The last few years have been marked in my life by big changes, lots of learning: We welcomed our third daughter, we survived two deployments, we moved from one coast to the other, and now my second daughter is starting kindergarten and our oldest is entering second grade.

In the midst of all of this I've been able to continue writing short stories!

But during this time I pulled away from the Internet and loved it! It's been I think over two years, maybe more, since I deleted my Facebook account, and I don't miss it at all. I may or may not use this blog as a springboard for writing about motherhood, but I thought I'd activate it again to be publicly viewed again for some time.

In the meantime, I'm playing around with a new blog I've started to focus entirely on writing hooks! I love hooks! So please stop over at The Good Hook.

Always a spring of creativity, Stasha of The Good Life at northwestmommy, challenges us this week to come up with a list for her Monday Listicles on the topic of food and thinking!

Where to begin?
Grocery lists.
Recipes.
Ingredient labels.
Pinterest.

We see the normal, average foods piling up in our grocery cart, lining our pantries, gathering mold in our refrigerators, but how often do we see their origin, unless in our gardens out back?

So in order to make this into a teachable moment for my daughters, and a history lesson for me so I can sound impressive at the dinner table tonight, I've taken it upon myself to find 10 foods that make me think of the world when it first began, well, maybe when humans first started transitioning from being hunters and gatherers to farmers and cultivators.

1. Insects - So I've eaten a chocolate-dipped cricket, once, a long time ago, but I think I'd have to crawl around in the muck, digging for grubs, and teach my girls how to swallow them whole.
2. Almonds - 10,000BC and I'd be identifying these, scaling mountains and crossing deserts, to get almonds if it means no more bugs.
3. Einkorn grain - Never heard of it, but supposedly it was one of the first cereals available in 16,000BC, right next to Lucky Charms I believe. Pass me the milk, please. But wait, cows weren't domesticated until 6,000BC.
4. Cherries - These may not take the place of chocolate, but if my 1 year old can eat a dozen maraschino cherries in less than a minute, I have to think these would be on our stone slab table for dinner every night.
5. Bread - Thank goodness this was invented in 10,000BC. In my family, "thunder thighs" are a sign we have ancestors who were champion bread consumers.
6. Wine and Beer - Who knew wine and beer count in the food pyramid of the world's oldest foods? As a mother in 7,000BC I wonder which my daughters would have preferred? 
7. Cucumbers - Jumping forward to 5,000 BC, because my middle daughter literally eats six or more cucumbers a day, and I'm not talking about the baby size ones.
8. Ice Cream - 3000BC and I'm dying to know how they made it without ice and our Snoopy snowcone maker and sugar, since sugar didn't appear until 1200BC.
9. Peas and Carrots - Now this is something I could have grown, harvested, cooked and consumed alongside my girls in 3000BC.
10. Blood as food - in the first century, in puddings and soups, and I'm about to barf as I type this, so let's add a #11 to sweeten this list.
11. Cheesecake - also a first century food, and I'm guessing they didn't have a springform pan, but I'd take this over blood pudding any day of the week.

 So maybe we would have been a little scrawny with a few cavities and sticky fingers, but I thank my ancestors from 10,000BC for finding food, cultivating it, cooking it, and providing for their children. I've always dreamed of going back in time to the dawn of Homo sapiens, but I don't know if I could stomach it.

We meet a lot of bloggers. Some stand out and we return again and again to their blog.

Since I began this blog in 2007 I've come to love many blogs, but in the past couple of years I've found one that I return to over and over again: The Good Life by Stasha at northwestmommy.

From her Monday Listicles to her amazing photography to her voice, Stasha's blog rings with honesty and beauty. She writes sincere comments and truly values everyone's voice.

And then today I discovered on her blog this beautiful short movie starring her son and dog. In case you haven't seen her dog in photos before, it is HUGE. But this short movie shows us the beauty of Stasha's life, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Here's the link: https://www.northwestmommy.com/2013/better-with-pets

I've shared this with family and friends already and now I want to share it with you in case you might want to pass it on to others!

It's easy to let our minds go down the path of answering the question: "What will the future be like for my children?"

Sure we wonder what our children will be like in the future, but I have more say in that than the amount of control I have over the future world for our children. What will the world be like in 50 years when I am 85 and my daughter are possibly grandmothers themselves?

I believe the Internet has sprung this leak inside our minds. We demand, we believe we need, we expect quick fixes, fast solutions, and answers available with a click of a button.

But the frontiers have disappeared and our children's minds first face a digital screen, a blinking cursor, instead of card catalogs, weather reports in newspapers, blades of grass in an open field. I've read numerous articles and books about the positives and negatives of exposure time to computers, TVs, cell phones, iPads, etc, but it's not so much as 'exposure' that I worry about but the fact that our children will never know a life without all things digital.

How do we teach our children that answers are earned, solutions are the result of time and energy, fixes are rewards of creativity and work?

Modeling. I need to model it for my girls.
I should stop "Googling it."
I should turn my cell phone off for the entire day.
I should purchase a newspaper and read it with them.

What I'd really love to do is unplug it all. Get rid of the TV, the cell phone, the iPad, the computer. Physically it's not impossible. Unplug, pack up and put them away in a non-accessible place.

But how hard would it be to do the day-to-day functions in our society today?
Maybe not as hard as I fear, maybe.

As I sat on the examining table at my doctor's office, bending over so the doctor could look at the irritated mole on the back of my neck, I coughed. A phlegmy, thick, mucousy cough (sorry for TMI), a cough I've had for over a year that comes and goes.

Out whipped my doctor's prescription pad and he scribbled away.
Take this antibiotic, he said.

Oh, this cough, it's nothing, I said. Just drainage and it coats my throat.

He shook his head and insisted I fulfill the prescription for yet another antibiotic.

I call my doctor's office the antibiotic-happy clinic, because every time I go in for whatever random reason, I leave with at least one antibiotic prescription in hand.

And I rarely take them to the pharmacy to actually get the medicine.

Of course I do for serious things, like strep throat.

But my doctor once kept prescribing a variety of antibiotics, one after the other after the other, for the close within the appropriate range of bacteria in my urine. She wanted the numbers to be smack dab in the middle of the correct range.

Weeks and weeks went by of taking different types of antibiotics with no effect. And finally I said no.

I said no, because I am quite alright with the bacteria in my urine.
I am not alright with exposing my body and all of its microbes to different antibiotics that kill off healthy bacteria.

Maybe some of my readers will disagree with this, maybe they take everything the doctor prescribes, but maybe, just maybe, the doctors aren't always prescribing antibiotics as they should. Maybe some doctors are too antibiotic-happy?

I often catch myself 'telling' my daughters...

Please pick up your room.
Eat your peas.
This is the third time I've 'asked' you to get your shoes on this morning.

With all of this telling I begin to wonder what I ask them...

Did you go potty yet?
What would you like to drink, milk or water?
It's time to leave for school, where are your shoes?

The majority of our day is filled with these basic telling and asking statements.
Shouldn't it be filled with more thought-provoking ideas and questions?
Shouldn't I be framing their growth: mental, emotional, spiritual?

Maybe it's no wonder when I turn to my writing and find myself struggling to dig deep into the characters and carve out a unique plot.

Maybe life is just too simple minded, at the moment.

Before I know it my girls will be 13, 15, and 17, and then I'll be missing the simplicity of statements like "Make your bed" and "Did you wash your hands?"

Shutting down happens often in our lives...

Writers block and the mind turns off, fingers poised above the keyboard, hovering, waiting.

Internet wireless turns off in the middle of My Little Pony, resulting in shrieks, even though this is the 100th time they've seen that particular episode.

My tongue, my words, my mind shut down at any attempt to have a conversation with any adult that doesn't involve the words poop, cutie-pie, kisses, and sleep.

But now, now we have another shut down, a big one: the government.

I'm grateful our President has come to the aid of military families: we will receive our paychecks. My husband continues to go to work every day for the Navy, and we won't be receiving IOU's from the government. An IOU like my sisters and I used to write on scraps of paper when we 'borrowed' a left-over piece of Halloween candy or a favorite colored pencil.

IOU Sis for eating your last sucker.

While members of congress don't have to worry about their finances this week other federal workers will go without pay.

And doors will be closed. One shutdown leading to the shutdown of many others: parks, the National Zoo, museums, offices, federal loans...

But one thing won't shut down: the voice of the American people. Our voice can conquer this shutdown. Make a change. Open up.