It's been so long since I've been to my own blog that when I typed in the address last night, my browser didn't even pretend to recognize the URL. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but it isn't a good feeling.
The head cold that grabbed my daughter Wed. seems to have finally grabbed me. Sigh. I thought maybe I had successfully dodged this one.
It's cold now. Frost. So, if you know me, you know I'm in mourning. I think I'd be able to escape most of the winter blues each year if it weren't for Christmas. No rant this time, just an observation.
You know what I do with most of my time? I read. Not for me- for my daughter. Yes, we have school and that takes the majority of my time. I clean and cook and garden and do taxi service to soccer or basketball and violin and the grocery and whatever and manage church music, but mostly it feels like I read. There's the school reading (I read everything she reads for school), and then there's the preview reading. Our ritual goes like this: we go to the library where my 12 year old picks about a dozen books from the young adult section. I quickly scan them and usually reject at least one before we check out. After we get home I run all the titles past Common Sense Media. Sometimes there's a hit and that helps a lot. I don't always agree with their age recommendations, but their breakdown of content is useful. Next I do a Google search on parental reviews for the other titles. This usually turns up one or two helpful reviews. The reviews don't necessarily mean I won't preview the book, but I have a general idea about it. After yesterday's library stop, I'm left with just 6 books to pre-read, which is less than usual. (I vetoed two and approved several already.) It isn't just the reading. It's also the constant questioning about how much sexual, violent, dark, pessimistic content is too much for a 12 year old who reads almost as well as I do. It's exhausting, but it's worth it. I know that I won't have a kid I can nurture for long and that when we get beyond this point I can read anything I want and I'll wish more than anything that I had a few books to preview for her. So that's what I do.
I'm going through one of my phases about church again. If you've been reading here (and actually came back--thank you), you know that it's a cycle with me. Tolerate church. Don't tolerate church. I'm in the don't spectrum right now. Probably has to do with cold weather, but there are some other things too. Now Ruby is in the youth group and, while she never felt she belonged in the children's ministry, she does feel like she belongs in the youth. That's important. She has needed it. So when I think about flying the coup, I stop. I still think some other things, though, and they're unsettling. We still lead music. Seven and a half years is a long time to do any job you began thinking that it was a temporary volunteer position-- if we thought anything at all. I'm not really sure we did think anything, really. We were asked, and we knew we could, and so we said okay. That was it.
How are you?
