiday cooking attempt. Stop laughing … you know you have those too.

Next week I’m starting a 12 step program for hoarders.  Do I have any fellow members?

… in which I finally achieve one goal and begin to get creative.

Breakfast – homemade oatmeal with dried cranberries substituted for raisins (since I threw our nasty old dried up fuzzy crumbly raisins away in the pantry purge a few weeks before the Pantry Challenge). LightChildren declared cranberries far more excellent than raisins. I wouldn’t know … I hate oatmeal. I’ll make it, but I won’t eat it.

Lunch – LightChildren had a buffet of various frozen, then baked convenience foods (clam strips, cod nuggets) and some leftover mac & cheese, so did LightHusband. BlazingEwe and FlamingLambs were here and her children shared said frozen feast. BlazingEwe and I (on the other hand) prepared a tasty lunch of cream of tomato soup and grilled cheddar cheese with apple sandwiches. YUM.

Dinner – scones. Coffee with my friend went long. We had lots and lots to catch up on. So we just kept eating scones and grinning at each other because we were being naughty (not eating a proper dinner as our mothers taught us). I did get hungry later on and have a chicken pot pie from the freezer.

Tonight’s dinner is already half-way done … I began a beef and barley soup from some roast beef bones in my frig. I think it’s time to break out the bread machine as well. Our bread is finally gone.

I did realize that we do have some things to serve our guests on Saturday. There is an enormous lasagna in the freezer that will do well for dinner. I can make bread. I can make other yummy things throughout the day. The only thing that will be lacking is a salad.

I ought to have some erudite bit to say here.

All of this is really driving home to me how difficult it is to keep up with fresh fruit and vegetables.  If one is truly impoverished, even by our standards here in the US, having a balanced diet is nearly impossible.  Yet that is what is necessary to achieve balance as a human being.  It is the cornerstone for nearly every pursuit in life.  I am allowing this to happen in our lives because I know that it is short term.  But what about those for whom fruit and vegetables are not ordinary, but luxuries?  Or sufficient protein?

I have a foggy distant memory from my childhood of a number beyond which this planet could not sustain life.  I don’t remember what the number was.  I just remember it as a population number that was estimated we (as in the global we) had the power to attain in my lifetime.  I have a memory too, that there was much debate at the time over the number and the powers of progressive, industrial farming to overcome the number.  Or the powers of family planning methods to remove our collective feet from the gas pedal.  I remember that younger friends of my parents talked about this and made plans to have two or fewer children.  Once in a while now, as I engage in experiences like this pantry challenge, I wonder about our estimates of how many people our planet can sustain.  How do we measure that?  What does it mean to sustain life?  How do we measure a life?  I’m not entertaining any horrible notions of genocide.  But I wonder at times about our measures of life.  I think that there are some things that defy measurement.  Perhaps my question would better be:  Can we measure a life?  What does it take to sustain that life well?

… in which I can’t remember what day number it was. It was Sunday. Church of the Common Table.

Breakfast – grabbed a bowl of cereal … I’m LATE for setting up and helping my teammates. LightHusband and LightChildren were not too far behind me. Not sure what they did. LightChildren later copped to purchasing breakfast at the coffeeshop where we meet.
Lunch – is part of church. Really it is. For three years now we’ve trundled across the parking lot to Chipotle’s for lunch after our service. Last year we gave that up for Lent, put the money we would have spent into a jar and gave it to a refugee family with nothing. We then had simple lunches (beans and rice or pb&j sandwiches) in homes. We’re thinking of doing the same thing this year. So … I’m not making this up. We even give away Chipotle meal certificates to first time visitors so they can join us without feeling the money crunch.

Dinner – Marinara sauce with meatballs over penne pasta and a big glass of milk.

I’m having a friend over for coffee this afternoon. I can make scones!! I have scone mix in the cupboard. YAY. I also have my brother’s most excellent jam. If you can get your hands on it, it’s the best jam in the world. No pectin, all fruit and sugar. YUM. One day soon he’ll have a website up and you can look for Side Hill Farm Jam. I also happen to have some whipped cream (in a can) … yes, hanging my head. I have ReddiWhip. I really do need to wear a paper bag. My grandmother would be ashamed.

I’m having another friend over for coffee later in the week. He and his baby daughter will need some treats, but it might not be as pretty as scones. I think I might have the ingredients for some fun cookies.  On the other hand, I’m not making any promises to anyone who might be reading this and beginning to anticipate anything 😉

Next weekend we have a real challenge.  We’re hosting a mini-retreat for 8 people here.  ALL day … it’s a combined meeting of our church’s Leadership and Design Teams.  I love all of these people.  But they’ve gotten used to the bar being set a certain level when events are in our home.  I hope they can live with the creative disappointment on Saturday.  We’ll have lots of good hot coffee and tea and I can bake.  There will probably be soup.  Beyond that I have to put my mind to it.  Does it count if we make it potluck?

Here are some odd things that have happened.  I’m hungry all the time.  I’m not conciously denying myself anything at meals.  But I’m not snacking in between either.  I’m not ravenous, just a low level nagging if I ate something now I’d feel satiated and boy, I’d really love some ice cream, kind of hungry.  But we don’t have any ice cream.  What does this say about the state of poverty?  I could tell you, but I’ll let you form your own conclusions.  (Euphemism for I’m still thinking about this and will write more later).

Another odd thing is that I woke up today and the very first thought that ran through my head before and during my eyes opening up was I’m angry that I did this.  I just want to go to the grocery store and eat what I want to eat.  While I was still in sleep mode I was angry at someone else (not sure who).  As I woke up I realized that was unreasonable as this was more or less my idea.  So I was left with being angry at myself.  That was an uncomfortable awakening.  So I lay there for a while and shook it off, but I’m still not sure what to make of it.  Any ideas?

I’ve been double-tagged (this time by Brother Maynard), which is not to say double-teamed, because it was done independently and innocently.  I guess this means I have friends.  Which is a very nice thing to have …

1) What’s the most fun work you’ve ever done, and why? (two sentences max)

Scoring LightGirl’s hockey games.  I’ve just trained for it, but I know I’ll have a ball and better still it will force me to pay attention.

2) Name one thing you did in the past that you no longer do but wish you did? (one sentence max)

Continue learning Arabic and languages in general; I pick up languages really easily and I’d love to keep up with Arabic it’s a beautiful language.

3) Name one thing you’ve always wanted to do but keep putting it off? (one sentence max)

Paint my bedroom … and make into a safe haven; it’s always been the last room in the house to get decorated (that’s a euphemism for never).

4) What two things would you most like to learn or be better at, and why? (two sentences max)

Arabic because I want to get back to my first love, Middle Eastern studies, and to be able to work towards reconciliation in the Middle East.   Art quilting theory to move towards more art sense in my quilting.

5) If you could take a class/workshop/apprentice from anyone in the world living or dead, who would it be and what would you hope to learn? (two more sentences, max)

Georgia O’Keefe to learn how she looked at the world and to see it through her eyes and with her sense of color and light.

6) What three words might your best friends or family use to describe you?

funny, creative, generous (two of my best friends came up with these for me 😉 ) a fourth word is “tease” … they are so fond of me.

7) Now list two more words you wish described you…

wise (again with the wise), skinny

8) What are your top three passions? (can be current or past, work, hobbies, or causes– three sentences max)

redemption, history, fabric (not necessarily in that order)

9) Write–and answer–one more question that YOU would ask someone (with answer in three sentences max)

What’s your background, as in where do you come from?
I was born in western Massachusetts, spent time in Kansas and then raised in Vermont.  Went to college in upstate New York and I’ve lived in northern Virginia for most of my adult life after a couple of years in Washington DC.

Now … who to spread this virus, I mean, who to tag?

Hmmmm … GoldenGirl, BrickDude, LinusLetters, StaplerGuy, WittyPoet

… for

1. Houseguests (this week it’s CityMouse)

2. New spectacles

3. Friends who listen when I whine

4. A backyard trampoline

5. A new job for H. that she loves

6. The color yellow

7. bright pink cheeks and sparkly eyes

8. Stories

9. Quiet

10. My mural

Many of you who know us in the brick and mortar world, know that yesterday (the infamous New Years Day) was/is LightGirl’s birthday. Yesterday she turned 13. It seems impossible that it was a whole 13 years ago that she was born. But it is. As you all now know her LightHusbandGrandparents are visiting.

When the visit was being planned and we asked about her birthday we discussed birthday day plans with her. She tends to be rather, um, focussed on hockey. She discovered that there was a home game scheduled for New Years Day and she would very much like to take her grandparents to the game. It was against the team that Wayne Gretsky coaches so she was also hoping for a glimpse of the Great One.

Tickets were exhorbitant. So we squashed that plan.

Then LightHusband was out and about Christmas shopping during the week before Christmas. He happened to be in line behind a tall man wearing a Capitals jersey with the name “Zubrus” on it. They struck up a conversation and after talking for a while, LightHusband felt comfortable asking him if he were “the” Zubrus. Number 9. The second of LightGirl’s heros. Dainius Zubrus. LightHusband was trolling for an autograph. His reply, “I am de Zubrus brother.” Lighthusband told him of LightGirl’s desires. As they talked, LightHusband discovered that the brother is the Sales Manager for the Washington Capitals. They just so happened to be in line at the Apple Store where computers are “on-line.” So after each had made their purchases, Mr. Andrius Zubrus and LightHusband hunkered over one and he found us some seats.

Six rows back … where we could count the hairs on Olie (the goalie) Kolzig’s head.

We could see the faces of all the players as they crashed and banged into the boards. Their ability to concentrate on that puck and still be aware of the location of each and every other team mate is amazing. Almost feral.

LightGirl was enthralled with every … single … moment. She had the time of her life. Sometime next week she’ll float back down to earth. But for right now she’s dreaming big dreams and daring to hope the hopes of a 13 year old girl. And I am very glad to be her “hockey mom.”

The LightHusband’s parents are visiting. Very often these visits are fraught with tension and ill-will. This visit has been quite pleasant thus far … filled with laughter and camaraderie. Perhaps it is because I no longer care what they think of me that I am now free to think of them.

In any case, with their visit comes additional television viewing. We rarely watch television. Mostly in the evening after the LightChildren have gone to bed. We watch during the day on very rare occasions … when someone in the house is too sick to do anything else. Or when GrandpaLightHusband is visiting. He loves to watch tv. Correction. He loves to walk into a room. Turn on the television. Watch it for a few seconds. Then leave the room … with the television still on. He may or may not return to the room. So when they visit the television is on … all. the. time. He also likes to watch sports. If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time you may have come to some conclusions about me. I’ll bet it will come as little surprise to anyone that sports is quite low on my list of television watching priorities. I especially do not care to watch it or have it on in the house at very loud decibels. This is usually a trial for me. I very quickly reach a place of sensory overload when there are a lot of people in the house and a lot of noise. So … yeah.

This morning GrandpaLightHusband came in from their RV and promptly … turned on the television.  Well, Sunday morning programming is not so terrible.  We watched CBS’s Sunday Morning program.  They gave us the trifecta of funerals; President Ford’s, James Brown’s and Sadaam Hussein’s.  There was a portion of the program devoted to all the famous people who died in 2006.  I could hear echos of the morbid scene from “The Holy Grail” …. “Bring out your dead… bring out your dead ….” There are many different perspectives to give a year just finished.  This seemed odd to me.

Apparently it was fitting to LightGirl.  We went walking in the Battlefield with the grandparents and a friend.  Later on as I was putting dinner together she came in and said, “Well, 2006 wasn’t a really great year, was it Mom?”  I asked her why she felt that way.  She responded, “It was the year Will died.”  My first response (which I never got to make) was that it was also the year that he was born too.  But GrandmaLightHusband wanted to know who he was and why he was so important to LightGirl.  So we explained his story to her.  She responded by telling us a story of a little boy in her church who is 11 with hypo-plastic left heart, “and he’s doing quite well.”  And suddenly I was so overcome with rage, I felt my knees buckle.  I felt myself step outside of me and observe what was happening.  I knew better than to speak, so I just nodded and listened.  I wasn’t angry with my mother-in-law.  I’m still not sure why or who I was angry with.

I’m just so god-damn sick of useless, pointless death.

I have been struggling for quite some time to organize my thoughts about what it means to me to have a “consistent ethic of life.” How do I honor life amongst the death that regularly occurs in this mortal plane? How do I go about redeeming life and creating holy space for it in the here and now, while all the while understanding that it is terribly impermanent and, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, “… nasty, brutish, and short.”

On one end of the spectrum, there is life at the very beginning and the debate concerning not only abortion and abortion rights versus the right to life, but also the rights of the infertile and what does one think about the ethics of infertility treatments versus the thousands upon millions of children needing food and water and good homes world-wide. How do those issues impact the way I live? Should they? I haven’t even begun to think about cloning, but now I think I should. Apparently, products from cloned animals are going to be in grocery stores soon. I need to begin to follow this more closely.

In the middle there are all sorts of issues. One we, in the LightFamily, have taken on this year is what to do with guns. LightBoy has become fiercely enamoured with WWII because of a video game given to him by friend P3T3. I don’t want him to think that weapons are whizz, bang fun on a video game. I want him to understand the full awesome, terrible horrible might of a bullet. I don’t think one can get that impact without ever firing a weapon … or several. One must endure the pangs of hunter safety courses and weapons safety drills and then perhaps even kill an animal before understanding that horrid cliche …”Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” So we gave LightBoy a teeny-tiny .22 for Christmas to begin the process of understanding his place on the planet.

Other issues in the middle concern how to eat without cruelty to the fellow creatures that abide on the earth with us. We are given the right to rule over them. With that comes responsibility to care for and honor them as creatures with dignity and worth in their own right. Animals are not a product to be farmed and industrialized and manufactured as if they were cars. It might make them cheaper, but then that also makes us cheaper as well. I don’t believe we’ve thought through the end results of industrialization thoroughly enough to understand it’s full impact on us, the animals, or the environment. Cheaper and faster, we are finding is not always best or even better.

Then we come to the end of life. Modern medicine has invoked miracle after miracle prolonging life. In the end, though, we must all die. How long must we live and under what circumstances have become the questions we need to answer, usually long before we are ready to consider them. Dying has become not a question of when our time is up, but when are our loved ones ready to “pull a plug.” Medicine has become able to prolong the ability of our physical shells to breath and contain the symptoms of life, but are we living at that point?

What about capital punishment? This is one question in the midst of the myriad of others that I have found rather easy to answer. I believe that capital punishment is wrong. I don’t believe there is any justification for capital punishment other than revenge. It is not a deterrent; there have been a multitude of studies that prove that it does not deter crime. It is not rehabilitative. One can not be rehabilitated once one is dead. Therefore it’s only purpose is revenge. I am, in particular, having a difficult time dealing with this particular sentence. Sadaam Hussein was a really bad guy. One of the worst. I’ll grant that. If anyone deserved a death sentence, he would (except, yes, I don’t believe anyone does). Here’s why I’m particularly having a hard time with this one, though. Part of the reason that Sadaam Hussein was such a horrible, bad guy is because we (the U.S. … well, our government/C.I.A.) encouraged him. We told him it would be okay if he did his bad horrible deeds, we’d look the other way. We actually put him in power and then turned a blind eye while we knew exactly what he was doing and when and how. Now, after 20 years of encouraging his badness, we captured him, put him on trial and are executing him.

I especially have a problem with that. That is NOT a consistent ethic of life.

The LightChildren, PlusOneFriend and the SheepFamily all went to the movies yesterday. We went to see the long awaited Eragon. This is a movie that has been made out of a book. The book is special because it was written by a homeschooled teenager. It’s also a genre that is favored by all of our children. Fantasy. Dragons. Elves. All the best stuff.

The main plotline of the story goes that in a land far away and long ago (or something) there used to be dragons. And there used to be dragon riders. The dragon riders were connected to their dragons in a special way. Dragon riders were sort of elite or something like that. I haven’t read the book, so I’m just going off the movie. Then along came a dragon rider with a whole bunch of hubris and he killed all the other dragon riders and their dragons. And he marshalled all the forces of evil and became king of the worst sort. Until a savior dragon rider was born along with a savior dragon (can you tell where this is going?). That was the main plot of the story … the savior dragon rider and the savior dragon. Rather fortuitously they met up with an old dragon rider. He was the last one. His dragon had been killed in the big fight.

In one particularly moving scene he gave this bit of advice to his protege (the main character, Eragon), “Protect your dragon. Life without her isn’t worth much at all.” I’ve been thinking about that and tossing it around a bit since then.

I’ve been thinking about what that means. About how we are all given various gifts and talents to use in this life. That we should protect them, use them, grow them, build them. Because without being able to do that, life just isn’t worth much at all.

This was the question I posed to LightBoy over dinner yesterday evening. We had dinner together as LightGirl and Husband were at hockey practice.

LightBoy listed off many specific toys. They can be found at websites around the internet. Mostly at Lego.com in the age grouping for 9 – 11 year olds (Star Wars). He was very specific about that. Then he declared that he wants to begin hobbying. Therefore he would like a model tank. A Panzer. He would like a hobby. So he has decided to collect models of WWII tanks. I’m certain this will change in the next two or three days.

Then he announced, “I’d like a snow globe with a Santa in it for my room. Because I’m not an atheist or anything.” I was mildly surprised by this information. So I questioned him. I asked if he knew what an atheist is. Oh yes … and he described it. So I asked what Santa had to do with Christmas. He looked at me as if I’d just lost my ever-lovin’ mind. Well, DUH, mom … Santa … Christmas. And then he said, “You know, Mom, the guy in the red suit, he brings gifts for Christmas …” with that what-are-you-stupid? sneer on his sweet face. So I asked what did Santa have to do with proving he wasn’t an atheist. He did acknowledge that I had a point there. Then he said, “well, I just want one … I think they’re pretty.”

Oh … well, why didn’t you just say that!