When Buying the Best Makes Cents

Dear TEAMS,

Two words:  Nutty Nuggets.  That was the name of the cereal at the grocery that was the store brand equivalent to Grape Nuts™.  This was back in the day when going to the grocery store was my only respite and time alone.  (Never live far away from your parents, unless God has called you there!)

So I was trying to decide whether or not to buy said Nuggets, because I knew from past experience with store brands that usually they were less tasty, but bearable.  However, there could be duds.  Plus, with Grape Nuts™ being my favorite cereal, I didn’t know if I wanted to chance it.  But to save $1.20…that was tempting.  And the lure of knowing I had $1.20 more in my pocket was too much.

That $1.20 savings melted into a $2.49 loss with my first bite.   

You all know my tastes, and that I am a very adventurous eater.  You also know that rhubarb and liver are the only things I won’t eat.  That day, Nutty Nuggets joined rhubarb and liver on my banned substances list.  Truly, they were awful…so awful that I knew right away that I would never eat the box, I could never “hide” the cereal in something like muffins, nor could I stand it in tiny bits sprinkled on yogurt.  I threw it in the garbage that day, much to your father’s surprise, since I can, actually, get blood from a turnip.

Over the years I have compiled a list of other items that simply have no equal in my mind.  These are items that are worth the money to spend, either because their generic equivalents hinder the purpose we use them for, the generics cause you to use more or waste more, so they are actually more expensive or equal to the name brand price, or because they are so far above anything else in their genre that they are worth every penny and more that we pay for them.

I know that when you are finally reading this, things may have changed.  There might be better things to use than what I have listed below, or there might be new brands.  In 23 years, these things haven’t changed.  But if you reflect on the “whys,” I’m sure you’ll be able to update the list with what is present around you.  Except for the Body Balance, of course.

• Q-tips™ -- for the purpose they serve (and yes, we actually do insert them in our ear canal despite the instructions), we need the cotton to stay attached but still provide cushioning.  Store brands simply have the cotton wound too tightly (thus hurting the skin in the ear) or too loosely, thus risking losing the cotton tip in the ear.
• Tampax™ tampons – Seriously, store brand tampons just don’t cut it.  M and S, your wives will educate you.  It is costly to have to replace garments.  The applicator and packaging is biodegradable and won’t be around when you are reading this.  Enough said.
• Scott® toilet paper – economical but strong enough to avoid “toilet paper failures,” as someone wiser than me once said.  I really believe in not spending a lot on something that goes down the drain with waste on it, but it has to work. 
•  Puffs™ tissues – Your father has a hard-won convert in this one.  I tended to lump tissues into the same category as toilet paper, in that it’s forgettable in its use.  However, with the runny noses due to allergies and colds in a big family, I concede that I get more “content” into Puffs™ even though they are the same size as Scott® or Kleenex® tissue, and they feel better to boot.
• Body Balance™ by Life Force International -- never has a product done so much for the human body for so little per day.  It’s vitamins, supplements, naturopathic remedy, food insurance, medicine avoidance, healing, preventative all in 2-4 ounces per day.  It marvels me at how inexpensive it really is, given everything you would have to buy to equal it.
• Dyson® vacuum – I still remember the secretary I worked for on work-study at Elizabethtown College’s Housing Department, Pat March.  She looked after me while I was cleaning the office, showing me when to change the water based on its color.  Somehow, we got onto house cleaning and she said, “Whatever you do, when you are setting up house, spend a lot on your vacuum cleaner.”  I never understood why I would want to do that until I used really cheap vacuums.  They do nothing.  I don’t even know why they exist if they aren’t going to pick up the dust with the scraps on the floor.  Cheap vacuum cleaners waste time, because you have to spend more time to get the floor somewhat clean, and then you have to vacuum more often because the floor is never clean enough.
• Candidae or vet-brand dog food – buying cheap dog food creates more waste to clean up per each poop and creates higher vet bills in the future.

 The following are items that we specifically buy any brand name over the store brand/generic because we feel we use less (and save money) per use, or there just isn’t a good generic equivalent:

·         Brand Name shaving cream

·         Brand Name contact lens solution

·         Brand Name Coffee

·         Brand Name self-adhesive bandages

Love,

Why You May Want to Darn Your Socks

Dear TEAMS,

Yesterday morning while M was doing school at the table, I brought down some mending.  I needed to put a button on a shirt for your dad, and I was wearing a pair of socks that my big toe was poking through on both feet.  I got the button put back on and then went to work on the holes.

Now, mind you, we can afford new socks for me.  In fact, your father is such a great provider for us all, I could buy socks any time I really want to.  I imagine your father, if he ever reads this post, will roll his eyes that I would even think to mend my socks instead of putting them in the wastebasket.  (Someday you need to ask me about the “discussion” we had about holey underwear…let me just say that punning on the homophone “holy” doesn’t amuse him.)

However, it struck me as M and I chatted about why mending your socks is called “darning” (and the subsequent [de-volving] into us saying, “Darnnit, Mom!” instead of “Darnnit, Mol” in the HISHE about Inception) that darning my socks actually improves my life in more important ways than just improving my bank account.  Here’s what I came up with:

Choosing to spend my time on a “petty” task keeps me humble.  Of the hundreds of things I do every day, me threading a needle and spending 5 minutes on a sock seems crazily unimportant and delegate-able.  However, me sitting down and forcing myself to do something I already know how to do and could pay someone else to do reminds me that I once did not know how to do it, nor had the resources to pay someone to do it.  It reminds me to be thankful for all I have come through and all I have learned.  It reminds me that I am where I am because of a gracious God who listened to me whine about mending my socks 20 years ago, who didn’t reject me but taught me instead.

Salvaging a quality item is satisfying.  There is something really enjoyable knowing that with just a little investment of insignificant thread and more significant talent, I made something useful again for probably a couple more years.  I did that, all on my own and barely thought about what I was doing.  I am talented and capable.  It’s a good feeling.

Doing some tasks takes less time than all that’s involved in buying new.  Had I decided to throw out the socks, I would have had to put them on the list, wait until I could get to the store, spend my time and gas to go to the store and shop for socks of equal quality, stand in line at the cashier, bring them home and unpack them and get them to my drawer.  Instead, I spent 15 minutes start-to-finish gathering supplies, mending the holes, then putting everything away.  And I never have to think about my socks again.  Precious time has now been created out of thin air.

Just because I have the resources to do something, doesn’t mean I should.  Buying new socks just because I can buy new socks when I need to seems rather robotic to me.  I don’t want to function on automatic pilot with the resources I have.  It would not be wrong for me to buy new socks if I wanted them, because it’s my money to spend as I wish.  But there is something liberating about being able to say, “I can, but I won’t.”  It keeps money serving me instead of the other way around.

Slowing down to tend to a small hole keeps me from speeding up past big ones.  Had I not found it important to darn my socks, I probably would have gained momentum and gotten faster and faster “doing” instead of “being.”  I miss so many things when I don’t just focus on letting God guide me throughout the jobs in my day.  That 15 minutes kept me listening to my child which led to laughter and made me not speed past more important parts of my day.

You notice I did not go to the cliché of “a stitch in time saves nine.”  That would be because my socks actually needed darned about a month ago.  But sure, if you want to go there, do.

Love,

Practical Tips to Consider Before Homeschooling

Dear TEAMS, 

I was speaking with A the other morning about her thoughts concerning homeschooling her kids.  She and J have discussed it, but since A is the first person who was homeschooled who J thinks is normal, she’s not sure he’ll be into it.  However, after 16 years (as of this writing) of teaching multiple children at home, I thought it would be good to have a reference point of things to consider before even approaching homeschooling as an option. 

1. You need to be in agreement with your spouse.  Homeschooling is demanding, complex, and even a thankless job as it is.  If your spouse has reservations about it, or even a “whatever” attitude towards it, it will make it even harder.  Daddy and I talked about homeschooling when we were engaged, me telling him I really wanted to do it and that it was the best for our kids.  Mistake.  Daddy needed time to understand what homeschooling was, he needed to figure out how he felt about it, and he needed to not be overwhelmed with what we were doing with our kids before we were even married.  I’m not saying your spouse has to be actively involved with it, but he/she does need to be convicted this is what’s best for your family. 
2. Homeschooling is about the student, not about the teacher.  I think every parent (except those who are exceptionally mature, which I wasn’t) goes through a phase where they think having children, homeschooling them, etc. somehow makes their identity or even makes them a good Christian.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Homeschooling is a tool to help a child, not a badge to be worn. 
3. Curricula serves you, not the other way around.  If the main educator and students of your homeschool detest worksheets, then I think it’s pretty obvious your homeschool curricula needs to not be worksheet based.  But there’s a corollary to this:  the child’s needs supersede the parent’s.  So the educator needs to be prepared to suck it up and find something he or she can live with if little Johnny or Janie thrives on auditory learning but mom or dad are visual learners. 
4. There is no one right way to homeschool.  As much as you will hear that at a Curriculum Fair or in curricula catalogs or from well-meaning friends whose lives have been simply changed by x, y, or z practice, you need to find what works best for you in that moment of that school year.  We have switched curricula in November that just didn’t work.  We have skipped whole sections of books.  We have taken 60-day breaks because of personal issues that had to be processed.  We have had 3 different students learning the same concept in three different ways at the same time.  Naturally, if you live in a State that has certain requirements for homeschoolers, those have to be tended to.

I imagine I will write future posts with other suggestions, but this is a great litmus test to get you started considering if you want to even go there.

Love,

Why I Let You Play with Guns as a Kid, But Why I Didn’t Let You Play with Guns as a Kid…

Dear TEAMS,

In light of the shocking murder of our family friend who was gunned down this past weekend, I am writing this to you.  I wanted to explain in better detail why your father and I adopted the stances we did in terms of guns as toys.

It started innocently enough this morning as S was using the cookie-cooling rack as a machine gun in an aircraft and flying around the house, aiming and firing.  I was upstairs getting ready for the day and as usual was ignoring the downstairs commotion, although my ever-present and vigilant “Mom Radar” was listening for blood, throw up, or someone in danger.  I didn’t sleep well last night as I was alternately grieving and praying for J’s wife, children, mother (oh, how I’m praying for L!), father and family, and the work J was involved in, so I was pretty numb.

However, hearing S make one more round through the main level roundabout, I became aware of what he was doing and how it all fit together into the events of the weekend.  All at once, I knew I needed to:  1) stop what he was doing for the sake of my sanity, 2) make sure I stopped him in a way that didn’t make him feel shame but let him understand the gravity of what he was doing, and 3) write this blog post to let you see the depths of the “why” to help you in the future.  I came downstairs, gently put my hands on his shoulders and looked lovingly into his eyes.  Then, I simply said, “S, I love you and I understand why you are doing this.  But do you understand that this is exactly what the man did to J with his machine gun?  Please, no more pretend gun firing for the rest of the week.”

S, I could tell I hit a nerve, and that your 14-year old ego was bruised.  I hope I administered correction in a way that allows you to choose change over pride.

I know that to you at your age, firing a gun isn’t firing a “gun.”  I know that developmentally, this is about cause and effect, having power and learning how to use it wisely, the fact that it’s loud and makes really cool explosions, a la Mythbusters.  I also know that you have not yet put together what bullets do to human flesh, and that the bullet comes from a gun that is fired from a person’s finger…which may or may not match what his/her heart is at the moment.  I came to this conclusion later in the childbearing stage, after your 3 older siblings were kept from playing with guns (well, really only M) or that the pretend guns could only shoot tranquilizing darts or some such other unreality to match the pretend.  When you made a gun out of your bread and butter at 2-1/2, I realized there might be more gray than black and white to this.

But you are getting old enough to have reality play a part in your choice of actions.  Here’s the reality of guns you couldn’t see today with your pure, young heart.  The reality is that the person who put 8 bullets into our friend was intent on murdering him for whatever reason.  The gun made it easier, but I’m pretty sure had it not been the gun it would have been something else at some other time.  And, admittedly perhaps, far more painful and tortuous than the instant death J had.  However, the gun’s destruction created a great photo opp for the press, and his poor wife and family (and in future, his sons) have that shared public record for this very private, tragic event.  Not only that, because J’s wife had to identify his body, her last memory of her husband’s body is not a pristine, whole one.  It is…well, anything less than pristine is not what a wife’s last memory of her husband should be. 

Another reality of guns that you need to get into you pretty soon is that, while guns right now are about you and your abilities and power, the recipient is the one who pays the price.  You don’t see that looking through the cookie rack pointed at the dog.  The gun is about the other person, and I know your heart.  You wouldn’t ever knowingly harm another person.  You would feel awful if you hurt someone or took their life, because God gave you a compassionate, loving heart that is the mark of a real man.

The last reality of guns is in Matthew 26:52, “Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword.”  (ESV)   Violence begets violence.  And if Jesus said it, it’s true and I don’t want you to die.  As crass and as blunt and as gross as this sounds, as devastated and changed and ruined as I would feel if you were murdered, it would pain me even more if you were a proactive perpetrator of violence against someone than its recipient, because it would be a symptom of an even more critical heart issue.

I don’t know if you will go back to playing guns next week after the ban is lifted.  I am torn because you have so few innocent years left and reality will come on you soon enough and last a lifetime.  But I will say that after this weekend, those of us in the house who are living here in reality will only be able to manage a weak smile at this innocent fun from now on.  I know you will understand once you are here with us.

Love,

Expectations for Adult Children Living in Our Home

Dear TEAMS, 

We love having our children around us!  You are a joy to our lives, and we hope you know that our lives are richer because you are in it.  

Some of you are now in a season where your obligations, responsibilities, and commitments take you out of the house more.  We are thankful that you have chosen to allow us to guide you and provide security for you until you feel led to leave and take full responsibility for your physical needs.  It is an honor that you would trust us to remain a guiding force in your life when so many other children would rather be out from under their parents “rule” in this time in their lives.

Completely apart from the emotional and spiritual side of things, there is also a practical reality in terms of you being an adult and living in this house.  Part of being an adult is understanding that nothing is ever free—there is and has always been a cost to everything in life, whether that cost is emotional, financial, spiritual, or physical.  Jesus is the perfect, ultimate example of this, but there is earthly wisdom in this as well.  This concept is something that successful people not only realize but embrace.  The purpose of this document is to focus on this aspect of being an adult child in this house and allowing you to grow into acceptance of the concept of everything in life having a cost.

When you are a child, we are required by God to provide for you emotionally, physically, and spiritually, and it is a commitment we happily undertook.  However, as an adult God expects us to treat you as an adult and therefore our expectations of you are different.  If they were not, we would be hindering you from maturing into a successful adult. 

Here is what you get by choosing to live in this house:   

•  Emotional support 
• Lots of community
• Meals you don’t have to always prepare
• Freedom from rent or a mortgage 
• The use of reliable transportation
• Friendship 
• Freedom from loneliness, if you choose
• Access to all of the physical resources we as your parents have spent 20+ years investing in and accumulating
• Freedom from paying water and electricity bills 
•  Freedom from paying grocery bills 
• Nice living conditions to entertain friends in 
•  Free laundry and use of detergent 
• Access to healthy food 24/7
• A comfortable bed with bedding 
• Having a pet to love and love you
• Your own private room with furniture

All of these things we happily share with you because you are our child.  However, now that you are an adult, it is incumbent on you to realize that there is a “cost” to these benefits.  Practically speaking, it is simple reality to understand that these “things” aren’t really free.  Therefore, if you use these things as an adult, we do expect you to contribute back for their use.  Because we are good parents, we don’t expect financial reimbursement for all of these things that are available to you.  However, there are ways that we expect “payment” from you for the use of these things now that you are an adult.

1. We expect you at all times to remember that we are the parents in this home and afford us the respect that is inherent in that.  This means that we are well within our rights to interrupt what you are doing to ask you to do a task, to have expectations on your behavior for the good of the rest of the people who live here, to require you to participate in things we plan, and basically anything else we want of you.  We are respectful to you as our brothers and sisters in Christ and to our knowledge have never asked you to do anything that was wrong, sinful, unfair, or bad.  We may have asked you to do things that were inconvenient, uncomfortable, unpleasant, or you didn’t perceive as fair—but hopefully time has proven that our requests were actually not self-serving but ultimately serving your own good and the good of this family. 
2. Part of respecting us is affording us the baseline of trust, even when it’s hard.  Because we are great parents, you should trust us that we will not abuse the position we have as your authority.  In all relationships on this earth, the only ones which survive are the ones where one party, when offended, makes the conscious effort to mentally tell themselves that the other party loves them and wants the best for them and works from there, no matter how they are feeling or how they were offended.  We are mature Christian adults who would die for you and have spent [insert your age] years sacrificing for you mentally, emotionally, and physically.  When we have failed you, we have sincerely asked for your forgiveness.  We have built relationship with you even when you have wronged us and did not apologize.   If you need more than that to trust us, that’s your work that you need to do with your Heavenly Father, not ours, but it is work that needs to be done as payment.
3. Technically speaking, we own everything you see, feel, and use in this house--our water, our furniture, our rooms, our groceries, etc.  We expect you to treat these things with regard to the others who are living in this home.  That means that if you do something to these things that will make it harder for the next person to enjoy that thing, then you are responsible to restore it to a nice condition.  For consumable items, we expect you to follow the rules established when you were a child to put things that are used up on the list, and to ask others if they want x, y or z before using the last of it, and to use consumable items wisely according to the rules set forth for them.  Further, while you have a privilege to use the things in this house, your privilege does not supersede the privileges of the other people living in this home because you are an adult with adult activities and responsibilities.  The washing machine is a good example of this:  no one except the owners of the washing machine get to decide how and when it is used.  If the owners have worked out a schedule for the washing machine, it is to be followed by the non-owners of the washing machine…and if the owners don’t want to follow those same rules, it is their own prerogative.  That is the joy of being the actual owner of grownup things--we have additional responsibilities for those things, but we also get the full benefits of those things.
4. We are well within our rights as owners of this home and as adults who are responsible for the welfare of 3 minors and responsible for our own mental health to expect your behavior to contribute to a pleasant environment in this house.  Further, we are mature Christians who are pretty intelligent and wise and desire to work out problems in a constructive way when there is relational conflict in our home.  It is unacceptable to us for anyone in our home to treat another person living in this home disrespectfully or unkindly with words or deeds.  We have certainly failed all of you in this area, but we have always tried to submit ourselves to God for His correction in this area and then to ask sincere forgiveness, and continue to try to improve in this area.  As the owners of this home, as your parents, and as people who have added responsibilities you aren’t even aware of, if WE have to do it, so do you.  This is part of the cost of having the benefits listed above.  You do what it takes to get along with the others in this house almost all the time, and when you don’t, you work it out with them constructively and in a timely fashion.  
5. Practically, we expect you to participate in the work needed to maintain this house and grounds.  If you use the kitchen, bathrooms, floors, and furniture in this house (which you do), you are 1/7^th of making the mess in the house and therefore you are responsible to help clean it up.  Because Mommy is the manager of the home, she administrates how that work gets done and in what timetable, and her rules for this aspect of housekeeping supercede what you have to do each day.  This might not be convenient to your goals for each day, but this house’s manager is continually working for the greater good of everyone in the home and therefore those rules should be followed daily.  One way you can make peace with this is to picture what your day would look like if you were responsible for everything that the other 6 people in this house do to maintain it.  Having only 1/7^th of the responsibility will seem much more doable if you take the time to imagine all the things that occur in this home each day just to maintain it and how many people do them.

There are other things that have not been thought of in constructing this expectation sheet, but the 5 things addressed will certainly make it easier and are enough to take in.  We understand in setting forth these expectations you might decide you would rather forego the benefits you get by living here and instead live someplace else and enjoy the benefits that brings.  We would be sad if you left, but we also love you enough to bless that choice.  However, the 5 things listed above are non-negotiable.

We could not be prouder of who you are and look forward to the rest of your lifetime with you, no matter where that takes you.

Love, Mommy and Daddy

My First Post to You

Dear TEAMS,

This is my first post to you.  I hope it will be one of many hundreds, if not thousands.

I have been told by many people through the years that I should write a book or have a column in a paper or something like that because I appear to be raising my 5 children well.  I am very flattered that they would think that.  And for about 10 seconds, I envision myself as some famous person that people rely on for advice...like a Dear Abby or Miss Manners.  Thankfully, just about the time I am imagining walking on a stage to get some award for my contributions to society, God reminds me I was in the fetal position on my bed not an hour ago with tears making a growing wet spot on the quilt.  I was calling out to Him for help with me or with one of you or both.

When you were young--5 of you in under 7 years made all of you young at once--people would say, "I just don't know how you do it!"  I know their hearts were to compliment me.  But my standard response was a sincere, "Well, I cry a lot...and I pray a lot."  I never wanted people to think that it wasn't costing me to be doing this and that I was one of those women who sail along and life never gets the best of them.  (Although after all these years, I happily quote Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, "I never saw such a woman. Surely she would be a fearsome thing to behold.")  All good things in life cost something, except the grace of God.  Even Jesus had to die in order to create a way for us to get back to our Creator.

You all are the joy of your father's and my life.  A new addition was built onto my heart the moment I was aware of your existence in my body.  No one else will ever take that compartment over, and I am so thankful for the memories that continue to fill each one every day.  I can honestly say that I would have never known what it was like to completely surrender my "self" had it not been for you.  But that is for another post...

Love,