How to give more and make less

Some good friends and James and I were talking last 2 weeks ago about giving, and about how God's call to be generous givers plays out in our daily lives, budgeting plans, etc.

I was inspired by a video story of Alan Barnhart that our friend Brian sent out for all of us to view in advance.  I've heard of the idea of a salary cap, or a "finish line," as Alan Barnhart calls it. I think I remember reading about it in a book by Ron Sider in college; if I recall, a salary cap was one of Sider's suggested strategies for making giving a way of life. That is, for sure, what Barnhart's story demonstrates is possible.

As I watched the video, I was really struck by Barnhart's example, and by how much he and his family have been able to give and accomplish. I also found myself thinking--wow--I wish I made your salary cap! Just being honest... Maybe it's being a church worker, maybe it's living in California where the cost of living is so high that the same amount gets you half the distance. (I know, we live in a paradise, but still, it does have its challenges.)

But as I tried to think about how we would practically put that in place even in our salary ranges, should we decide to, I got a little stymied. How would we decide how much we would need? How would we adjust for any future kids we might have? How/should we plan to adjust for inflation? Where do savings, retirement, and college funds fit in?

I did really like Barnhart's observation that they were able to prevent their children from experiencing the hardships of growing up rich. I really appreciated that way of thinking about it. Jesus did say it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to put their stock first in the kingdom of heaven...
I'm curious if anybody out there has any specific tools or worksheets to suggest how to work though these questions?

And at the same time, I already find myself bumping up against my own internal resistance. I grew up feeling like I couldn't ask my parents for new clothes even though mine didn't fit right. I always tried to order the cheapest item on the menu at restaurants so that I wouldn't place stress on my parents' pocketbooks. I grew up feeling like we weren't really poor, but we weren't really comfortable, either. My parents helped to pay for college when I was in it, but I had no college fund. I always thought things would be different once I got older, and I don't like the idea of feeling financially strapped. I want to have margins. I want a buffer between me and inability to provide for our kids. Right now we don't have a very big one, and it already makes me nervous sometimes. At the same time, I also don't feel the need to work full time while the kids are little or decide not to have any more kids simply because we might be a little less comfortable in the process of providing. Hmm. Even using that word makes me think--do I really believe that God is the one providing for me, and for the kids?
I feel challenged about this. I'm glad this group of friends is going to be continuing this conversation through the summer months. My prayer today is that I will care more about being financially obedient to God and compassionate toward others than about being financially comfortable. I'm not there yet. But I pray that it can become my internal posture.

Reading while nursing... and other motherhood joys

My second son is now 3 months old, and I can't believe the time has flown the way it has! First off, I'll say that people weren't kidding about things being more than 2x harder with two kids than with one. It's not that I actually know how to factor and compare the challenges... but I'm definitely more tired, and feel like I'm learning a complicated dance between two very different developmental stages. All this, and my two-year old feels like he's had a partial personality transplant. Sometimes it feels temporary, and I chalk it up to adjustment. But sometimes I wonder if I'll ever see that little boy again! I am hopeful, though, that his joys with having a brother with whom to grow up and share his life experiences will more than compensate. I know my joys at having both my little boys help me to accept the inevitable changes.
One of the things that I had forgotten from my first's infancy is how much time I end up spending sitting, with a nursing baby on me. At times he alternates sleeping with nursing--at times he is only sleeping because he's nuzzled up next to me! But in any case, I have some more time to either catch up on television watching (hello, Downton Abbey and Revenge, nice to make your acquaintance) or read. Little A's first three months have been opportunities to read some light fiction--Sarah Addison Allen novels, The Hunger Games trilogy--and some parenting and marriage books.
I have made two amazingly helpful "discoveries." The first is the series of Positive Discipline books, which are extremely helpful for developing a long view of parenting in the middle of the daily grind of raising small children. Astoundingly enough, I often found my reading of Positive Discipline for 1-3 Year Olds to be as enjoyable as the novels I was reading. The stories of the families and the illustrations from lives of other toddlers have been inspiring as I try to cope with my darling 2 year old's first forays into highly frustrating behavior. And I found myself experimenting with some of the techniques and ideas right away. Now, if only one of the suggestions had been about how to deal with your toddler screaming at meals and other times just to bug you and stop conversation...
The second has been the book "How We Love" and its partner, "How We Love Our Kids."Okay, I haven't really started reading the second, but just reading the first has been helping me think more clearly about how I love my kids. How We Love is a marriage book based on 5 different attachment styles. The goal of the book is to help people of each attachment style to move closer to a secure attachment styles and maximize the intimacy in one's marriage. It's been rather eye-opening for me, as it's given me a way to explain to my husband some of the reasons why I feel how I feel about us fighting, or him disconnecting.  Overall, it's given us both really helpful ways to work on some of the troubles that ail our relationship. I'm so glad for each of them.

Resisting the Urge...

This season, I find myself needing to exercise a little extra self-control on many fronts.
I need to eat a little less of these sweets that are ubiquitous and that my pregnant body seems to be craving. Maybe if I go for a few more vegetables, I will already be full...
I need to pass up the fast food places that seem so convenient and easy and untiring when I'm feeling busy and a little extra tired.
I need to stop myself from buying one more gift for little B, or new little baby--who's not even here--even though I saw the cutest little thing and he would love it and I would smile to watch and look it's even made with untreated natural wood...
I need to be realistic with how many homemade gifts I plan to make, and its list of recipients. I feel my ambition and crafty nesting hormones leading me astray. Homemade caramel syrup for B's church nursery leaders, raw sugar body scrub for friends, cloth books for niece and nephew, some cloth diaper bag nametags for friends, a knitted scarf for someone I haven't decided. Tomorrow I may think of more. Then when it comes time to execute, I'm more tired than I expected and begin the inevitable delaying that will kill my plans, or leave me up late at night in the days before I plan to give the gifts.
I need to refrain from mentally (or even verbally) criticizing others for how they approach the holidays and all of its consumer temptations. Maybe this is the hardest one, because it feels so subtle to switch from thinking about what I really value more than all the stuff to then thinking not-so-kindly about how others might seem to be emphasizing stuff. But honestly, it is because it is so hard for me to keep my mind on what it most important that I find it hard to be gentle and compassionate with how all the sales and temptations are tripping others up. I find myself wanting to update my own "Christmas list" far too often, even though I know that I will only get a few gifts, and that is how I've set it up purposely! I think about how I'm only going to get a few gifts, so I want them to be the things that I really need or want rather than random. Yet really, that is not what I want my Christmas season to center around.

I need my heart set on things above.
I need to daily remember Jesus, and the fact that Christmas proclaims that he came and stayed and is here with us.
I need carry his presence with me in such a way that I can gently and humbly invite others to experience his presence and life among us. That I can not be a further cause of stress and hurry and anxious expectations.
I need gratitude for the beauty that already is present without me or anyone else having to work to produce it.

Some Little Things

I've been saving up ideas... little things I'm trying to do to conserve, or be conscientious with resources, or rely more on natural items.

And tonight I am SO EXCITED!
it is a small thing to be so excited about. But BAKING SODA WORKS! So well! I used it tonight to scrub my bathroom sink, which was sadly neglected with layers of soap scum other things I don't want to think about. And the drain was a little slow to drain. Since we don't have draino, and I didn't really want to go to the effort of snaking the thing, I decided to try a little trick I read about somewhere. Apparently, if you transfer the elementary-school volcano experiment with baking soda and vinegar into your drain, it can help to clear out gunky slowdowns. I got everything together, then figured I might as well scrub my sink bowl while I was at it. IT WAS SO EASY. I've been pretty skeptical with all the suggestions I've read that baking soda paste would be able to clean my sink as easily as my Soft Scrub, or even the old Comet I used to use. I was pretty hesitant to even think of giving SS up. And now, I'm over it! Not only was it just as quick to clean--maybe even a little quicker--but I could do it with my bare hands and not be anxious about anything getting on my clothes, or any residue that might find its way somewhere undesirable (like brown towels, etc.) Baking soda is my new best scrubbing friend!! And then I dumped the rest of my little ramekin-full down my drain, and followed it up with some vinegar, and left it for about 10 minutes. (In that time, I actually went and Soft-Scrubbed my sink, just to compare, and it really took a little more scrubbing with the bleachy stuff...in my rubber gloves, with a burning sensation where a little got on my arm anyway.) Another little shot of vinegar, and then some hot water down the drain... it's going much better. Now mind you, I don't think it has dissolved whatever strands of hair might be caught in there--let's be realistic--but it has helped with whatever else was slowing it down.
That was what I just had to share tonight. Baking soda is the best!

Another small thing I thought about was how to minimize my Amazon boxes. I love Amazon. I can order things that I can't find in stores near me, and I can get stuff we need while Beckett is sleeping. I don't know how moms were moms before it. No, I do. I remember my mom having midnight shopping trips to Safeway with a huge list. That's how. I'm grateful for another way. But I don't have a good reuse for all the boxes, and I'm not satisfied with just tossing them in the recycling (though paper recycling seems to be some of the best that we have, in terms of recycling.) I have, however, figured out that if I just check one little box, I can often eliminate one or more extra boxes. It's the box that says "Group my items in as few shipments as possible" as opposed to the automatic "Ship my items as soon as possible."  And really, since I have free Prime thru Amazon Mom (again, how amazing is this website?!), I don't have to worry about things taking too forever to get here.

Also, just bought some beeswax crayons for Beckett to start playing with drawing. There are apparently not that many natural crayon companies out there, and the ones that are can be hard to find. Even the little Palo Alto toystore that I like to go to for safer toy items had nothing other than Crayola. Seriously, who has a monopoly? But anyway, I found some recommendations online, and then found that Amazon had Stockmar crayon blocks. We just got them today. I'm eager to have him try them... I'll try to follow up about how they work. Apparently they are supposed to be a little like watercolors, where they can be layered in a way that regular wax crayons can't be. Hmm.
All right, I think that's all for tonight. I know it's been a while. Is anyone still reading anyway?

Clean Smelling Paint

James is so good at reminding me of things. Some time ago he told me I should really write about our interior house paint, suggesting that it may have really been the first instance for my interest in health and ecology making a significant change in something that we bought. He's probably right.
We moved into our house about two years ago now. When we moved in, everything was painted the same light cream color, almost white but not quite. And I am a lover of color in my home. So I quickly went to work picking out swatches of color and posing them next to our furniture, artwork, and curtains to see if it would complement them. But I also looked a little into what type of paint that we should buy. I had heard or read recently about how the inside air of homes is often much more polluted than outside air, between 2 and 5 times more. Funnily enough, my memory was saying that it was nearer ten or fifteen times--what does this say about my home's stuffy air?! Glad I looked that up. Among the major contributors to indoor air pollution: paint.

Thus, before I bought gallons of stuff to slather all over our walls, I checked our options. Sadly, of course, the cheapest paints were high polluters. They not only contribute to poor air quality, but they also are more toxic for the environment in their production and when they have to be thrown away. Yet there were a number of companies that had begun to sell more lung-friendly options for just a little higher than their traditional lines. Home Depot has Freshaire paint, which has mostly soft toned colors. Kelly Moore had Enviro Cote (which I think I read was often used for hospitals--that means awesome colors, baby!). Then there's Mystic Paint, which I have only seen online.

In the end, we opted for Benjamin Moore Natura paint, which is a no-VOC paint that comes in most colors that the company offers. I loved that I was able to choose colors just as vibrant and rich (not an option with all the lines), but healthier for us. It was a bit more than BM's regular paints, but cheaper than their AURA paint, which I remember reading was the one that Obama used to paint a government building.

The amazing thing was that when we had a painting party and rolled it rapidly onto our walls, our house was not filled with fumes. Nobody got a paint headache, and in fact, we almost forgot that we were using a product that is typically odorous. Naturally we could smell something, but it just smelled clean. People commented on it.
Two years later, I'm so glad we did it. We spent more money, but it is not a frequent purchase, so I think that the long-term gain of healthier home air is completely worth it. Touch-up painting is not a big deal smell-wise; it doesn't make me feel the need to air out the house for a week. I feel confident that the paint on our walls, at least, is not putting toxic substances into our lungs. I'm hoping to redo our baseboard and window trim painting this year, and I'm planning to buy the same kind.
We also tried one Freshaire paint for our master bath, which we planned in a more sedate color palette We have liked it, too, though I think it required more coats to look as complete.
At some point we'll have to repaint our exterior... I wonder how the more environmentally friendly exterior paints stack up?

Gardening and creating beauty: theological reflections

Lately I've been spending a lot of time in the garden. I mean, a LOT. While B's napping, when James is home on the weekends, when there is something I can do with B strapped in the Ergo on my back... It has been a lot of hard work, a good chunk of solitude, and some food for thought. I've been trying to remember to pray more, and one day I found myself praying for the plants I was planting. At first I felt a bit silly. I mean seriously, God has plenty of very important things to work on and many more significant, life-altering prayer requests at any given moment. I almost apologized. But then I felt as if God reminded me... No... I am in the business of creating beauty. So this ragged edge of my yard that I was weeding and shoveling and amending and planting and mulching--this is God's kind of thing. So I started to pray for my plants a little differently. That they would be a source of hope and joy because their beauty would lift our souls. That they would not be a way that I would try to impress others or mundanely improve the value of my house, but that I would increasingly see my work in my own soil to be a way to join Jesus in his work of redeeming the weed patches of the world and making them fruitful gardens.
Now, this is not to say that I think that this will be the majority of my contribution to the world. But it's a small way that I can serve my family, and the people we invite into our home, because I am working to create more beauty to fill their lives. And my own.
This morning I was reminded of all this by an excerpt I read:
"As each one of us enters into the deeper places through contemplation, we come to see ourselves in our truest being, at the Source of our being in God. We come to see ourselves each moment coming forth from our Source, and not only ourselves but all others with us. By the intuition of the Spirit we come to know our solidarity with all being. This cannot but lead to compassion--compassion for our fellow humans who are one with us in our Source.... Moreover, we will know that oneness and compassion with the rest of creation that is the source of good stewardship and a true ecology." From M. Basil Pennington in Living with Apocalypse ed. by Tilden H. Edwards, in A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God.
The quote was only secondarily about stewardship and ecology, (caring for people comes first!), but it resonated with me and reminded me of my blog. I think the best ecological action is founded on love of the God who made the world and desire to take care of things as he does. Otherwise it is so easy to fall into fear-based thinking about what our unsound ecology will do to the future, or to let being "greener" simply be another way of trying to outdo our neighbors with our self-regarding virtue. Neither of those is enough. I don't think they can or ought to sustain themselves for very long. They have no real life in them, and end when my fear shifts to something else or when I am not as impressively green as someone else. But if I find my life in Christ, and then can promote the life and well-being of others and of the creation, then I see no dead-ends. I think God will keep giving me energy and joy to care.

New Year, new car...

I haven't had as much time for blogging as I would have wished recently. Instead, I've been spending a lot of time online gathering information and ideas for getting a new (to us) car. Our New Year's Day was a little more exciting, though a little less fun, than we had hoped. We were in a car accident. We are all okay. In fact, Beckett came out with not even a bruise. I had and still have some lingering whiplash--not in my neck, but in my upper back. James has a sore shoulder. It was kind of crazy, and only about a mile from our house, on a surface street. A lady was coming around a curve... and she didn't turn. She ploughed into us. Our car was totaled. We made a visit to the ER.
But I'm getting off my real subject. We're all okay. But we need a car now, and I'm even more committed to having something safe for us. We're looking at a few different options, with the help of a few of my favorite online resources... Edmunds for car reviews. I especially like the true cost to own feature, which estimates the cost of gas, depreciation, maintenance, etc. for the first five years. Kelley Blue book for checking the prices that people are asking for private sales of used cars. Carfax for getting the history of a specific vehicle and recommendations for how close that vehicle should be to the blue book price. Oh, and I almost forgot: Safercar to look up the government five star safety ratings on any given vehicle. I just wish they had a search feature where you could search by number of stars--I had to put together my own list of all the used car models that are five stars for front and side impacts. I wish they could have done it for me. (The new 2011 rating system is different, with an overall rating now, also. But even then, I don't think there is a way to search for only the five star, or five and four star vehicles.)  And even after all these resources, it's still a crazy decision, with so many variables, at least for people who don't just have 20,000 to drop here and there. :)
So wish me luck!