Does Blogger work with Google Photos on a Chromebook?

Three bears just before bathtime

Owen is no longer concerned that this frog is poisonous. While I took this picture Felix escaped into the administrative offices of the library and was chatting up an older clerk when someone pointed out that I might be missing a child.

My current phone background

10 Thoughts

1. I rode with the violin carpool instead of the brass carpool today, and it was a nice change of pace. We listened to pop music on the way out and talked about cooking and babysitting. Not a single fart joke was cracked. Also, having quizzed each other extensively on what appeared to the one side as catastrophic rehearsal breakdowns, we learned that whatever we think went cataclysmically bad in our section was pretty much unnoticed by the rest of the orchestra.

2. Walking in a little bit of rain is no big deal, especially if you've got decent cover from the wind. I got rained on all along Onondaga Creek this afternoon and I was so happy that I wasn't being snowed on that I hardly even noticed.

3. Owen is the first of our children to have a social media account. You can follow his Instagram at owensmithbaker. J tells me that he took the first pictures himself!

4. No one gives you prizes for playing the loudest during rehearsal. But you definitely get noticed if you play so loud during rehearsal that you don't have enough gas in the tank to make it through the concert.

5. This has been a particularly fruitful week of reading. Heart of Darkness, Peter and the Starcatchers (Dave Barry retelling the Peter Pan story), another brilliant Rowan Williams book (The Edge of Words), Bob Woodward's Trump book, a book that my church read on race in America, and I've just started a book that J recommended about the Theranos startup called Bad Blood. I was indisposed on Tuesday afternoon, and I'm inclined to "get sick" again this week to get more reading in.

6. I picked up chip brushes so that the boys can help me stain their shields. Given how the painting went I think I'm going to strip them naked and have them stain in the backyard under 3:1 adult supervision.

7. Adnan Syed is in the news again, and if you don't know who that is then you should download the Serial podcast and you can thank me (really J, who turned me onto it) when you're done listening to it in 24-36 hours. This will be especially important for those of you who have long commutes.

8. I can't wait for Abby's birthday party. It's been WAY too long since we've seen family, and I'm the only one of our unit who's been inside the new O/K residence. (And I haven't seen it since it was mostly just stacks of boxes.

9. I hate the thought that I might be living my life materialistically, marking time by scratching the itch of consumerism one purchase after another. (I say this sitting in a chair that I bought last month while sipping scotch from two weeks ago that's on an end table we bought last week.) That being said, I made a purchase today that I consider an investment in much more frequent blogging--a little Chromebook that can come along with me to rehearsals and teaching and long double days to help tell the stories of the three little Smith boys and their Very Tired Parents.

10. The fortune from my fortune cookie was "It could be better, but its (sic) good enough."

The Joy of Painting

James and Owen have recently rediscovered their wooden swords, which is an entertaining and hazardous way for them to pass an afternoon. James likes to play "swordfighting" and make his sword click against as Owen's as if they were having a duel. Owen isn't playing. When he swings his sword he's actively trying to take James' head off. It's a good thing that James is taller and faster.

Naturally, we decided that Felix probably needs to have his own sword. So we walked up to Dan's Crafts and Things (actual name of the store) and managed to get past the Legos and model rockets and airplanes and woopie cushions and toy cars back to the bin at the back of the store where there are unstained and unsanded wooden swords. Not only did they have a sword for Felix, but there were two round wooden shields for sale. (There was also a wooden battleaxe, but I didn't let them bring that home.) I thought it would be a good idea, at least for James, to have a shield available.

"This will be fun," I said. "We can sand and stain and finish the shields together and you boys can help me."

"I would like to decorate mine with jewels!"
"I'd like to paint a J on mine and an O on Owen's so that we can tell them apart!"
"That seems like a good idea."

Yes, giving the boys paint seemed like a good idea a few hours ago.

We put Felix to bed a little early, since he'd had a busy day of vomiting. (Separate blog entry) I showed the boys how to sand with the grain of the wood and how to rub their fingers along the edges to see when the sanding was done. James did a great job and Owen gave up after about ten seconds. I sanded Felix's new sword and did the remaining 90% of Owen's shield, and then we were ready to paint. I was ready to hand a black paint brush with actual paint on it to James and Owen.

"Okay boys, pay attention. We are going to paint a J and an O on your shields, but you need to listen to me so that it goes well. The first thing you need to do is to practice painting your letter with just your finger so that you know exactly how it's going to look. Can you show me with your finger how you're going to paint? Yes, that looks very good. Owen, that's a perfect 'O.' I am going to stir and mix this paint, and then I will put some paint on this brush. If you need more paint on the brush you can ask me for some more, but it's going to be Daddy that gets the brush wet, right? Good, glad we understand. Now, be careful with the paint. You don't want to spill it on yourself or on the table or especially anywhere on the shield that isn't where you're painting you're letter. Take your time. Are we ready?"

They were very ready and had listened to everything I said.

James went first and did a great job. His J ended up a little to thick at the top relative to the bottom, but I think he was pleased. Then it was Owen's turn.

"Now Owen, be careful when I hand you this--wait---"
"Oops."
"See, you grabbed it out of my hand, and now there's paint on your shield in a spot where you don't want it. STOP, Owen. Stop and hold still. Some got on the table, so I'm going to need to clean it up. DO NOT paint your shield while I go get a cloth to wipe up the table. Just hold the paintbrush and wait for me."
<five seconds later>
"Daddy, I needed more paint, and some spilled."
"Oh, COME ON OWEN. I just told you NOT to paint your shield and WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR HANDS?"
"A little paint got on me."
"Yes, and more on the table too, huh."
"Yeah, I think you need to clean up the paint thing."
"I think something happened to your O."
"Yeah, I made a mistake, so I'm going to fill it in."
"Owen, that isn't painting. That's stabbing."
"Do you like my O?"
"You need to stay right here and not move until I come back with more rags to clean up your hands and the table."
<five seconds later>
"OWEN, COME BACK OUT OF THE ROOM WITH ALL THE NEW FURNITURE!!!!"

And that is the story of how James painted a J on his shield and Owen painted a Rorschach Blot on his shield.

Where God Happens (Rowan Williams)

To assume the right to judge, or to assume that you have arrived at a settled spiritual maturity that entitles you to prescribe confidently at a distance for another's sickness, is in fact to leave others without the therapy they need for their souls; it is to cut them off from God, to leave them in their spiritual slavery--while reinforcing your own slavery. Neither you nor they have access to life--as in the words of Jesus, you have shut up heaven for others and for yourself. But the plain acknowledgement of your solidarity in need and failure opens a door: it shows that it is possible to live in the truth and to go forward in hope. It is in such a moment that God gives himself through you, and you become by God's gift a means of connecting another with God. You have done the job you were created to do.
Saint Anthony of the Desert says that gaining the brother or sister and winning God are linked. It is not getting them signed up to something or getting them on your side. It is opening doors for them to healing and to wholeness. Insofar as you open such doors for another, you gain God, in the sense that you become a place where God happens for somebody else. You become a place where God happens. God comes to life for somebody else in a life-giving way, not because you are good or wonderful, but because that is what God has done.



Some of the most interesting recent research on desert monasticism has been on the significance and understanding of the common life among the first generations of monks. The surface pattern of "running" or "fleeing" from human contact is much more nuanced than it seems. What is to be learned in the desert is clearly not some individual technique for communing with the divine but the business of becoming a means of reconciliation and healing for the neighbor. You "flee" to the desert not to escape neighbors but to grasp more fully what the neighbor is--the way of life to you, to the degree that you put yourself at their disposal in connecting them with God. The unusual community that is the desert monastery of the first generation is not meant to be an alternative to human solidarity but a radical version of it that questions the priorities of community in other contexts.



The neighbor is our life; to bring connectedness with God to the neighbor is bound up with our own connection with God. The neighbor is our death, communicating to us the death sentence on our attempts to settle who we are in our own terms and to cling to what we reckon as our achievements. "Death is at work in us and life in you," as Saint Paul says (2 Cor. 4:12), anticipating the themes of the desert. He is writing about how the apostle's suffering and struggle make the life of Christ visible in such a way that others are revived in hope. And it is as others discover this life in hope that we receive it too, the gift we could not have expected as we, with such difficulty and reluctance and intermittent resentment, had to learn to let go of our own lives and learn how to attend in love to the neighbor. We love with God when and only when we are the conduit for God's reconciling presence with the person next to us. It is as we connect the other with the source of life that we come to stand in the place of life, the place cleared and occupied for us by Christ.



The desert fathers and mothers might say to young people today, "What's the hurry?" They would be amazed to see the way our culture prizes speed. They might say that the hurried urgency to possess and consume is an index of falsehood and a misunderstanding of the kind of being you are. It is all right to take time. Only in taking time can you realize how much more you are than an individual. By taking time you are built by the character of the world you are in and the people around you. Wittgenstein said the most important thing one philosopher can say to another is to "take your time."
Young people do not become mature religious people of faith unless they have been helped to experience their own humanity. As a theologian, I would say this means being taught to experience their humanity as created and loved and healed. You may not necessarily say all of that to them, but that is the basis on which you move. However, too often we think religious education is about putting in more information. Instead, religious educations, when it is doing its job of "educating the spirit," has to be the conveying--in all aspects of the educational environment--of the "peaceful worthwhileness" of each person.



The difference between the person and the individual is that the individual in this framework simply means one example of a type. For instance, I can pick up an individual glass. There are lots of glasses with varying features, but you can describe them as variations on a single theme. They are examples of a general substance or nature, a type of life or reality. And although they are different from each other, they are, in principle, reducible to on basic definition. Lossky says that when we talk about the personal, we are trying to say something more than that. The person is more than just an example of a type. And a person in Christ, the holy person in a particular way, is more than that too. There is no general type of Christian holiness. There is an infinite variety of different relationships to Jesus Christ, which also becomes relationships with each other.
I love telling people at confirmation services that when I ask the Holy Spirit to come into their lives in this sacrament, I am saying that there is something you can do which nobody else can in the life of this community. I ask them not to forget that because it means that you need the church and the church needs you.




So the saint isn't someone who makes you think, "That looks hard; that's a heroic achievement of will"--with the inevitable accompanying thought, "That's too hard for me"--but someone who makes you think, "How astonishing! Human lives can be like that, behavior like that can look quite natural," with perhaps the thought, "How can I find what they have found?"



It has been said that sanctity is inimitable. While I can think of some very holy people who cry out for imitation because of all their quirks of behavior, the imitability in question is not of that kind. I cannot become holy by copying another's path. Like the novice in the desert, I must watch the elders and learn the shape and the rhythm of being Christian from those who have walked further and worked harder. And then I have to take my own steps and create a life that has never been lived before. At the day of Judgment, as we are often reminded, the question while not be about why we failed to be someone else. I will not be asked why I wasn't Martin Luther King or Mother Teresa but why I wasn't Rowan Williams. The journey is always one that leads into more, not less, uniqueness. It's all to do once again with the call to be persons, not individuals.



And now, a word from Owen:



uhiui9ojijjogjgihuhjhgiukjbioopjihumbmkjggnbhjogjjgjouophk,,,hp hkokokmbkoohkogmnnnnho

Meal Planning

When we sat down to look at the end-of-the year numbers over Christmas break, there was a problem. And the problem was Wegmans.

Wegmans is great. We love Wegmans. I am actually in a Wegmans AS I WRITE THIS.

But we spent a lot of money at Wegmans last year. And even more embarrassing than the amount of money we spent was number of total transactions. How many times would you think a single household would need to swipe a card at the local grocery store? 4 times a month, if you do a weekly grocery run? Or maybe you should add in 3-4 other stops if you need to swing by for batteries or to pick up a special ingredient? According to our Mint logs we were at Wegman's almost every other day in 2018.

Some of that is weird, and inflated by artificial causes. Today, for example, I packed my lunch (the first rule of gritty thriftiness) and brought it with me to eat in the dining area at the Amherst St. Wegmans. (My preferred spot to pass the sixish hours between a morning rehearsal and evening concert at Kleinhans.) I'll probably buy a cup of coffee in an hour or so, and then around dinner time I'll go get a slice of pizza or a sandwich. And chances are I'll remember that we're out of something, and I'll make sure to go through to the grocery aisle and checkout a small basket of "while I'm here" sorts of things like white whole wheat flour or a ras-el hanout--the sorts of things you can't find at Aldi.

So that turns one trip into three "visits." The same thing happens when we're responsible about keeping items that should be filed under "grocery" separate from items that should be filed under "gifts" or miscellaneous" and annoy the people behind us in line by checking out with multiple transactions. That explains some of the "did we really go to Wegmans every other day?" confusion. But only some.

And thus did J take the lead on a new project for groceries this year--make a list of everything that we're going to eat for the week before the week starts, eat the leftovers over the weekends (which are our busy times), and on Sundays after church (while James is at his junior choir rehearsal) we get everything we possibly can from Aldi.

The Aldi part is working really well. We used to do a beginning-of-the-month Aldi run last year to stock up on all the pantry and basic items that we knew would be cheaper than at the big W. But most months we only went once a month. All the smaller trips (and there were, apparently, lots of them) for fresh produce and this-or-that were at Wegmans. Now we're getting almost everything at Aldi. It means being organized, but its been surprisingly smooth.

We've always eaten well, but planning the whole week of menus out in advance (the Paprika app is helpful with this part) J keeps track of exactly how much she needs of each ingredient, and we really do have more leftovers. Here's been the lineup for the past few weeks:

Monday-Spicy Peanut Saba Noodle Salad
Tuesday-Navy, Bean, Bacon, and Spinach Soup (w/homemade bread)
Wednesday-Golden Soup
Thursday-Instant Pot Cacio e Pepe w/crispy chickpeas, Parmesan Roasted Broccoli
Friday-Sesame Mango Chicken Teryiaki

Monday-Vegan Lentil Soup (w/homemade bread)
Tuesday-Marinated Venison Steaks, Roasted Carrots
Wednesday-Parmesan Orecchiette, Kale, Apple, and Goat Cheese Salad
Thursday-Sweet Potato and Black Bean Veggie Burgers
Friday-Instant Pot Tandoori Chicken

Monday-Moroccan Lamb Meatball Tangine
Tuesday-Spinach Lasagna, Kale and Brussel Sprout Salad
Wednesday-Chicken Noodle Soup (w/homemade bread)
Thursday-Venison Marsala, Chopped Greek Salad
Friday-Bacon, Asparagus, and Ricotta Pizza

Monday-Chicken Mulligatawny Soup, Homemade Naan
Tuesday-Black Bean Sweet Potato Enchiladas
Wednesday-Mexican Tortilla Salad
Thursday-Umbricelli with Sausage and Mushrooms

And the great news was that the kids loved everything, just as long as it wasn't soup and didn't have black beans in it or any foreign words in the title, or was at all spicy, or had leafy greens,

So, basically, they liked the bread.

Our 2019 food budget, though, is off to a tremendous start!*

*We've totally wiped out all of the gains we made in food over the past two months by buying furniture.

Furniture Reactions

How the boys have responded to various home improvements we've made over the past couple months.

REPAINTING THE ACCENT WALL

James: I hate it. I wish it was still red. We need a wall in our house that is red. Can we paint my room red? Or can we paint the ceiling red? I wish it was the way it has always been.

Owen: I love it! Can I help paint it too? I love your gold wall, Mommy and Daddy! What a great idea!

Felix: <repeatedly tries to run over and touch the still-wet paint on the wall whenever he is set down>

TAKING UP THE RUG FROM THE LIVING ROOM

James: But now I have nowhere that I can play FOOTBALL!

Owen: <running into the room and sliding on the hardwood> YAY! Now I have a hockey rink!

Felix: Ah! <listens to the echo of his own voice> Ah! Ah! <runs around the room>

NEW COUCH

James: Wait, we aren't getting rid of the old couch, right? What do you mean, eventually? I LIKE the old couch. We can't ever change it.

Owen: Yes, I PROMISE I will not pull all the pillows and cushions off the new couch. Or jump on it. Or be on it with shoes on. But I can still do all those things on the old couch, right?

Felix: <runs up to new couch, bounces off. Runs up again, climbs on, sits on the couch sucking his fingers.>

MOVING THE OLD COUCH TO JAMES AND OWEN'S ROOM

James: <sobbing in his bed> I don't WANT the couch in here! I want it to stay downstairs. Now there is no space in my room!

Owen: Yay, yay, yay! I love having a couch in my room! Can I take it apart yet?

Felix: <halfway up the couch, attempting to climb on while Owen strips pillows and cushions off>

J: Yeah, it's too big for this space.

Me: What if we put it in Felix's room?

James: Yes, that's a much better idea than in my room.

Owen: NO! I want it in MY room!

MOVING THE OLD COUCH TO FELIX'S ROOM

James: Fine

Owen: Felix, I can't wait to take apart the couch in YOUR room!

Felix: <climbs up on the couch, grins, sucks fingers contentedly>

NEW CHAIRS IN THE LIVING ROOM

James: I liked the couch better.

Owen: Oh yay, can I spin them? <spinning a chair> Not ever? <spinning a chair> Not even a little spinning?

Felix: <points>

Me: Would you boys like the big boxes that they came in.

James: Mine will be a transmogrifier.