reading round-up (5.30.14)

/ abby hummel / 6 Comments

Happy Friday! This week held a very noteworthy celebration: The first “real” piano student sign up of my Minnesota piano studio! We toasted this occasion with the most despicable-tasting sparkling cider available in the Target clearance aisle. (Seriously. It was awful. We both said something like, “We should have just had champagne. I think pregnant ladies in Europe drink sometimes and their kids are okay…”)
photo 2 (1)

Here are some reading suggestions for the start of a beautiful weekend…

[One] You guys, it’s been legitimately sort of HOT this week. We haven’t turned on the AC yet (we rebel against that sort of thing for a while), but it’s toasty enough to reschedule Max’s mid-afternoon walk so we can go to the basement for downstairs chores and naps instead. I have been really happy with my strategic door-and-window opening plan, which was inspired by this old post about “Living without A/C and Liking It!” from Like Mother, Like Daughter. We actually don’t know if the air conditioning unit works in this house, so we’ll get it cleaned out and hope for the best when it starts getting hotter! (I keep thinking… if you can’t make it until June for a/c when you live in Minnesota, you’re in serious trouble.)

[Two] I’ll probably whack out a whole post about how ridiculous the “mommy wars” are, especially in evangelical Christian subculture, but this post from Jen Wilkinson was particularly encouraging as I gear up for being a part-time working mom.

[Three] This look at the stairway to wisdom from David Brooks includes some great thoughts about the personal stories behind statistics, especially in relation to teen pregnancy.

[Four] I’ve seen this post about homeschooling popping around among friends quite a bit. I’m not going to deny that if I wrote an article about homeschooling (as someone who was homeschooled, has worked closely in tutoring other homeschool families in upper grades, is married to someone who was homeschooled, and will need to make some decisions about educating my own kid in the future) it would say the exact opposite of this one. In general, my opinion is that 85% of homeschool families need a more serious attitude about academics and a lot less restrictions for everything else. But it’s worth reading and reflecting critically whether you agree with it or not!

[Five] I love these thoughts on “scruffy hospitality” and welcoming people into life as you are!  Good, good words from Jack King.

“Don’t allow a to-do list disqualify you from an evening with people you’re called to love in friendship. Scheduling is hard enough in our world. If it’s eating with kind, welcoming people in a less than perfect house versus eating alone, what do you think someone would choose? We tell our guests ‘come as you are,’ perhaps we should tell ourselves ‘host as you are.’ …Friendship isn’t about always being ‘excellent’ with one another. Friendship is about preparing a space for authentic conversation. And sometimes authenticity happens when everything is a bit scruffy.”

[Six] Two different friends have recommended the “Hillsdale Dialogues” series to me for combating intellectual decay. These lectures on literature have provided some mental stimulation lately, so they are worth checking out even if you’re a little intimidated (or not immediately interested) in hearing about The Illiad or Sir Gawain.

[Seven] Maybe especially because, finally, some things are really coming together —PhD, baby, duckling, puppy… what else could we want?– we’ve been battling a lot of thoughts about hopes, both the ones we felt were dashed so many times in the last few years, and the ones we’re still not sure about for the future. There are questions about calendars and things that don’t look like we thought they should at this point, birthdays that came before all the things we wanted to do by that age were done, and uncertainty about how to redream for some of life. I loved this encouragement from Ann Voskamp:

Time can’t dictate dreams or hijack hope or determine destination. Time may have hands on the clock but it’s arms are too weak to rob anybody of hope, steal anybody’s prayers, destroy anybody’s joy. And so what if time’s got hands on a clock — it’s God who has His Hands on the universe. Every little thing is going to be okay because God is working good through every little thing. All that’s happening is just happening to make miracles. There are miracles always unfolding under the impossibles.
“Joys are always on their way to us,” writes Amy Carmichael. “They are always traveling to us through the darkness of the night. There is never a night when they are not coming.”
Because there is never a night where joys are not coming to us, there is never a road that can’t arrive at Hope.Circumstances can go ahead and run out of time — but the courageous refuse to run out of hope. We can always hope because there is always joy traveling to us down the unexpected roads.

“The LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.” – Psalm 147:11

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The mosquitos are particularly nasty, but we’re hoping for another weekend of bonfires, laughter, Max adventures, and some more painting. (I can tell it’s making a big and beautiful difference in this house that needed a lot of “lipstick and rouge,” but will it ever end? I think “soft flipping” a house and getting a puppy effectively eradicated the possibility of ‘relaxing weekends’ before the baby arrives. )

(You can enjoy more quick reads at Conversion Diary!) 

 

 

 

 

making way for a (belated) duckling

/ abby hummel / 3 Comments

A few weeks ago I mentioned Aaron’s childhood dream of incubating duck eggs, which fueled years of seemingly fruitless prayer, study, and excessive searching through the appropriate habitats in pursuit of a mallard hen’s laying ground. We did some massive minimalizing before moving to Minnesota, during which he finally tossed the old incubator he’d built specifically to hatch those longed-for childhood ducklings. Sometimes his sciencey nature completely baffles me, like when I peek at the detailed lab notebook he keeps every year for his garden with spreadsheets tracking how many plants germinated with what fertilizer and watering schedule, etc., and in those times it’s good for me to remember they are just the grown-up expression of everything that made that little boy hunt for duck eggs.

In the same post I also mentioned that we were not going to be raising any waterfowl at this house. You know, because Aaron works long hours and already caved on the “no-garden thing,” we now have a dog, we have no money, we’re having a baby, and even small hobby livestock is illegal in this city, among other things. (I try not to be a pessimist, but I manage to come up with a long list of reasons not to do almost everything “cool.”)

With all this in mind, it makes perfect sense that nearly 20 years after the height of the egg-hunting, Aaron went exploring with Max and discovered a lone duck egg on the shore of a small lake, which he promptly brought home and kept in a drawer while waiting for a new incubator to come in the mail. (Mama Ducks lay their eggs one-at-a-time at the water’s edge while they build their nest for a few weeks, then recollect whatever hasn’t been eaten by raccoons and start sitting on them all together, so they hibernate for a bit, and it was OK to set this one on it’s own for a couple of days.) It’s now been incubating cozily in our closet for the past few weeks, and Aaron is very proud that we can see the outline of little duckling growing when he holds it up to a flashlight.

There are many possible devastations that could yet occur with this little duckling, like a failure of our extremely low-quality incubator or the fact that we are simultaneously raising a dog with the specific breeding to instinctively put birds in his mouth. We also have no idea what we would do with it once it becomes a grown-up, since we have no backyard pond. (It’s one of those dreams we had to let go of for this house.) I’ve heard that hand-raised ducks often migrate when they see the other ducks flying south, so that might happen… We’ll see. For now, we’re just turning the egg according to schedule, and monitoring the temperature of the incubator while laughing about how birds keep showing up as tangible expressions of God’s love for us.

mallard

Come on, little duckling! We are rooting for you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

He makes wars cease (Memorial Day 2014)

/ abby hummel
This Memorial Day weekend has been fabulous so far. The excellent weather at last (!!) is a great treat. We’ve been working like mad on the inside and outside of the house, playing with the dog, and enjoying time with friends. We have paint in our hair and the smell of bonfire smoke in our clothes. I have a steady stream of cold lemonade in the fridge and fresh strawberries on the counter. (It’s too early for a local crop so they’re probably from Belize or something, but who cares?)  We’re relaxing and celebrating. But when you know what it means to lay down your life for your country, even when you’re one of the lucky ones who got to pick it back up, there’s a somber side to these celebrations, too.
I cry a little bit every year on Memorial Day weekend. I’ve overbrewed coffee, burned eggs, and even excused myself from church services because of this. I have a list of friends I contact every year on Sunday or Monday, and I have to send my love and words honor for their fallen loved ones electronically because I’m usually not composed enough to speak to them above a whisper without hiccuping or entirely losing it. We share the history of sending people we loved to war, but I got a homecoming where they had funerals.
One friend sets a plate for her cousin at every family dinner. He volunteered for a mission while in Afghanistan, which his buddies said he did often. Thanks to sniper fire and a kevlar vest that shifted just the right (wrong) amount while he dove for cover, that seat stays empty.
Another lost her brother several years ago. “It ripped my entire family apart,” she said, “and after a few years, just when it started to feel like God might be real again, I almost died from complications after delivering my premature baby, who was stillborn.” Tolkien was indeed right to say that “the world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them.”
Those of us who had the homecoming have our own sets of adjustment challenges, to be certain. The rates for divorce, addiction, debilitating anxiety/depression, and suicide skyrocket for veterans in the first 5 years after a combat deployment. (I believe the risk goes down a little bit after that, but always remains significantly higher than average.) In addition to a host of other things I won’t go into now, I’m not sure Aaron slept or laughed between his homecoming in 2007 and some point in 2012. A person once confessed to me that her uncle killed himself shortly after returning from a deployment, but they tell everyone he didn’t come home because it’s easier to explain. I think the story they tell is closer to the truth than they realize. Facing combat always results in mortal or moral injury, and I see exactly what it means that “only the dead have seen the end of war.” (I think Plato said that. The internet is not always the best way to track those things.)
As a Christian I don’t have lots of good answers about war. Sometimes I dabble in pacificism, since it’s better to turn the other cheek and all that.  There is a part of me that reflects on the horror of war and says we should never, ever, in a million years, even think about doing anything like that in any form, at any time, in any place. But I also read of horrible things in this world, where bad guys systematically oppress an entire group of people, raping, burning, overpowering, ethnic and religious groups living under constant threat of death or torture. I have watched old recordings from World War II, with Nazi SS officers gunning down Jews in Poland and publicly dancing on their bodies. And I wonder how anyone could call themselves human while allowing such atrocities to continue, even if it takes combative interference. There are no easy answers; war is hell. 
Honestly, I think most scripture passages are extremely confusing on this topic; the Bible does not always shed the light I wish would come here. War is good. War is bad. War is God’s will. War is not God’s will. I think you can twist various verses to say anything you want about war.
“Who is this King of Glory? The Lord strong and mighty; The Lord, mighty in battle.” (Psalm 24:8)
“His name shall be called… the Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9)
“He trains my hands for battle; he strengthens my arm to draw a bronze bow.” (2 Samuel 22:35)
“He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; He breaks the bow and shatters the spear.” (Psalm 46)
We have to look at it all together instead of playing verse roulette on this one. These conflicts all stem from the original conflict in the fall. War exists primarily as the result of the first war: mankind setting itself against God in the earliest days. God’s response to the Fall explains the enmity that causes all these wars, and the eventual everlasting victory of his promised Messiah.

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15)

The solution to the problems of does not come in ignoring the cost of injustice, regulation or deregulation of arms, or the promises of politicians for new foreign policy. (Not that those things don’t matter, or that I don’t have opinions about them. But a quick glance of history shows various groups have unsuccessfully tried to eradicate war since the beginning of time. It hasn’t happened and it will not, no matter how excellent our government.) Instead, it comes individually for now: “He himself is our peace, who has made the two one and destroyed the dividing wall of hostility.” (Ephesians 2:14) It will come corporately when all is made right, when the 46th Psalm is fulfilled: “He makes wars cease.”
This weekend we can celebrate Memorial Day, which honors those who died in military service, because many were defending the cause of the oppressed (Isaiah 1:17), they were acting in obedience to their civil leaders (1 Peter 2:13), and they cared more about the interests of others than themselves (Philippians 2:4). We can mourn with those who have lost someone dear. We can try to emulate those virtues in our own lives. And most of all, we can rest in the truth that war (and the resulting horrors and lost lives) does not have the “final say” in anything.

“The last enemy to be destroyed is death… Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory in our Lord Jesus Christ!” (I Corinthians 15)

at last!

Today, we are grateful for this homecoming and especially honor those who did not get one. (Also we look like babies.) 

 

reading round-up (5.16.14)

/ abby hummel

red tulip

[One] It’s hard to shake off the joy that creeps up along with the new blades of grass each spring. Did you know one of the oldest notated English songs celebrates this very fact? It’s true. Sumer is Icumen In!


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[Two] Earlier this week, my younger sister (also a homeowner and expectant mama) and I chatted about our yards, which feels incredibly grown up. We’re both trying to cultivate beauty and order in houses that were poorly neglected by previous owners with the intention of turning a profit by selling in a few years. I’m not even sure what we used to talk about, but now it’s the merits (and resale value) of investing in grass seed, pavers, mulch, walkways, and firepits. So with that in mind, I really appreciated this article about how the primary work of man — that is, tilling the soil — makes nature more beautiful, and how much benefit there is to subduing the wilderness. My favorite quote? “If farming is the Martha of man’s relationship with nature, gardening is the Mary.” [Get Out of the Wilderness and Into the Garden.]

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[Three] Ever wonder what you should really know about American History? Here’s a five-minute clip from David McCullough to assist in your quest for greater knowledge (or just a higher level of cultural literacy.)
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[Four] If you’re looking for an hour-long podcast, we thought this interview in defense of genetic modification of plants was extremely interesting. Even if you are skeptical (or disagree) with the practices, this discusses the history of plant breeding AND some other common methods of modern plant breeding that are, in my opinion, infinitely  more concerning than mainstream cis- and trans-genic modifications. (Seriously. Should we be eating plants that came from parent plants blasted by radiation in order to produce the desired mutation? Or should we use precise technology to get the exact mutation we want and avoid the unknown effects of radiation or other changes? If you are lost in this part of the discussion, you need to study further before “taking a stand” on the GMO debate.) Furthermore, I thought his points about how your worldview shapes everything you believe were very insightful, especially in regards to the lack of “inherent virtue” in nature. (Maybe this relates a little bit to the necessity of man tilling the soil after the fall? Nature alone isn’t going to fully sustain anymore and scientific progress is going to have to improve things? Much to think on here.)
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[Six] Poor Max has his first ear infection. Dogs have deep, crooked ear canals and those things can get nasty. I won’t link to this, but a cursory glance of Google search offerings about caring for a dog’s ear infection before you can get in to the vet uncovered another world of crazy. Not only are there major “mommy wars” about food, medical care, and vaccinations, but also “doggy wars” about those things, too. I mean, if some tincture of coconut oil, raw unfiltered with-the-mother apple cider vinegar, leftover organic red quinoa water and a splash of sriracha (I don’t know what that is, but I’ve seen it on pinterest too many times for it to not be the next big item in your naturopathic remedies) makes your dog feel better, great… but I kept finding people saying things like, “I tried this natural remedy for four months and his eardrum finally ruptured – now he feels great!” It disturbed me. I hope they aren’t doing that to their kids, too. I’m pretty confident this is the result of some trapped water leftover from his weekend swim and some combination of anti-fungal and antibiotics should solve the problem.
SAD EYES
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[Seven] I could (and probably will) just write a whole post about how much we have loved (and learned) in having a dog for almost six months. In the meantime, several of the points from this list are really hitting home for me. (Also, there are whole lists of videos on YouTube where military service-members reunite with their dogs. I accidentally watched one of them right before Bible study a few weeks ago and was late because I had to go downstairs and redo all my makeup afterwards. Then I cried when I put Max in the kennel and he looked at me with the sad eyes. It was rough.)
happy max
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Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! We are hoping to enjoy some time in the sunshine with Max, evening bonfires, and have hopes of getting LOTS of painting done inside and outside the house. (It’s about time!)

firstborn

/ abby hummel / 9 Comments

A letter to my daughter, about being a firstborn.

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[Okay, the numbering thing is complicated. You’re not the first baby, but you will be the first born. I guess. Sort of. I’m not saying I don’t feel conflicted to write to you about being a firstborn, but it’s important, and real life is what happens in the tension between life and death.]

Since both your parents are firstborns in every sense of the word, you are coming into a very earnest household. Sometimes we come home from a social event and share a knowing glance, one of us grimacing and saying, “We were way too intense for that situation…” We get really wound up about things. We joke that our two family mottos are, “go big or go home,” and “I saw that working out differently in my mind.” Who even has one, let alone two, family mottos? Firstborns, that’s who. Experts say that two oldest children usually make an awful combination for marriage, and in some ways they may be right, but neither one of us thinks we could truly respect and relate to a non-firstborn in the ways needed to build a marriage and family together. (We love our younger siblings ferociously and you have the best aunt-and-uncle lineup known to man, but we also believe they have danced through a life we had to pioneer. Every firstborn feels this way, even if it isn’t always true.) I have often wondered if you will have a double-dose of whatever it is that makes us firstborns so fierce.

Because you’ll be the first baby to join us here, we don’t have a life-pattern that includes children yet. Many things will change – gloriously. I wonder what it will be like. I have lots of moments where I think about bundling you up to go exploring and hunting with your dad. (It will be really important for him that you at least try to like it. He will probably give you lots of donuts to help make it special.)  I think about reading all our favorite stories out loud at bedtime, braiding your hair, and teaching you all the songs from The Sound of Music. Maybe someday we will hunker down in a blizzard and I will pull out the bin of long needles I have from my great-grandma so I can teach you to knit, just like the snowstorm when my mom taught me? So it’s not that I don’t think about the everyday parts of having you here… It’s just that some days, like today, I think about you in my INTENSE FIRSTBORN BRAIN, which says “I CAN’T BELIEVE I EVER THINK ABOUT PAINTING TOENAIL POLISH WITH THIS CHILD WHEN THERE ARE SO MANY BIG THINGS LIKE DEATH AND CORPORATIONS AND MERCY IN THIS WORLD.”

I’m bringing you into a world that you both were and most certainly were not created for. A world that very often, if you listen closely, seems to have a constant whisper of the Mass Requiem text: In the midst of life, we are in death. There is life! I want you to know the unabashed goodness of fresh tomatoes and muddy dog paws, the Great Books and the Grand Canyon, Lake Michigan and live bluegrass bands, kissing and ice cream. And there is death, which means things die. It also means there is something a little bit wrong with everything in a way that can’t be completely solved by either of us. Sometimes frost, blight, insects, or pesky animals ruin gardens. Our dog Max, whom we love and whose paws do and will continue to get muddy, will die long before we think he should. In the best case scenario, you will get to watch his body ache and age at a time when you are very aware of pain and growing up, and we might even have to make a choice to end his life when it is the only way to ease his suffering. (He is sitting with one of those paws on my lap right now, and yes, I cried a little bit while writing that down.) Whether you’re studying at home with me or at a school with teachers, you will read famous old books that display a lot of this brokenness. Shakespeare’s Othello is one of my favorites, because he depicts human relationships with beauty and perspective. It also contains vulgar and derogatory references to interracial, um, “special hugging.” (More on that… later.) You will probably know what it is to have a broken heart as you grow up and kiss someone who later “falls out of love” with you. It seems like a trite thing until it happens, at which time you will feel like someone has hurled an axe into your chest, and you will spend at least a little while vowing to never, ever, in a million years, risk yourself in love for anyone again. (You will. And it will be worth it.)

Something inside me hurts when I think about these things hurting you, because you were not created for pain, and I want to solve it all for you. I can’t. Everything in this world has the potential for so much beauty and rightness, because we were made for perfection and God has not withheld his grace from us, and so much pain, because it is all at least a little askew with sin. I’m going to want to manipulate it out of balance, and a part of me will always want to bear all the sorrows so you could just know the joys. I am not your savior and it is not my job to keep you away from them. I have to tell myself this because I’ve watched so many mamas try to overprotect in impossible ways. It doesn’t work. It just damages even worse, usually, than what she was trying to shield her kids from. But I see why they try now.

The solution to this dilemma is not found with either of us. Even as your mama, I can’t fix it for you, and I know enough to confess that – no matter how many dreams I have for my daughter – you will be just as helpless as I am. (Even as firstborns, who really have a way of getting things done.)

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1, esv)

It would be terrible of me to hide you from sorrow because I don’t want to hide you from the full goodness of this news: Jesus is the true firstborn, both of life and death. I will teach you songs about remembering your favorite things when bees sting and you feel sad, but the real peace coming out of destruction is in the reconciliation of the cross. Don’t let any vain attempts I make to keep you from witnessing the effects of death (and there are many) obstruct the beautiful truth that everything which holds together is a witness to God’s grace. And so much does hold together so often. Part of his preeminence means that even when things are messed up, which they are, they still work out for good. Your very existence bears witness to God making good things coming up out of death, and I am astounded to think we will get to keep seeing this at work in the rest of your life. There is a lot here waiting for you, little girl, and the broken world needs all the God-given bravery and loveliness you have to offer.

[I asked your father what he hopes to instruct you along these lines. He replied as follows: “Don’t disgrace us, don’t embarrass yourself, and don’t commit any felonies.”]

reading round-up (5.09.14)

/ abby hummel

“Max, you know what we say in Minnesota: May showers bring June flowers!” – Aaron, while the dog was perturbed during his first real thunderstorm on Thursday.

[maybe by memorial day the polar vortex will be a memory?]

[maybe by memorial day the polar vortex will be a memory?]

[One] Much encouragement over at The Art of Simple on the difference between organizing and decluttering. We pared down our “stuff” a lot before moving, and the new house is much larger… and we still feel like we have way too much floating around here. I was not in a state of mind to dream about maybe having a baby when we decided to get this particular house, so we lack a real “nursery” and will likely be turning our beloved walk-in-closet into the baby’s room. (Where will those shelves go? Maybe the laundry room? Questions abound.) This means there is lots more unorthodox organizing needed in the next few weeks, and this post nailed my frustration: organization is always temporary; decluttering makes you love your house more. So here’s to wisely culling in order for more love in my home!
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[Two] My regular bible study is wrapped up until fall, and I’ve been especially missing the girls I had a fabulous summer study with last year. This is just not the summer for a big project, but I’ve been checking out a few online resources to fill in the gaps. It’s refreshing when my daily She Reads Truth devotional pops up in my reader — and those free printables would be fun to have if I ever actually printed anything off. (I usually find it’s easier to grab markers and copy the artwork than wrestle with the printer we should have recycled two years ago.)
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[Three] However… if anyone wants to do Nancy Guthrie’s The Wisdom of God study with me (virtually) this summer, I will make my best effort despite the, uh, impending upheaval during the second half of the season.
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[Four] Love these thoughts on social media from Haley @ Carrots for Michaelmas: Don’t be a hater. It’s not evil, it’s a tool. Just use it well.
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[Five] With Mother’s Day coming up, I’m (of course) thinking and praying for the many, many women I know that find it a stressful holiday. This humorous out-take of the story of Hannah’s prayer from 1 Samuel is good advice for those who want to best love the barren and truth for all.  Additionally, I find that (if anything) a new baby coming so SOON (9-13 weeks for a regular full-term delivery, people!) doesn’t negate the lessons from past years. Maybe she makes me realize how true those things really are? If you haven’t read it yet, check out “Only A Dry Tree?” from my archives, and look for ways to bring a special blessing to those who may feel dry and unfruitful this weekend.

“Let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” For thus says the Lord: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off… I will… make them joyful in my house of prayer.” – Isaiah 56.

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[Six] Guess what — Maybe Jesus Wants Us to Get Stuff Done! And get off the computer!? Really. This advice isn’t always going to be helpful — but I think keeping it in mind makes the days of work AND the days of rest more useful and encouraging, just as God really intended. My friend Hannah wrote about how the Sabbath rest of a Sunday is a blessing… and after living with her in college and being so blown away by how she both DID ALL THE SCHOOL THINGS and DID ALL THE FUN THINGS while also DOING ALL THE RESPONSIBLE ADULT THINGS LIKE RUNNING HALF-MARATHONS AND GOING TO BREAKFAST EVERY DAY, I think she’s on to it: Work hard and rest well in the rhythm God provided.
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[Seven] Happy weekend! I hope it involves flowers, lots of french toast with copious amounts of coffee and orange juice, and special moments for honoring those who have cared for you and celebrating whatever fruit God has ordained for your life.

“I know now what they say in your world about justice. And perhaps they say well, for in that world things always fall below justice. But [God] always goes above it. All is gift. …The best fruits are plucked for each by some hand that is not his own.” (C.S. Lewis, Perelandra.)

[As always, more weekend quick reading available at Conversion Diary!]

foggy

/ abby hummel / 1 Comment

There’s not as much goin’ on in my head as I really think there should be, and I’ve been reminded multiple times in the past few days that “pregnancy brain fog is a real thing.” I’m not sure if I can blame my mental fog on the baby as much as the fact that I’m conscious of my caffeine intake, and everything I’d consume gives me heartburn anyway. Additionally, Aaron is working long, long, long hours. Maybe 4 extra per day MORE than we had been hoping for. Thus, speaking mostly to a dog all day is not particularly mentally stimulating for me. We’re desperately hoping this is not permanent, as three straight years of this (with a city commute before reaching the wife, baby, and doggie at home!) is not generally the way to create a satisfactory life for anyone involved. My brain feels a lot more worn out than usual, and I can’t even blame something like a busy college semester for this sad fact. So, Aaron’s frustrated by the excessive demands of his job, I’m frustrated by my lack of a job, and we’re both unreasonably jealous of the other person. Everything’s a little hazy here.

In this foggy state, “The Lesson of the Chickens” still holds true: when you’re pressed on every side, you probably need to do something that restores and enriches you even though you definitely don’t have time for it. (If you did have time, you would already be doing it and then you wouldn’t be under so much pressure in the first place.) This means right now the kitchen looks like a grow house for the vegetable garden we were “certainly not” going to plant this summer, I’m priming the trim even though that time would be “better spent” job hunting or piano recruiting, and I’m doing some cute (but not necessary) baby/house crafting.

image (19) image (15)

That being said, the house and yard still feel foggy in many ways. Nothing is really “done,” so I’m trying to focus on finishing the little projects we’re juggling (mostly painting some furniture and getting pictures up) to power me through for the bigger ones, like painting the trim and ceilings. This also makes me feel funny about showing pictures since everything is absolutely in progress! Also, it’s getting a lot easier to have a young dog, but pulling out some of our old stuff and keeping the stuff we do have looking nice seems a little pointless with Max at the large puppy stage. (Especially if the baby is 2 when we sell this house, I will have a puppy or a toddler the entire time we live here… is it worth unpacking those awesome ceramic blue candle holders I used all my 24th birthday money on? Big questions in life right now, I tell you.)

image (16)

(Here’s hoping some white paint will make drastic improvements for our terrible trim and foggy, frustrated outlook on life!)

“It’s the job that’s never started as takes longest to finish.” – Samwise, in Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. 

reading round-up (4.25.14)

/ abby hummel / 2 Comments

This week feels a bit like recovery of an excitement overdose. After months of life in the doldrums, we had lots of company and a fun Easter trip to Wisconsin (because moving to Minnesota means we are closer to one little branch of our family and we want to take advantage of that!). Now we’re getting ourselves straightened out again. It’s been a classic rainy April, at least this week (better than snow!!), and it is hard to motivate myself to walk the pup with all the puddles and raindrops. He’d probably love it, but then I’d end up needing to bathe him every day… so complicated. I play lots of running games in the house, but I can tell it’s not working as well as a good, exhausting, hour-long romp through the neighborhood.

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[One] Stuff From People I Actually Know In Real Life: There are some practical and thoughtful tips on clothing and freedom here from Mary, which I’m finding encouraging while trying to tackle looking fabulous with a changing body, small budget, and small wardrobe. I nosily asked her to share some thoughts on the topic and I am very glad she did! I also appreciated her guest post “We Sleep Well with Tired Bodies,” from our friend Hannah’s blog.
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[Two] I thought these articles on miscarriage from Verily Magazine were excellent. (Be sure to check out Part 1, too.) Though this speaks mostly of women without referencing the fathers, the points about depression, and anxiety statistics for women/couples who are recovering from a pregnancy loss are particularly important. (I know I often get blank looks when I tell others that the rates of divorce, suicide, and all sorts of anxious/depressive/compulsive behaviors skyrocket for several years after a miscarriage, and the numbers are even higher with a stillbirth or infant death… This is uncomfortable to talk about, but it’s true. I think more people will get the help they need if everyone knows how much this impacts parents!)
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[Three] Perhaps this past week’s birthday of The Bard may encourage you to Brush Up Your Shakespeare?
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[Four] Our new house (yes, yes, yes, more pictures coming soon!) is overrun by… I can’t even say it… spiders. Icky ones. Crawly ones. BIG ONES. Aaron said he was more scared of Iraqi camel spiders than the possible loss of life or limb during his deployment, so we are a sorry match in this department. If we still had chickens they would eat the spiders, but Max is no help. I may resort to other extreme but still rational measures.

spider

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[Five] In case you are interested in
boosting church attendance… Stephen Colbert has some friendly commentary about those not interested in sharing the regular messages of unconditional love and eternal salvation and turn to Mixed Martial Arts. (This is a joke, of course!)
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[Six] This is a helpful radio interview on infertility and God’s will from He Remembers the Barren. And while I don’t necessarily ascribe to everything  in this article about fertility and God’s will by Leila at Like Mother, Like Daughter, I think she has written a very thoughtful and worthy read on the topic of family planning. Maybe the best encouragement for people thinking about expanding their family is when she says, “I just would rather not have the kind of suffering that comes from trying to avoid suffering by refusing a treasure.”
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[Seven] Aaron and I have found versions of Lady Gaga’s song Bad Romance that speak to each of our nerdy, specialized fields of study.
For research scientists, rated Pg-13: “Bad Project.”
For classical musicians, no objectionable content: “Fugue on Bad Romance.”

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[Easter Bonus — 8] This is your reward for getting to the end of this week’s reading round-up: my favorite Easter meme! One of my BFFs knows the person who runs this blog, so I feel sort of famous when I read it. I’m not Catholic so half the posts totally blow over my head, but the ones with universal Christian jokes are usually hilarious.
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Have a wonderful weekend! We’re looking forward to enjoying some downtime and dinner with friends… And May!? Is it going to be May by next weekend? What? Maybe by then we can figure out what our bulb flower situation is here at the Coon Ranch. There are leaves poking up, so I am hopeful! 

[As always, more Friday links and quick reading over at Conversion Diary!] 

Rich men have chickens

/ abby hummel / 2 Comments

“If I were a rich man…
I’d fill my yard with chicks and turkeys and geese and ducks
For the town to see and hear
Squawking just as noisily as they can
With each loud “cheep” “squawk” “honk” “quack”
Landing like a trumpet on the ear
As if to say, ‘Here lives a wealthy man!'”

“I want to hear about chickens because we’re thinking about doing it, too.” I get that a lot. Now that we’re a year out from the start of our unfortunately short-lived chicken adventure, I’m really wishing we’d been able to keep them!

Although it seems like this started when I went away for a weekend and came home to find Aaron working on a half-built “play house” for our “future kids” in the garage, there is more history than I’ve mentioned before. The story of our chickens really begins two decades ago, when a little boy with long legs and a squeaky voice built an egg incubator and searched all natural habitats he could access in hopes of scoring a duck nest with eggs he could swipe and raise himself. Later he actually had a chicken business in the backyard, with a little flock of laying hens and funny anecdotes about training his dog to stay away from the chicks. (At one point he ran a home-made ice cream sandwich business, which I am hoping will resurrect itself in adulthood as well.) Just like his “mean” parents were hesitant about supplying fowl eggs, he grew up and got a “mean” wife who shot down his suggestions about chickens every spring with objections like, “We don’t have enough time,” “We’re probably going to move,” “They will make the backyard stink,” “It’s not actually going to save money,” and “If we’re committing to animals we should just get a dog, which is what we both really want anyway.”

As it turns out, every one of my objections about chickens actually came true, but it worked out after all. I was pretty ticked about this at first, and I could have put my foot down and stopped the whole thing right then, but I also realized it was providing a strong boost for Aaron when he was feeling very beaten down by a long, lonely stretch at the end of his PhD program. He needed to know his extreme life-long desire to understand everything about nature was a blessing, and that it didn’t only mean being locked in a lab for six years just because he was grown-up and reasonably smart. I tried to bite my tongue for the most part, but I stipulated that he was responsible for ALL chicken work and the coop had to be cleaned as often as I wanted when the weather warmed up. We’ve since agreed that decisions of that financial and personal scope require two “yes” votes no matter what, but I came around when they started laying and now I’m bummed we didn’t get them sooner to enjoy more eggs and hilarity. Our new neighborhood isn’t zoned for chickens, but I’m very interested in getting another coop next time we move!

So, for people thinking about chickens, here are a few things we’ll consider next time..
The Coop: 
Aaron built our coop and we were really happy with the A-frame on stilts that could be moved around the yard.  I would probably think about adding wheels to a future coop for easier moving. This was almost  too heavy to move around. It can be done, but if it couldn’t be made lighter, I think at least one set of wheels would be easier.

DSC05796I don’t think our yard was quite big enough for a coop of this size because the chickens’ scratching and eating in the pen was rough on our grass, even when we moved it every day. We had a particularly dry summer and we were very concerned about keeping the grass up in case we had to sell the house, so it might have been fine in a different year. We will do more research about the best ratios of coop-to-yard size next time. We weren’t fenced in, so full free-ranging wasn’t ever an option, but that would have lessened the “patchy” impact, too.

The Chickens:
This is probably an issue no one else will have, but Aaron is particularly nerdy and an obsessive perfectionist about these things, so we went through several breeds of chicks. In future years, we’d just try one or two new kinds every other year and live with the fact that there might  be a breed out there that would eat a little less and produce a little more. We tried Rhode Island Reds, Barred Rocks, and a California Grey hybrid, eventually landing with two Rhodies and two Californias for our flock. I think we’ll start with the California Greys next time (even though I like brown eggs better) and branch out from there.
DSC05559Who Should Get Chickens: 
Everyone. They are amazing. Okay… you should make sure you’re zoned for them, and petition your township/city to rezone or give you permission if you’re not!  Even though it worked out for us, I would NOT recommend spending this much money or getting animals if your roommates or spouse aren’t on board. And while they are lots of fun, I don’t think we saved any money on eggs, because the cost of their food alone was just about what we would have spent on eggs anyway. The extra benefits were huge for us — it made composting easier and more fun, the eggs were delicious and easily shared with friends, everyone’s kids wanted to come over and see the chickies, and it was fun to have a non-house project to work on together. I think chickens would be a great “pet” for kids, because they don’t require as much upkeep as a puppy or kitten, and they lay eggs instead of… something else. And it could be a great first business for your kid, because all your neighbors would pay top dollar if your adorable child went door-to-door selling eggs from “Li’l Johnny’s Chicken Emporium.” (We are already planning as much for our family and I might have already worked on a possible company name and logo.)

What We Learned:
-Don’t invest in livestock without talking to your spouse and having full agreement.
-Know when to let it go (for me, this meant having chickens) and when to stand firm (but still making him do all the work).
-Chickens were much more fun than I expected.
-We absolutely want to have them again.
-For us and where we were at, chickens were a sorry placeholder for the puppy we really wanted. So now we have Max, and I’m really excited that someday we will have dogs and chickens!  (I’m also starting to think about bees, if we have more room someday…)
-Most importantly, we experienced a lot of God’s tender care at the end of our time with these chickens in passing them on to some little girls who were VERY EXCITED to be getting pets, and these memories are filled with with great reminders of God’s love and provision for us in all circumstances.

chicken Collage

 

Lord, who made the lion and the lamb,
You decreed I should be what I am.
Would it spoil some vast eternal plan,
If I were a wealthy man?

–“If I were a Rich Man,” from Fiddler on the Roof.

dust and ashes made good (lent/easter 2014)

/ abby hummel

[A regular round of links seems a little out of place for Good Friday, but I’ll have plenty of those for you next week!]

We’re living in a state of liturgical disorder. Sometimes we joke that our whole marriage feels like a long season of Advent, always waiting for something without really arriving. Our new church doesn’t seem to acknowledge the church year (which is hard for me, but not a deal-breaker) and with everything else going on, the season of Lent has been almost a non-issue. We’re feeling pretty stretched and deprived already, saying “no” to desires and wants all the time — which probably tells you that we’re more spoiled than spiritual. I also feel like I’m in a 9-month-long Ash Wednesday, constantly aware of my child’s mortality as much as her life.

Normally I love Spring’s rebirth, which feels like nature telling the Easter story, with beautiful life pushing up from dead cold ground. The Minnesota Polar Vortex of 2014 declares this year it will not be so. (I told Max I won’t take him out for a walk until it’s above freezing outside so we don’t slide to our deaths on all the re-frozen melted snow, but he doesn’t understand the delay.)
image (12)As much as I’d love to see grass and flowers right now (which… I REALLY WOULD…) I think this is appropriate weather for contemplating death and what a mighty thing it is that God killed death. The entire Christian faith hinges on the validity of the Resurrection of Christ, and even though it’s backwards and seems a little “spooky,” I think this deserves more press time than we usually give it. (Should other people be quicker to say, “Those Christians! Psychos! They are so anti-whatever-hot-button-moral/political-issue-comes-to-mind!” or, “Those Christians! Psychos! They believe someone rose from the dead!”?)

Like Christmas, Holy Week is about things being backwards. He uses ugly things like betrayals and unfair trials, beatings and mobs and lynchings, and three-day-old tombs, to display what redemption really looks like. It’s about God becoming a dust-and-ashes man to fully taste the very worst of the Fall to overcome death and rise again. It’s about God turning things around, so the sinless man takes on the full weight of sin and is victorious over it forever. It’s paradoxical beauty, for sure – death trampling death, resurrection, reconciliation between sinners and a holy God, eternal life. In turning these things around, God embraces us, full of dust and ashes, and calls us into his goodness, which is so powerful we can look at the most horrific, unfair death …and call it “Good Friday.” We celebrate that all this weekend, and with it consider the mini-Easters we see every day with the marvelous goodness God creates through our lives in so many backwards ways.

“Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, so we will also bear the image of the man of heaven!” – I Corinthians 15