Another True Solution to Cultural Apathy

Last updated on: August 18, 2016 at 6:46 am By Anne Kennedy

To pick up the depressing thread from yesterday, here’s this–“Amy Blackstone, a gender sociologist at the University of Maine who specializes in childfree research, hopes that her study helps question the assumption that little boys and girls will grow up to become parents.” The article summarizes her research which comprised a series of interviews with people who have chosen not to have children. Here are some of the most heartbreaking quotes. ‘‘I think I’ve always been deciding that I don’t... Read more

A True Solution to Cultural Apathy

Last updated on: August 17, 2016 at 7:28 am By Anne Kennedy

So this is depressing, but so is this. And sort of startling to me, from my own peculiar vantage point of being over run by children on one hand, and having a husband for whom physical strength is one of his primary characteristics. These two unrelated studies, if you didn’t click the links, which you should do, show a steeply declining birth rate on one hand, and a decreasing of physical strength in young men on the other. In the... Read more

Sight for the Depressed and Foolish

Last updated on: August 16, 2016 at 6:08 am By Anne Kennedy

I appear to have been woken up early so that I can take a walk–an exercise walk. This seems a dubious proposition to me. It is still dark outside and I have the remnants of a thick gel in my eyes that is supposed to solve forever all my eye problems… (that was just a little joke). Did I mention that I went to the eye doctor? I dutifully went, apologetically pushing up Matt’s heavy glasses on my sweaty nose... Read more

Five Gospel Tips for Lives that Matter

Last updated on: August 15, 2016 at 9:28 am By Anne Kennedy

Woke up after a bad dream and watched all the rioting videos taken in Milwaukee over the weekend. Then finally went back and actually read that Gospel Coalition piece in which a white woman comes to grips with the fact of her daughter marrying a black man. Want to retreat into a baffled silence, but this is the Internet after all, the land of unsolicited opinion and commentary. I only have one schtick here and that’s the gospel. So here’s... Read more

An Olympic Failure: Me and Jesus

Last updated on: August 14, 2016 at 6:44 am By Anne Kennedy

My Facebook feed is full of Olympic memes–gorgeous pictures of young women, every feature and muscle etched with determination and drive. Whoever won the day before in her sport takes over in the meme count. It’s a welcome change from the political sorrows that have been filling up my Facebook life for what feels like years now. Human striving, the push and shove of the human spirit to accomplish something, to get somewhere, to win–in an Olympic moment it lifts... Read more

Saturday on the Marriageable Links

Last updated on: August 13, 2016 at 10:26 am By Anne Kennedy

The usual scintillating podcast in which we entirely skip over the Olympics and take up the subject of marriage and how to have a reasonably good one. And then my mother’s excellent reflection on driving all the way around the country with me and the children. And then something so funny I cry every time. And then something else funny because I used up all my newsy links during the week. Oh, except I thought this was really interesting. And... Read more

It’s the Fault of the Building

Last updated on: August 12, 2016 at 8:24 am By Anne Kennedy

Was going to save this article for tomorrow, because it’s exactly the sort of thing I like to link. Light. Interesting. A thought just outside the realm of my understanding. This particular article fit the bill perfectly. I read it twice and felt the wide gap of knowledge increasing rather than decreasing. I am so spatially challenged. Give me a map and I can’t find myself anywhere on it. Present me with a room and some furniture and I wander around... Read more

Happy Anniversary to Me

Last updated on: August 11, 2016 at 7:43 am By Anne Kennedy

Thought I’d update and repost this from last year, since it’s all still true and more so. Adding at the end, as it were, a fifteenth reason to be really happy. Today, if I’m not terribly mistaken, is my, I mean our, anniversary. Fourteen fifteen years ago we got up very early and got married. None of this waiting around even till noon, certainly not till the evening. Delaying till ten o’clock seemed a stretch to me, lolling about as I... Read more

Wordy Wednesday: Fexican

Last updated on: August 10, 2016 at 8:18 am By Anne Kennedy

It’s 7:39 and not a single child is awake yet and the piano teacher will be here in twenty minutes. If I were a different sort of person I would wake someone up and make them practice. But instead I think it’s time for a food interlude. This new kitchen is pretty great. It is quirky and weirdly impossible to photograph, although I have every intention of continuing to try. But it is more functional than any kitchen I have... Read more

Salon, Walsh Jennings, and the Shame of Motherhood

Last updated on: August 9, 2016 at 7:44 am By Anne Kennedy

Ah the olympics. Still not watching them. Haven’t regretted it for a moment. Did fall into a Twitter hole last night, though, before sleep overtook me. It’s actually a remarkably good way to go to sleep, I’ve found. Click that blue bird, scroll with your finger for about thirty seconds, realize there really is nothing of consequence, and go happily to sleep. But I did find this before my eyes shut, and then this, and this. Ha ha ha. Poor... Read more