The Sunflower Sword

Tyler and Luke recently took out a new book from the library called The Sunflower Sword, and we have all fallen in love with it.  At the moment, we read it before bed at night and sometimes multiple times a day.  It is the story of a boy who wants to be a knight, but his mother will not let him have a sword.  Instead she gives him a sunflower, which he moans about a bit but then finds that it "whooshes and swooshes" nicely.  He has fun with this sunflower sword and pretends to slay all the dragons with it. 

But then...a real dragon turns up!  He whooshes and swooshes as fiercely as he can as the dragon breathes fire and creates all sorts of smoke.  Until...the dragon thinks that the flower is for her! 

It turns out the dragon is not so mean after all and they become dear friends.  Then (and this is the best part) ALL the knights in the land hear about this and learn that an enemy can become a friend.  So, they all come to the same spot and give up their swords to become friends with the dragons.

A beautiful story!

So Tyler and I were struck with a moment of creativity early Sunday morning and decided to make a flower sword (it would have been a sunflower except for the simple fact that we are currently out of yellow construction paper) and find him a "knight's" (colander--same as the boy in the book) hat.  He whooshed and swooshed with all his might too, and I honestly can say I totally see how the dragon could think the flower was for her. 

Below are some of the pictures from the morning's venture in making the book "alive" in our home.  I absolutely am loving this make believe playing stage.  Such fun!

 

SNOW!!

We thought we had escaped with a mild winter.  Just as our thoughts were focused on springtime and how lucky we were to have such a bearable winter and patting ourselves on the back for using such little heat during this particular season: bam!  Two snowstorms in a row (the second came just as you could start to see bits of grass after the first).  And super cold temperatures hovering around 0 degrees Celsius/32 degrees Farenheit.

But let's try to see the joy in the situation: snowmen!  Hot tea! Warm soup that soothes the soul! A beautiful white covering and fun slippery sliding walks!  A sense of unity among all you meet that it is cold and we all love to be warm. 

There is an "up" side to every downward slope, and just like with snow: it is the upside that can take the most work while the downward slope appears to pick up momentum and speed the longer you travel it (although with skiing and sledding or "sledging" as it is called here it is quite fun to barrel down the mountain). 

So, yes, snow is beautiful, invigorating, and brings with it opportunities for fun and excitement.  But if I was completely honest, I think I am realizing more and more that warm weather edges out in my list of preferences (by a sufficient margin too).  Oh well!  Spring is on its way--eventually.  The daffodils will be here before we know it (they are already popping through the ground...brave little souls!). 

For now, I will enjoy snow breaks with Tyler and Luke, and keep trekking up the upside, clutching my hot water bottle and herbal tea.

A Wonderful Message to Young Women and Girls

Here is a link to an article by a woman I had the privilege to meet before we moved to York.  Her name is Janell Hofmann, and she lives in the town where I grew up (Sandwich, MA) with her five kids and husband.  She lives an inspirational life and is involved with an organization that works with women freed from prostitution and sexual slavery called Made by Survivors.

She is also a writer and posted a blog worth reading called "'Mom, I'm Fat:' One Mother's Inspired Response to her 7 year old": http://www.rachelsimmons.com/2012/01/mom-im-fat-one-mothers-inspired-response-to-her-7-year-old/

Yay for bold and confident women!  And a double yay for aiming to teach our children to be the same!

A British Pantomime Experience

Luke and I had our first British "Panto" experience on Monday night.  We celebrated his birthday early (due to other shows on his birthday being sold out--it's a VERY popular Christmas activity here in York).  Not sure what to expect, we went with open minds thinking we'd be watching something that was along the lines of mime.  Far from it!  And, if we had done a google search beforehand or looked it up on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantomime) we would have found out that it is in fact a musical comedy.  The one we went to was Aladdin, and yes, the audience was filled with children and their parents (and if you are wondering: at one point we wondered whether we should bring Tyler to an afternoon show, but decided that he wouldn't be able to sit that long).  As it turns out (since it is not mime) there was lots of loud music, flashing lights and a super scary villain so we're even more convinced that bringing Tyler would have been a fairly traumatic experience for him (especially considering that we even need to fast forward through "scary" parts of the children's animated book The Gruffalo and classic Disney film The Jungle Book) .

But back to the Aladdin panto.  I could tell at the beginning that Luke was not quite so sure, and neither was I.  There is quite a bit of audience interaction in a pantomime, and I'll be honest it is out of my comfort zone.  But by the end of the first half our modes had switched.  The children within us decided to show themselves and thoroughly enjoyed "Booing" Ebenezer (the evil character) and yelling to the good guys that a ghost was right behind them (as they sang the Ghostbuster theme song).  It was a blast!!  To be caught up in the story, the imaginative creativity of the show, part we were told to play...was magical.

And at the end of the show we transformed back into the adults we are, and decided to continue the magic at a pub on the way home with a mulled wine and a local beer called Humbug.  The best of both worlds.

If you are interested in sampling what we experienced that night check out
this clip of an Aladdin pantomime from several years ago:

Getting lost in the creativity of work

Yesterday I looked at the long list of things to do and started to feel overwhelmed.  I wanted them to just be done.  The thought of spending long hours analyzing text and themes did not appeal to me.  Reading about critical discourse analysis, social constructionism and countless studies that need to be found and read to back up my work felt as exciting as someone saying you need to stare at a dot on a wall for 57 hours straight. 

What confused me a bit was that I could feel the dread of this work and simultaneously know that I actually love thinking about these topics.  I find them fascinating.  But other than the intrigue, a roadblock set itself down before me when I tried to think about a larger reason or impact that spending hours and days analyzing the way one newspaper article headline was worded would have on my life, my family, my community and yes, even the world. 

And yet this is the nature of my work, the particular forms of analysis I am interested in...it is sloooooow.  That's the point.  It's not about breadth but depth.  However, there is still the uncomfortable feeling resting beneath that tells me that doing these things can't possibly matter and questions whether it is a waste of time.

But ending on this thought would be devastating and fruitless.

It is not a waste of time because I am realizing it is not just about the task at hand.  Yes, finishing a chapter or a section of a chapter is important.  Getting the reading done is critical, but the process and the time spent being lost in thought--asking new questions, trying to connect the dots in a different way, enjoying the possibilities of what a word or phrase is implying or assuming is absolutely essential.  It is where the creativity of the work is born and allowed to grow into something (potentially) worthwhile.  And if nothing else, allowing the time to think and explore makes for a happy day.  It makes the work fulfilling and enjoyable rather than trying to rush it by to get to the next thing.  It is about living life in the moment and learning that striving for results ruins the here and now, it stunts the growth of what you are doing and turns the focus away from what needs to be learned.

On this note, I've included the following video (I received it in an email from a professor in the Centre for Applied Human Rights here at the University of York)--it's cute and insightful:

So I want to aim to start getting lost in the creativity of the work--allowing time to think and explore and get beyond that "first idea".  This applies to any job I think, and for me I fully intend to use it both at home and at the university: for my parenting, housekeeping, researching and teaching.

I also found this clip helpful.  Dr. Csikszentmihalyi is a psychologist and has done research on how to be happy at work.  Here is what he says needs to be done to get there (and it's not about the big careers with lots of glory and rewards...):

On being 30

Last Friday I turned 30.  I think I am okay with this.  In fact, I believe that turning 29 was a bit harder--the last year of my 20s, the end of decade.  Now, I have a clean slate.  The 30s are wide open with possibility and I have just begun.  I remember hearing Joan Anderson (author of the book A Year by the Sea and many others) speak a few years ago and loved her description of each decade being a separate chapter of your life.  I've held onto that metaphor, and have high hopes that this next chapter in my life will be an exciting one.  With that said, I also want to join in on a family trend at the moment where I map out 30 things to do while I'm 30 (for most of the other family members doing this it's actually supposed to be by the time you turn a certain age, but when I decided I was going to do it I only had a week before my birthday and let's face it: 30 additional things to do when you want the items to be interesting and varied is a lot!).

So here's the list (which is subject to edits as time goes along):

1) Dance in the rain (an easy one to start...we are in England after all)
2) Go to the famous Betty's tearoom with Luke
3) Run a road race
4) Attend Wimbledon
5) Publish something (anything!)
6) Go on a family bike (day) trip
7) Make significant headway on my thesis
8) Cook a roast dinner (yes, I still have never done this)
9) Take part in a 24 prayer vigil (rotating turns)
10) Try 5 different types of ethnic cuisine (i.e. Turkish, Morroccan, etc)
11) Read the entire Bible cover to cover
12) Read 5 books by British writers (bonus to then see where they lived!)
13) Hike a mountain (or closest thing to it based on accessibility...i.e. if it is here then maybe a hill)
14) Visit the York Art Gallery
15) Learn/relearn French (or at least some useful phrases)
16) Tour the Jorvik Viking Centre
17) Go out to eat on a date to Cafe Rouge
18) Travel back to the States for a holiday to see family/friends
19) Write more letters to our Compassion children
20) See/visit the lavendar farm just outside of York
21) Sing carols in the Minister
22) Walk all the Roman walls in York
23) Bring Tyler to his first show/kids performance
24) Write a children's story
25) Host a fundraiser
26) Buy a nice bottle of red wine and local cheeses (from Newgate market) to have for an in-house date
27) Come up with 52 in-house dates to do for less than $5
28) Do enough stretching so that I can touch my toes without pain :)
29) Be able to do 20 pushups in a row
30) Come up with a list of 1095 things I am grateful for over the course of the year (the number is assuming an average of 3 per day)

There you have it...a list of 30 things I'd like to do this year (subject to edits!).  And so I am going to sign off and begin: maybe by starting to work on those pushups, or maybe some writing on the children's story, or perhaps the French?  Phew!  It's exhausting just thinking about all there is to do, unless maybe...I've got it! I think I should start with that nice bottle of red and local cheeses?  Hmmm...yes, now that I'm thinking about it...yup, I think that's the one!  Happy Friday!

Our 3 year old

Yesterday Tyler turned 3--a wonderful number I think.  There are many significant things that come in threes: I come from a family of 3 kids, currently Luke, Tyler and I are a family of 3, we plan to live in the UK for 3 years (2 more from this point), when I was 3 I thought I was a big kid and "big kids can play in the parking lot" or so the story goes, we generally eat 3 meals a day, and if we're on the subject: I really enjoy 3 course meals, in tennis you need to win 2 out of 3 sets, my first road race was about 3 miles, I remember watching and enjoying The 3 Musketeers (and didn't mind the candy bar come Halloween time either), and so on.  Even The Guardian, a national UK newspaper, wrote about the significance of "3" back in 2003 (check out: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/mar/03/netnotes.simonjeffery to read about it)

It's everywhere: the number 3, which makes me think (and wish I could remember that time of life myself) it's a pretty cool age to be for Tyler. 

The world is still pretty new, and everyday is an incredible learning experience.  At 3 the bonus is you are starting to understand more and be able to converse about your thoughts (which makes for some really cute sayings and to be fair some not so cute--please don't say that in public--sayings).

Most importantly, I hope this year in his life will begin to show him the most important "3" that has come to be everything for Luke and I--that of the Trinity: the Father, Son and Holy Ghost "3".  We've wondered how to get this lesson across to our young son, a message that means the world and yet still amazes us, confuses us, and shows us we have much to learn about the God we serve.  Perhaps, and we hope to be on the right track with this one, we can show him how to have faith by learning to live by faith ourselves.  We hope he falls in love with God, and perhaps it will help him to witness us falling even deeper in love with God ourselves. 

And maybe in order to draw Tyler to crave the wisdom of the Bible, perhaps we need to be reading scripture more ourselves.  And what better way to celebrate the number 3 than ending with 1 Cor 13:13...

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

Happy 3rd Birthday to our T-Man! We love, love, love you!