The Pile I'm Standing In

School’s out!

It’s my first summer without full time child care planned, and I’m as fresh and hopeful as Frodo leaving the shire with his little buddies to see a mountain about a ring. Who knows what kind of Gollum I’ll turn into by the end of August, but right now I’m happy about all the things!

Part of my summer plan involved self-directed activities for the kids in the morning while I worked, then we would get out of the house in the afternoon. I thought about calling the self-directed activities something really motivating and winsome, like “Summer School” or…. “Self-Directed Activities.”

And then I read this post by Kyran.

I slapped my forehead and thought, why am I such a curmudgeon?!

*mutters under breath about summer school*

We’re officially joining the Camp Whattewedo fun!

Below is a loose routine we plan to follow:

MONDAY: Creative Projects

TUESDAY: Swimming or Park

WEDNESDAY: Library

THURSDAY: Swimming or Park

FRIDAY: Field Trip!

This is, of course, subject to change depending on where our friends or whims lead us, but I wanted the kids to know there’s a basic plan so they can quit fretting about being bored.

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If you have kids at home this summer, join me, Kyran, and others on twitter and instagram with the hashtag #WHATTAWEDO to share your summer fun, frustrations, appreciations, and inspirations. And stay tuned to Kyran’s Facebook page, where we’ll hang out and share progress (and disaster) reports weekly throughout the summer.

The kids stay up until 10:00 now, and since Ruthie wakes up around 6:30 or 7:00, they’re always awake when I am.

ALWAYS AWAKE.

This makes for a very long day of people asking me for things and/or making noise around me.

The CIA calls this Sensory Overload Torture.

Google it if you don’t believe me. You’ll see a video of my kids engaged in a conversation like this:

Thomas: Ruthie, look at this cool thing I made.

Ruthie: …

Thomas: Ruthie! Look at this cool thing I made!

Ruthie: …

Thomas: RUTHIE! LOOK AT THIS… RUTHIE!

Ruthie: …

Thomas: ***RUTHIE!***

*smack*

Ruthie: OUCH! *cries* MOOOOOOMMMMM! THOMAS IS HITTING ME!

THOMAS: I JUST WANT YOU TO LOOK AT THIS!

Ruthie: *cry-screaming* *running away from Thomas*

Thomas: RU!! THIE!!! *runs after her*

*door slams*

*banging on door*

MOM!RUTHIE!THOMAS!MOM!MOM!*bang*RUTHIE!*SLAM*MOM!*stompstompstomp*

*fade to black*

Anyway…

I usually make them go to bed at 9:00, but they can read or do something quiet as long as they stay in their room.

This works for awhile, but pretty soon their “quiet activity” turns into make-believe play, which turns into getting really wound up at 9:30, which turns into a lot of yelling about GO TO BED ALREADY WE’RE TRYING TO WATCH GAME OF THRONES.

My goal this summer is to run them so hard all afternoon that one of them falls asleep in the middle of an argument.

Which reminds me… I’m hatching a plan for my summer of juggling work and kids, partially inspired by a blogging friend. Stay tuned for the deets.

At the New Year I was inspired by Michael Hyatt’s blog to create an Ideal Week. I didn’t want it to dictate my life, but provide a little structure I could fall back on if everything got a little crazy.

Here’s what I came up with (green is work-related, pink is personal):

Click here to view in Google Docs.

After I created this, I realized my life is a lot less complicated than Michael Hyatt’s.

But even though it’s pretty straight forward, the exercise did help me realize I’m more productive with tasks in the morning and writing or focused work in the afternoon (which happens to coincide with Wine-thirty).

You’ll notice we scheduled in time to be with friends (Friday!). We had three successful weeks of dinner parties with friends, and then _________ [fill in the blank] happened and we haven’t had anyone since.

So you can see it’s not perfectly executed, but I highly recommend giving it a try. I plan to revamp mine for the summer!

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted a tattoo. In fact, I almost got one in 1996, but my friends convinced me to get my nose pierced instead.

That was a good move by my friends, because in the 90′s I would have ended up with a tattoo I created in Word Art.

Re tattoos, I typically hear opinions from two camps: Those who see it as an expression of personal art, and those who think tattoos are for people who flip burgers for a living.

If you watch this four minute documentary by our friend Mike Folden, you’ll understand exactly which camp I fall into.

It’s about a local tattoo artist named Bryan Kachel. I love his passion for creating custom art for everyday people, his views on embracing mortality through body art, and the joy he expresses about his daughter tattooing her stuffies.

That last part is especially endearing to me. If you know me in real life or follow the antics of my kids via social media, you already know how much Ruthie loves to “tattoo” herself, both with ink and stickers.

Body art may not be for you or your kids, but it’s the most carefree way I’ve seen Ruthie express herself, so I not only embrace it, I encourage it.

Like that time I helped tattoo her eyelids…

We don’t stick to this exactly or every day, but it’s a good reminder of the general plan.

Starting to love doodling a little more, though a little voice inside my head keeps telling me I’m not very good at it. I figure if I keep at it I’ll eventually get better.

This one seems awkwardly designed, but I like the general idea.

My favorite Vietnamese dish is a vermicelli bowl, also known as a Vietnamese Noodle Salad. I first had one at the now-defunct Noodle Ranch in Belltown about twelve years ago when Bryan took me there on a date. Currently the best vermicelli bowl I know of in the area can be found at Green Leaf, also in Belltown (pictured above).

Tonight we made our own version for some friends who came over, and it was a big hit! I combined two recipes – one for the marinade and one for the dressing.

This is a chilled salad, so I can’t wait to eat this all summer long!

The marinade came from a recipe here:

• 1.5 lb pork butt or shoulder, thinly sliced just under 1/4 inch or so (not too thin as you do not want it to dry out when grilled.
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tbs fish sauce
• 1 tbs ground pepper
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced (use more according to taste)
• 2-3 shallots, minced (I used green onions)
• 3 tbs sesame oil
• 1 tbs Yoshida’s (I used soy sauce & honey)
• 3 tbs roasted sesame
• flexible grilling basket or indoor grill

Combine the shallots, garlic, sugar, fish sauce, pepper, Yoshida’s, sesame oil. Add pork and marinade for at least 1-2 hours.

Grill the meat until nicely golden brown and slightly charred. Remove from grill onto platter or bowl and toss with roasted sesame.

The dressing recipe came from (here):

• 3 TBL fish sauce
• 3 TBL rice vinegar
• 2 TBL sugar
• 2 cloves garlic crushed
• 2 TBL freshly squeezed lime juice

Assembling the salad:

• cooked vermicelli noodles, cooled
• carrots, julienned
• green onions, chopped
• cucumbers, julienned
• shredded cabbage
• bean sprouts
• Basil
• Cilantro
• chopped peanuts

This is a chilled salad, so make sure the noodles are cooled. Combine ingredients in a bowl with the rice noodles on the bottom. Add the grilled pork, stir in the dressing, and eat!

Why You’ll Win In The End If You Make Character Your Career | Storyline Blog.
“You might have the most impressive ideas and work ethic in the world, but I don’t think you’ll be truly successful until you can get a handful of people around your kitchen table to say they trust you. Because regardless of our personal ambition, we need others to help us reach our full potential. No man is an island.”

Behind the Scenes of a Midlife Crisis | Conversion Diary
This post was so spot on for what I’ve been feeling lately about being 42…

“…it wasn’t until my little mid-life crisis that I realized just how much hope I placed in having options.”

9 Qualities of a Servant Leader | Leadership Insights
I read a lot of startup and leadership blogs, and the good ones always strike a cord in multiple areas of my life outside of work. This is one of those posts that shot through the heart, as the great Bon Jovi once said. As a mom, I was pretty horrified to realize I lack 8 out of 9 of these qualities. Blerg.

I found one of these signs on Pinterest but I wanted to doodle my own!

I always imagined raising a pack of boys. A lot of boys. I love the daughter I have now, of course, but before I had kids it never occurred to me I might actually have one.

Now my only experience with a pack of boys is our Cub Scout pack, and it’s delightful.

Last night we were at Golden Gardens beach to roast hot dogs and s’mores, and it was dreamy to watch them run, play, tackle, stuff their faces, and get dirty.

There’s just no drama with boys. Your hot dog falls into the fire? AWESOME! I GET TO ROAST ANOTHER ONE. You get hit in the face with a plastic shovel? AWESOME! I GET TO SPIT UNTIL THE SAND IS OUT OF MY MOUTH.

My favorite part of the night was watching the boys decode a secret message that was a clue to where the marshmallows were buried.

It took them quite awhile to dig out the canister, mostly because no one took point and delegated who would dig and who would remove dirt, and there was one kid who kept yelling EVERYONE STAND BACK, but no one listened.

I followed the example of the other parents, though, and didn’t get involved, even though I desperately wanted to take control and make it easier for them.

I realized the longer it took, the more fun it became, because the best part is the digging, the yelling, the conquest, and the well-earned victory.

Today was not a good morning.

I have a daughter whose knee-jerk response to being inconvenienced is outbursts of anger directed outward. This is unpleasant enough, but since I respond the same way, our morning ended up in a Tasmanian Devil Dance of reacting to each others’ reactions.

What is a Tasmanian Devil Dance, you ask? It looks a little like this…

It comes on fast, escalates quickly, and gets whipped into a blurred frenzy that combusts into vapors of bitterness.

Ironically, I had just read this after waking up…

We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ (Ephesians 2, MSG).

I’m such a juvenile when it comes to Ruthie’s outbursts, losing my temper and acting more like the annoyed big sister than a patient grown-up who loves unconditionally.

It’s my longing to love extravagantly, to pursue her with an incredible love, and to embrace her in the midst of her “sin-dead” attitude. But truth be told, today this feels out of reach and unattainable.

Here’s hoping tomorrow is better.

I’m a lazy parent, and also an introvert. As such, I’m inclined to let my kids watch tv all weekend just so I can have time to myself doing things that recharge me.

(By the way, what’s your tv policy? The Zuglets don’t get any tv time on school nights unless we watch something together as a family. After homework is done, of course.)

Also related to being lazy, I don’t like to clean my house. But when I do clean the house, I do it with great bitterness because all my kids do is watch tv and make a mess and they never lift a finger to do anything around here.

This is what we call a conundrum.

I’ve been quite convinced lately that in prioritizing myself as the Most Important Thing, I could possibly be turning my children into the sort of people who live in my basement and eat the Frosted Flakes I buy until they’re well into their 30′s.

At this thought, I decided to start weaning myself off the kids’ weekend tv time by first setting some ground rules about what needs to get done before they watch.

These are not unrealistic expectations, as you can see. And what I like about it, is that it removes any drama from the situation, which I tend to invite because I hate strict boundaries.

(When you have a child who tests the limits of every boundary to see what will happen, setting squishy boundaries invites LOADS of drama.)

Now I am no longer the gatekeeper to the kids’ tv time. They are their own gatekeeper.

(She said optimistically on Day One.)

Yesterday we rented a Mini from Zipcar and went on a day trip across the water to Sequim. Zipcar names all their vehicles, and it just so happens we rode The Mothership, which added a bit more kick to the adventure.

I love vacations in bite sized chunks or in extended stay stretches, like day trips and long weekends, or 3-4 week stints. Anything in the middle feels like a cruel joke, because just as I begin to unwind it’s time to pack up and leave.

The only thing that makes me feel even remotely connected to the idea of homeschooling is the ability to travel whenever we want for as long as we want. Like the time we went to California for three weeks and was later scolded by the school district for not asking permission.

We decided to explore the Dungeness Spit, which is a peninsula of land created by sediment from the nearby eroding bluffs. There are trails to walk above the beach on the bluff, a view point of the entire spit, and beach access ($3 cash for your entire group).

You can also hike out to the lighthouse, which is eleven miles round trip and takes about 4-6 hours. But since some members of my family experienced the gorgeous ocean views like the Griswolds at the Grand Canyon, we did not bother with the hike.

But I did get to experience this…

…which is all I really wanted anyway.

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Our full Flickr set is here. All photos were taken with my iPhone.

Had a great time at our first Jesus Storybook Breakfast last week. If you’d like to join us this week, please RSVP using the form below (Here’s the backstory).

We’ll start with breakfast, then read a story together, then spend some time re-interpreting the story through things like stop-motion video, comic strips, dioramas, felt boards, or anything else you can think of. We’ll have some basic art supplies available (clay, colored pencils, crayons, glue sticks, etc), but plan to bring what you need for your project.

Even though the number of people who read this blog regularly could fit in my kitchen, I still like checking my stats every now and then to see what search terms cause random web surfers to land in this space.

So… if you arrived here because you are or know an INFP and wonder if you or your loved one will ever make it out of that paper bag without getting distracted, please know this is a safe place for you.

It seems you have questions. Listed below are some common search terms leading to this post, and I hope you’ll find comfort in my answers:

Your Common Questions About Being An INFP

• logical infp (Not sure I understand.)
• are infps good at anything (YES! We can…What was the question?)
• i’m not crazy im an infp (But you SEEM crazy to 99% of the population.)
• infp disorganized (Isn’t it a beautiful mess?)
• infp irrational (WTF does that mean?!)
• infp never calls (But I INTENDED call every day.)
• infp woman in bed (The one place we finish what we start. *cough*)
• what people do infp’s belong with (The Bible calls them long-suffering.)
• shit infps say (I KNOW, RIGHT?)

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask in the comments.