Is Messy More Real?

When a friend of mine visited last week, I welcomed her into my cluttered house, its floors badly in need of vacuuming, by saying, "I'm not even going to apologize for the mess--this is just what it looks like at my house. I'm keeping it real."

That was the truth, and it's good as far as it goes: Let's be honest about our messes, instead of putting on a front. But while my desire is to be authentic and encourage others not to fake it, I sometimes forget that this mindset can also carry a frustrating subliminal message. If "messy is authentic," then "you're only real and authentic if you're a mess." And is THAT the truth?

I don’t want my friend to clean frantically before I come over; I want her to remember that I’m interested in seeing her, not her house! But so often, it doesn’t stop there. My healthy perspective morphs swiftly:

“I want your house to be messy because it will make me feel better about my own messy house.”
“If your house is clean, I feel threatened, inferior.”
“If your house is clean, I’m afraid you will judge me.”
“If your house is clean, I will preemptively judge you for being fake and trying too hard.”

How do we break out of this gross whirlwind of comparison and competition? I'm asking and attempting to answer such questions today over at Ungrind. Click over to read my thoughts on "Chasing a Standard We Can Meet."

Things I Learned in October

I'm hooked on this prompt from Chatting at the Sky--finding it fun to keep a draft running all month and jot down the random things I learn. Here are October's lessons:

1. "Sushi" does not actually mean "raw fish." Am I the only one who totally misunderstood this? My Filipina friend Ana set me straight after I asked a confused question on a Facebook photo she posted of her homemade sushi made with cooked crab. She explained:

"It's still considered sushi even when you use cooked meat. The term sushi literally means sour-tasting. It's actually the vinegared rice that makes the sushi a sushi. When you use raw meat (not necessarily seafood), then you call it sashimi."

I always avoided sushi because I was pretty certain I couldn't handle the texture of raw meat--well, not that I've had tons of opportunities to try it, but I've certainly never sought any. Now I'm kind of curious to give it a taste.

2. There are few foods I love more than burnt cheese, and I may or may not have recently purposely placed plain provolone cheese on my stone and baked it to eat straight up burnt cheese. Turns out there is actually a fancy-sounding name for that, which sounds so much more sophisticated than burnt cheese: "frico." That said, frico grilled cheese seemed like a brilliant idea--but it was an epic fail. The cheese glued the bread to the pan and made nothing more than a mess. 

3. Britax has excellent customer service. We learned the hard way that with the more expensive carseats, you're paying for ease of use. The Cosco Alpha Omega seat we had when Elijah was a baby was terrible--incredibly difficult to get installed correctly when rearfacing, a pain in the neck to adjust. With Jude, we splurged on a Chicco KeyFit30 and LOVED it. Now both boys are in Britax seats--Jude in a Boulevard and Elijah in a Frontier--and we are very pleased with them. However, the side impact wing/headrest on Jude's recently broke, so I called Britax. The seat is more than a year old, but they sent us a replacement part, no questions asked.

And while we're on the subject...70-90% of carseats are installed or used improperly, even though 95% of parents think they're using the seats correctly. Here's a simple guide with helpful photos--make sure you are one of the minority! Some of the most common mistakes:

• chest clip too low (it should be at armpit level)
• harness straps too loose (you should not be able to pinch any slack)
• seat not installed tightly enough (it should not move more than one inch side to side at the belt patch)
• improper seat choice (forward facing too soon, booster too soon)

4. Magic Eraser works on soap scum. CHANGED MY LIFE. Yes I'm about a decade behind on this. Better late than never right? I ignored the hype for the longest time because I assumed it had to be full of all kinds of crazy chemicals to be so magical. Finally I found out, nope, it's just sanding off the top layer of dirt. Cleaning the tub/shower used to be my most despised housekeeping task ever. OK, it still is, but I couldn't believe how much easier and more effective the job was when I gave the Magic Eraser a try at last.

5. Rome apples are not crisp. Neither are Winesaps. I've been on the hunt for a good apple to eat plain since they are in season right now, but I have been striking out repeatedly with local orchards. Two growers have told me that these varieties were crisp...they were NOT. I have Cameos on order--I'm pretty sure I remember really liking those in the past. At least we can always make applesauce from the mushy, mealy ones...but I am really hungry for some good tart-sweet, hard-crisp eating apples!

6. You can use 1/3 c. maple syrup instead of the sugar in this baked oatmeal recipe, making it even healthier. The boys are happy to eat regular oatmeal every morning, but I don't care for it. Every once in a while I make this and we all consider it a delicious treat. I've also used blueberries or blackberries in place of the cranberries. All work well, but I have learned the hard way that chopping the cranberries is important. This recipe isn't very sweet at all, but even with my sweet tooth, I really enjoy it.

7. Remember the lady who sued McDonalds back in the 90s because their coffee was hot and she spilled it on herself? For 20 years we've pointed to that story as the ultimate example of how ridiculously out of control lawsuits are. But it turns out there's WAY more to the story than you've probably heard. Did you know that she suffered third degree burns that left her hospitalized for a week? Or that her first move was to contact McDonalds privately and ask them to pay her medical bills? Or that not only did the jury's original recommendation of $2.7 million amount to only two days' coffee sales for McDonalds, but that a judge ultimately reduced the settlement to less than $500,000? The news report I watched this month was eye-opening, to say the least. How many times do I have to learn this lesson--that stories are almost always much more complicated than the little pieces I know?

8. The number 42 has been retired not just from the Dodgers, but from all of baseball, in honor of Jackie Robinson. Steve and I just watched the new movie 42 and absolutely loved it. 

How about you - what did you learn this last month?

My Book: A Visual Journal of Everyday Moments

This is "my book." Or as beloved Ann writes:

"This is the story of a Type-A personality finding serenity in playing about with glossy pictures and glue and paper. Child’s play. Yes, true: it’s a pretty simple story."

I am so, so glad she told that story so that I could begin my own!

It was nearly three years ago I started doing this, found a big stash of lovely magazines in the twenty-five-cent bin at the library, bought a big black sketchbook and started chronicling. Last week I opened volume six. The row of filled coilbound books lined up on my shelf makes me smile. And the current volume has a permanent home lying open on the end of my kitchen counter. I put off the project for a while after I first heard of it, but once I got over my intimidation and jumped in, I couldn't stop.

Ann explains the value in a personal visual journal:

 ~it’s a place to play, and yet practical: it’s a place to record the workings of your household
 ~a place to make beautiful, so when everything else is unraveling (or is that only at our house?) there’s a pretty place on the counter to write down the date and all the lovely little snippets of the day...
 ~a keepsake day journal for children and grandchildren, a container of simple memories, the best kind
 ~an aesthetically pleasing place made with your own two hands that invites you to write down when the dentist appointment is today, which phone calls to make, and it makes you smile evey time you look at the page
~ the ordinary tasks of our lives find themselves chronicled for what they truly are: important ceremonies… daily celebrations.

Yes. So here we go: I start with a blank book like this (only it's one of the few things I *don't* buy online; with a 40% off coupon for JoAnn, I never pay full price). Sometimes I decorate the cover with a printed article or quote, some patterned paper and a jar of Mod Podge--

 

--sometimes not. Then I collect magazines. Don't spend a lot of money on this! My favorite sources are Southern Living, Better Homes & Gardens and Real Simple. I've also enjoyed Midwest Living and Martha Stewart Living. But I don't subscribe to any of these, unless I can do it for $5 or less (which does happen occasionally). Ask friends and family or even doctors' offices for their discards. Check the castoffs bin at the library. Sign up for free preview/sample issues. (Lowe's has a free magazine called Creative Ideas that comes five times a year.) The magazines above tend to have a higher number of things I like, but this will obviously depend on personal taste--and really, you can find fun pictures anywhere you look. I've used pictures from Pier 1 catalogs, Compassion magazine, even Snapfish or Hobby Lobby flyers. I also occasionally glue in my own photographs of neighborhood trees in the fall, or our peony bushes.

I go through the magazines whenever I get them and tear out anything I find pretty or visually interesting, including (but not limited to):

• flowers 
• food 
• landscapes/scenery 
• interior decorating 
• significant words/quotes 
• cities/travel 
• random household items (colored bottles, books)

Now that I've built up a huge collection, I keep these sorted in folders, with the above headings plus seasonal ones (Autumn, Spring, Winter/Christmas). And then I flip through them, spread them out on my table, and go to town. I glue in just a few pages at a time, less than a month's worth. I learned that lesson after my first journal, when I decorated the whole thing at once and then ended up looking at tulip pictures in November. I prefer to match the season, so not doing too far ahead allows me to (roughly) match flowers in season, holidays, etc. But I'm a little anal-retentive that way...if you like pumpkins in February or snow in July, more power to you.

Once I've got pictures glued in, I put the open book in its place on the end of my kitchen counter, and I start scribbling. With a pretty pen in a coordinating ink color (because we know pens are a little important to me). Cello pens won't do for this; for a while I was partial to Sharpie pens but now I'm addicted to these pricey but gorgeous Staedtlers...but keep the caps on! The tips of the Sharpies and the Staedtlers *will* get ruined when dropped on the floor...sadly I have learned this the hard way.

Sorry. Pen digression. Anyway, so I start scribbling, and I keep coming back throughout the day. There's no end to the variety of things that can find a home here:

• daily/weekly to-do lists as well as long-term project lists 
• gratitude lists 
• funny things Elijah and Jude do and say, their developmental milestones, etc. 
• Scripture verses 
• quotes from books, blogs, song lyrics 
• printed out blog posts or excerpts (if it's more than a few lines I love), most frequently from Ann Voskamp, Christ in the Chaos, Femina or Scotty Smith 
• lists of and brief blurbs about books I’m reading 
• notes from important phone calls (asbestos abatement contractors, preschools, chickens, etc.) 
• gifts received for birthdays/Christmases (people needing thank-you notes) 
• hospitality plans 
• recipes or meal plans 
• parenting inspirations/reminders

In addition to all these lists and quotes, occasionally I'll do a little more traditional journaling, writing just a paragraph or two about a special event or activity that day. If I remember and have space, I also use this like a scrapbook and glue in mementos (ticket stub, cut-out logo from a brochure, etc.).

Really this can be anything you want it to be. No rules--it serves you. And oh, can it serve you (and your family)! For me, this journal isn't just play, and it isn't a time-suck. It's a visual anchor, a place to refocus. It's a way to chronicle my journey, not in long chunks of set-aside quiet time (though I do love those, and journal differently during those when they come) but in moments. It's a place to preach truth to myself, a reminder to choose gratitude, an opportunity to pause for a moment and really *see* my life, my children, my Savior.

And, I hope, it will become a family heirloom of sorts. Maybe it's just me, but I think if I could get a glimpse of my mother's or grandmother's ordinary daily life this way--what she was thankful for thirty years ago, what Scriptures spoke to her, what books she read and loved, what funny things I said--wouldn't I love that precious keepsake! Even if my boys don't appreciate these books, I know I have loved having and revisiting my own journals over the years, rereading stories of God's work in me and looking back on sweet moments of my life.

So there it is--my often-mentioned visual homemaking journal. Now it's your turn! Grab a sketchbook, a pen, a glue stick and some magazines and have at it.

Finances and Staying Home: Four Words

An anonymous commenter recently asked:

My husband and I have a 7 week old, so I'd love to know some of your tips for budgeting in order to stay at home.

Thanksgiving week seems an appropriate time to talk about this--because when I stop to think about our financial situation, the primary thing I have to feel is gratitude. Steve provides more than enough for our family to live on, so I have the freedom to care for our boys and our home full-time. I recognize that my ability to be at home is a privilege, and the relative ease with which we can make that work is a blessing I don't take for granted.

Really, I feel like the last qualified person to write a post like this, because so much of where we are financially has nothing to do with anything we have done right. Steve and I were set up for success in some huge ways that were out of our control. We don't deserve any of what's been handed to us! Both sets of our parents are wise and generous, having both instilled smart financial principles in us and given lavish gifts to us. I received a scholarship to college, leaving me with no school loans. My husband has a terrific job at a solid company. Did we work hard in school? Does Steve work hard to earn his pay? Sure. But even this is grace: God gave me the mind to be able to excel academically, and put me in a family where education was valued and emphasized. God gave Steve the same, as well as a skill set that just happens to be in a field that pays relatively well. We can't take the credit--it is all GRACE. 

So I recognize that any advice I can give is coming from a place of privilege. We aren't wealthy, but we got a wonderful "head start"--and all we can do is humbly give thanks and seek to be good stewards of what we've been given.

There are plenty of other blogs you can visit on the web for solid advice on budgeting and saving money. I am in awe of the stay-at-home-moms who exhibit incredible diligence and skill in stretching their family's income! So for that kind of advice, you'll have to look elsewhere. But I think I have about four words to offer in the way of general thoughts:

GRATITUDE. Look for the ways God is providing for your needs. Look for the ways He is abundantly providing far beyond what you need. And give thanks--start counting! From the fact that I can drive a few miles and fill up a grocery cart with food, to the hand-me-downs that friends and family give us to clothe our boys, to the skills Steve's dad taught him to be able to work on our house...all these gifts we don't deserve and did not earn, just grace upon grace. And on a similar note...

PERSPECTIVE. You can be Eve, turning your attention away from all that you've been given to focus on the one thing you lack. There will always, always be people who have things you don't have. Or you can look at all the people who don't have what you have. If you make more than $2/day, you are already richer than half the world!

There's a real sense in which you really have nothing; it all belongs to God. And then in another sense, you have everything, because you are His heir! He has merely entrusted money and possessions to you temporarily, to use wisely, for His glory. So give generously and with your eyes on eternity.

FORESIGHT. Though this is too late for the original commenter, it may be useful to younger readers. If the idea of staying home with children is even a possibility down the road, I would highly recommend that you and your husband never get used to living on two incomes. Steve and I agreed from the start that if I worked before we had kids, we would not use my income as part of regular living expenses. Adjusting to the expenses and altered lifestyle of a baby is hard enough without also having your budget drastically reduced! Use the second income to build an emergency fund, or invest for retirement or college, or pay off debt--but don't use it to support a high standard of living you can't sustain on only one income.

And for the single ladies: Think twice before accumulating debt during your single years. Avoid it whenever possible! Even school loans may have a dramatic impact on your future family long-term. I'm not saying you should never take out loans for college. I *am* saying that you should consider this carefully, recognizing that your debt will be a burden to your family, if you get married, and may even hinder your ability to stay home.

SACRIFICE. All things considered, we live very comfortably--you can hardly call our lifestyle "sacrificial." But we do have to prioritize in order to live and give as we do. Every family's priorities are different, so the things we go without may seem like necessities for others, and vice versa. But I'd guess that in almost any family, you can find some ways to scale back and give up things you don't *really* need in order to allocate funds elsewhere. For example, we don't have TV. We have basic cell phone plans, without data or unlimited texting. We drive higher-mileage cars; we have old, hand-me-down furniture. We don't go out very often. These things are minor, but they add up.

Two other quick tips worth mentioning: One key part of our budget is "discretionary money." Steve and I each get a little money out of every paycheck that is ours to spend, no questions asked. Anything extra we want, whether it's coffee at Starbucks, a new book for Kindle, clothes or shoes, whatever, comes out of that money. If I want something big, I have to save up; when it's gone, it's gone. I think this has really helped me to curb unnecessary spending.

And then, learn to cook. We very, very rarely eat out. I think our food budget is actually pretty high because of the way we choose to eat, but it doesn't have to be. You can save a lot of money, even if you're not into "extreme couponing," just by eating at home. Cook for 4-6 instead of two, and eat leftovers for lunch. Buy foods in bulk where possible; cook from scratch instead of buying processed ingredients. Not only can you trim your food budget this way, but you will also likely see long-term savings in your health care costs.

So, that's my two cents on finances and staying at home. What do the rest of my readers think? Weigh in below with your own advice and experiences about managing your money (as well as your favorite websites for budgeting or money-saving tips).

In the Midst of the Mess

I guess "delusional" is about the only word for it.

During the long car ride back from Ohio last night, my mind began filling with lists: people to email, tasks to complete, projects to start, gifts to purchase. I grabbed a pen and filled half a sheet of paper with scribbled reminders, a few urgent items starred.

Bright and early this morning, I dove in, selecting only the most time-sensitive and immediately necessary items to copy onto a to-do list for today. And then my toddler woke up, and we both faced the Monday Morning Reality Check: After five days of doting grandparents, plus Daddy being around, I was now the only source of attention for Elijah.

Neither of us dealt with it well.

Elijah whined. I snapped and seethed, impatient, irritable, resentful. I cried out for help, and snapped again, my morning an endless cycle of frustration, repentance, and repeated ugliness. I wished I could go to bed and start the whole day over again.

I stopped and confessed: Father, I am having such a hard time dying to self today.

I remembered my own words: Elijah is not an interruption to my agenda...he is my priority.

I thanked God that Jesus didn't pursue His own agenda, but instead prayed, "Not my will but YOURS be done."

And during a brief phone call, I listened to a friend say, "On days like today, I just have to accept that I'm not going to get anything else done. I have to love on my kids and let the rest go."

While Elijah napped, I ate leftover smoked turkey and apple-spinach salad and pored over wise words of grace and peace from Ann.

When he woke up, still slightly grumpy and begging for "Leleplh" (his cousin, Olivia--"Leleplh" is my terrible attempt to spell how he pronounces "Livi"--he loves to watch the videos my sister-in-law has posted online), I sat here with him on my lap, trying to breathe slow and deep, letting go of the to-do list, thanking God for our widescreen monitor as I browsed in another window while clicking through all 68 video clips (most are less than 30 seconds).

I scrapped my plans to package homemade cookies and take them to the post office this afternoon. I sat in the middle of the kitchen floor and read library books. I turned on "bebec" (music), and changed the song when it was apparently the WRONG bebec, and swayed and sang to my little grump.

Then I thought of a conversation I had with a friend recently. She shared how her husband is (wisely) wary of blogging because of the way we women put our best foot forward, sharing the polished versions of our lives. "Why don't you ever post pictures of the house when it's messy?" he challenged her.

I also thought of Ann Voskamp's ability to see beauty in the most mundane things. And so I grabbed my camera and documented a failure of a day. In this season when we all post warm, inviting pictures of our homes decorated beautifully for Christmas, I am inviting you to come tour my disaster.

Don't get me wrong, I think those holiday photos are fun--a friend of mine posted hers just this morning, and I loved the virtual tour of her beautiful home! But here at the Kannel house, in between Thanksgiving recovery and the trimming of the Christmas tree (which is currently still in the basement), we're just going to be real for a moment. Let me help you feel better about your mess.

Step in the back door and see three bags that need to be unpacked, library books strewn across the [ugly and in need of replacement] kitchen floor. The kitchen mess would be far more overwhelming if I used my wide-angle lens--but I was too lazy to change it.

Cookies I have never screwed up before, which I planned to bake and send to a friend this week: first batch completely flat (that has seriously never happened before, I have no idea why) and mangled coming off the sheet; second batch burned:

Cookie-baking dishes filling the sink:

Suitcases in the dining room, needing to be unpacked, laundry needing to be started:

Five days' worth of mail, meal planning paraphernalia, and other paper-clutter covering the dining room table...we'll have to clear a spot to eat...

Blocks scattered across the living room floor--meant to be cleaned up before we left last Tuesday, and forgotten in the rush to get on the road:

The long to-do list I foolishly expected to accomplish today (notice NOTHING is crossed off...you have no idea how twitchy that makes my type-A, anal-retentive self):

...And the basket-case-yet-still-adorable two-year-old who had other plans (and desperately misses Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Duh, Grammy, Pops, Uncle Josh and Chief):

(I'm not being totally heartless by snapping this picture, by the way...there was no immediate crisis. Here he is upset because he doesn't like the song that's playing and wants a different one. EVERYTHING was just that big a deal today.)

So now that whiny mess of a toddler is sleeping again (apparently needing to catch up after our trip), and instead of tackling my list, I'm taking the time to blog. Perhaps not the best use of my time--or perhaps (I hope) it will encourage someone today.

Heaven forbid any of you ever come away from this blog with a polished, shiny picture of me. I am real. I am oh so flawed. And this is what my house looks like on a Monday after a weekend away. But I serve a God who makes the ugly beautiful...who brings order from chaos...who loves me even when I am a grumpy mess...and who has drawn my boundary lines in pleasant places, given me a beautiful inheritance--if only I will open my eyes to see it.

Passionate Homemaking Blog Giveaway

A few months ago, I ran across a gem of a blog called Passionate Homemaking. It's a wonderful resource on all kinds of topics related to natural living--overwhelming, really; the kind of site I can easily lose track of time on as I click one link after another and drown in information :)

Lindsay, the author, is celebrating the blog's second birthday this week by offering two great giveaways. The first is for an e-book that looks like it would be great for people like me: Healthy Homemaking: A 52 Week Journey of Baby Steps to Help you Move Towards More Natural, Nutritious and Sustainable Lifestyle. Lindsay's blog is the kind of place I go to be humbled and realize how very far I still have to go in learning about healthy eating and living--so this book would be great to help encourage you or me to work on one thing at a time.

The other giveaway is for a sampling of products from a company called NaturOli. The winner will receive six trial-size skin care products of her choice, plus a bar of soap made from soap nuts. I just browsed the company's website a bit and it's very attractive--I'd love to try out their natural cleansers and moisturizers, since health and beauty products are the area I have made almost NO steps toward changing.

Visit Passionate Homemaking to enter these two great giveaways--and browse or subscribe while you're there; you'll learn a lot!

"Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants."

As I try to educate myself about natural lifestyle choices, from food to cleaning products to remedies for illness, I often resonate with Solomon's declaration that "the more knowledge, the more grief." Sometimes it really does seem like ignorance was bliss! And so it was for this reason that I avoided Michael Pollan for a good long while, despite hearing over and over how great his books were.

I finally picked up In Defense of Food a couple of months ago, and to my surprise, I found it to be a compelling, enjoyable read. The book has been a frequent topic of discussion in our house ever since. In fact, I read so many passages aloud to Steve that I've heard him quoting it to others in conversation! Incredibly enlightening, it was also simple enough to make me feel like I could DO this. It was time to stop making excuses, stop burying my head in the sand, and start taking intentional baby steps toward a healthier diet.

Pollan begins with the premise that "nutritionism" has become a pervasive ideology in our culture--a way of "organizing large swaths of life and experience under a set of shared but unexamined assumptions." For nutritionism, the underlying assumption is that foods are just the sum of their nutrient parts. The nutrient is the key. And so we view milk merely as a calcium source, carrots as Vitamin A, and so on.

The problem is, scientists have barely begun to understand food. Like with many other things, the more we know, the more we know we don't know. We're pretty sure certain foods are really good for you, but we have no idea *why* they're so powerful. Is it this nutrient that helps fight cancer, or that one? Or is it something about how the different components work together? And have you ever noticed how the advice is constantly changing? First fat was the enemy, then carbs. Margarine was far healthier than butter, until we discovered trans fat. On and on it goes.

The more you read about nutritionism, the more it becomes clear that we need to question the prevailing wisdom of the day. It seems that food is far more than just the sum of its parts. Pollan takes a refreshingly common sense approach--except that over the last several decades, the sense he advocates has become anything but common.

The bottom line is that the way Americans eat simply is not conducive to long term good health. Countless cultures around the world have far fewer health problems than Americans, thriving on vastly different diets. So there's not one simple answer; it seems that the human body can be healthy on a lot of different diets--but the Standard American Diet is most definitely NOT one of them. We don't need a magic weight-loss bullet; we need to escape the Standard American Diet altogether.

It only makes sense to me, as a Christian, that it would be best to eat foods as close as possible to the way God created them. Wouldn't something He designed naturally be far superior to an imitation engineered by man? Shouldn't we be extremely skeptic of any packaged, processed food product that advertises itself as "nutritious" but which our ancestors would not even recognize as food?

Along these lines, Pollan's advice is threefold, and memorably basic: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

"Eat food?" you ask. "What else would I eat?" Well, Pollan asserts that much of what we eat is not food, but "edible food-like substances." He offers the familiar suggestion to shop the periphery of the supermarket, as well as other tips like "Avoid food products containing ingredients that are unfamiliar, unpronounceable, more than five in number" and "Avoid food products that make health claims."

"Mostly plants" doesn't mean you have to become a vegetarian. (That would never fly in our house!) But it does mean we have some changes to make. It means looking critically at how *much* meat you eat, and shifting your attitude away from viewing meat as the main event. It also means thinking about what your meat is eating (hint: commercially grown cows and chickens are NOT eating what God designed them to thrive on...and thus, their meat is sorely lacking in value). And it means eating a broader variety of plants. (The bewildering variety of products available at the grocery store is pretty deceptive; most are abundant in two ingredients: corn and soy. Hardly the basis for a balanced, diverse, healthful diet.)

"Not too much" is both obvious and nuanced. We all know the portion sizes in America have gotten outrageous, and that's a good place to start. Pollan suggests eating slowly, always at a table. He also offers a rule that sounds counterintuitive to our "low prices, always" mindset: "Pay more, eat less." The truth is, modern Americans spend an unusually low percentage of our income on food--and we're not any healthier for it (quite the opposite). We can get lots of food, cheaply, but in this case "you get what you pay for" seems to be all too true. Some people, Pollan acknowledges unfortunately, cannot afford to spend more money on higher quality foods. But many of us can; it's simply a question of priority. And often dollars spent today on food will turn into dollars saved down the road in health care costs.

I found In Defense of Food to be thoughtful and persuasive, motivating without being overwhelming. I definitely recommend it. It made me want to implement changes, even if they're small ones. I can't change everything overnight, and some changes will be much more difficult to implement than others. But in the long run, I believe our bodies will thank us. So Steve and I have taken one big step (investing in a CSA) and several baby steps. However gradually, I want to work on using my time, money and energy to promote my family's health and enable us all to better glorify God with our bodies.

Toward a Healthier Lifestyle

Over the last couple of years, I've had a lot of exposure to "crunchy" people--women, especially mothers/homemakers, who are making decisions outside the mainstream, especially when it comes to feeding their families. I've learned a lot; I've made a lot of changes. And I've been intimidated a lot.

Reading about all the things you should or shouldn't be doing--all the scary substances you shouldn't be eating or wearing, all the healthful products you should start using, etc.--can be painfully overwhelming. Wasn't it Solomon who once said, "the more knowledge, the more grief"? I TOTALLY get that.

I'll also be the first to admit that there are major pitfalls in pursuing a crunchier lifestyle. I find it all too easy to swell with pride as I implement changes, judging others who are where I so recently was. And yet I realize my foolishness when I see others so much further along in the journey than I am--so I tell myself that they're just radical weirdos who are going way overboard. Pretty ridiculous, huh?

Earlier today I was filled with smug satisfaction after baking whole wheat hamburger buns from scratch, only to find my head swimming a few hours later as I read about soaking grains. You think you're doing something right, only to find out that there's an even better way of doing it. You can make yourself crazy trying to follow all the advice out there. Conflicting opinions abound, and the Internet makes such a vast flood of information so easily available that I'm often tempted to retreat to shore rather than drown. I'd rather throw up my hands in defeat and decide not to worry about any of it.

Instead, I'm making an effort to follow some of the sanest, most often-repeated advice out there: Start small. Don't try to change everything all at once! Pick one thing, and work on it until it comes naturally. Then address something else.

That's why you'll find both homemade whole wheat bread on my counter and Velveeta in my refrigerator. We're swimming against the current in a lot of ways, but we've got a long way to go. I will do what I can today and keep learning for tomorrow, so that I can serve my family well. Most of all, I'll keep asking God to teach me to walk in humility and to help me remember the MAIN thing: not food or drink, but glorifying Him in this earthly body.