Tea and Trouble Brewing

Aging. Ants. Birthdays. Boys. Humor. Hope. Family. Faith. Mountain Climbing. Motherhood. Perfection. Pets. Travel. Tea - yes, of course, tea. Tea and Trouble Brewing, the latest book by Dorcas Smucker, covers these delightful topics and many more. As a faithful follower of her blog, "Life in the Shoe,"I click on the newspaper column link she posts each month. This book is a compilation of these columns. What a pleasure to read them again, one after another, because reading one column is never enough!

One of my favorites is “Imperfect Moms.” Dorcas confesses to forgetting her son’s birthday and to other maternal misdeeds. When Mother’s Day and it’s accompanying appreciation comes, “I feel the gnawing teeth of regret and the sense that maybe I don’t deserve the gratitude because of everything I got wrong.” But remembering the months her family spent in Kenya helping at a school and an orphanage for boys, all of who would have given anything for a mom, it’s obvious that “an imperfect mom is indescribably better than no mom at all.”

“If not having a mother is like being at sea level, and having a perfect, smiling, patient mom who never forgets to notify the tooth fairy is like being at the top of Mount Hood, then having a flawed and scatterbrained mom who makes the kids pack their own lunches and who punishes the wrong child now and then is actually about at Timberline Lodge.” This sentence makes me happy for two reasons.

Reason 1:  I love a well-written, long, complex sentence!  (Long, meandering sentences are more likely to flow from my fingers!) Each phrase in this long sentence adds an essential layer as it builds to the logical and satisfying conclusion!

Reason 2:  A flawed and scatterbrained mom might be a merciful description of myself. I was once so outraged by the insolent disrespect expressed by my middle-school son at the dinner table that I impulsively tossed the contents of my full water glass in his face. There was also the humiliating call from the elementary school secretary, “Your son came to school in his stocking feet today. Could you bring his shoes?”  But hey, at least I never forgot any of my children’s birthdays!

An empty nester now, I sometimes look back and wish I had done some things differently.  I appreciate the advice from Dorcas,  “Give yourself some grace: We are allowed to make mistakes.” Think about it - Timberline Lodge is pretty high up on the mountain, after all!

Speaking of mountains, the chapter, “Climbing My Mountain,” contains one of my favorite paragraphs, which I continue to ponder. “It is strange, the things we classify as impossible, tucking them into that box in our heads without ever asking why we put them there or who we could ask for help or what would happen if we tried or why we’re afraid of only partial success.” (Oh, look, it’s another wonderfully long complex sentence!) The chapter concludes with wondering what mountains may be next... “Perhaps real ones like Mary’s Peak or Black Butte, or maybe those large impossibilities that loom in the imagination as enormous as Cape Perpetua but can be conquered quietly, step by slow determined step, breath by breath, up and up.”

By now, you can understand why my church’s women’s retreat planning team is very excited that Dorcas is going to be our retreat speaker in February 2013. SACC women, you won’t want to miss out!

Challenging, entertaining, amusing, heartwarming, and thought-provoking….this book is just plain fun to read. I have to stop writing about it now.  But wait….

How is keeping your marriage healthy like fighting ants?

How is a Beaver football game like an Amish church service? (Dorcas was raised Amish so she knows what she’s talking about!)

If you want to know the answers, you’ll just have to read the book!  Dorcas has provided me with an extra copy to give away to a lucky reader. To get your name in a drawing to win it, leave a comment on this blog, sharing a “flawed or scatterbrained” parenting moment. (If you’re not a parent, any scatterbrained moment will do!)  If you’ve never experienced a flawed or scatterbrained moment of any type, leave a comment sharing the secrets of your success (please!). If your comment is a long, meandering sentence, it may possibly find it’s way to the top of the pile when I do the drawing! (Don’t worry, no one expects ordinary folks like us to craft a long sentence with the flair Dorcas has mastered!) You could also share the link to this review on Facebook for an extra entry in the drawing! Check back here next Tuesday for the results.

If you’re not the lucky winner, you can purchase this book by sending a check for $15 to Dorcas Smucker, 31148 Substation Drive, Harrisburg, OR 97446.  You can also purchase her previous books, Ordinary Days, Upstairs the Peasants are Revolting, and Downstairs the Queen is Knitting for $15 each, or get all four for $40, postage included. 

If you want to pay by credit card, the books are also available on Amazon.

(Two of these books, Upstairs the Peasants are Revolting and Downstairs the Queen is Knitting, are also available at the Albany Public Library.  If you check them out and read them, I have no doubt you’ll want to buy some to give as Christmas gifts!)

(Oh, guess what! I inquired if there was any possibility that this book might come out as an e-book or audiobook, and Dorcas confided that she is looking into the possibility of both! Stay tuned!)