Take Angst or Take Joy ~ That is the question

My friend, Sheila over at A Season of Harvest had this to share. I loved her post, all of it. Go read it! Now!

We often think of angst as a sort of "anxiety" or grappling and anguishing over something, unable to come up with answers. In German, "angst" means "fear." Very interesting, eh?

Are you choosing joy with a flair, or angst??


Javamom

Katie asked...

What is on the front of the Eugene Field book? So I'll add two more photos, before and after, because it is rather sweet ~

Plutarch and Eugene Field ~ finished (well, a little fine-tuning left on the insides)!

~ I love this job ~

Poetic Knowledge is in

Just wanted to let a certain Queenly friend (of the exclusive "H3" group) know that I received my copies of Poetic Knowledge: The Recovery of Education by James S. Taylor and The Christian Imagination edited by Leland Ryken via free shipping and UPS today. Just so she knows. So we can get together over a chai latte with our girls and discuss at least one of them...like she said we would...

Looking forward to dipping my toes into it tonight, even though it's past midnight.


Javamom

The Alfred E. Smith Charity Dinner pt. 2

Thanks to Mrs. Happy Housewife and Donna-Jean for coming to my rescue (read: I ran out of time and patience with both my computer-Windows problems- and my dial-up connection, and didn't want to be online anymore) with good links to add to my first post about this historic dinner in honor of Alfred E. Smith.

Mrs. Happy Housewife explains more about the historic dinner here, complete with links and video clips.

Donna-Jean also has video clips on her site.

Thanks again, ladies!

~ Javamom ~

The Alfred E. Smith Benefit Dinner

Did any of you see / hear this event? I bet it's up on You Tube by now. How refreshing it is to see the two candidates in this light, instead of what we have had to listen to (spin) on the main stream media outlets, or the fearful tones of the scary e-mails being sent to you and me and everyone.

Both candidates were very, very funny, poking fun at themselves and roasting each other a bit. They were a lot more humble and seemed pretty genuine. I wish more campaigns could be run on humility. Ah, well, I can dream, can't I?

Lightening up the tone of the campaign (any campaign, really) is just what the doctor ordered.

I'm looking for a link to post, but most of them only give a brief snippet, not even half the story, so they lost much by not being more thorough...or purposefully not being more complete and inclusive.

Too bad.

Javamom

Simple Joys From this past week

~ The colors of Autumn, my favorite time of year (sneezes and all). In texas, these are some of the only red and orange growing things so far. I also have orange zinnias and marigolds. The leaves usually wait to turn until November-early-December.





~ Finishing up another book restoration for a friend

~ Reading about Literature with our youngest son, knowing that he is finally getting it!

~ Watching "Iron Man" with the boys

~ Playing a Spanish vocab game with our 17 yo daughter, helping 15 yo son with his Spanish homework

~ Helping teenager number three to learn how to drive!



~ Working with Hubby in the veggie garden; the sweet potatoes that are bigger than my foot! We have three more mounds of these to dig.





~ Thrift store finds that help make a house an organized, warm home. This piece was so unbelievably cheap and completely needed and useful. Cash only, baby ;-)





~ Talking to our oldest son in Omaha by phone, cause I miss our long conversations sometimes

~ Cooking cool-weather foods now that Autumn is settling in (*Winter Squash Soup and White Chicken Chili, just to name two of our favorites)

~ Teaching Spanish to my kids and their friends

~ Cooking for my kids' best, closest friends

~ Fresh ground, fresh-brewed coffee

~ hot chocolate with peppermint syrup

~ Making plans to help hurricane victims

~ Helping Hubby by working his after-school program this week while he is leading a freshman class trip.

~ Seeing my old, best girlfriend while at the school...she teaches there now in the lower school.

~ Planning for an art show with my kiddos and their best friends

~ I'm loving our schedule this fall. It is just about as perfect as it can be, just busy enough but not so crazy or stressful with wildly changing hours. We have plenty of room (margin built into the schedule) to have friends over, breathe, and live.

~ Since This is our daughter's Senior year and Hubby's life is so much more complicated than in all his years (18 now) of working and leading at the same school, it is more important than ever to make home a relaxing and inspiring haven to make every moment we all get together count, maximizing our time as much as we can. We do not regret any choices we had to make to accomplish this atmosphere of home and hospitality for ourselves and others. This is an important season.

How is your Autumn turning out? Any special blessings or plans? Leave me a comment and tell me about some of them.

Ciao for now,

Javamom

multi-partisan families? I'd like to hear from you

Bi-partisan and multi-partisan families, I want to hear from you!


I vote on a regular basis, even in primaries, and I like to follow politics and issues on a fairly regular basis, but I don't like to write political posts and I'll tell you why:


~ I am an idealist and no party offers very much of what I long for

read: Jesus was neither a republican nor a democrat

~ I am a life-long learner and student of history

~ Politics, parties, and people get painted with too broad a brush far too often, and a lack of human compassion follows shortly thereafter.

~ When the discussion devolves into name calling (and you can see/hear it from all sides) I shut it off and out, because purpose and plain facts and voting records are being ignored.

~ I live in a large, bipartisan...actually more like a multi-partisan family. I rather thrive on the things and ideals that unite instead of the things that divide us. I also love hearing the good points from all sides of a discussion or issue. I will not shut someone off if they don't agree with me on an issue. I like to hear reasoned, calm discussion. I believe in the ability of people to agree to disagree while still maintaining a friendship. The problem is, very few people are actually taught how to pull this off without becoming angry, offended, judgmental, and etc.

~ My studies (which will forever be unfinished, but not unfocused) of history, religions, denominations, languages, literature, art, classics, philosophies of education, even practical trades can all be categorized under anthropology. I have come to think that perhaps this has muddied the political waters for me. This does make it much easier to vote for each person on an individual basis instead of along party lines, but it makes my job to research all the candidates more important (and more time-consuming) than if I simply vote along party lines and platforms.

~ writing about this open-mindedness...being an independent thinker and sometimes undecided voter, or whatever *you* may call it, could add a wedge in relationships with either friends or family.

~Terminology is loaded on all sides. Folks define words differently and claim a word or ideal as their own party's "pet" project or platform.

There are other reasons, but I think this list is reflective enough of what I'm trying to say.

My point for this post? I want to hear from people living in bipartisan and multipartisan families about what makes your family work. I don't even know if there are that many in my networks...I guess I will find out (I hope...people tend to be very shy and skittish about this, if it exists in their homes). If my regular readers know of family or friends who would qualify, please send them my way. If I don't hear from anyone, then I just have not been able to find the audience, yet. I did a google search and literally came up with just two or three sites with similar topics. Not a large audience.

So I will try word-of-mouth of my friends and readers. I would love to stir up some support! Tell me (if you don't mind being open about it) about your bipartisan or multipartisan family...the positive things that come out of your relationships and differing thoughts and opinions on politics and beliefs. I could tell you some of the ways our family discusses and juggles, or chooses to keep part of the discussion simple, so as not to overwhelm the younger ones in the family, or those who don't like controversy at all.

But today, this weekend, I'd like to hear from others on their successes.


(an aside: Yes, those who don't like controversy need to learn how to handle it, but we don't want to provoke the wrong things. We have learned the need to take a gentle, more subtle approach most of the time, or we will end up frustrating those and planting quite different seeds than we would like).

I love my family and extended family, have learned so much and been so pleasantly surprised many times in these open discussions. It is all very fascinating (and only sometimes a little tense).

My final thought: A mountain has many sides, angles, inclines, valleys and hidden caves and trails. We cannot really know the mountain by observing it from only one vantage point or from a flat picture. I think Charlotte Mason said something similar to this thought in Volume three...I will have to dig that up...


Sincerely,

Javamom

Garden photos

I accidentally knocked one of the big green tomatoes off the vine the other day, but it should ripen. The romas are amazing. I picked 30 more yesterday and gave another dozen to our fireman neighbor. We have a ton! Time to make more salsa :-)

Fall garden ~ October 1st

Habañeros

Sweet potato vine-age and herbs, peppers in back and corners. Tomatoes in the middle.

Fall Serrano peppers

three of the five tomato plants

One of the roma plants

two roma plants, purple cabbage, sw. potato vineage and marigolds

Other views of Tomato Row


Zinnias at sunset on the deck