Links: Localism, Doing It All, the Balanced Life, and more!

"Living Off the Land: Localism in the Regency":

. . . families in the Regency took local eating to a whole new level, especially in the large country estates. These estates, formed hundreds of years before there were safe and reliable roads and trade routes, grew almost all of their own food out of necessity, and even in the Regency, when importing food was more feasible, many of these large estates still produced most of what they ate right there on the property.

"a new school year, all fresh and shiny":

 A friend recently asked "How do you do it all!" with a generous measure of admiration and possible disbelief in her voice. I've thought about this often since she asked, nearly every day in fact, and I think I have an answer. First of all, I don't do it All. I do a lot, but I don't do it All. I do a lot more than when I had one and then two and then three and then even four children. With each child comes a greater capacity to work. You discover that getting up one more time with a vomiting child isn't going to kill you, its just going to make you very very angry and tired. And along with the capacity to work comes the ability to discover what you really care about. 

"The Secret to Living a Balanced Life":

One expert advocates for the best way to care for teeth, another expert advocates for the best way to treat allergies, a third for the best way to teach your child one subject, a fourth advocates for the best way to keep a clean organized home, and so on and so on. That is their job. Your job is to listen to all of this advice (politely and calmly, remembering that each is doing his own job in advising you narrowly) and figure out how much of each you can reasonably do in order to take care of your job -- which is neither teeth nor allergies nor history nor a clean house, but a whole family of whole persons.

 "Karnick on Carnage":

. . . that the big difference between violent movies and sexual movies is not a difference of morals but of appropriateness. Violence is essentially public, while sex is essentially private.

There's more on the Web worth reading, but this is my collection for the week. Feel free to add links of your own in the comments!

-Jessica Snell