Trula's blog

One of my major goals in life is to become a gentle mama. I am almost there. I stopped spanking my kids in 1999, but I continued to yell at them, get in their faces, and in other ways intimidate them. One thing that helps me when I am feeling irritated with my children is to slow. down. my. rate of speech. That helps me to get a grip on my temper as well as reflect on why I am feelign irritated. Most often, it is not even about them, really, I am feeling irritated at something else.

Re-direction also helps, sometimes kids can be very insistent on being in your face. If I find myself feeling repeatedly irritated by that, I try to re-direct their attention onto an activity we can do together, because that usually means they are bored and want my attention.

I read Janet Luhrs book Simple Living a some years ago and it really resonated with me. It is excellent, she talks about ways you can simplify your life including time, money, housing, food, etc. Check it out of your library or buy it if you can, I'm sure Amazon has a few used copies at a good price. This book helped me to realize that I could make different choices about how I spent my money and time. and also that living simply and frugally did not mean deprivation.

I really dedicated myself this year to living a simpler life, in part in preparation for building and moving into a straw bale house which will be much smaller than where we are at now, in part because I feel overwhelmed by how much stuff we have, and in part because I want to do everything I can to minimize my environmental 'footprint'. I used to rail so much against the crap big business and government does and allows to be done to tear up the world, without taking responsibility for what I as an individual do...that's not right.

My son Todd has decided that it is the height of dorkdom to have your mom stand beside you while you wait on the bus. He is 8 and in 2nd grade. I suspect this is because I often treat him like a baby, which reduces his 2nd grade status to his kindergarten friend next door. So I stand on the porch and watch while they get on the bus, and pantomime messages to the mom next door. He hugs me goodbye before he leaves the house, and to him, no further good-bye is neccessary. He rarely waves at me from the bus anymore, too busy talking with friends before the bus even pulls off. I still wave.

There is this little girl who rides my son Todd's bus. I don't know who she is or where she lives. She is on the bus already before our stop. She often looks sad, and forlorn. At the begining of the school year when I was waving good-bye to Todd and the little boy from next door she thought I was waving to her. She looked startled and then pleased. Her face broke out in a smile, then she clapped her hands over her missing front teeth. I smiled, and pointing at my own front teeth, gave her a big grin. She shyly pulled her hands down and smiled, and even shyer, gave me a tiny wave. I waved back and smiled some more. After that I waved to her every day.

and it comes up again. I don't know what we can do as a community to help people who feel unpopular to feel that they are valued members, but I am willing to talk about it. I have noticed that some people seem to take a disagreement as a personal attack to their character. There also seems to be an assumption that some people take that if someone disagrees with you, then they don't like you and you are at war. There seems to be the assumption that if certain people disagree with you, then you are unpopular. and the whole hiearchary business...I don't see it and I don't understand it, but I agree that it is important to many women here. Just because I can't grasp what it means or why it is important, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

We're planning to build a straw bale house, tentatively starting construction in Spring 2007. We definitely want to stay in the same area but we are going to have to move, we can't build where we are now. I am too psyched!! Does anyone have any experience with straw bale houses? Live in one, built one? I just missed a workshop in my area that was in the summer, participants actually got to help build a small straw bale house. For our house I am thinking of a one floor structure that has 4 bedrooms, an office/library, a bathroom, a utility/laundry room, with the kitchen/dining/living room being all one big great room. I adore porches so I want a big porch, maybe even a veranda. And a greenhouse either seperate or attached to the main house.