Miscellaneous Musings on Monday - January 31, 2011

Nutrition and Mental Health

I have been immersed in nutrition for the last 2 months because we are trying to deal with Hanna’s diabetes using nutrition and supplements.  So far, so good.  What I am finding is how much what we eat affects every area of our lives….even our mental health.  I think this blog post by Jenny of Nourished Kitchen is a dramatic example. It seems even in small ways nutrition can affect us.  I’ve been letting a bit of sugar and carbs creep back into my diet and I notice that I’ve been a bit depressed and agitated lately.  Time to cut it all out…again!

Imagination and Inspiration

I found the following quote here:

 In a recent interview Timothy Keller said the following about J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings: “Tolkien has helped my imagination. He was a devout Catholic—and I am not. However, because he brought his faith to bear into narrative, fiction, and literature, his Christianity—which was pretty ‘mere Christianity’ (understanding of human sin, need for grace, need for redemption)—fleshed out in fiction, has been an inspiration to me.

What I mean by inspiration is this: he gives me a way of grasping glory that would otherwise be hard for me to appreciate. Glory, weightiness, beauty, excellence, brilliance, virtue—he shows them to you in some of his characters.

When people ask: how often have you read Lord of the Rings?, the answer is: I actually never stop. I’m always in it.”

Chores

With all the cooking I’ve been doing lately which entails making EVERYTHING from scratch, my kitchen is in a constant mess.  I can’t keep up with the dishes.  And where are my girls?  Hiding from mom hoping she won’t ask them to clean it up.  I often feel guilty asking them to do it…especially when every single pot, pan and dish in the kitchen is dirty.  But I’m going to read up on making chores for my girls a little more formal.  And here’s where I’m going to start:  Four Moms on Children and Chores  

Reformed and Humble?

Another post from Tony Reinke called Young, Restless, Reformed and Humbled.  Well, I’m not young or restless.  But I am reformed and maybe not so humble about it.  Here is a good reminder:  ”May God grant us fresh eyes to see the chasm that separates our reformed convictions and our daily practices. This will work humility into our orthodoxy.”

Vaccinations

All my kids have been vaccinated…but if I had it to do over…I may not have done it.  The more I read on vaccinations, the more it concerns me.  On top of that it seems that the medical community has become vaccination crazy…there’s a vaccination for everything now.  Here's a blog post entitled Vaccines and Aluminum.

Daybook - January 30th, Sunday morning…home with a sick child

outside my window . . .  snow, snow and more snow.  We’ve had a big snow storm every week now for a couple of weeks.  And this week…they are predicting another major snow storm mid-week.  I actually find it fun!  I love curling up inside by the fire with a book while it’s cold and snowy out.  Before long the warm weather will beckon us outside.

I am listening to . . . song samples on iTunes.  As I listened to Pandora last night I noted a few artists that I hadn’t heard of.  There seem to be more and more Sinatra knock-offs these days.

I am wearing . . .  T-shirt, jeans and a sweatshirt…and fuzzy socks mismatched.  I got lots of fuzzy socks for Christmas but I can’t seem to keep the pairs together.  J

I am so grateful for . . .  quiet moments to reflect, my family, a precious church community and most of all..an awesome God!

I'm pondering . . .  something I heard in Sunday School last week.  What kind of God commands His people to rejoice?  This just blows my mind.

I am reading . . . Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child by Anthony Esolen, Island of the World: A Novel by Michael D. O'Brien and Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes.

I am thinking . . . about trying to be more consistent with blogging….actually being more consistent in lots of areas in my life.  Maybe that could be my word or theme for the year….consistency.

I am creating . . . well, as soon as I’m done with this I’m going to make some beef veggie soup, but I need to find a recipe first.  And then some nut bars….I made these the other day and the kids inhaled them.

on my iPod . . . my most recent iTunes acquisition is the Opera Rigoletto with Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti.  I went to see Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera last weekend and loved it. 

around the house . . . the kitchen is clean….for now.  Everyone in the house has cleaned out their closet and dumped everything they no longer want in my bedroom.  Ugh!  Needless to say, I have a path through the middle of the piles of stuff.  I really need to go through everything.

from the kitchen . . .  after making the nut bars and beef veggie soup, I want to make some winter root veggie soup...a recipe from Nourishing Traditions.

real education in our home . . . we are having the best school year yet.  However, we must get up early to get the show on the road…otherwise we don’t get to the best things…Sonlight History as well as Composer, Painter and Poet/Poetry Studies.  My goal is to nourish the souls of my children. 

rhythm and beauty in our home . . . I’ve only recently come up with a schedule for our school.  I resisted at first and then when I wrote it up…I was totally depressed because I could see in black and white that I just can’t get everything done that needs to be done.  But now that we’ve used the schedule for a couple of weeks, I see that we at least get much more done with it than without it.

one of my favorite things . . . organic almond nut butter!  Yum!!

the week ahead. . .

:-: keep up with our school schedule.

:-: go through and clear the piles in my bedroom.

:-: work on consistency in my own devotional life

Currently Reading: Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child by Anthony Esolen

I’m reading along with Cindy (Ordo Amoris) and friends as they blog about this book. So far I’ve read the Introduction.  

Here are a few of my favorite passages:

“If we can but deaden the imagination, then, we can settle the child down, and make him that solid, dependable, and inert space-filler in school and, later, a block of the great state pyramid.”

“The bigger the school, the more dangerous and upsetting a single act of imagination can be.”

“Since we must have children, we should be sure to subject them to all the most efficient and humane techniques to fit them for the world in which they will live, a world of shopping malls all the same everywhere, packaged food all the same, paper-pushing all the same, mass entertainment all the same, politics all the same.”

I’m looking forward to the rest of the book.  I appreciate Mr. Esolen’s sense of humor making this book funny and convicting at the same time.