Love it! Can’t wait to read it…
I’ve long self identifed as a Crunchy Conservative, Granola Neo-Con, or Green Christian.
How wonderful to know that I am NOT ALONE!!!
The big identifiers that have had my liberal friends scratching their heads for years to know exactly who I am and what I believe…
Homebirth Activist
Extended Breastfeeder
Birkenstock wearer
Baby in sling – attachment parenting

Conservatively dressed for church!
I do have a perverse sense of humor though. I have long been in the habit of dressing conservative (Panty hose, pumps, long skirts, and button down preppy shirt, hair in a bun) for green events that I have attended, and I love to dress hippy (open toed birks, natural cotton pants, baby in sling attached to my breast, no makeup, hair streaming) for conservative gatherings.

Shelly and Jenny “dressed down”
Keep em wondering…
I will NOT be stereotyped.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Crunchy Conservatism!
Jenny Hatch
A Crunchy Con Manifesto
By Rod Dreher
1. We are conservatives who stand outside the conservative mainstream; therefore, we can see things that matter more clearly.
2. Modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power, and the accumulation of stuff, and insufficiently concerned with the content of our individual and social character.
3. Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government.
4. Culture is more important than politics and economics.
5. A conservatism that does not practice restraint, humility, and good stewardship—especially of the natural world—is not fundamentally conservative.
6. Small, Local, Old, and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New, and Abstract.
7. Beauty is more important than efficiency.
8. The relentlessness of media-driven pop culture deadens our senses to authentic truth, beauty, and wisdom.
9. We share Russell Kirk’s conviction that “the institution most essential to conserve is the family.”
10. Politics and economics won’t save us; if our culture is to be saved at all, it will be by faithfully living by the Permanent Things, conserving these ancient moral truths in the choices we make in our everyday lives.
–Rod Dreher
The Corner discusses Crunchy Conservatism at National Review Online

We have had a great week for snow here in Colorado and the children went outside to do some snow boarding and sledding on the hill by our house today.
Here are some pictures!

Andy, Allison, Jeff, and Ben on the sled!

Running back up the hill!

Jeff with his snow board!

Allison and Benjamin
Jenny Hatch

“I was having fun,” she said. “Snowboarding is fun. I was ahead. I wanted to share my enthusiasm with the crowd. I messed up. Oh well, it happens.”
“Coasting to what should have been a runaway victory Friday, the 20-year-old American grabbed her board on the second-to-last jump before the finish line. Inexplicably — and some say inexcusably — she fell….”
“And because of it, Jacobellis had a lot of explaining to do.”

I thought the Bob Costas interview of Lindsey after her snowboardcross race was so mean.
She tried to defend her race, and stick up for her silver medal several times, but he was not hearing any of it. Already branding her a “show off” with his words and previous stories, it was almost like he was expecting her to give the world an apology for getting a second place medal.
It is those very hot dogging qualities that got Lindsay to her current #1 in the world position in snowboarding.
I felt that her interview last night and the general tsk tsking that was going on by the commentators was so uncalled for.
It’s like NBC was collectively hand wringing and “if Only’ing” while Lindsay was trying to enjoy her 2nd place win – nothing to sneeze at.
Who cares if she crashed at the end of her run? She is a gutsy, beautiful young athlete who put it all on the line for her sport and for her country. And I hated watching the dissing of her, to her face by Bob Costas, while she was trying to enjoy the fact that she did awesome overall.
I praise her, for her lifetime of fearless competition, training, and willingness to compete in a sport that put several snoboarders in the hospital yesterday.

Jenny Hatch

I thought this study was really interesting. So many of the points the author emphasized rang true for our marriage and I feel like he has done an excellent job of analyzing the results of his study.
This paragraph in the Newsweek article seemed especially relevant to our marriage…
“So housecleaning and happiness are related?
In writing the book, I kept seeing the parallel between housework and sex in the interviews. Men said the happier their wives were in the division of housework, the happier the men were with their sex lives. We even looked at the numbers and found that there’s more sex in the relationship if the wife is happy with the division of housework. It doesn’t have to be exactly equal, the wife just has to think it’s fair.”
For me it is so much more an energy issue than a fairness feeling. If I am exhausted by doing my work all day long, and burn those last few ounces of energy doing housework into the evening hours, intimacy with my husband is the last thing on my mind. But if Paul comes into our home after his day at work, and unloads the dishwasher, and puts away a load of laundry, or helps in any way around the house, it completely endears him to me and I feel so much more energized.
I have told him a couple of times when he was doing the evening dishes, “you know this is foreplay activity you are engaging in…”
Read the whole article it is really positive information, especially this final paragraph…
What most surprised you most in doing these interviews?
“One thing that strikes me was that 60 percent of men said that their wives had changed them in a significant way and 90 percent said that it was a change for the better. I would agree with the statement that you don’t go into a relationship expecting to change a man. But, men recognize that marriage is life-changing, and they usually like their wives enough to be changed by her. Men don’t want to criticized or nagged or complained to, they want to be accepted, but once they feel accepted, they are willing to change.”
I did not go into my marriage feeling the need to change my husband, on so many levels he was more highly disciplined and mature than I was when we met. He has continued to be a spiritual force in our home and he certainly has better manners and is more gentle in his demeanor than I am. I love him with all my heart and am so grateful for the compatibility and friendship we share. We went out to dinner for Valentines Day and as we walked into the restaurant holding hands I just had a comfortable feeling of being Home. Safe. Loved. and… Cherished.
What more could a woman want in life???
Here is the link again…
Jenny Hatch

Freep!

I plan to use this sign for my poster!
Jenny Hatch