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Resolutions

By Catherine @ A Spirited Mind on July 29, 2010

I’ve been thinking lately about habits: how we make them, how we change them, and how to instill good ones in our children.  This reminded me of resolutions, since really making a New Year’s Resolution (or New School Year Resolution or what have you) is a declaration that you’re going to change a habit. 

So I’m interested in your thoughts on resolutions or changing habits in general.  I think hearing about how other people approach the whole habits and resolutions thing would help me clarify my own thoughts.  Feel free to answer one or more or all of the questions in the comments if you’re so inclined!

  • What is the most unusual resolution you ever made or heard of someone making?
  • When you make a resolution or decide to change a habit, do you generally try to stop a bad habit, start a good habit, or replace a bad habit with a good habit?
  • Does identifying one area of your life for a resolution make you more or less aware of other areas you need to improve?
  • If you stopped making resolutions at some point, how old were you and why did you stop?

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Jack Plays a Mean Guitar

By Catherine @ A Spirited Mind on July 28, 2010

While Hannah was enjoying her trip to Virginia, Jack got some good one on one time with us.  One day, Josh pulled out our smaller guitar (the “Little Martin”) and gave Jack his very first guitar lesson.  You would not BELIEVE how well Jack took to it!  He got a good strum going and even learned a chord.  Then he told Josh he wanted to play on stage.  This is a little boy who really enjoys watching Daddy play and sing on the worship team at church!  Josh gave Jack his very own guitar pick and Jack carried it around calling it “my treasure” until he lost it while sleeping with it. 

It’s fun to see the kids’ unique personalities and talents emerge!

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The Discipline of Grace, Week in Books #30a

By Catherine @ A Spirited Mind on July 27, 2010

This fall I’m facilitating a Biblestudy on Jerry Bridges’ excellent book The Discipline of Grace: God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness and I’m SO excited about it.  (Note to women from my church or near the north east side of Indianapolis, I’d love for you to join me!)  I’ve raved about Bridges’ books before, and The Discipline of Grace is equally excellent to his previous books.  I think Bridges does a great job of presenting deep theological points and ideas, fully backed up with Scripture, in a humble and accessible style.  If you’re looking to grow in your faith, The Discipline of Grace would be of immense help to you.

Bridges begins by setting forth the need for Christians to truly understand the daily importance of the gospel in their lives and preach it to themselves daily because if we relegate the gospel to something only new believers need, we cannot fully and rightly understand our relationship to God and our role in sanctification, much less God’s. 

The book also delves deeply into several spiritual disciplines that enable Christian growth, going far beyond the familiar “read your Bible and pray” type, although he does exhort readers to do those things.  The disciplines covered include our response to God’s grace, Scripture memory, intensity and wholeheartedness in obedience, dependence on the Holy Spirit, commitment, conviction, meditation on Scripture, choices/habits, mortification (breaking spiritual bad habits), watching, and adversity. 

I would highly recommend The Discipline of Grace to any Christian – you will not fail to be challenged and convicted by the truths in the study, and also encouraged as you grow.  Although I think the book is quite well suited for group study and discussion, you could also get a lot out of it in your personal devotions.  Bridges also wrote a companion study guide for the book, which we will be using in the group study I’m leading, and which you might like to work through if you’re reading the book on your own.  You can get a lot out of the book by itself, but the topics are such that doing deeper thinking and study might be beneficial.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

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Gift Dilemma: WWYD?

By Catherine @ A Spirited Mind on July 26, 2010

Do you have a policy on gift giving?

The Bear That Heard Crying is one of Hannah’s favorite books.  It’s a beautifully illustrated story (based on a true event) about a little girl in the late 1700s in New Hampshire who got lost in the woods and was protected by a bear.  You can get it in paperback form from Amazon, but recently I was in Half Price Books and found a hardcover copy in excellent condition with the paper jacket still on and everything.  I was so excited to find it that I went ahead and bought it, figuring Hannah and/or Jack could give it as a gift for a birthday party or something.

However, once I got home I began to have second thoughts.  Is it OK to give used books as a present to some other child?  We give used books to our kids as gifts, but maybe other families don’t like that sort of thing.  Books are sort of difficult gifts anyway because you never know what a family already has. 

So what do you think?  Would you give a used book in good condition as a gift?  What would you think if you or your child received one?

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In a Perfect World – Week in Books #28/29b

By Catherine @ A Spirited Mind on July 23, 2010

I think the question of how society would respond in the event of a disaster is fascinating, so I enjoyed the premise of Laura Kasischke’s In a Perfect World.  In the book, “Phoenix Flu” sweeps the nation and everything falls apart.  The main character, a retired flight attendant who recently married a pilot with three children, must figure out what to do and at the same time cobble together a family from her two teenage stepdaughters and ten year old stepson. 

The author said in the notes at the end of the book that she prefers to write plot driven books rather than character driven, and that is certainly clear from the novel.  I prefer character development personally, but I don’t dislike stories.  In most cases, I think a good story becomes a BETTER story when the characters are well done, and I was not impressed by the character development in the book.  It was all right, but nothing special. 

One main issue bothered me throughout: the water stayed on.  When your power goes out, your water stays on, but if your power goes out for too long, the water plant can’t keep running either.  And if you’re on a well, chances are your water is pumped up into your pipes by electricity too.  So the fact that the family kept on being able to get clean potable water in the midst of utter meltdown bothered me.  It’s a quibble, but the reason I read the book was to think about what I would do if presented with a similar situation, I think the water issue was pertinent.

Although the book is nowhere near as grim as others in the doomsday genre such as The Road (actually I think The Road is more realistic of what would actually happen if society broke down), it does have affairs and profanity (the language is mostly from the teenage stepdaughters while they are hating on their new stepmother) so I wouldn’t recommend this book for younger readers.

Still, if you like doomsday scenario novels that are heavily plot driven, you might enjoy In a Perfect World.  If you’ve read the book, what did you think?

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.  For more information please consult my disclosure policy linked in the sidebar.

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Yeah, we dress like cows, what?

By Catherine @ A Spirited Mind on July 22, 2010

Every year we have a good time dressing up as cows to get a free dinner at Chick-Fil-A.  Yeah, I know, we’re a little weird.  I’m happy that Josh is cool with meeting us after work and throwing an old t-shirt I colored cow spots on with a Sharpie.  It’s fun to see what costumes other people come up with.  My aunt gave us a little cow costume when Hannah was small, so this year Sarah got to wear it.  Last year Jack wore it, the year before that Hannah wore it.  It’s a family tradition.

If you want to be in the loop for stuff like this, you can join the Chick-Fil-A Insiders email list.  They send out coupons and let you know about promotions.  I don’t get anything if you sign up, but you get free Chick-Fil-A and I only want the best for you.  :)

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Laying Down the Rails – Week in Books # 28/29a

By Catherine @ A Spirited Mind on July 21, 2010

You may remember our foray into habit and character training during the last school year.  I think our list helped a lot, but I found that my plan to cover one new habit/character trait every week was too ambitious.

Since I’m already interested in how a good education is built on the foundation of good habits and strong character, I was intrigued by Sonya Shafer’s book Laying Down the Rails, which is a compendium of all the habits Charlotte Mason discussed in her writings.

Charlotte Mason was an influential educational reformer in England in the 1800s and trained teachers and governesses in education in addition to children directly.  Her philosophy of education involves a rigorous course of study that is directed not at filling the child with bits of information, but in teaching him to engage with ideas, to love to learn, and to have good character.  She also advocated teaching through “living books” – by which she meant direct sources, first hand accounts, well written and excellent literature instead of mindless twaddle, books about books, or books that talk down to children.  You can learn more about Charlotte Mason here.

In any case, I thought perhaps Sonya Shafer’s book would just be a list of quotes, and I feared that would be redundant since I already own the full set of Charlotte Mason’s writings.  On the contrary, Laying Down the Rails is so much more helpful than I envisioned.  Shafer categorized each habit mentioned (ranging from moral habits such as obedience and reverence to mental habits like attention and perfect execution to physical habits like alertness, perception, and self-restraint.  In addition to Charlotte Mason’s writings on each habit, Shafer explores what each habit really means and how to go about instilling it gently, replacing a bad habit with the good habit, and giving practical advice.

I found the book incredibly convicting for me as a parent.  I noted many of the habits that I need to work on myself, especially in the finer points where it’s easy to let myself skate.  Last year I found that when the children were working on a particular habit, I was working on it too, and I think the same will be true for us this year.

One thing I would have liked to see added to Laying Down the Rails is Scripture verses for each habit like the ones we linked from our list last year.  A few of the habits list verses, but I like having a Biblical reference for why we pursue a given trait or response so that the kids can understand that it’s not just because we say so, but because God says so.  All of the habits in the book are Biblical, so I think I’ll be able to find verses for them, and maybe it’s better for each family to pursue memory work along their own plan.

Even if you’re not homeschooling or not using Charlotte Mason’s approach, I think Laying Down the Rails would be immensely helpful to you in parenting as a good reference tool and to inspire you to help your children develop good habits that will serve them well in life and education.

Note: Unlike most of my book reviews, the links in this post are not affiliate links because the best price for this book is directly through Sonya Shafer’s website Simple Charlotte Mason.

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Hannah’s First Plane Ride

By Catherine @ A Spirited Mind on July 20, 2010

So much to catch up on after a week of not blogging much!  Things have been really busy.  Last Thursday Hannah took her first airplane ride to visit her grandparents.  My mom flew with her, so she wasn’t by herself, and she loved it.  Notice how her outfit matches her doll’s outfit.  :)   She picked that out herself; she’s very big on matching right now.

Prior to getting on the plane Hannah rehearsed with me what she would do if she got lost.  I was concerned she might dart away from my mom, but it turns out Hannah was most concerned that my parents wouldn’t know she needs to eat!  She asked if she could pack her backpack full of yogurt so she wouldn’t get hungry while she was staying with them.  She also felt nervous that they wouldn’t know she can’t have caffeine and that she needs lots of vegetables and protein (her words – kids think strange things!).

Hannah got to spent several days with my parents doing all sorts of fun stuff, and they evidently kept her well fed in spite of the fact that her backpack contained no yogurt.  The other kids and I met up with her yesterday when we drove out to Virginia.  Every year we travel down to see all of my relatives on the East Coast and get some beach time.  It’s a long time to be gone but we’re extra glad to see Daddy when we get home.  Hopefully we’ll have some great adventures over the next few weeks.

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Accomplishment

By Catherine @ A Spirited Mind on July 19, 2010

Remember how I made this list of things I wanted to do during my thirties?  I really have been working toward these goals, and it’s been neat to see some progress.

For example, see that first goal up there on the top left of the graphic?  The one where I purposed to write a book?  Get this!  I wrote one!  I finished the draft of my first novel over the weekend and sent it off to a writer friend for her edits.  After I get her critique and make changes I plan to do two more rounds of edits and then, who knows?  Maybe I’ll get an agent and try to get the thing published!

Of course, my novelist friend might tell me that my book is horrible, worse than anything she’s ever read, and only fit for toilet paper if you’re in the woods and can’t find a pinecone, but even then I’ll feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment.  The novel is over 83,000 words long, and is longer than my thesis, which was previously my longest piece of writing.  Moreover, I loved writing it.  Absolutely, completely loved it.  You know when you’re doing something you really love and you get into a zone of happiness and can hardly believe how quickly time flies?  Writing is like that for me.

I learned a lot about writing over the course of working on this book – a lot about the craft of writing, about fiction writing, about how many odd bits of anecdotes and memories I have stored up in my head that were useful in creating characters out of nothing – but most of all I learned a lot about myself.  I remembered that I am someone beyond Wife and Mom.  Not that there is anything wrong with being a wife and mom – both are excellent jobs and callings, but they are not necessarily a person’s only calling.  I loved getting back in touch with the writer side of myself, and I loved that I didn’t have to sacrifice being a good wife and mom to do it.  It meant putting other pursuits on the backburner maybe so I could focus on one thing, but it feels great to have accomplished something I always wanted to do.

I won’t lie to you; I would love to be published.  I would love to walk in a bookstore and see something I wrote on display.  But the true accomplishment for me was letting myself try and letting myself reach for a goal that seemed at first a little absurd for a busy mom of several small children.

If you have a list of long term goals, what are you working on right now?  What big dream are you reaching for?

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Scarce

By Catherine @ A Spirited Mind on July 12, 2010

Sorry for the paucity of posts lately, but things have been really busy around here lately.  I’m sure you know how that goes.  I am taking a break from some other projects for a while starting next week, so regular posts should resume shortly.  Thanks for your patience!

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