Kathleen M. Basi's Blog, page 55
July 23, 2014
Meet the Treehouse
Over the Fourth of July, our family got together at my parents’ farm to build a treehouse, the look of which was designed by Alex and his cousin, and the engineering of which was puzzled out by my dad, repurposing boards from bins in the upstairs of the garage (you can see pictures of that interesting building here).
This is no wimpy treehouse. As Christian says, “It’s more like a deck in a tree.” Although there are a few finishing touches awaiting completion, Dad and the kids basically completed their work last week while I was at NPM convention. So…
Behold: the treehouse!
In case you’re wondering…the kids and I were facing my parents at the north end of the treehouse. All together, the seven of us occupied about a third of the treehouse.
Yup. My dad rocks.
July 21, 2014
Where I Spent Last Week, And What I Learned From It
I spent last week at a conference for church musicians. I want to blog about it this morning, but so far I have spent ten minutes sitting in front of the computer grasping for what to say. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. I can think of lots of things to say, but I can’t find the thread that ties them together. Some experiences have to be unpacked slowly over a long period of time.
It was a wonderful week, spent with wonderful people, making wonderful music and gleaning inspiration and insight. At the end of the week, Msgr. Ray East urged us to think of the encounter with Christ we had had this week, and share it with others.
Well, here goes.
The last few years, I’ve spent most of my time and energy being Mommy and freelance magazine/fiction writer. But there’s always a little part of me that tugs on my sleeve, reminding me that I’m a musician, and begging me to carve out some time for writing music. I spent this week away from my children, focusing on being a liturgical musician and composer. I got to be part of several great musical events, singing and playing flute with really terrific people. I got to spend a week focused on writing music and texts for worship with people whose work I admire tremendously.
I had deep conversations with old friends and made new friends I can talk to as if we’ve always known each other. Being a morning person at a conference that didn’t get started until hours after I’m accustomed to rising, I had time in the mornings to spend a few minutes being still in the presence of God in the adoration room.
And at length, I realized the obvious: that writing sacred music grows out of one’s spiritual life. If your spiritual life consists of clinging to the rock face and just barely hanging on amid the crazies, well, you’re not exactly in a position to bear prodigious amounts of fruit, are you?
For years, I’ve clung to the idea that you do what you can, and a great deal of a mother-of-littles’ prayer time consists of prayer by service. You know: doing dishes and brushing teeth and folding laundry equals my spiritual work.
I still think that’s valid, but my soul is longing for more. I don’t have the solution worked out yet, but I know I’m going to have to make time for contemplation. I’ve been trying for the last several months, but it’s scattered and haphazard. Now it’s time to get real.
You’re all busy people. Feed me. How do you find time for silence and stillness to nurture your relationship with Jesus in the midst of the crazies?
July 15, 2014
All-Star Game and Break CONTEST and BOOK SALE
Busch Stadium by Phil http://www.flickr.com
It’s the middle of July. Baseball fans everywhere know that means it’s time for the All-Star Game and short break from regularly scheduled baseball games across the United States. For non-loving baseball peeps, you can just keep on enjoying your summer as you have been: curled up with your favorite book, sipping cold lemonade, and relaxing by the pool. However you want to celebrate this week, please also join in the fun with young adult author Margo L. Dill as she holds a contest and book sale!
Why during All-Star Game Week?
Great question! Margo’s young adult novel, Caught Between Two Curses (Rocking Horse Publishing, March 2014), is the story of 17-year-old Julie Nigelson, who is cursed. So is her entire family. And it’s not just any-old-regular
curse, either—it’s strangely connected to the famous “Curse of the Billy
Goat” on the Chicago Cubs, hence the All-Star baseball week celebration.
Julie must figure out this mystery while her uncle lies in a coma
and her entire love life is in ruins: her boyfriend Gus is pressuring
her to have sex, while her best friend Matt is growing more attractive
to her all the time.
Somehow, Julie must figure out how to save her uncle, her family’s future, and her own love life—and time is running out!
What have people been saying about Margo’s book?
Here are a few lines from a couple reviews on Amazon.com:
“This book is one of the best I have read in a long time. Once I opened it up I could not stop until I was finished.” ~Janet Cannon
“A baseball mystery and a contemporary, heartfelt romance, CAUGHT BETWEEN
TWO CURSES is sure to score big with the young teen audience!” ~Cathy C. Hall
“I definitely recommend this to young adults, but
really any adult because it’s a story that keeps you interested and
will stay with you long after you finish.” ~Amie Merz
Read more reviews here: http://www.amazon.com/Caught-Between-Curses-Margo-Dill-ebook/product-reviews/B00J8UWR4K/
Okay, so what is the contest and the sale???
photo by DonkeyHotey flickr.com
Here’s the part you’ve been waiting for. First the sale:
The Kindle ebook is…99 cents July 14/15, $1.99 July 16/17, $2.99 July 18/19, and back to $3.99 July 20.
The print copy is for sale ON MARGO’S WEBSITE (http://margodill.com/blog/books/) and is $5.00 off the cover price, so only $6.95 ( $3.00 for shipping and handling). She will autograph it and gift wrap if it’s a gift, plus include a bookmark for free. More details at the link above. (The print version is also on sale for $10.76 (10 % savings) on Amazon.com.)
If you are an Amazon Prime Member, you can check out the e-BOOK for free at anytime!
The contest:
Go to the Rafflecopter form below this post–all you need to enter is your name and e-mail, which is how I contact you if you win one of the prizes. Do at least one of the tasks below and then click on the entry button to enter the contest. You can do as many tasks as you want! If you are confused or have any questions, please feel free to e-mail Margo at margo (at) margodill.com. Tasks range from leaving a review of Caught Between Two Curses to announcing the contest and sale on a social media page to uploading a photo of you in baseball gear. See below for more.
Margo L. Dill
The prizes:
One winner with a United States mailing address will win a $25 gift card to either Applebee’s, TGI Fridays, Starbucks, Panera Bread, or Olive Garden (winner’s choice). One runner-up winner will receive a free 3000-word critique from Margo (Editor 911)–this can be anywhere in the world as long as the document is in English. The contest goes from July 14 to July 20. Winners will be announced on July 21!
What are you waiting for?
So, join in the fun and while you’re entering the contest or buying a sale copy of Caught Between Two Curses, join in a rousing rendition of “Take me out to the ballgame. Take me out with the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks. I don’t care if I ever get back. . .”
July 14, 2014
Happy Conventioning!
I’m off to the National Association of Pastoral Musicians convention this week. Huge thanks to my hubby, my sis and my parents, who are keeping the home fires burning for me while I’m off parenting duty for four days. Not that I’m counting. :)
July 11, 2014
Kid Conductors, Sleep, and Other Quick Takes
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Wednesday night, we took the kids to a symphony concert. This one was about visual art inspired by music. At “family concerts” they also let the kids come up and take turns conducting for a few bars. The kids had a lot of fun. 
(no idea who the little girl with Nicholas is, hence the blacked-out face. Can’t ask permission.)
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It’s been a high-powered few weeks, and I am tired. So very tired. I go to bed when I should and I lie awake, trying not to retreat to the couch, because Nicholas already thinks the couch is Mommy’s regular bed, and because Christian tells me forlornly how much he misses my presence when I’m not there. Earlier this week, I’d just drifted off when a storm ripped across the state and Michael sat bolt upright in bed, screaming, while the sky beyond the blackout shades resembled a dance club with a strobe light on maximum.
Photo via Wiki Commons
I don’t sleep while my children are in bed with me. I merely lie there and try not to get wound up until the storm passes and I can move them back to their rooms. That night, I winced in anticipation of Nicholas and Julianna waking up, but they didn’t. I thanked God for a day at the lake, because those two were so shot, they slept through the storm. Otherwise it would have been triple the fun.
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On Wednesday night I decided to capitulate and take a Benadryl to help me sleep. And not to set my alarm in the morning. It’s a sacrifice I don’t take lightly, because that early morning hour is a big chunk of my productive time on any given day, but I knew I needed it. Christian got up and went running. When he came back at 6:20, I was still in bed. He came over to me. “Are you okay?” he asked with deep concern. “Why, because I’m still in bed?” I said groggily. “Well…yes!”
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Later, I went to swim lessons and realized I had forgotten to bring my Things To Do. Basically I never go anywhere without Things To Do. This block of time, beside the pool, I had intended to devote to singing through music for a concert next week. Instead I ended up…gasp!…simply sitting there and watching my children’s lesson for half an hour. And some of the tightness in my chest went away.
___5___
And then we had choir practice, only for reasons too complex to explain in a post with the word “quick” in the title, I was not leading but instead watching everyone’s kids while they rehearsed. It was a lovely evening, and I took them onto the school playground. Eight kids, to be exact. One good-hearted uncle along to help, thank God, or that trek to the bathroom-and-water-break would have been quite an adventure–but the point is, again, no Things To Do. Because with eight kids to watch, you’re pretty much committed to doing nothing but, well, counting to eight repeatedly. But it was surprisingly relaxing.
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Photo by east_mountain, via Flickr. Yes, I know it’s a piccolo, not a flute. But Lego Star Wars storm troopers? That’s just too perfect for my life right now.
I’ve been practicing lately–regular flute practice! what a concept!–and it feels good. I have scheduled a recital for this fall (locals: September 21!), but somehow that has not been as high a motivator as I had hoped. Next week’s performances, however, did the trick. I’ve been practicing just about daily to get my chops in shape, and man, it feels good. But it is not like it was in college and grad school. My practice sessions are accompanied by little boys taking toy cymbals and crashing them together right beside me. I can barely hear myself think, let alone play. I have to do most of performance analysis by how it feels. :) I never thought I would reach the day when it was a simple joy to clean my own flute. Something I do at a tiptoe, hoping to sneak out of the basement before the boys realize I’m done playing and start fighting over who gets to push the stick and cheesecloth through the flute.
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On a serious note: I’ve been reading the book Generation Me lately, bit by bit. Every so often something electrifies me. Like this:
“A 200 study of almost 20000 teens found that those who watch TV with a lot of sexual content are twice as likely to engage in intercourse as those who watch less. ‘The impact of television viewing is so large that even a moderate shift in the sexual content of adolescent TV watching could have a substantial effect on their sexual behavior,’ said Rebecca Collins, the study’s lead author. Watching sexually explicit TV led to teens having sex two to three years earlier, with media-savvy 13-year-olds acting the same as more sheltered 15- or 16-year-olds. Another study found that young black women who watch many rap music videos are more likely to have multiple sex partners and to acquire a sexually transmitted disease.” (p. 170-171)
Good reasons to be strict about policing screen time. 
July 9, 2014
Baby Steps
I always knew the day would probably come when Michael would cease to be the easygoing, always-happy little boy he’s always been. But that didn’t make it any easier when it happened.
For a fleeting period of time, I had a handle on all my kids–on how to handle their personality quirks. Not perfectly, but adequately. I didn’t recognize this interval until Michael woke up one day and decided to cease all forms of cooperation. He’s been polishing his scowl-and-pretend-you’re-not-talking stance the last couple of weeks, and instead of being eager to help when I tell him to go put the book upstairs on the shelf, he tests to see how many time he can a) ignore its presence or b) move it somewhere other than where I told him to put it before he gets in trouble.
Nothing I haven’t been through before. I just kind of thought I was done with it.
Baby steps. Just a few weeks ago I took stock of parenthood, how it was changing, and I never realized that having time for such self-indulgent navel-gazing was a sign that I was in the eye of the storm, so to speak.
All that progress is real. We’re just about diaper-free; we are completely sippy-cup free; Michael is flexible with his naps, and the older kids have the endurance to do all-day trips and walk long distances. They’re more independent in play and in self-care, and bedtime can be accomplished, in a pinch, in less than fifteen minutes with only one parent on duty.
But Michael’s entry into the upper-twos-and-stretching-through-three-or-four stage is a reality check, reminding me that the progression of stages is accomplished organically–one tiny, unnoticeable step at a time. Baby steps. A slow weaning from a familiar set of routines into one that is not.
Which is the best way, of course. The one that eases both parent and child into a new way of relating to each other, allowing them to stretch and adjust instead of being thrown in, sink-or-swim. The one that allows you to grow into the next stage of life, so you don’t feel cheated by being forced to move on before you were ready.
July 7, 2014
The Great Treehouse Build
This is what we spent our 4th of July weekend doing:
Day 1: The Family Gathers
Getting settled on the farm after a crazy day of trying to wrap up loose ends at home. Bonfire and s’mores not optional.
Evidence of children:
The sun is setting…
…and the dust drifts, mist-like, over the twilit fields…
…which means it’s time to head for the far driveway for a bonfire…
…and setting off some fireworks.
Day 2: Let’s Get Down To Business
Perfect weather for the 4th of July: beautifully cool. Let’s get to work! Okay, kids, start bringing the boards out of the shop and over to the tree.
While Grandpa introduces the senior cousins to the process of the morning:
Floor supports. Drilling horizontally, above your head. Not an easy job. My wrists turned to jelly.
And the boys? The boys gave up and went exploring.
While Grandma brought the blackberry cobbler crust outside to work on:
Day 3: racing the rain
Aaaand…..the first two floorboards are down. Alex and Grandpa are the first two in the tree house!
It’s a cool, cloudy morning, and it gets steadily colder and cloudier. The goofing off that happened at ground level yesterday dissolves into serious speed, because the radar tells us we’re going to get rained out sometime soon.
And here comes the rain, with about 1/3 of the floor to go.
Well, it’s lunchtime, anyway. Time for a, uh, cookout. Eaten at the kitchen table as the rain drenches the farm.
After lunch, the rain fades off to a cold drip, but there are vehicular issues and it takes a bit to get going again. And yet, by midafternoon, we have a treehouse with a floor and a railing on one side. Grandpa poses with a few of the beneficiaries:
July 4, 2014
Michael and other Quick Takes
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Michael’s newest word: “baby doll.” He also, abruptly and without prompting, switched from a singsong “Ma-ma!” to “mommeeee!” at bedtime one night last week.
___2___
Michael’s speech therapist thinks he has apraxia, which basically means he has trouble making the mouth muscles cooperate. And I can see that. He’s fully 30 months now and his cognition is all there. When you ask him to say something, his mouth opens, he pauses, he thinks, he works around a bit, but he cannot get his muscles to do what he wants them to.
___3___
This, naturally, leads to frustration. My creative-Mommy-problem-solving muscles are getting stretched again as he flings himself into the realm of tantrums. It usually helps if I bend down and get right at his level and ask him “Do you want….”? I almost always know what he wants; he’s just frustrated because he can’t say it and he doesn’t realize I know. It doesn’t dispel the tantrums but I can sense a lessening of the power when he realizes I understand, even the answer is still “No”.
___4___
The shape of our street
He doesn’t realize he’s a toddler, though. He thinks he’s one of the big boys. When they built our street, they built a cul de sac. A couple of years later they built the street on around a corner. So we live on a curved street with a cul de sac at the bend. The neighborhood kids play in the cul de sac all the time, but it’s hard to convince a toddler that that black seam in the pavement is any kind of barrier to inhibit his tricycle run. There’s so much street beyond it! Besides, Big Brother and Neighbor Boy are riding bikes out into the street and up into our driveway, then cycling back down the sidewalk to do it all again. Clearly, he has just as much right as they do!
___5___
One last Michael story. Well, Michael and Christian. At the last baseball game of the season, we brought food out to keep the littles entertained. Christian had bought a Payday bar for a treat, and of course Michael decided he had to have a bite of that. Christian’s a big softie, so of course, he let him have it. (Mommy would’ve said no, and dealt with the fallout. But then, Mommy’s very grabby about her food.)
Anyway, Michael took a big honkin’ bite of that Payday and walked off. Because that’s what he does. He eats and walks.
Christian grabbed a handful of popcorn and was holding it in one hand, munching on a kernel or two at a time, when Michael came back with a look of supreme desperation on his face, and spit the Payday out on top of the remaining popcorn.
Christian yelled, “Ewwwww!” Then he stared at the not-exactly-chewed bite in his hand, sighed, and popped the whole works in his mouth: Payday, popcorn, and all.
And I yelled, “Ewwwwww!”
You know how there are certain family stories that can be summed up in a single word? We just had one of those. “Payday.”
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___7___
A few years back, I discovered the miracle that was cleaning with baking soda and vinegar.
Well, now I have a new reason to love baking soda:
Why baking soda is a great deodorant
I loved the idea but I was worried about the delivery method. How do you apply it without making a huge mess? Well–two fingers dipped in the box, and the excess shaken off, does very nicely. It works many, many times better than the crystal salts I’ve been using for the past decade or so–in fact, it works as well as the store-bought stick deodorants I used in high school and college. And it doesn’t leave that gross residue.
Happy Fourth of July!
July 2, 2014
What It’s Like To Practice Natural Family Planning
After yesterday’s post about why I don’t like birth control, I think it only makes sense to talk about the alternative. Natural family planning is widely reviled as a game of reproductive roulette, an unreasonable burden on couples, or an unnecessary restriction on sexual expression. Those of us who use NFP try to dispel those myths, but we don’t really talk about what it’s like to live this life.
In no particular order, here are some of my thoughts about the fifteen years I’ve spent charting my fertility and using that information to plan our family.
1. I know myself. I know my body, what it does, what it’s doing at any given time in the cycle. I’m aware of sensations I once was not, and the cyclic changes are a continual source of awe and wonder. I’m coming up on forty this year, and I’m starting to see changes in the way my reproductive system responds as it approaches the waning years. I’m a whole lot more comfortable in my skin these days. NFP isn’t the whole reason for that, but it’s a big factor.
2. I’m a far healthier person because of my practice of NFP. I had erratic charts early-on, and that encouraged me to address dietary and lifestyle changes. Because I have to take my temperature every morning, I’m conscious of getting to bed and planning my life around good habits. I also learned that I drop two pounds when I go into Phase III (post-ovulation infertility). Huge implications for helping me manage my weight.
3. I’m aware of the hormonal shifts and how they impact me as a woman. There are two parts of the cycle when I am susceptible to being cranky, and knowing that makes me aware, as well, of the need to guard my reactions. This is particularly meaningful to me because I remember how out of control of my bitchiness I was when I was on progestin during the early part of the infertility battle.
4. I have a lot more self-discipline because we use NFP. I’m talking about the mental discipline to make sure I do the observations consistently and don’t get lazy. Because “lazy” leads to unnecessary abstinence.
5. We are intentional about intimacy. Our window of abstinence is usually 12 or 13 days, but on either side of that window we prioritize intimacy. I would really love for someone to undertake a survey to see how often people using different forms of family planning have sex. I would guess–but it’s only a guess–that we make at least as much room for it in our lives as couples using birth control. It’s just spaced out differently. Or maybe, just maybe, because it has to be intentional, we actually make better use of time?
6. Being intentional has another up side. Spontaneity sounds great, but busy-ness and spontaneity don’t really mix–and who’s not busy these days? Especially when you’ve got kids. Intentionality helps me to get myself in the right frame of mind.
7. There are all kinds of implications of being intentional. We have to work together to get the kids in bed on time, we have to talk through the weekly schedules so we don’t park our butts in front of the TV, we have to make sure we are interacting appropriately during the evening (because who wants to be intimate after you’ve been snipped at and criticized all night?). We have microcosmic conversations and macrocosmic conversations. What all this intentionality boils down to is: We really pay attention to each other, because our family planning choice requires it. Of course all married couples pay attention to each other, but NFP strongly encourages the conversation.
These are off-the-cuff thoughts, but enough for now. Others who use NFP: you want to share what your lives look like?
July 1, 2014
Birth Control Really Isn’t Health Care In The First Place
It is no secret to anyone who reads this blog that I am a not a fan of birth control. I think it’s unconscionable that women have been expected to suppress or perhaps even damage a healthy, normal part of who they are in the interest of unrestricted sex. Contraception has led to an expectation that women must be sexually available at all times. And it has facilitated relational dysfunctions like the hookup culture, which could not possibly exist without it.
I don’t normally comment on things political, but given this passion, I do want to make one observation in the wake of the supreme court decision earlier this week.
Birth control occupies an unusual, perhaps even unique, place in medicine. The purpose of medicine is to fix what is wrong with a human body, and birth control does not fix a woman’s health. In fact, it inhibits the normal, healthy function of her body. I am hard pressed to think of any other comparable situation in medicine (aside from vasectomy, which is part of the same topic).
Yes, the pill is slapped like a band-aid on any number of conditions, and I’m willing to concede that in some cases it can be useful to treat symptoms (although not the conditions underlying them). But birth control as a family planning method–which is what we’re talking about–is not treating a health problem. In fact, you could argue that it’s creating one by shutting down the way the body was designed to work.
For this reason, birth control’s presence in the health care law has always bothered me. I get why birth control must be administered by medical professionals: it’s a pharmaceutical, and where else in the regulatory hierarchy are you going to classify a pharmaceutical? But still–family planning is not health care.
