Downtown Chic

I have this stereotype of the decorating gurus. You know - single, or married with no kids, unrealistic expectations of how a home is used. The kind with houses that are always showcase, picture perfect because there are no children around to mess them up... or if they have a child or two, everyone's gone all day long, so there's no time to mess it up.

My stereotype was completely blown out of the water when I read Downtown Chic: Designing Your Dream Home: From Wreck to Ravishing by Robert & Cortney Novogratz with Elizabeth Novogratz.

This couple, Robert & Cortney, are really down-to-earth people with an awesome eye for what works. They live in New York, of course. But they have six children. And their children share rooms!

I think I love this book for that very reason. I mean, I didn't know New York had any families with six children (two sets of twins, by the way). I didn't think anyone with the kind of income the Novogratz's have generated through their business had children who shared rooms. The four boys are in one room. I just thought you'd like to know that.

Granted - it's a large house. With a roof-top basketball hoop. The rooms the children share are probably bigger than my living room.

But they share. It's so out-of-vogue in the decorating books and magazines I've seen I can't hardly get over it.

I really like this book because Robert & Cortney are so real - especially for a couple who has a vacation home in Brazil. (Honestly, it blows my mind how a family of eight can afford to travel to Brazil more than once in a lifetime - guess that shows how small my world is.) Cortney shares how they kind of 'fell into' the business of redoing houses, even entire blocks of homes, in New York. Right place, right time, right synergy. I love that they realized their passion - they love traveling, shopping, renovating, and don't mind the mess.

The end result is stunning, but I wouldn't do well with the process. The process is where they seem to thrive.

A couple of things I missed in this book - perhaps because I read Sarah Susanka's Not-So-Big Remodeling recently. I missed a big picture of each house - the blueprints, more pictures of the interior living spaces. I don't feel like I could really replicate or even begin to create my own style with their sparse tips shared in this book. I think the main message is to allow yourself the freedom to experiment, make mistakes and surround yourself with what you love.

Perhaps that is something I can start doing.

Close To Home

I may be the only Protestant who writes about Molly Sabourin's book Close to Home: An Orthodox Mother's Quest for Patience, Peace, and Perseverance. You may be wondering why I would read it, since I'm not Orthodox. Molly is my beloved sister-in-law - married to my brother.

I am also so glad Molly wrote this book. She bared her soul in this book, detailing her journey as a wife and new mother. In the prologue she provides charming introductions to her family, which my older children loved and laughed and marveled over. (Did Benji really fall out of a two-story window? And caught his clothes on fire? And bump his head on the radiator? Yes, he did.) Molly ends the introductions with this comment, "And while the stories are distinctly mine, I pray the underlying fears, frustration, bliss and hope are universal."

Those underlying issues are universal. I found myself nodding in agreement many times throughout Molly's book, thinking, "Oh, I remember that... Oh I felt that same way! You are absolutely right!" Yet, also found myself nearly equally puzzled, wondering at these Orthodox traditions she holds so dear.

I have to say again, I am glad, glad, glad that Molly wrote this book - because I feel like I understand her, and perhaps in some way, my brother and sister a bit better through Molly's honest struggles in her faith. I have some inkling as to why the liturgy of the Orthodox church would appeal to them, why Molly would somewhat regret not getting married in the Orthodox church (although I am relieved that they didn't), and maybe, in a very, very small way, why they venerate the virgin Mary.

I especially identified with this quote from page 61, "There are many days you will feel totally and utterly incapable, and you will look around the room for backup, for someone else to step in and let you take the break you so desperately need. When you realize there is no such person and your kids are still hungry, or sick, or tired, you will dig deep and pull up a tiny reserve of strength you didn't know you had. This, my dear friends, is growth. No other job in the world is more effective at chiseling you into a stronger and more competent person." (emphasis mine)

That expresses my experience of motherhood, for the first six years especially - when I had four babies in five years, all a thousand miles from my family. Yet, I could never express it in just the way Molly did.

As I've thought about it, I realized that as a new wife and mother, being stretched beyond my limits, I searched for something outside myself and my circumstances to provide meaning and purpose to my life. It wasn't work, because I kept doing the same things everyday - wiping noses & changing diapers and if I was lucky getting laundry done and my family fed. I had my faith, went to church every Sunday, but longed for something... something more.

Molly found that meaning and discipline within the Orthodox church. I found it at Bible Study Fellowship - a nine-month, in-depth study of the Bible. I was accountable to read and study the Bible every week. I talked (uninterrupted!) with other mothers who knew me as a woman, not a mom or a wife, about deep spiritual issues. And I learned that the Bible is relevant today, to my life. I learned that just as Jesus calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee, he can calm me in the midst of the storms of four children all crying for lunch NOW, four children down with the stomach flu at the same time, or whatever similarly mundane circumstance that feels out of control at that moment in time. The awesome thing is that God cares about the little things, Jesus knows how I feel, and the Holy Spirit reminds me of all that when I feel like I might just go crazy if I hear one more fight over Legos.

Molly, thanks for putting into words emotions I hardly knew I felt, and reminding me of the things I've learned over the past eleven (gasp!) years of parenting my God-given blessings. I love you!

Let us pray for the wisdom to cease trying by our own strength, and start crawling out of our same old tired ruts by surrendering our weak and fragile wills into the hands of God. Amen, and amen!
(pg 129)