Archive for ‘True confessions’

Finding time to read

By Monica Brand, 10 February, 2010, 8 Comments

Home schooling.

House keeping.

Church commitments.

Blogging.

Email, Facebook, Twitter, Ning groups, LOST (yeah! it’s back.)

With all of these good (and maybe not so good) things to do and occupy our time, how do you find the time and energy to read?

Seriously! I want to know. Because I’m having a hard time keeping up.

I remember back to my lazy college days of when I had an abundance of free time to just ignore the outside world and do nothing but read to my heart’s content. O, the amount of pages I could fly through! Of course, back then I was without household to manage, sans children and husband. I had oodles of free-reading time.

Life was lazy from one wonderful book to the next. Now, not so much.

My to-be-read book pile gets larger. My heart wants to read more. Yet daily life. . . and I like reading blogs, Twitter, and my love for LOST.

So.

How do you fit it all in? All the books, yet still manage to life a balanced life?

In these last hours of 2009

By Monica Brand, 31 December, 2009, 3 Comments

I’m writing down my goals for the new year.

Goals are good. I like goals. No, not soccer goals, although those are nifty too. I speak of those promises we make to ourselves, sending them out into the universe, like I am right now with this lofty blog post, or hold them close, like a secret.

Without an end in mind we are destined to stumble throughout life without purpose or direction. Unless you are great at last minute decisions (I’m not), have enormous luck (don’t believe in it), or could care less about how your life turns out (are you dead or lazy?), you need goals.

My goals for the year 2010:

1. In reading:

More books, magazines and newspapers of good quality that can stretch me, get me thinking. Thinking is always good too. I happen to be a big fan of thinking. I’m joining a few online book challenges this year (more about that in the next few days.)

I’d like to start reading news magazines again – I used to absorb news magazines. This was before I had babies, otherwise known as When I Had Free Time. It’s taken me a long time to realize I miss those magazines. I won’t be subscribing, just reading what I can online or at the library or what I can beg, borrow or steal from friends. That might be another good goal for the coming year: find friends without kids that have free time to subscribe to news magazines.

2. In home education:

I’d like to see both boys flourish in their reading confidence. Actually, I’m sure this is the year both boys – 10 and fast approaching 8 – will come into their own with reading skills. (Please, Lord, make it so!) Adding to our home school reference library is another desire. Music, audio books, more how-to-manuals.

3. For spiritual life:

To attend our church’s womens’ retreat in June. Can you believe I’ve only attended one retreat in my entire adult life? My husband has attended at least 5,000 five. To memorize more scripture. To not let anything else crowd out that hunger for the things of God. To not view prayer or Bible reading as a chore required to make me a better believer; I never want to make studying just another item on my to-do list.

4. Of personal nature:

This is going to be tough – less Twitter, Facebook, and message boards. If I’m going read more books and news, I’ve got to make time for it. Blogging will continue when I have something of interest to share. I had a nice exercise routine of three times a week last summer; I need to resume that schedule. Still working on the patience. Could use more of that attribute. What mother can’t?

This is the part when I try to convince myself this list is easy. On January 1 all these grand ideas look easy, but by February or March. . . old habits, old self wants to win the day. I’ve made a few of these goals before 2010.

Perhaps this is the year, this is the time to make it happen.

By God’s grace.

To heck with Chicago

By Monica Brand, 23 July, 2009, 27 Comments

Yeah, baby. I just said to heck. Heh heh. Ain’t I hip?

Welcome, all non-Blogher conference women bloggers. Just because we’re not in Chicago doesn’t mean we can’t have fun. And our way of doing the meet-and-greet will be way less expensive. No overpriced hotel, no high priced airfare. No need to spend gobs of cash on new shoes, outfits, etc. to impress people you shouldn’t be worried about trying to impress.

Am I the only one not at Blogher because the economy tanked? Gee whiz, people…

Anyway, enough about all that. Lets’ get down to the business of Getting to Know Monica (that’s me.)

I’m me – Monica Brand. I like to write pretty things. Like this. I write from my gut. This is a good example. My videos are mostly fun, sometimes serious. I homeschool/unschool my four kids. I live in the wilds of New Jersey (Read: almost in PA, the neighbors have cows and horses. Are you surprised?) I occasionally get all opinionated (that’s the Jersey girl in me. *wink*) What else? I love Twitter way too much (I’m on a Twitter/Facebook fast till Monday. I miss my tweet peeps, but I’m sticking to my commitment. Tweet you soon, friends!)

I give away books – that’s my party favor for the Blog Hop, I’ll tell you more about that in minute.

Ummm. Still reading? I’ll type faster.

I’m one of those Jesus people. You may be down with that. Heh.

Oh! Coffee. I loves me my coffee. Doc (that’s the nickname I’ve given my hubs here, must protect the innocent non-blogger, no?) buys green coffee beans via the Power of the Internets, roasting it up fine on my kitchen counter. Heaven in a hot mug.

Okay, I think that’s pretty much me. Thanks for coming to my humble blog, leave a comment so I can come harass visit you at yours. Grab my RSS if you like me (cause isn’t that what subscribing is all about?) or if you are interested in knowing about the book giveaways.

Like this one – A Perfect Mess by Lisa Harper. This is a lovely look at Psalms by a lady who is just full of interesting stories. Leave a comment for a chance to win.

Enjoy the rest of the Blog Hop. Special thanks and shout-outs to Robin and Jo-Lynne for doing all the heavy lifting.

Be strong and courageous,

Monica

Coffee and kayaking

By Monica Brand, 21 July, 2009, No Comment

You know how I love coffee. You may not know it’s a dream of mine to own a kayak. This guy has combined coffee and kayak, capturing it on lovely video.

Team Brand: we work well together (which is convenient since we’re married)

By Monica Brand, 27 June, 2009, No Comment

What began as a lame Saturday, even with me writing a whiny journal entry, turned into a really, really good day. Really! A ton of work accomplished on the back porch and yard, stuff I didn’t think would get done, because of the way the day started. It was a happy Saturday surprise.

Are you like me? I love to see a large section of work accomplished. Dramatic “before” and “after” photos. I’ve noticed I’m totally that way with homeschooling too. I have a stack of papers from when Susan was nine. Why I still have those papers, when we don’t need to document here in New Jersey (thank you, Lord! it makes life easier) is a matter of me keeping memories in a box.

I look at that stack, weigh it in my hands. “Look at what she did.”

Same feeling today. I look at my improved porch, yard, and have that satisfied, happy sigh. “Look at what we did.”

Yes, I’ve learned nothing new regarding finding contentment. Some days are better than others; I’m still looking outward at the physical. But we won’t harp on the negative. Let’s review all Doc and I did today:

Gutted the back porch of all the junk that was dumped there.
Swept same back porch of dirt and rabbit poop (we let the bunnies run free there for a day while the hutch was under construction.)
Moved all good wood scraps into basement for future use (I suspect most of it will be confiscated by A Boy for his own schemings.)
Moved various other tools and whatnots into basement too (now the basement is more of a disaster, but at least I don’t have to look at it from my house.)
Removed junk that had accumulated in yard just beyond back porch (antique Singer sewing machine, paint brushes, rollers, toys. Gah. Am I really admitting this on the web?)

All of that plus we took a few iced tea breaks. We work well together, Doc and I. Glad we can do that – I know some couples can’t. There might have been a couple of times when we didn’t and I think those all involved the car and a new GPS system, so that doesn’t count. Married couple + car + new technology = it doesn’t count on my blog.

A day like today – us with a pick-up truck and elbow grease – yeah, we’re good.

So sorry there are no pictures. Will someone please invent solar powered camera batteries? Actually, I’m kind of glad I have no pictures of our trash and evil pile of accumulated junk. It’s one thing to describe all of this in words, but do I really want to share the photo evidence too?

Yeah, I love all this web confessional stuff, so I probably would.

Yet more thoughts on contentment

By Monica Brand, 11 June, 2009, No Comment

Thanks for the encouraging words this week, friends. It’s nice fantastic that so many of you would miss my contribution to the blogosphere if I were to drop out. Thank you.

I’ve been thinking more about it and here’s what I’ve come up with: my problem isn’t blog influence, it’s me and mothering (Or mothering and I? Umm. Not sure.)

My youngest daughter has a friend who calls me, “Lucy’s mommy.” Never Mrs. Brand or Mrs. B like I tell her to when she comes to play. It was cute at first, very preschooler speak, but the more it continues, the more it makes me want to grind my teeth. Future play dates hang in the balance because of it.

Why does it irritate me so much to be labeled by an innocent 4-year-old?

Then there was the time our Pastor referred to a woman like me as a housewife.

Again: why am I so freaked out by another label given with the best intentions.

I don’t write much here about my previous life, my existence before kiddos and homeschooling. BC (Before Children), I was a newspaper reporter and traveled to the other side of the world. I met a slew of interesting people. Nowadays, I hang out with all these people much shorter than I who all require various degrees of daily care.

Patience, Monica. They are only young for a moment, really. Then they are grown and gone.

I know it.

My head does anyway.

My heart?

Guess not.

Paper Bridges