Saving resources isn’t just a financial matter

Saving resources isn’t just a financial matter. It is a spiritual matter. There is a healthy discipline that comes when you seek to do more with less. And the spiritual aspect is more than that as well. I think that gratitude is a fundamental part of saving resources. If you are grateful for something then you value it more highly than if you are not grateful for it. And when you value something highly you don’t waste it. There is something interesting about all of this. It seems like when you treat something like it has value, when you treat something with respect or gratitude, you are also treating yourself with respect and gratitude. It’s a little like a child who treats a doll with love. The child’s soul is fed in the process.

New vocabulary, surprises, new skills, and the mundane.

• Lily said, “Dad” and “Daddy!” and “Hi, Dad!”.
• Elsie ate a large breakfast and, much to our chagrin, simultaneously took out two nursery workers at once when she lost it again.
• Timmy said “I know what ‘butt-in-door’ means.”  I said, “What?”  “I know what ‘butt-in-door’ means.  It means Choose the right:  ‘ Celestial glory shall be mine
  If I can but endure.’ “  “Oh.”
• Abby was caught speaking in an alien language while she and Kate and Timmy were sliding an assembly of books with an array of “My Little Ponies” that they called a space ship.  Aliens speak quickly with a very high voice.
• Kate learned how to do both the bird flap and the walk-around with a little toy clacker.
• Gina took all 5 kids to the dentist simultaneously and didn’t even think it was a big deal.
• I stayed up past 10:00 too many times and found myself on autopilot through an early morning meeting this morning.

Kate was baptized and confirmed

• Lily had her first tooth break through,
• Elsie got a baking kit and made her very own biscuits,
• Timmy wrestled on and on with his uncles Andrew and Jonathan,
• Abby pulled her own tooth out using dental floss and persistence,
• Kate split her baptism between giddy excitement and silent, happy weeping,
• Gina cried knowing that her 8-year-old got baptized,
• I started writing my dissertation.

Timmy beat level 1-1.

• Lily offended three separate women this week by panicking and sobbing when she saw them,
• Elsie spent a good portion of the week with purple and black marker on different parts of her face and in her ears,
• Timmy got to spend more time playing Super Mario Three than ever before,
• Abby found out Mrs. Everrett, her beloved teacher, is leaving this month and not coming back,
• Kate had her real baptismal interview,
• Gina orchestrated a smooth birthday party including 12 children, several games, and worm and butterfly cupcakes, and
• I made Hawaiian haystacks and for the first time understood how Anatole felt when people turned up their noses at his artistry.  (Hear that, Kate!)

New Year

• Lily got into a batch of fudge Gina had made,
• Elsie stopped wearing diapers at night,
• Timmy made a goal to be the fastest driver in the world,
• Abby made a goal to be a better artist by next year,
• Katie made a goal to be a better big sister by being more patient and slower to get mad,
• Gina got us stocked up in many food supply basics for the next many months, and
• I designed a new type of nano-scale optical motor.

Little Little Layla learns the flute

So I’m thinking about this whole music endeavor with a time horizon of about 10 years. It seems like that is the amount of time it takes to really learn something. Anyway, I was also thinking about who I might write for. My kids, of course. And if you’re singing to kids, it might help if there is a story involved. So here is a ballad about Little Little Layla.

Little Little Layla was walking on the beach when
She heard a sound like singing but from out across the sea, then
She looked atop a rock that stretched up into the sun, a
man was playing pretty music and having lots of fun.

She sat then in the sand as the sun sank down and
She listened and she looked at the ocean all around and
She knew in her heart that one day she’d make that sound, she’d
Be playing pretty music while the sun went down.

Well, she went and told her father and he gave her an old flute
and she picked it up and blew it but the darn old thing was mute
so she tried a few more times and then she told her dad the problems
and he said she’d need to try again, keep going ’til she’d solved them

Little Little Layla went running through the town
and she carried that flute with her all around,
after 3 whole weeks of trying, the sound did come
then she played it and she played it everyday yes every one.

She asked to use a boat to paddle out into the sea,
but her father wouldn’t let her ’til she learned to swim safely,
so that summer to the lake in the forest she did come,
Little Layla practiced swimming each time her chores were done.

After 2 long summers she got to take the boat,
and she paddled to the rock and tied it up to float,
well she wanted to climb to the top of the rock
but it was craggy, it was steep, there might as well have been a lock.

Little Little Layla went and talked to her old friend
who know a lot about climbing without coming to an end,
together they climbed more than 67 cliffs,
practicing the safe techniques ’til they were sore and tired and stiff.

Little Little Layla rested up and played her flute,
then she took the boat and paddled over to that craggy butte,
well she tied up her old boat and went up to the base
then she climbed atop the rock, happy triumph on her face.

Little Little Layla and her dad looked out,
and they played their pretty music to the ocean all about,
and together there they stood looking all around,
together playing music while the sun went down.