midsummer malaise

I never write in my blog.  I never take any photos.  One day slips into the next and summer will soon be over.  August!  really?  It slides by so quickly while I clutch at it uselessly -- wait!  Did we go swimming enough?  Have we learned anything?  Have we struck the balance between a nice break from the too-busy school year and not going completely into a humidity induced coma?  The kids keep very busy with this and that and I love having them all around me.  Two more years with all of us.  I guess I won't go there.  Cry, cry.

I have been able to read a lot.  I just finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle then watched Food Inc. last night, both of which put me in a complete stupor -- what do I do now???  It will be okay, slow baby steps to organic righteousness.  I recently saw someone comment on how they hate the term "green" and at first I took a rather negative view of that opinion, but it definitely started me thinking about how the term really has become very trite and now has certain baggage, if you will.  Every article on the subject touts the same idealistic measures and pretends that it is all new and fresh.  (Don't even get me started on the How to Save Money articles ~ "#1. Stop getting $6 lattes every morning and you will save 5 million dollars a year."  But what if I don't buy lattes?)  I get all excited about organic and green things which makes me want to immediately buy some of the cool and amazing products and I wind up finding myself on some website and ordering things which a. is not saving me any green and b. doesn't seem very environmental when you take into account the planes, trains, and brown trucks required to bring me the overly packaged green products.  Why just a couple of weeks ago I joyfully opened my box of three Gorgeously Green books (if I bought all three I got free shipping on Amazon -- the savings just add up like that!) and then I got my box full of organic shampoos and other toiletries, but there must be a better way.

I also just finished The Lacuna, also by Barbara Kingsolver, (thanks mom!) and I loved it, but it made me all cranky about politics and people in general.  It did provide some insight about why people are all hesitant to be helpful and loving since I suppose that has the taint of communism.  Why can't people, on both sides of any issue, just follow the golden rule and be logical with regards to food, immigration, welfare, what have you?  That is all I ask.  Maybe I should stop reading and just watch BBC productions.  There is a lot less angst for me the farther one goes back in history and the more fictional the story.  Although, some of the things going on around us do seem to smack of science-fiction.

To calm myself down, I am reading Yearning for the Living God and it does all that and more.  Story after story of miracles and faith.  It does the heart good.  I need to be better, and I can with a little help.

So that is that.  The cicadas are loudly serenading me outside the window, the girls just got back from a bike ride, the boys are in the basement keeping cool, the husband is tying up the loose ends of a sabbatical year, and I suppose I should go buy some school supplies.  I don't want to.