Retreat!

What comes to mind when you hear the word retreat? The word has quite a few meanings, and exactly what it means to you most likely will depend on your life experiences. If you are a spiritual person, you may think of time away from everyday life to pray and meditate. If you have a military background, maybe it's a withdrawal of troops you think of.

My Sunday school class is currently doing a study on Moses, and today we had a good discussion on the concept of personal retreat and rest. Our discussion stemmed from an instance of Moses' dependence on his brother, Aaron, and their companion, Hur, to do something for him that he was too weary to do himself: keep his hands up in the air.

See, Moses was in command of the "rod of God" (Exodus 17:9), and as long as he held it in the air, his tribe, the Israelites, could gain military advantage over their current adversary, the Amalekites. But whenever Moses lowered his hands, the Amalekites gained the advantage. Moses had a lot on him as leader of the Israelites, both physically and emotionally, so it should be no surprise that, somewhere along the way, he would be worn down to the point of not being able to support the God-empowered rod/staff on his own.

Later in this same book of Exodus, Moses takes his tent and relocates it far off from the camp of his people and names it the "tabernacle of meeting" (33:7). Here was his place for face-to-face time with God—a place far off from the hustle and bustle of all the things that could wear him down. I'm no bible scholar, but I like to think that Moses learned that, to be an effective leader and to eventually get the Israelites to their promised land, he very much needed rest and retreat.

The same is true for each of us. One friend in the discussion this morning talked about how he had disciplined himself to rise at 4:00 each morning to have his quiet time to pray and watch the sky turn during this "mystical time." A spiritual retreat can be as simple as that. We don't have to go to some remote location (although it can be wonderful to have the opportunity to do that once in a while). A retreat can be time spent with friends whom you trust completely. It can be an evening to yourself. It can be a good talk with your kid. It can definitely be time consciously spent with God.

But the most important thing about a retreat is that it has to be. It will most likely not happen on its own (but it's not impossible!) because we get ourselves all wrapped up in busy. Work. Raising a family. Technological distractions. And so on.

I invite you to join me in carving out some time in our busy lives for rest and retreat, be it in your man cave, your bathroom, your office, at the crack of dawn, late at night—the place and time are not important. What matters is that we disconnect ourselves from the everyday hassles long enough to count our blessings, give thanks, confess, share with our creator, whatever is on our hearts. 

How will you retreat?

Let there be worms!

This spring I started reading Composting Inside and Out by Stephanie Davies. It was a free Kindle download that has forever changed my thinking about trash, gardening, and our earth's soil.

The book features 14 different composting methods, one of which is composting with worms, or vermiculture. As a mother of three little boys, I was immediately drawn to this method and, in turn, purchased a worm bin and a pound and a half of red wigglers. I guess my boys are still too young to share my fascination with the amazing work of the Eisenia foetida, but I'm hoping that they will in time.

I now keep a couple of large coffee cans on the kitchen counter to collect the worm food—almost any food scraps that are not meat or dairy. And each day I take off the lid of my bin to check on my little worms. Actually, some of them are now quite large! I'm amazed by how much stuff they can eat through in just a few days and how much they poop! And the poop is what it's all about, as it is full of nutrients that plants just love.

I have to admit that I murdered my first pound and a half of worms—inadvertently, of course. I overfed them (a common mistake) and left them out on the porch in the southeast Georgia heat for a week while we were on vacation. We returned to a smelly maggoty bin of dead worms. After cleaning up that horrible mess and giving myself a few weeks to recover from that stench, I now have a new crop of worms. Only this time I carefully ration out their vittles and keep the bin indoors where the temperature is much more temperate. (All was not lost with those worms that gave their lives for my initial experimentation, however. My plants have never looked healthier!)

Since my family creates more kitchen waste than the wigglers can eat, I've started a compost pile in the woods at the edge of our yard. I like that I am returning our food waste to the earth. And maybe, just maybe, I'll have a decent crop of something next year with all the compost!

Is your bathroom sink nastier than your toilet?

 In September of 2010, I was seven months pregnant with baby boy #3. Because of this pregnancy, I was hospitalized for a staph infection. In the course of my four days of being intravenously pumped full of antibiotics, test results indicated that the infection was MRSA—in my mind, the mother of all staff infections. That result launched my identity as a germaphobe!

 Since my stint in the hospital, my vigilance to eradicating harmful germs and bacteria in the home has slackened somewhat. Okay, a lot. But to this day, hydrogen peroxide is my primary household cleaner. I keep a spray bottle of it in the kitchen and bathrooms. To me, there is something very satisfying about the fizzing and foaming that you get with peroxide. As a nine-year-old girl, I remember my fascination with the way my newly pierced earlobes would foam up when I cleaned them with a peroxide-drenched cotton ball. I never got over that fascination.

In fact, the first time I sprayed the fixtures on one of my sinks and saw the surprisingly large amount of resulting foam, I couldn't wait to spray down the toilet and see all the foam that THAT surely would produce!

However, I was sorely disappointed. When, for the first time, I sprayed down the toilet in our hall bathroom, which is primarily used by little boys—very messy little boys, no foam. Nothing. And you can't tell me that, with three male toilet users in my home, my toilets are cleaner than my sinks! I've done a little poking around to figure out why my toilets won't fizz and have only determined that apparently something builds up on my sinks (and doesn't build up on my toilets) that reacts with the peroxide. My guess is that it is saliva related.

Do me a little favor, would you? Try this experiment in your home with a spray bottle of peroxide. If you have different results than mine, please let me know.

Oh, and if you are interested in the different uses of hydrogen peroxide, Google it. Turns out that I'm not the only one out there with a somewhat strange obsession with what causes peroxide to fizz.

Holidays=lazy days?

Happy New Year! Hope you all had a holiday season that wasn't too terribly hectic. At the very least, I hope you were able to slow down enough to enjoy what Christmas and the new year are all about.

Somehow, I found myself in a lazy-day state of mind this year when it came to the holidays. But it wasn't my usual bah humbug attitude toward the megaconsumerism of the holidays that slowed me down. No, this year what slowed me down was my desire to drink in every second of what makes the holidays special.

Primarily that involved time with my kiddos. I sat my happy butt down on the couch for way more children's shows than I care to watch. Sure, I could have spent that time working or getting chores done around the house, but there's nothing special about that time. It can't be compared to my two-year-old's kisses or the crazy antics of my four-year-old. The thought of it ten years from now won't give me a happy, warm feeling.

However, I will fondly remember being at home with three sweet little boys, eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate as we watched Christmas programs on TV, including a favorite I grew up with, "Emmett Otter's Christmas." I'll remember the boys' seeming inability to get enough of me (gotta enjoy THAT while it lasts!). Their cuddles and happy faces in the glow of the Christmas tree light. Their excitement over wrapping up things they made in pre-school to give to their grandparents. I'll remember my one-year-old wallowing and drooling all over me when I lay down on the living room floor.

And even though I did succeed in meeting my work deadline, my house is a wreck, my Christmas cards went out late, and I did not once write an entry in this blog. That's OK. I won't remember those things anyway. But I do hope that this upcoming Christmas I'll be able to once again focus on what is important. Because it sure was nice.

No Such Thing as Trash

I am sitting with my two-year-old watching The Wonder Pets. "What's gonna work?" Well, in addition to teamwork, on this particular episode it's recycling. Giving things a new purpose is one of my favorite concepts, and as a result I have found myself collecting all kinds of trash. Except it won't be trash for long: Soon it will be art!

My oldest son's pre-K teacher inspired the idea when she sent home a note asking parents to bring in plastic bottle tops for an upcoming art project for the students. So, I started my bottle top collection. But soon I thought to myself, "Hey, why not save the tops to other containers as well?" Surely some creative pre-school or elementary teacher in my area can find a fun use for them.

My middle son's pre-school teacher collects magazines to use in helping her students learn to use scissors. So I save magazines for this purpose. And cardboard tubes left over from toilet paper and paper towels rolls for any crafty person in my area who might have a need for them. You can find these people on The Freecycle Network. Back when my boys were eating baby food, I saved the jars and lids, not knowing what I was going to do with them but hating to throw them out because they had to be good for something. After a quick post to my local Freecycle, I almost immediately discovered that a local Boy Scout troup had an ongoing need for them.

And more recently I've begun collecting aluminum can tabs. And cut-out tops and bottoms from tin cans (the circular part cut out with a can opener). These are for some anticated craft projects of my own. If you live close to me, I would greatly appreciate your saving these tabs and circles for me.

I think it may be true that there really is no such thing as trash!

Can aluminum can tabs REALLY save lives?

I'm a believer in creating as little trash as reasonably possible: I recycle. I donate items to charity and/or consign them. I save empy toilet paper and paper towel rolls to give to a my children's preschool for crafts projects. And, as I wrote yesterday, I reuse worn-out cloth items by cutting them into rags. But what about aluminum can tabs? Can they really be redeemed for dialysis and cancer treatments?

Of course not. If they could, wouldn't we ALL have a big collection of them? I mean, who wouldn't want to take part in saving the life of a family member, friend, or a friend of a friend of a friend? The fact of the matter, according to Snopes, is that the tabs have no more scrap metal value than the rest of the can. (One hundred tabs = approximately 3.5 cents scrap metal value).

So, these tabs do have a little value but not much. Is it at all worthwhile to collect them? According to the Ronald McDonald House Charities website, some local RMH chapters collect them and sell them to recycling centers them to help offset costs for families who use the Houses. If by chance you have a stash of tabs or are interested in collecting them, call your local RMHC chapter to see if they accept tabs.

You might wonder why they accept the tabs but not the whole can. After all, it seems that more aluminum would mean more money to raise. It's actually a matter of sanitation. Those empty cans can get kind of nasty after a few weeks in a plastic bag. Tabs, on the other hand, are easier to store and don't get stinky after sitting around for a while. It really has nothing to do about the tabs being made of a purer form of aluminum than the rest of the can (again, according to Snopes).

But if you are feeling especially creative and productive, do a Google image search for aluminum tab crafts. There are some really cool ideas out there! I wish I had thought of them.

Bag the Rags!

One of my favorite possessions is an old mesh bag of rags. The bag itself belonged my grandmother, whom I called Mimi. My mom has childhood memories of when Mimi took this bag with her to the grocery store to carry home her purchases.

Eventually, this forerunner of today's cloth shopping bags became the household "rag bag." It collected remnants of dingy bath towels and threadbare nightgowns (Mimi never got rid of anything until it had outlived its usefulness.) that would be reused to dust the house or wax the car. I discovered the rag bag in a closet in Mimi's apartment after she passed away and took it as my own.

I had my own memories of some of the articles those rags were taken from. Others were from WAY before my time, but they all had her smell, her softness, and I considered the bag to be a sacred relic. My husband likes to tease me about the time I got mad at him for using some of Mimi's rags to clean up a greasy mess after working on the car. It's true. I was and still am very protective of those rags.

I am a bit more lenient now, though. I've since added my own contributions to the bag: stained baby burp cloths, swatches cut from tattered pajama pants, and so on. I use these rags to clean house and wipe up the numerous messes and spills that come with having three little boys. And I always, ALWAYS wash them after I use them and return them to the bag so I can clean up the next mess.

At the bottom of the bag, however, remain Mimi's remnants. They are not to be touched, for they serve as an inspiration to me---to use well the things I have and, when possible, to repurpose the things I no longer need.