"Let's sign him up for a class!" Or not.

The other day I was in our youth pastor's office talking to another mom, and we discovered that both our sons are interested in photography. We said, in chorus, "We should find them a class!" and then we laughed, because seems to be what we always do...

My knee-jerk response to any talent or ability or interest my kids show has always been: find a team, find a class, find a teacher! Only as it turns out, both kids have had trouble with short-term classes, or overly-large after school clubs with too few (but very well-meaning) parent volunteers running them, and (most definitely), Little League, from which we bailed after two short but painful seasons.

I have a feeling that a photography class won't necessarily be the best way for my kid to learn whatever it is he wants to learn about cameras. He just thinks taking his own pictures might be kind of cool, and knows you can have fun with digital photos on your computer... but he doesn't want to be signed up for anything, thank you very much.

Yet there's a point to giving an interested but unskilled youngster the opportunity to glean knowledge from someone with experience and passion about the same subject. That's why in many cultures, the elders traditionally pass their knowledge and wisdom along to the younger generation. So I was wondering how we could make that idea work for our kids, say, in our church community...

A woman I know is a fabulous maker of beaded jewelry. She's really passionate about it and very good. She has been sharing her skill and knowledge (and supplies!) with Number One Son, and last year at they got together with another young woman who wanted to leran. A "beading party" ensued and the results were some pretty cool jewelry. What a great model this could be for other wisdom sharing within our community of generous spirits!

What we need is a way to match our elders with our youngsters... Any thoughts?

Grandmummy's China

I am still slogging through the "get rid of all the junk" project I began several months ago (see Passing on the Stuff). There's a ray of daylight in the garage (meaning: you can actually walk between the shelf units and the ping pong table without having to climb over piles of cardboard boxes & garbage bags). But we have miles to go before we sleep...

I've made a pact with my friend Janet down in Oregon, who is shoveling out her basement after bidding a fond farewell to her college-bound twins, that we will do this de-cluttering thing together, at our own pace, cheering each other on as we go.

We celebrate via e-mail. I write: "Dear Janet, I got rid of that box of frames. They weren't even in good enough shape for the Goodwill so I chucked 'em all. It felt strange, but also liberating." To which she replies, "YAY FOR YOU!!!!!!! I managed to clear out that filing cabinet this weekend." And so forth. Embarrassing as it is to have accumulated all this stuff--and to be as paralyzed as I seem to be about getting rid of it--it's nice to have company as I do the work.

Which brings me to: Grandmummy's China.

My dear southern grandmother had a plate for everything, it seems. Several complete sets of plates, in fact. After she passed away a few years ago, I came home one afternoon to find four HUGE crates on my front porch. Grandmummy's crystal and china, sent to me all the way from Georgia. None of which I had requested. All of which was evidently now mine.

I am not, as my friends will tell you, a china & crystal kind of gal. So it's been sitting in the storage unit forever. A few months ago, I gave the crystal to some dear friends who love to entertain and will no doubt use even the the grapefruit cups and compote dishes.

The china is Havilland, and flowery and trimmed with gold and can't go in the dishwasher... It's too nice to just leave it out for The Truck the next time they call... so if you want it... it's yours.

Telecommuting is (almost) all it's cracked up to be.

A few years ago, I struck out into the uncharted (for me) world of freelance copywriting. Right off the bat, I was fortunate to land a couple of semi-permanent gigs and my one-woman enterprise continues to be fairly successful. Because I contract with ad agencies, I work almost entirely in cyberspace, with clients as far flung as California and Minnesota, and as close as Pier 55.

Telecommuting has been a pretty efficient way for me to have a job while keeping up with my stay-at-home-mom responsibilities. My in-town clients are on the #16 bus line, and paying them a visit—to pick up research materials or attend kick-off meetings—costs me less than $4, round trip.

When I tell people what I do, and that I do it from home, they flash on an image of me typing away in my pajamas, giant coffee cup at my side, VLD (Very Large Dog) at my feet. Actually, I'm usually dressed, having walked the VLD several hours earlier (though I have been known to do this in my jammies, too).

The thing about working from home is that a lot of the time people don't think you're actually working. This certainly holds true for certain of my family members, to whom I have to say, frequently, "Cone of silence! I am not playing a video game! The words I am writing have never been written before!"

Other non-human things talk to me, too. Piles of laundry howl from upstairs, "We're growing!!!" Errand lists call from under the refrigerator magnet. And the VLD needs to be walked. (Again?!) I have learned to tap dance with the housekeeping. My motto is, "Never let an empty washing machine sit there laughing at you." If a kid needs to come home sick from school, I'm here. Ditto if the plumbing is sick & has to have a little work done. And while downtown office workers are eating lunch at their desks, I'm doing my Errand Loop.

On the flip side, I am pretty isolated here in my nest. Often my only contact with co-workers is through Instant Messages and email. If it weren't for the occasional conference call, I would do more chatting with grocery clerks than I already do.

Recently, the folks at Ideal Bite blogged about this very subject. I felt a kindred spirit speaking across cyberspace.

Last spring, I had a chance to work in an office with living, breathing humans. A client hired me for a short-term project and offered me workspace in their very cool office on the Seattle waterfront. For a couple of weeks, I had a regular work schedule just like "everybody else." (My kids were so impressed. The VLD, however, was not.) The hum of quiet office conversation, the comings and goings to the coffee machine, the collegial take-out lunches... it was very seductive. I especially enjoyed a chance to bounce ideas off another human being, and I even enjoyed the interruptions. I found it both stimulating and distracting—in fact, in the throes of one very difficult phase of the project, I spent 4 hours a day plugged into my iPod to drown out the office sounds.

When the project wound down, my client offered me continued access to the workspace I'd been using, whenever I felt the need to work near real people (and not just the clip-art on my Buddy List). It's definitely a nice slice of the best of both worlds.