I haven't blogged in a great long while, mostly because I decided I wanted to do other more fulfilling things with my time, and for whatever reason, I did not find blogging a really satisfying activity (which I know makes me uncool, unpopular and off the radar...alas!). I have always been a Luddite and it seems times haven't changed! In graduate school I refused to get an email account; I often think I might have been better keeping that committment. Real human contact is at the top of my list for what makes life wonderful; as for the written word, nothing beats a letter. If the postal service wanted me to, I'd start the campaign to bring back the letter.

So a brief reading update anyway. I've been really satisfied with some of my recent parenting reads. Here they are:

Still love to read and re-read: Mothering as a Spiritual Practice
How to Behave, So Your Kids Will To!
Children: The Challenge
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

I realize that, on the surface, it appears that I haven't been blogging. But, actually, I have. I write a little blog post in my head every day. And when the technology finally catches up with my post-post-post modern methods, you will be able to read them.

In the meantime, in case anyone wonders what I've been doing all these months, I want to share the pile of books I have on my nightstand. This is, of course, not what I have been doing with my time (I wish). But I thought, hey! that's a big pile of books, maybe I can blog about them....

THE WILDER LIFE
SCIENCE AND HEALTH
THE HEALIING LIGHT
THE SPA
THE WEIRD SISTERS
THE LONELY POLYGAMIST
MOTHERING AS A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
BONK
THE NINTH WIFE
THE SHALLOWS
WHOLE CHILD/WHOLE PARENT
MY MONASTERY IS A MINIVAN
YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE
THE ART OF PRESENCE
PARENTING FROM THE INSIDE OUT
THE NO-CRY SLEEP SOLUTION

No time to write...I have too much to read!

Come to The Writer's Life

I will be speaking, along with my New York Times Bestselling mother, Nancy Thayer, and author Brian Leaf at my children's preschool fundraising event.

Get your tickets now!

The Writer's Life: Writing for Love, Writing for Money

EVENT DATE: June 2, 2011 7:00 pm at the First Congregational Church, Amherst, in the dining room.

An author panel exploring the passion behind publication as well as the practical aspects. Featuring New York Times Bestselling author Nancy Thayer, a true career novelist, whose 21st novel will be published this June. Joining her will be Brian Leaf, the author of ten non-fiction books, whose work has been widely featured in the media. Samantha Wilde, whose debut novel was published in 2009, will round out the panel as she speaks about the experience of being a new writer, landing a two-book deal, and writing women's fiction in a competitive market.

EVENT COST: Tickets are $10 in advance and $10 at the door. For tickets please email info@springstreetpreschool.org, sam@samanthawilde.com, or ziomekgardens@gmail.com. Or call 256-8442.

All proceeds go to benefit Spring Street Preschool, a private, not for profit, preschool located in the heart of downtown Amherst. With a history of 53 years in Amherst, Spring Street Preschool offers a play-filled, nurturing environment with an innovative, unique child-lead program of social, academic, artistic and spiritual inquiry.

There will be refreshments for sale, a book raffle, question and answer time, and opportunity for book signing.

Civilize Your Feet

I have discovered that I am not a natural blogger. Not because I don't like to write or lack the discipline of regular posting, but because blogging doesn't DO anything for me. It doesn't feel rewarding in and of itself. In fact, sometimes it leaves me a tad bit lonely.... I never have been keen on the cyber world of anonymity.

So if you want to find me when you can't find me here, visit my website or my ministry blog which shares a heart practice, or the women writers blog that I write for every two months.

In the mean time, some treasures from my life:
My son as he got his feet onto his scooter: "Let me just get my feet civilized."
and while he spoke with his sister.
"If you don't say something, I can't hear you."

Dreaming of Writing?

Check out this writing contest WITH publication in an anthology for the winners. I will be a part of it and you can too! We're looking for women writers, published and unpublished. It's a wonderful opportunity to call up the muse, get some words on paper, and maybe hold a book in your hands with your story inside.

It's a great moment to see yourself in print. Why I remember when a box of my first novel showed up on the doorstep. My son raced to the enormous package certain it was for him, ripped it open and gazed sadly down at the books. "Mama wrote this!" I picked one up. "I wrote this! This is my novel." "Go be a fire engine," he commanded me, walking away, completely unimpressed. I'm thinking this anthology will have a much more appreciative audience. Or, at the very least, an audience out of diapers.

Joan Crawford

I am beginning to understand where Mommie Dearest was coming from.

Get me Amish

We had a fantastic family trip down to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where I got to enjoy a dinner at an Old Order Amish's family home, and a buggy ride (among many, many other delights).

For the longest time I've been moved and fascinated by the Amish. My recent trip only solidified my sense of envy for a life lived so integrated and so knitted into the land, the family, the seasons.

As a modern, liberal, suburban mother, the world of community open to me exists largey now, as it never has before, in cyberspace. That's a lonely place for me, as is sitting alone writing on a computer. I like people in the flesh, community with a group I can see and touch, meaning gathered from more than a few lines.

The Amish aren't perfect, but we have an emptiness that they simply don't know of. "Love your neighbor as yourself," is not an abstraction to them, it's not a $5 check to your favorite charity, or an occasional wave to the guy down the road whose name you don't know.

Call me old fashioned, but my soul hungers for that kind of community. Even among my community of wonderful friends, each woman is so busy, so consumed by her own work and world, that little is left for us to share with one another. It is hard for me to believe that this is the way we were meant to live.

So get me Amish. I'll take the head-covering and the ugly black sneakers. Shame they won't take me, which is another wonderful quality they possess as a group: they don't convert or evangelize. Got to love those people who love the way they live and don't force you to join. But if I'll have them and they won't have me, where does that leave me? Trotting down route 9 with my own horse and buggy? How to be more Amish in the modern world is now the topic on our famiy table. We will take into consideration all suggestions....