The accidental oaks

We've been homebound for three days now waiting for a cough and fever to run its course. Harper is the only one afflicted thus far and seems to be on the mend. She's felt well enough to play in the backyard, and the weather, after the freeze over the weekend, is lovely. Most of the morning was spent swinging and gardening, and by "gardening" I mean the kids using Hudson's new tools he got for Christmas to chop leaves off of the wild looking oak saplings that have sprouted all over our jungle-like flower beds, the result of forgotten acorns buried by careless squirrels. Timmy Tiptoes and his pals, no doubt.

While the swinging and gardening ensued, I sat in a chair and read almost half of the new-ish Donald Miller book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I read Blue Like Jazz a couple of years ago and don't really remember much about it. I don't know exactly how I feel about the memoir/autobiographical musings genre in general. I read a really poor example last month, the title of which I don't even want to mention because I don't want to remotely seem to endorse it. First of all, I think people my age have no real business writing their memoirs. Secondly, the person writing the memoir should have DONE something memorable, like cured cystic fibrosis, for example. Only, and Miller points this out as well, those people are too busy finding cures or climbing mountains or building orphanages to actually sit down and write about it. The thing about Donald Miller is that he acknowledges that he hasn't done much, and this new book is actually a commentary on the fact that when a filmmaker decided to try to make Blue Like Jazz into a script, how hard it was for Donald Miller to make his life into a story worth watching. In this other memoir I read, the author seemed to think that a couple of years writing cards for Hallmark made his life memorable; that his quirks and eccentricities might make people pull for him and find him interesting. I found his recollections boring and, at times, utterly inappropriate and vile. It was like reading someone's unedited journal. I suspect the only reason the book got published is because this guy had decided in his 20's to turn his back on the evangelical Christianity he had embraced up to that point. It's the kind of transformation that most of the people who work in mainstream publishing world can really get behind, in the same way the folks at Thomas Nelson or Word love it when some guy submits a manuscript about his conversion to Christianity from Islam or Buddhism or liberalism or whatever. Anyway, I think this Million Miles book is redeemable because it reminds me that I am responsible for making sure my Story sticks to the rich narrative that is intended.

I read on another blog that Williams-Sonoma had peppermint bark on sale and I ordered two tins. They arrived this evening and I am a happy girl.