Conversation in the Car

I groan as we drive by some people doing yardwork.

Eve (looking out the window)says in shocked curiosity: What is that woman wearing while she sweeps.

Me (unhappy to report the news): A bathing suit.

Eve: Oh my gosh! Why is she wearing THAT?

Me: Good question.

Seriously, folks...who ever thought it was a good idea to wear your bathing suit to do yard work in your front yard when you live on the main thoroughfare of a neighborhood? Seriously... especially when your leg fat hangs out of it. I have KIDS IN THE CAR, for pete's sake!

Beat That

Indie Personality Test Results

60% Indie Scoring highly suggests you are likely to be very liberal, independent minded, self identify as an outsider, shun materialism and popular culture, and have an aversion to organized religion. While high scorers are more intellectual than average, they are probably more artistically astute than intellectually avante guard (i.e. they are more likely to know of new interesting new bands/artists/writers than the best way to extract energy from a hydrogen atom). Low scorers, will generally tend towards the opposite of the above. They will tend to be more materialistic, conservative, corporate friendly, social and are more likely to be religious.

How indie are you?

How To...

I think randomness is one of the best things ever invented, and on that note, I give you this randomness. Be sure to click on "random article" for the full effect.

Eating for Less than Two

I'm happy to report that Ashlyn is now among the solid food eaters. This is super good news because in theory it will fill her up more than the breast milk does. The last few weeks she's been pretty fussy, and I just came to the genius conclusion last night that she is probably ready for solids. I thought I would wait until after Amanda's wedding to start these, as it could be more difficult to do this while out of town in the first week of starting it, but today, I just decided I had to do it, and it was quite a success. Rice cereal is a big hit here at the Chia house.

Don't Take My Cloak on a Winter Day

So, today, my mood is.... eh.

Nothing's particularly wrong. (Although frustration abounds in the whiny baby arena. I don't care what Mr. Doctor says...we're starting solids, and that's that!) But I'm in a little bit of a mood.

I was reading in Proverbs the other day, and I came across a verse that I treasure. 25:20 says, "Like one who takes away a cloak on a cold day...is the man who sings songs to a heavy heart."

I concur.

You ever come across those people who won't let anyone else be in a somber mood? (Or maybe you are one of those people...and if so STOP IT!) It's frustrating. It's like...here I am, unhappy about whatever I'm unhappy about. And instead of weeping with me, they insist on telling me to cheer up, to realize that everything's fine.

This isn't what the Bible says to do. The Bible doesn't say to whip out Romans 8:28 at the first sign of sorrow. The Bible tells us to bear each other's burdens, not to negate them. I have to say that everyone knocks Job's friends, but I have to say that they offered Job more than a lot of people I know have offered to people who are mourning.

Look at what the account says they did:
Job 2:11-13 (New International Version)

Job's Three Friends

11 When Job's three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. 12 When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. 13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

They didn't tell him that everything would work out and that he needed to buck up and get right back into life. They realized that there was sorrow, and they let him have sorrow. They didn't have to make the situation happier so that they could feel comfortable. They sat is silence and mourned along with Job.

So, my questions to you are these: Why are people (and not just Christians) so uncomfortable with sadness? Why are they insistent that we pretend everything's always fine?

Going Green week one

So, I'm not really sure how I got sucked into all this energy saving stuff. I think it was someone's blog from a forum on homeschooling that lead me to various websites on energy conservation. That and the fact that our Vectren bill was obnoxious this month. So, anyway, I read this blog called Casaubon's Book, and she has a nice 52-week plan for less energy consumption. Her goal is 90% reduction (yeah, right...good luck, lady), but I figure that anything is good. Saving energy saves money after all, and if we could even cut back by 20% then we'd be doing well.

So, one of her suggestions is to stay home for one day every week. I didn't quite accomplish that thanks to lamer kids' events at the library (needless to say, we won't be missing our goal for those this week). But I was able to limit my trips into Evansville to just two days. I went to church on Sunday and saw an incredible Jesus painter there. (check out Billy's interview with him.) And earlier in the week, I had an appointment that I really couldn't miss. But when it was all said and done, I only drove a whopping 130 miles, which is less than the national average of 230. So, that's a success.

Another suggestion is to grow food yourself. I haven't done that yet, but I did try to buy locally. This was so not so successful, as Engelbrecht's does not actually sell local food. I went there, hoping to really support local community and to get some un-shipped produce, but alas...the only local stuff was some cabbage, green beans, and zucchini. I bought a little bit of that stuff, and made a yummy chicken/zucchini alfredo, which I have tons of and will be eating for the next several days.

I've been trying to conserve energy around the house, too. I'm sure Billy thinks I'm a loon by now, with my turning off lights and turning up the temperature and whatnot. I've even started to reach under our little entertainment center to turn off the power strip to make sure that we don't get the phantom loads charged to our account or our karma. (That karma part was a joke, guys. Lighten up. Yes, I do believe in the grace of God.)

So, anyway...we'll see where that all makes a difference in our next bill.

The whole energy conservation thing, though, is really just a way to get myself into my dreams, I think. It feels a little more meaningful to live a life where you care about things like turning off lights to save the earth and money. And where you are forced to find things to do at home instead of driving off without thinking about the gas or pollution. And really, when I can get some time plant some veggies, then I'll be really happy.

More to come on the revolution....

Budding Artist

Photo by Eve-Marie Chia

Holey Jeans

I was folding laundry today and noticed once again that every pair of jeans that Eve-Marie has has holes in them. I think it makes me proud, actually. I mean, sure, it's annoying that really the pants makers are cheap and the quality of the product is low. It's unfortunate that this particular pair of jeans that I was folding was a very nice looking pair that had been great for church and other places that a put-together casual attire was appropriate. But ultimately, I thought it was a great commentary on childhood in the summer--the carefree days of playing outside all day, sweating to no end, and falling down.

I took Eve-Marie over to a friend's house recently and the other little girls who lived there were big into climbing the tree outside the kitchen window. As Kara and I sat talking about marriage, the Bible, and homeschooling, the little kiddos pretended to be immigrants from Ireland and England.

In the midst of their game, the tree was climbed, sometimes too high for my own tastes, but it sparked some relief in me to see Eve-Marie right up there with the professionals who climbed it on a daily basis.

See, Eve doesn't often want to try anything hard. Gosh, that apple didn't fall far, huh? I know that this is a quality she inherited from me...one of the few things. Seriously, of all the things that she inherited from the other side of her biological family, did this weakness have to be the thing she got from me? So to see her do something so difficult and foreign is a pleasure, even if I do have to buy her new pants more often.

The Way Things Should Be

So, don't excommunicate me for turning green on you, but I actually started subscribing to treehugger's feed, and while a lot of their stuff is WAY too out there for me, I found this posting on Christian environmentalists to be pretty cool (Be sure to follow the link through to the Christianity Today article). Billy and I went to a marriage class recently, and the guy teaching it used his platform to insist that Christians should be leading the way with environmental protection.

Typically, environmentalists are painted by Christians to be nature-worshiping heathens. They care about the earth because they are scared of death and they grasp so tightly to this huge rock because it's all they think we have. Well, no, it's not all we have, but shouldn't we take care of it anyway? Perhaps we can't believe in both Revelation and the depletion of our resources, but does that mean that we should trash it with our obscene SUV emissions? Or worse yet, does that mean that we need to alienate ourselves from yet another segment of the population?

Think about this quote from the post and the Christianity Today article: "I grew up thinking: 'environment, liberal, bad.' "

First of all, is that really how Christians should view the earth? Shouldn't we be thinking, "Environment, Gift of God, Respect it"?

But worse, to me, are the implications of the relationship fracture that this quote points to. How many Christians think this way? And how many "bad environmental liberals" think something similar? Something like, "Christian, selfish, bad." Does God want us to look like the rest of the world driving SUVs and consuming, consuming, consuming; or does He want us to be a good example, being healthy stewards of both our money AND our resources?

So, anyway, I'm not saying that we have to fall in the spectrum of Sheryl Crow and other hypocrite liberals, but I do think that the real, everyday environmentalists, like this green blogger, are often doing a better job at being a peculiar people than we are.