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By Mom Unplugged, September 21, 2008 8:05 am

The children are playing nicely (for the moment) downstairs while I enjoy a peaceful, early morning cup of tea in bed - a weekend ritual for me. It is a gorgeous fall Sunday here in the mountains. The sky is that same unreal blue color as in my new header image, the air is smooth and cool and the leaves are just starting to take on a slight hint of color.

Homework is happily behind us and the day stretches on ahead, ripe with possibilities: a walk, a board game, a few chapters of a book. Today I am determined to make this a day spent with my children. Something I don’t do often enough.

I recently found these inspiring thoughts on the Screentime.org blog. If you occasionally need a little reminder to live life and forget the laundry (as I know I sometimes do) then read this thoughtful post and see if it helps.

(Many thanks to Wishy’s Husband for this lovely photo! This photo is NOT retouched. The sky really is that color here sometimes!)

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By Mom Unplugged, June 17, 2008 8:59 am

The other day my oldest daughter (age 7) discovered a book that was tucked away in a basket by my toilet. It is The Book of New Family Traditions: How to Create Great Rituals for Holidays & Everydays by Meg Cox. As the title suggests, it is filled with all kinds of really fun, new family traditions for holidays or ordinary days. There are many examples of real families and their unusual and very original traditions.

Although my intentions were good when I bought the book (I wanted to create some new family rituals), and despite having read quite a bit of it, I have not yet incorporated any of the ideas into our lives.

My daughter appeared in the kitchen with the book in her hand. “Mom,” she said, “can we do some of these? Because I think our family is boring.”

After I finished mentally half laughing and half crying, I was able to clear my brain of its spontaneous outburst of uncharitable thoughts and realize where this comment came from.

One of my daughter’s best friends (an only child) had been going on a “knitting date” with her Mom (my friend Wishy) after summer camp that day. A trip to the knitting store, followed by some Mom and daughter time knitting together was so exciting that Wishy’s daughter had even run over to tell me all about it when I arrived to pick up my two children.

I explained to my daughter that although our family might seem “boring” compared to some others, she needed to remember that 1) Unlike some children, she had siblings to play with; 2) Most other families that she knows have two ever-present parents (my husband is only here two or three weekends a month); and 3) Only-children have both their parents’ undivided attention. Compare all this to me who has to care for three children 24/7 almost exclusively by myself, and you certainly have the recipe for a BORING FAMILY in the eyes of a 7 year-old.

My daughter actually seemed satisfied with this explanation and happily skipped off to play with her brother. I, however, began to brood about how nice it would be to have time to go on knitting dates with my daughter, or take the kids to the pool more, or bake cookies with them without being begged for days.

I mentioned this conversation to my friend Wishy, and confessed to being a bit jealous of her ability to take her daughter on “knitting dates.” She just laughed and explained that the only reason that they had done the “knitting date” in the first place, was that she had tired of her daughter’s whining about how boring her family was compared to my daughter’s, where there were always at least three kids running around in chaos. Plus, apparently we do “cool projects” (she was here for our Unplugged Project once - “paint”).

We shared a good chat and laugh over this. I was pleased to think that any family inadequacies perceived by my daughter (or me) were all due to perspective. The grass IS always greener on the other side of the fence.

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Photo thanks to photographer Jim Munnelly and morguefile.com.

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By Mom Unplugged, June 4, 2008 12:01 am

Apparently UNESCO and the United Nations declared the first ten years of this new millennium a Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World. Well, since we are eight years into our “Decade for a Culture of Peace,” I guess I missed that bit of news, and so did the rest of the world it seems.

My two oldest children are now 5 and 7. They have lived their whole lives during this era of a “Culture of Peace.” Without TV, they don’t see the images of war, but they are old enough to notice the words spoken on NPR.

I wish that the words I was having to explain were words of peace, as the UN and UNESCO had hoped: harmony, diversity, love, friendship. Unfortunately what they are asking about is bombs, Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorists, suicide. It could be worse: they haven’t yet inquired about torture, rape, beheading, water boarding … and more importantly, they aren’t living all these horrible words as many children are all over the world.

My parents both grew up in England during WWII. They knew war as more than mere words on a radio. They lived it every day of their childhoods. Air raids, bombs, blackouts, gas masks, shelters, barrage balloons, and shrapnel were part of their daily vocabulary and experience.

Will there ever come a day when those words of horror and violence will be mere ghoulish historical curiosities such as words like guillotine, drawing and quartering, the rack, and the iron maiden?

I want children to grow up learning a vocabulary of peace. As much as I would wish it to be otherwise, it seems unlikely that those fortunate souls will be my children. I simply must hope that some future generation will know the common horrible words of our era only as mere historical remnants of a more violent and primitive time.

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Please visit Mimi’s Blog for a master list of all the peace posts that will be written today by bloggers from all over the world.

Peace be with you.

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By Mom Unplugged, May 14, 2008 10:58 pm

This past month I have probably spent close to 60 hours sorting through other people’s castoffs while my 2 year-old rolled around in the dirt.

Every year my children’s small but worthy, financially challenged Montessori School holds a giant yard sale, and every year I volunteer to help sort. I never work the sale because, although I find the sorting process rather fascinating in an odd way, I simply can’t deal with the actual feeding-frenzy atmosphere and depressing desperate bargaining of the sale itself.

The sorting experience is really quite enlightening however. I can share a few tidbits here.

What I have learned from five years of sorting through other people’s junk:

1) People all have different tastes:

This year I had the pleasure of discovering the number one most revolting looking and smelling giant “hand-dipped” candles I have ever encountered in my life (picture “chocolate - cinnamon - banana - lavender - cat pee” fragrance in candles looking as if they had been lovingly hand-dipped in vomit). Resisting both my gag reflex and my urge to toss these misplaced treasures into the trash, I optimistically priced them at 10 cents for the pair (other candles of that size, more acceptable to my taste, went for $1.00 each). Guess what? A lady stopped by and excitedly purchased them WHILE WE WERE STILL SETTING UP!!!

2) Sorting other people’s castoffs day in and day out makes one a little weird:

Another item that sold during set-up was our mascot: The lime green teddy bear in sunglasses and fancy flowered hat who, when you squeezed her paw, sang the Beatles song: When I’m Sixty-Four. Unlike those candles, I was a bit sorry to see her go. After hearing so many repetitions of When I’m Sixty-Four, I was beginning to think I NEEDED that bear. Perhaps it is a good thing that she was sold to someone else.

3) If you give desperate Christmas gifts to someone unlikely to appreciate those gifts, they WILL end up, unopened, in a sale like ours:

Some examples of obviously desperate Christmas gifts that the poor recipients were eager to dispose of: a John Wayne coffee mug new-in-box (NIB as they say on Ebay), several ornate photo frames with syrupy, sentimental sayings (also NIB), an electric quesadilla-maker (isn’t that what frying pans are for?), dubious-smelling candles (nothing like the 10 cent candles though!), and an actual nose hair trimmer (I don’t think I have ever seen one of those before), among others.

PS. Check out the Christmas Unplugged posts for more information on how to avoid that “have to give something” feeling.

4) Check the titles of the books you turn in (unless you plan on dropping off the box anonymously after hours):

If you have a whole box full of self-help books along the lines of How to Live With a Cross-Dressing Husband, or How I Overcame My Gambling Addiction, whether they are your books or your long lost cousin Debbie’s, then you might want to consider dropping them off after-hours. Although my friend and I who were sorting the sale were nice enough not to take notes on who made the revealing self-help book donations, others might not be so kind!

A fascinating fact: people’s books reveal a lot about themselves. Amateur psychoanalysis is a fun way to pass the time while sorting and pricing stuff.

5) Americans have A LOT OF CLOTHES.

Gold lamé jacket in East Podunk Arizona anyone?? Didn’t sell.

6) Simple donation etiquette:

Please don’t just tip the toy bin into a garbage bag and hand it over. Usually there is a considerable amount of useless junk and trash in there that needs to be thrown away. It is WONDERFUL when people bag up small pieces of toys and tie or tape the bag on to the main toy. Ziplock bags are perfect of course, or you can recycle grocery store produce bags. They are transparent, fairly large, and free. Please wash clothes before donating. If puzzles and games are missing pieces, or you only have one sock in a pair…please don’t donate. Make the sock into a puppet instead, or toss or reuse the remaining game/puzzle pieces somehow. (Unplugged Project anyone?)

7) (Warning: cliché ahead!) “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”

Very true. A lot of people found treasures at our sale last weekend (“chocolate/cat pee candles” for example) and we made $5,000 for our school!!

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I believe that everyone should spend 60 hours in 3 weeks sorting other people’s junk. I felt like an earthworm. Not only was I helping recycle all that we humans consume, but I had a lot of time to think about how much “stuff” we have in our part of the world, and how disposable it all seems.

This year, the amount of clothing we acquired is what struck me the most. I have many thoughts on clothing (enough for at least one thorough, or several “chapter” posts). Beware: I might inflict those on you soon.

Photo thanks to Wikimedia Commons.

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By Mom Unplugged, March 14, 2008 10:39 am

As I write this, I hear the angry buzzing of a chainsaw and heavy thuds shake the house as huge chunks of tree trunk drop to the ground. A tall Ponderosa Pine growing inches from my house is being cut down to make room for a master bedroom extension that will add some square footage, as well as fix my horrible mystery roof leak.

I am so sad to see this tree go, although it is just one of probably a hundred tall Ponderosa Pines that surround my house. The decision was a difficult one for me, but I know that the even bigger, stronger trees nearby will ultimately benefit from this smaller tree’s removal. They will receive increased nutrients and water, especially important in these drought years. I must say that my views on forest management have changed since my close encounter with a wildfire nearly six years ago. Trees need some space to be healthy and strong.

Because of my mixed feelings, I had planned on being absent during the tree-cutting, but watching the men work on this windy day has actually been quite fascinating. One man climbed the tree and strapped himself to the top. He rocked back and forth precariously in the wind as he cut off all the branches. He clipped the branches to a rope that was held by a second man on the ground, then he sent the branches down the rope, like a zip-line, safely out of the way of the house.

Now he has finished removing all the branches and is slicing off heavy sections of trunk working from the top down. I hope he is careful as to what section he is cutting or he could end up having a one way flight down to the ground.

As you can see from my photos, this is not a job for those who have a mild fear of heights such as myself. Watching this man swaying back and forth in the wind a hundred feet above the ground makes my palms sweat! To give this next photo a sense of scale, that roof on the left is the top of my two story house. The man is hanging off that tree much, much higher than my house!

The tree will not go to waste. The men have brought a chipper and will chop it up into a big pile of wood chips that I will spread on the children’s backyard playground area to control the weeds and protect them from falls. So the tree will live on here in my yard after all, just in a different form.

Taken from my bedroom skylight:

And from the bedroom window: