Five Misconceptions About Sabbatical

And just like that, Thanksgiving’s over. Before we had a chance to toss out the dried-out autumnal gourd decorations and boil the turkey bones for broth, there were wreaths around town, Christmas carols playing in the stores, and – could it be? – Christmas trees blinking in our neighbors’ windows. With a mere two days between Thanksgiving and the start of Advent, the holiday season seems to be upon us in an even more breathless rush than usual.

But that’s okay: I can keep breathing. It’s not like I’m also preparing to move our family across the country for five months, during which major renovations will be happening on the house we’ll move into after we return, while at the same time our current house goes on the market.

Oh, wait a minute! That’s exactly what’s happening!

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Trading Up

A few weeks ago, a friend invited me to go to the Trader Joe’s grocery store in South Burlington.

Although this Trader Joe’s – the only one in Vermont – opened in May 2014, I had never visited it. I had, in fact, resisted opportunities to visit it, just as I generally resist chances to go to Costco, or Home Depot, or WalMart.

For one thing, a visit to any of these chain stores requires me to drive to the Burlington area. Listen: If I’m loading multiple young children into our minivan and driving an hour or more, it’s certainly not going to be in order to buy things. I’d rather save my money and stay home.

For another thing: I’ve been to Trader Joe’s, and Costco, and Home Depot, and WalMart. I’ve even been to Target and Ikea, neither of which exists in the state of Vermont at present. I went to all these places and more when I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. So I know that, although people like to shop at these stores because they’re full of “good deals,” what they’re really full of is stuff that you don’t know you needed until you were surrounded by thousands of square feet of “good deals” crooning your name. These stores are not your friends; these stores, like all others, just want your money.

I didn’t move to Vermont to shop at Trader Joe’s; if anything, a major selling point of Vermont was its dearth of chain stores. Shopping shouldn’t be that easy; I’d far rather navigate the miniscule aisles of the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op, with people judging me for allowing my toddler to stand up in the basket of our shopping cart, in order to pay four times what I’d pay at a big box grocery store.

I’m serious.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Cutting Corners at the CROP Walk

“I don’t think we’re going to come in last this year!” my daughter marveled as we turned onto Main Street after taking our “shortcut.”

We were participating the 38^th Annual Addison County CROP Hunger Walk. The CROP Walk, which is always held on the first Sunday in October, involves a 2.5 mile stroll around Middlebury: Walkers from various local congregations raise funds for their participation, of which 25% goes to support Addison County food shelves, and the remaining 75% goes to Church World Service to combat hunger and provide disaster assistance around the world. (The 2014 Addison County CROP Walk raised over $26,800, placing it near the top of all New England CROP Walks.)

It’s a good cause, and a nice community event. My husband and I were initially drawn to the CROP Walk – in which our own congregation participates – because it seemed accessible for young families. We want to involve our children in activities that support the less fortunate in our community and throughout the world, but many service opportunities seem impossible with multiple young children; we’d end up spending more time trying to control our offspring than doing anything helpful.

But a 2.5-mile walk through the glorious gold, orange and red of a Middlebury October? That we could do!

At least, that’s what we thought when we embarked upon our first CROP Walk, five years ago.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Take My Stuff, Please!

Stuff expands to fill the space available.

I’m not a physicist, but I’m pretty sure that’s a proven fact. It may even fall under Newton’s first law of motion: an object in motion will not change its velocity unless an external force acts upon it. Except in this case, the objects in motion are our family’s possessions, and the external force is me.

I am on a mission to get rid of our stuff.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Once More to the Water

“It only gets really hot in Vermont for about one week every summer.”

That’s what we tell ourselves here in order to make ourselves feel better about Vermont’s widespread lack of central air conditioning.

It’s not true, of course: This summer, like every other summer since our family moved to Vermont, we experienced at least three distinct bouts of uncomfortably hot and humid temperatures. But, you see, it’s not worth investing in central air because it’s only really hot for about one week every summer.

This summer we did what we’ve done every other summer since moving to Vermont, and we headed for water. We logged numerous hours at Lake Dunmore, a mere 20 minutes from our front door. We took our annual mid-summer trip to Ogunquit, Maine, where we met extended family for a week of seaside vacation. And just this past weekend – the final weekend before the Addison County school year would effectively end summer – our family returned to the Highland Lodge, on the shores of Caspian Lake in Greensboro, Vermont.

Because we make these same aqua-centric outings every summer, they serve as yardsticks for our family’s growth and development. We remember the first trip we took to Ogunquit, when I was pregnant with our first child. We recall our first summer in Vermont, when Lake Dunmore was a weekly escape. And we look back with fondness on our first visit to Caspian Lake three years ago: our first vacation after the birth of our fourth daughter.

This year, all of these trips offered clear proof that my children are growing up.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

In Which I Butcher Some Chickens

“So, what does one wear to butcher chickens?” I asked my friend Courtney over the phone. We were confirming our plans for the following night; I was focusing on the priorities. (The answer, in case you were wondering, is: anything that you don’t mind coming into contact with blood, guts, feathers, and – above all – that chicken smell.)

Courtney had emailed the week before: “Do you want to butcher three chickens with me? Your family could have the three chickens for your freezer. I have a vegetarian friend with three meat birds….”

Who would pass up an invitation like that? Not me.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column for The Addison Independent.

A Midsummer Sampler (With Kids)

“I am so bored. I’m bored to death!” moans my 7-year-old daughter.

We are three weeks into summer vacation. For one of those weeks, she attended a day camp at Lake Dunmore. For two and a half of those weeks, her grandparents visited from California; this visit included a trip to the Six Flags Great Escape water and amusement parks, a day at Shelburne Farms, the Ilsley Library summer reading truck touch, and a strawberry picking outing. For two weeks, she took daily swimming lessons at the Middlebury Town Pool.

She has three younger sisters, a house full of books and toys, and 1¼ acres at her disposal.

She is bored to death.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Changing My Mind

It can be humbling to write a bi-weekly newspaper column: Few things more effectively highlight one’s capacity for change – or inconsistency, denial, and flip-flopping. I’m not convinced that this is a bad thing; isn’t the point of individual human existence to grow and change? Isn’t it natural that the ideas expressed in a column should evolve along with the human writing that column?

For some reason, though, we expect writers – particularly writers of regular columns – to emerge with a fully formed set of ideas that remain consistent for the life of their column. Writing, it seems, sets one’s opinions in cement, and to deviate from a previously written opinion is to reveal a weak character.

If that seems extreme, imagine Ann Coulter suddenly begging our forgiveness and espousing the ideology of the liberal left, or Nicholas Kristof announcing that he’s been wrong and human trafficking is really just a natural extension of free market capitalism. One scenario might be wonderful, one might be awful, but each would call into question the journalistic integrity of the writer.

It has been nearly three years since I began writing “Faith in Vermont.” In terms of genre, “Faith in Vermont” is best described as a “lifestyle” rather than a “political” or “opinion” column. But lifestyles, politics, and opinions are all subject to change, and such change has happened in our household:

Last month, we joined the Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op.

Click here to continue reading my latest “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

The Moms Are All Right

This column will be published immediately following the last day of Addison County’s 2014-15 school year.

But I’m not going to write about the complex bundle of emotions that summer vacation inspires in parents: the relief of no longer having to get up before dawn to pack lunches and sign reading logs, versus the dread of 71 long days filled with sibling squabbles, sunscreen and bug spray, and the logistical gymnastics of camps and classes and vacations.

I’m not going to write about that, because now I know that the moms are all right. I’m sure that the dads are all right, too, but I haven’t had coffee with them.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.

Take It Easy

My daughter stepped off of the school bus the other day, handed me her heavy backpack, and – as is her custom – made her way slowly up towards our house by walking on top of the rock wall alongside the driveway. As she neared her destination she stopped, dropped into a squat, and called the rest of us – her sisters and me – over. She’d discovered two inchworms hanging from their invisible filaments over the edge of a large rock. For the next ten minutes, two of my daughters remained there, transfixed, watching the two inchworms “race” up and down their threads.

Yes, I am still taking a summer vacation from The Pickle Patch, but as promised, here is the link to this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.