Regal Royalty

Yip, I'm one of them. One of the nearly 2 billion people who watched the royal wedding (does than number include Internet watchers I wonder?). And I unashamedly loved it. LOVED Kate's little giggle after the balcony kiss. Loved that a commoner has married into the family. Loved that the world loves her. Loved that her parents have brought up two amazing level headed daughters.

I loved that 2 billion people all across the world were inspired by it - sure some folks were just watching it because everyone else was, but really - that number of people across the world are searching.

Desiring.

Hoping for something more in life.

That wedding, in all its forms, catches at our hearts, pulls at our dreams and calls us out.

It smacks of God.

And our cynical world laps it up.

Because he created us to love and be loved.

And funnily I'd just picked up "Captivating" by John and Stasi Eldredge and "Do you think I'm beautiful?" by Angela Thomas, because I'm again, trying to figure out what it means to be a woman, and trying to understand...

And I'm reminded.

The question every boy grows up to ask as a man is "Have I got what it takes?" That's why men crave our respect, our belief.

And the question every little girl asks whilst growing up, and the one she continues to ask even as an adult is "Do you think I'm lovely?".

Not every woman wants a battle to fight, but every woman yearns to be fought for...She wants to be more than noticed - she wants to be wanted. She wants to be pursued.
Every woman also wants an adventure to share...A woman doesn't want to be the adventure; she wants to be caught up into something greater than herself....
Every woman wants to have a beauty to unveil. Not to conjure up, but to unveil. Most woman feel the pressure to be beautiful from very young, but that is not what I speak of. There is also a deep desire to simply and truly be the beauty, and be delighted in.

Food for thought huh?

Excerpts: One Thousand Gifts...

I have finally finished reading One Thousand Gifts, and wanted to share with you all these last few excerpts that have buried themselves in my heart.... (photos are Ann Voskamp's, from the book gallery)

• My mama, valley wise and grief traveled, she always said, 'Expectations kill relationships.' And I've known expectations as a disease, a silent killer heaping her burdens on the shoulders of a relationship until a soul bursts into a pulmonary and dies. 'Expectations kill relationships - especially with God. And that's what a child doesn't have: this whole edifice of expectation. Without expectations, what can topple the surprising wonder of the moment?

• ...I remember: Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts, a God who transfigures the ugly into beauty. Complaint is the bitter howl of unbelief in any benevolent God in this moment. a distrust in the love-beat of the Father's heart....

• ...In the moment of singing that one line, dedicating the work as thanks to Him, something - the miracle- happens, and every time. When service is unto people, the bones can grow weary, the frustration deep. Because, agrees Dorothy Sayers,  'whenver man is made the centre of things, he becomes the storm-centre of trouble. The moment you think of serving people, you begin to have the notion that other people owe you something for your pains...You will begin to bargain for reward, to angle for applause.'                          When the laundry is for the dozen arms of children or the dozen legs, it's true, I think I'm due some appreciation. So comes a storm of trouble and lightning strikes joy. But when Christ is at the center, when dishes, laundry, work is my song of thanks to Him, joy rains. Passionately serving Christ alone makes us the loving servant to all. When the eyes of the heart focus on God, and the hands on always washing feet of Jesus alone - the bones, they sing for joy and the work returns to it purest state: eucharisteo. The work becomes worship, a liturgy of thankfulness. 

• I walk in our back door to candlelight still flickering, hang the keys on the hook and look around  at the steep mountain of laundry there in the mudroom, the shoes scattered, a coat dropped. The mudroom sink is grime ringed. Fingerprints smear across the mirror. I laugh the happiest wonder. In the afternoon's drizzle, I give happy thanks for the daily mess with a smile a mile wide, because this is again my chance to whole heartedly serve God, to do full bodied eucharisteo with the hands and the heart and the lips. I can count each task a gift, pure Eucharisteo. Grace! This work - the thousand endless jobs - they each give the opportunity for one to become the gift, a thousand times over! Because with every one of the thousand, endless jobs - I become the gift to God and to others because this work is the public God serving, the daily liturgy of thanks, the completing of communion service with my service.

• the only thing to rip out the tape echoing self-rejection is the song of His serenade. One thousand gifts tuned me to the beat. It really is like C.S. Lewis argued: that the most  fundamental thing is not how we think of God but rather what God thinks of us: How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Years of Christian discipleship, Bible study, churchgoing had been about me thinking about God; practicing Eucharisteo was the very first time I had really considered at length what God thought of me - this ridiculous and relentlessly pursuing love, so bold. Everywhere, everything. Love!

• God, He has blessed - caressed. I could bless God - caress with thanks. It's our making love... the intercourse of soul with God is the very climax of joy...we're called to do more than believe in God; we're called to live in God. To enter into Christ and Christ enter into us - to cohabit. Is this why it is His will for us to always give thanks in all things - the unbroken communion?

Food for thought huh?

Books On My Bedside Table

The Elephant Whisperer: This book is incredible - for anyone born in Africa and raised to appreciate the wild, or for those wishing to appreciate it. For me, it was a wonderful journey through the nostalgia of my childhood and the elephants of Kariba. The writing was superb - excellently crafted: the narrator was truly easy to follow. I'll be honest, there were a few chapters where I sobbed my heart out, and others that ended with true cliff hangers, and I'm not one for animal books! Lawrence Anthony is an talented man with a wonderful appreciation of the wild. After reading this, I'd like to one day visit Thula Thula Nature Reserve.



The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Again, a eye opening book. For someone who considers herself African, this book made me sit up a little straighter and realize just how much I bury my head in the sand. A heroic tale of a young rural boy who creates a windmill out of scrap to power his family's home and change their lifestyle. This is the essence of Africa and her people - people who rise up to make the most of their lives with what they have. The revelation for me was the famine in Malawi - how could I not have known? Not an easy read necessarily (I'll admit being bored every now and then), but still interesting and worth it.



The Count of Monte Cristo: Braveheart watched the movie a while ago, and urged me to re-watch it again, but I declined. He then encouraged me to read it, and I'm glad I did. Dumas' epic tale is cunningly crafted, and just plain genius. Although it is a classic, I would strongly encourage you to read it, highly recommended and well worth it (many late nights reading as much as I could!).

Meaning of Motherhood

(In spite of me still deciding, I just had to write....)

Picture three small wet and cold bodies. And one wet and cold mum. One wet and cold mom trying to dress said cold bodies. Four people rather chilly after swimming in a pool for 40 minutes. And one wet and cold mom that knows she cannot get warm herself as she must, after dressing said cold and wet bodies, get back into the pool for her exercise (as the feet, well, you know the story).

And you have a very disgruntled mum.

A mum who suddenly realized - Hang on a minute, I'm not enjoying this.

And then He spoke...these things to my heart.

He asked me if I'd be willing to lay down a little more of my life (note, my life...the life I think belongs to me. Whose life is it anyway?). And inwardly, I groaned. What Lord? More? Really?

And as I listened, I heard. I understood (scratch that, I'm understanding!).

Motherhood? It's about self sacrificing. It's about laying down one's life over and over again. Time and Time again we're called to let go... and I think it's just one of those seasons again as activities are on the increase and my afternoons are no longer 'mine' to call my own.

It's about dying to self.

It's about serving. Didn't like it much when He showed me I'm really not much of a server at heart. Na-ah. Not my cup of tea...but I sure like to be served. Sobering really.

And it's about choosing to see the beauty in the here and now, in the snapshot of what you see. Why do I want more time? For what? (See my earlier post). And, again He solidifies what I read a few days ago...

I fill the sink with the circle of bowl, and batter floats up in suds. I wash. I see my reflection in the stainless of the tap. I know you, those seeking eyes. You're the one in dire need of time, that thing we can't buy, what we sell of ourselves to get more of what we think we want, what we sacrifice to seemingly gain. They say time is money, but that's not true. Time is life. And if I want the fullest life, I need to find fullest time. I wipe a water spot off the tap; there's a reflection of me. Oh yes, I know you, the busyness of your life leaving little room for the source of your life. I'm the face grieving.

God gives us time. And who has time for God?

Which makes no sense.

In Christ, don't we have everlasting existence? Don't Christians have all the time in eternity, life everlasting? If Christians run out of time - wouldn't we have lost our very existence? If anyone should have time, isn't it the Christ-followers?....

...a question once asked of a pastor haunts through the rows of headstones and I hear it sure again. What was the pastor's most profound regret in life?....Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing...Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away....

In our rushing, bulls in china shops, we break our own lives.

Haste makes waste.... and I hear this too, words of another woman seeking: "On every level of life, from housework to heights of prayer, in all judgement and efforts to get things done, hurry and impatience are sure the marks of an amateur".

In a world addicted to speed, I blur the moments into one unholy smear. I have done it. I do it still. Hands of the clock whip hard. So I push hard and I bark hard and I fall hard and when their wide eyes brim sadness and their chins tremble weak, I am weary and I am the thin clear skin, reflecting their fatigue, about to burst, my eyes glistening with their same sheer pain.

The hurry makes us hurt.

And maybe it's the hurt that drives us on?...

Hurry always empties a soul....

I speak to God: I don't really want more time; I just want enough time. Time to breath deep and time to see real and time to laugh long and time to give You glory, and rest deep and sing joy and just enough time in a day not to feel hounded, pressed, driven or wild to get it all done - yesterday.... in the beep and blink of the twenty first century with its "live in the moment" buzz phrase that none of the whirl-weary seem to know how to do, who actually knows how to take time and live with soul and body and God all in sync?

362. Suds...all the color of the sun. 

That's my answer to time. Time is a relentless river. It rages on, a respecter of no one. And this, this is the only way to slow time: When I fully enter time's swift current, enter into the current moment with the weight of my attention, I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here. I can slow the torrent by being all here. I only live full when I live fully in the moment. And when I'm always looking for the next glimpse of glory, I slow and enter. And time slows....This is where God is. In the present. I AM - his very name.

                                             (Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts)

 And these precious lives -  mine to mold and shape and change and imprint on for ever? Do I see them as a heritage or a possession? Can I come to a place where I take the time to see them as the object, the purpose of my day...instead of the endless list of tasks and activities that are not, and cannot be, in a relationship with me?

My goals, my day, sometimes overshadow the little people in my day. Knowing I have to squeeze an extra two swimming lessons in my week for Aragorn who has an aversion to proper swimming lessons means I have to create time ... and honestly? Knowing this at 0800 each day fills me with something akin to stress: when am I going to pack their lunch, how to fit in school before picking up Belle, Belle missing her nap, fitting in things after this etc. You get the picture. But still. BUT STILL. Those are not good enough excuses.

This motherhood thing? It's daily lessons in servanthood.

O God.




go on over and check this out - for busy moms....

Book on my Bedside Table

Ann Voskamp's "One Thousand Gifts" (she's the author of the blog entitled 'A Holy Experience'), is the book on my bedside table at the moment that is arresting me, chapter by chapter. Here's an excerpt from Chapter Two that I can just so relate to. May it pierce you as it did me.....

For years of mornings, I have woken wanting to die. Life itself twists into nightmares. For years, I have pulled the covers up over my head, dreading to begin another day I'd be bound to just wreck. Years, I lie listening to the taunt of names ringing off my interior walls, ones form the past that never drifted far and away: Loser. Mess. Failure. They are the signs nailed overhead, nailed through me, naming me. The stars blinking are blinking out.
    Funny, this. Yesterday morning, and the morning before, all these mornings, I wake to the discontent of life in my own skin. I wake to self-hatred. To the wrestle to get it all done, the relentless anxiety that I am failing. Always the failing. I yell at children, fester with bitterness, forget doctor appointments, lose library books, live selfishly, skip prayer, complain, go to bed too late, neglect cleaning the toilets. I live tired. Afraid. Anxious. Weary. Years, I feel it in the veins, the pulsing of ruptured hopes. Would I ever be enough, find enough, do enough? But this morning, I wake wildly wanting to live. Physically feeling it in the veins trembling, the hard part of the lungs, the seing it in the steady starts, how much I really want to live. How I don't want to die. Is that the message of the nightmares and dreams? To live fully alive ...or in empty nothingness?
It's the in between that drives us mad. (emphasis mine)
It's the life in between, the days of walking lifeless, the years calloused and simply going through the hollow motions, the self-protecting by self-distracting, the body never waking, that's lost capacity to fully feel - this si the life in between that makes is the wild walking dead.
The sun climbs the horizon, I throw back the covers, take another breath, and begin. I get to live. I get to live....

Which road through this brief land? What is all most important? How to live the fullest life here that delivers into the full life ever after?...

.How does one live ready, and always? Yes, ultimately Jesus. Yes, this premature dying to self, birthing into the cross-life, the grace cocoon, before emerging into the life unending. Without this Jesus, no, no one can be ready. ... 

But, someone, please give me - who is born again but still so much in need of being born anew - give me the details of how to live in the waiting cocoon before the forever begins? ...

In my reality-dream (dream-reality?), I gasp for more time, frantic for more time. But I have to wonder:more time for more what? The answer  to that determines the road these so-short days take. ....

 Food for thought huh?

Books On My Bedside Table

So here's what I've been reading/am reading this month....

                                    

This trilogy is BRILLIANT. Absolutely gripping, switch off to th world type books. Books that I would have been able to read in one or two days flat, pre kids, but now days these are lasting me a good week to 10 days! Harrowing subject matter - which leaves me even more aware of human trafficking and how twisted sex is in the hard, cruel world out there.

 

This is one of THOSE books, the books that deserve their own shelf on your bookcase, one reserved for books that have changed your life! This is the best book I have ever read on sex (within marriage), and I so appreciated the frankness with which Dr. Leman writes. It's the first time I really get what God's intentions were with sex, and it makes my heart desire to prepare my children so much better than I was prepared for this good gift God has given married people. Although I've also always been taught that sex outside of marriage is wrong, I now understand so much more fully the ramifications and the consequences. I wish, with hindsight, that this was the book I read before I got married. I strongly urge you to consider buying this for yourself, for your marriage - actually buy it for your elders, anyone you know about to get married, and make sure you buy it for those people who lead pre-marital counselling - I'm serious! This book is THAT good...trust me! And if you know me, happy to lend you my copy!

Happy reading....

If I had a green nose...

Got to love those moments when you're reading a kids story, and suddenly God speaks to you loud and clear. I'm not a Max Lucado fan, but his allegories for kids are just awesome....

Lucia and Punchinello looked out the windows of Eli's workshop. Like other Wemmicks, they were wooden people. But unlike other Wemmicks, they weren't standing in line in the village below.

"Look at them all!"exclaimed Punchinello.

"I don't understand it," Lucia wondered. "Why would anyone want to paint his nose green?"

"Because everyone else is, " Eli responded without looking up form his workbench.

Punchinello didn't understand. "What do you mean?"

"Everyone wants to look like everyone else. Sometimes it's square hats. Sometimes it's tall shoes. Why, last year the big thing was yellow ears. Now it's green noses. Everyone wants a green nose."

"Does a green nose make them smarter?"Punchinello asked

"No."

"Does a green nose make them stronger?

"No."

"Does it make them faster?

"No."

"Then what does a green nose make them?"

Eli looked up and smiled. "Greener."

But his smile left as he looked out of the window at the long line of Wemmicks. "They think they'll be happier if they look like everyone else. But I made them different on purpose. Freckles, long noses, bright eyes, dark eyes...these were my ideas. Now they all want to look the same."

and then these two Wemmicks go down to the village to get a closer look, and this is one of the conversations they have whilst observing the goings on...

"It's the latest thing," barked a Wemmick on the sidewalk. "Don't be the only Wemmick with a plain nose."

"Who is that?" asked Punchinello.

Lucia shrugged. "I don't know."

"Why, that's Mr. Willy Withit," volunteered a Wemmick from behind them.

"Does he run the nose-painting store?" asked Punchinello.

"More than that," the Wemmick explained. "Painted noses were his idea. So were the square hats and the tall shoes and the yellow ears. New things are his thing. He decides what is 'withit'. Isn't he the best?"

Lucia and Punchinello took a good look at this tall Wemmick with the deep voice, big smile, tall hat, and green bow tie that matched his oh-so-great green nose. Both were thinking the same question. Lucia asked it, "Who made him the new-thing picker?"

The Wemmick looked puzzled, like he'd never been asked that question. "Well I don't know. He always has."

Little Punchinello and some of his friends end up getting their noses painted, but they have to keep going back as green soon isn't the latest fashion, it's blue. Then yellow, orange  - you get the idea. At the end of the story they return, somewhat dejected to Eli's workshop...

"Been trying to fit in, eh?'

Punchinello nodded.

"Did you succeed?"

"Not really. Every time we got close, someone changed the rules."

"That's the way it is."

"And my neck hurt from sticking my nose in the air," Woody added.

"You weren't built to walk that way."

"We just want to be ourselves again, " Spilnt said.

"I'm glad to hear that".

"Can we?"they asked.

"Of course you can," Eli replied. "I'll always help you to be who I made you to be". Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a piece of sandpaper. "But it's going to take some time."

And so Punchinello and his friends followed their maker into this workshop where he spent the rest of hsi day removingf the paint. It hurt to be sanded, but it was worth it be normal again.

Whose fault is it?

This quote is reverberating in my mind today....

It is sometimes said that the worst thing to happen to Africa was the arrival of the white man. And the second worst thing was his departure. Colonialism lasted just long enough to destroy much of Africa's indidgneous cultures and traditions, but not long enough to leave behind a durable replacement.

(When the Crocodile Eats the Sun, Peter Godwin, pg155)

And Braveheart reminded me that what I am feeling is probably how countless black people have felt at the hands of white people in times gone by....

food for thought....

Cry My Beloved Country!

Being Zimbabwean is a privilege.

And I'm not sure that I fully appreciated that when I lived in that beautiful land up North.

I'm reading "When the Crocodile eats the Sun", by Peter Goodwin, and so enjoying it, although it haunts me when I fall asleep.

I'm still raw about Zimbabwe...and I hadn't realized that until this book opened old wounds.

It is written about the early period of Zimbabwe's demise, around the year 2000, the year Braveheart and I married, the years land invasions started, the years the first white farmers were murdered ... the years we were convinced Change would come. But that change was challenged by a dictator drunk on the taste of power and greed, and to this day, Mugabe has managed to snuff out all sparks of freedom.

What has been lost by the people of Zimbabwe is incomprehensible.

It seemed to me growing up, and even now when I look back at who I knew, that everyone in Zimbabwe used to farm, have a farm in their family, or be surrounded by people who farmed. The farming community was extensive. And by default, so was the community of farm laborers.

All has been lost.

Reading this book has made me remember with great pain, the loss of homes, the loss of lives, the loss of sanity in Zimbabwe. My life has moved on - the lives of the wives of farmers have been irrevocably altered, and they live with that searing loss daily. I had forgotten. They never will.

Martin Olds body riddled with bullets.
He fought bravely till his death

My aunt no longer has a home - the homestead in Norton is occupied. Her husband's father is buried on that land, and the farm I spent most of my childhood on can no longer be visited. Sure, she has the title deeds and now lives in England trying to make a living by caring...but can you fathom that? She is over 60, and has no where to really call home.

Other life long family friends lost their farm in Centenary - a farm carved out of virgin land a generation ago. There was nothing there - just natural vlei with huge towering masasa and mopane trees. This particular homestead was built by the farmer's own hands...and now? Occupied. Destroyed. Burnt. A highly functioning farm gone fallow. And on both these farms,these women ran clinics, gave medicine out, and on the Centenary farm, provided a school for the laborers children.

All lost.

It's not only my family (including my extended family) and close family friends who have lost out, but it's my children - the next generation. They are South African. They have no idea what it's like to love the rolling hills in Centenary, or enjoy the drive out to the farm in Norton. They won't ever know what it is to swim in the reservoir near the cows, or stay on a friend's horse farm. They won't grow up going to Nyanga and feeling the cold bite in the mountain air, or swimming in the crisp clear water; nor Kariba where I spent every holidays, watching elephants wander through the campsite.

enjoying a maize harvest

I recognize now, looking back, that my parents ensured I had a golden childhood when it came to holidays away and experiencing Zimbabwe. I remember with great clarity mny parents saving for years so that in 1985 we could go right around Zimbabwe on a family holiday.

Yes, my children will have different experiences here. Yes, they'll have different opportunities here. But somehow, it's just not the same. Imagine for one moment being forced to leave your home, your country, your livelihood - all that you have known.

My heart aches for the people who have fled this land, the Zimbabwe diaspora. It aches for the people who still live in the land, and their resilience and hope in the face of insurmountable odds. I ache because for many, returning to Zimbabwe is not an option.

I remember being amused moving to South Africa: I would meet people who on learning we were Zimbabwean would cry - "Me too!" and on further discussion I would learn that they had actually left Zimbabwe at independence some (32 years ago) or in the early 80's - and inside I would look at them quizzically and think, "Well you're not a Zimbabwean then! You've been in South Africa for years!" But now, now, I get it.

Zimbabweans are ALWAYS Zimabweans.

Zimbabwe is in my blood. I will always be a Zimbabwean no matter what passport I hold, or where I live.

And one day, just may be, we will go back.

Books On My Bedside Table

Here's what's on my table:

An Intimate War by Donve Lee.
My (previous) neighbor wrote this book, it's taken her close on 13 years - we attended the book launch last week. It is beautiful in its own way, and written really well, but it made my heart bleed. It's a tale of two people, and the way their relationship becomes a battlefield. I think it will haunt me for some time, not because there is some erotic content, but because it has made me aware or how whole my life is. Honestly. I married my high school sweetheart. I know so little of the ache and agony of people who have been in love and used one another. Or of the loneliness that single people face. It makes me ache for the lie so easily propagated in today's world that sex is meaningless and only for pleasure - and yet here is a real story, an insight into a mature woman's life and the hurt and the heartache that is evident as a result of relationships outside of the way I believe God intended them. Not only that, but her characters are set up for this war long before they meet each other because of their upbringing and the way their parents treated them - just a further revelation on the calling we have as parents. Recommended.

A Proper Pursuit - Lyn Austin
I loved Lyn Austin's Chronicles of the Kings (I'm a sucker for historical fictional Biblical novels), and took this out with interest. It was completely different...but it was a good read whilst I was in bed this week - light hearted, amusing, and well written for a Christian novelist.

• Dinner with Mugabe by Heidi Holland

Can't say too much about this as I've only read a few chapters, but anything that can offer me an insight into this man's head will sure help!

Books On My Bedside Table

As many of you know, I love reading and am passionate about books, and one day dream about having a library in my home! Ever since I was little I have been able to escape into reading, so much so that to the extent that a book grips me, I can completely switch off to the world around me, and not really even hear people's voices (I remember this driving my parents crazy when I was younger!) Now, need I say that that aspect seldom happens any more what with three children, but I do try to keep reading in between ... life! I hope to make this a regular post, and would love to know what books are on your bedside table too!

• 
  

  Expecting Adam, by Martha Beck – My neighbour lent this to me. It's a tale of a woman and her husband coming to terms with expecting a Down Syndrome child. This has got to be one of the most brilliantly crafted books I have ever read. If you love to write, or easily recognise good writing, or want to read something really well written, then this is it. I'm ¾ through, and am loving her writing style – frank, honest and full of humour - honestly, have caught myself laughing out loud numerous times. I also appreciate her growing criticism of the academic world (her and her husband are Harvard graduates) – she echoes many of my frustrations about the trap academia can present to people. I also loved her honesty about spiritual things as well. Read it – you won't be sorry! (If you know me well and live close, my neighbour has said I can lend this out – just look after it as a piece of treasure! Email me and I'll make a plan to get it to you!

  
  
  
• 
  
  When Children Love to Learn by Elaine Cooper – Charlotte Mason was one of the primary theorists of education in Britain, and her ideas have formed the basis for an entire home schooling philosophy. I had never really been a Charlotte Mason follower/believer/fan until I started this book. It's a wonderful collection of critical essays of various things she said. Did you know that Sunday Schools originally were started by the church in an attempt to help working children to gain an education? And they really were that – schools where children learnt to read and write on a Sunday.

Here are some more quotes I loved:

"People today are making a colossal pedagogical error. They are rather like an uneducated person who thinks that if one spoon of medicine will do good, then 10 are even better! Many children are being given too many hours of instruction per day – sometimes in schools, sometimes in homeschools. No one can do everything that can be worthwhile. The best of curriculum guides must be guides, not absolute directives. What you choose should be the very best and 'living'."

I could actually probably write out something from each page I have read – truly an inspiration, and a must for anyone involved in education in any way.

• 
  
  Jane's Delicious Garden by Jane Griffiths – another neighbour lent me this. I must just tell you, that if you had ever told me I would read a gardening book, I would have told you that you didn't know me at all. But that was before I actually managed to grow some flowers and vegetables in my garden! This is a beautifully written and photographed book that is quite easy to read about growing your own organic veggies in South Africa. I have found it interesting and really helpful considering I know nothing! Each page has lovely garden quotes on it:
  
  
  we come from the earth,
   we return to the earth,
   and in between we garden
   – anon
  
  
  
  
  nature, to be commanded,
   has to be obeyed 
  – Francis bacon
  
  
• 
  
  
  Time (September 6, 2010). I bought this as I was intrigued by the title and by-line: 'The real Cost of Organic Food – everyone says it is better for you. But what does science show?'
  
  
  It was a fascinating article to read, especially in light about my recent-ish post about whose research you actually choose to believe. In the article is this quote -

    “we draw these bright lines between organic and conventional foods...but science doesn't draw those lines. They criss-cross, and you have people on both sides cherry-picking their data”.

  
  
  What I found most fascinating was the following verdicts:
  • 
    
    on fruits/vegetables – buy conventional. One study (my aside, just one study? Is that enough to make this sweeping assumption?) found no nutritional difference between organic and conventional produce – and conventional even squeaked ahead in one category.
  • 
    
    on beef – organic
  • 
    
    on milk – organic because of the extra chemistry in hormones for milk
  • 
    
    on eggs – organic, because of the treatment of the birds – seals the deal!

So, great bedtime reading – feel free to pass on great books to me, or to recommend some!

Myth #4 - No time!

 “Where would I find the time?” Sure, it requires a sacrifice of time. It means I won't have mornings to myself to do coffee with the girls, or go shopping etc. But I'm trying to look at what I will gain instead of what I will lose. I will be building a long lasting relationship with my children that I believe will last generations. I look forward to incorporating them into the running of the house, teaching them how to be responsible etc. (and just as an aside. It's amazing just who does the actual teaching – in some families, Mom and dad share it equally, in some, granny has specific tasks etc. And in some families, they are able to run their own businesses whilst homeschooling too!)