Category: family

  • Urban Farming Inspiration

    Kristen and I are now 5 months into our experiment. Our goal is to grow or purchase 25% of our food locally in 2010. So far, it’s been a fun experiment! And in the process we’ve found a hobby that the whole family can participate in.

    One thing that has been incredibly satisfying is knowing that we aren’t the only family on this journey. I’ve met a number of co-workers, friends, and youth workers who are leading their families on similar experiments.

    It’s been super encouraging and satisfying to discover that you don’t have to have a lot of acreage to feed your family. In fact, we’re pretty confident that if we keep improving the soil quality, expand to just a few more planting beds, and a few more seasons of experience under our belts, that we can actually produce much more than 50% of our families produce right here in the city. (Thank God for a landlord who loves gardening!)

    Here are two bits of inspiration for Kristen and I. One of which we discovered months ago while the other we only discovered this weekend.

    City Farmers Nursery This place is legendary in San Diego. A massive organic nursery in the heart of City Heights (aka, the hood)

    Path to Freedom One families attempt to live off the land in the city of Pasadena. Now they are launching a movement the are calling, Urban Homesteading.

    Here’s a rundown of what is growing in our garden right now:

    • Artichokes
    • Cilantro
    • Oregano
    • Coriander
    • Parsley
    • Rosemary
    • Thai basil
    • Sweet basil
    • Peppermint
    • Chocolate Mint
    • Mr. Stripey tomatoes
    • Traditional beefsteak tomatoes
    • Acorn squash
    • Zucchini
    • Cucumbers
    • Sweet corn
    • Eggplant
    • Jalapeños
    • Roma tomatoes
    • Yellow tomatoes
    • Strawberry
    • Spinach
    • Watermelon
    • Green beans
    • Green peppers
    • Tangerines
    • Grapefruit
    • Oranges
    • Peaches
    • Plums
    • Mandarines
    • Lemons
    • Sunflowers
    • Pumpkins

    What’s really crazy is that this probably only takes up 20% of our backyard. Here are some things we want to add in the next year:

    • Chickens!
    • Herbs in the front yard
    • 2-3 raised beds
    • Avocado
    • Triple our worm composting (we have 1 container, need about 3 more to capture all of our food waste)

    Some quick facts:

    • No, this isn’t taking over our lives. If anything, its a major stress reducer.
    • No, this isn’t expensive. There are some start-up costs with getting drip irrigation, basic tools, and composting equipment. We’ve spent less than $500.
    • No, we don’t have a rain barrel yet. Shame on us.
    • Yes, we are spending more money on gardening stuff and our CSA. But that is offset by less money spent at the grocery store. And we’ve already down-graded to the smaller box of our CSA.
    • Yes, the kids are involved. They love helping! There’s nothing quite like the joy of picking carrots or strawberries with your kids.
    • Yes, we really can have chickens in the city. Our neighborhood is zoned for up to 25. (No roosters) There are people near us with goats and pigs, too.
    • Yes, we really are doing all of this on property we rent!
    • Yes, we do live in the city of San Diego. (Though not a super urban neighborhood.) We live in a quiet neighborhood about half a mile from San Diego State University.

  • Beach day



    Stoney rules!, originally uploaded by mclanea.

    Today we took the whole family on an outing to dog beach. We all had a great time, but I think Stoney had the most fun of all.

    Here’s a link to the rest of our pictures from the beach.

  • Facilitating Independence

    Strong opinion warning.

    I’m not a fan of adult children living at home. It’s one thing if you’re on break from school and you’re a temporary visitor. It’s another thing when you’re able bodied. I’d even argue that the best thing for 18 year olds staying local for community college would be to kick them out of the house.

    Trust me. They won’t die of exposure.

    My opinion is that coddling teenagers leads to dependency. From a sociological perspective, I hypothesize adult coddling of teenagers and young adults has lead to an elongation of adolescence. (Some say it ends at 26? Crazy.) Likewise, raising a child from an early age with the goal that they will become happy, healthy, and independent young adults will prepare them for the swift kick that comes after high school graduation.

    Enter Lisa.

    I was Lisa’s youth pastor when she was in high school. She’s the eldest child from a great family. She worked hard in high school, was faithful to God, her parents, and a dedicated student. She’d be the first to tell you that she wasn’t perfect in high school. But something in Lisa’s character kept me investing in her. When she was a sophomore she and a few others started showing up for a 6 am Bible study. I thought they’d come for 2-3 weeks… and to my amazement we kept it going for almost 2 years! After high school she headed off to Grace College where she’ll earn a degree in just a few weeks with an emphasis on criminal justice and adolescence psychology.

    Last November, I was on a flight using the wifi late at night when we struck up a conversation on Facebook chat. Inevitably, I asked the question: “So what do you want to do when you grow up? What’s next?”

    She had some ideas but expressed some frustration. She really wanted to go back home to Michigan but feared that she’d either not find a decent job at all or be forced to give up her dream of working with teenagers. Let’s face it– Michigan is a tough place to be a recent college grad.

    I was afraid for her. My fear was that she’d move home, not find a decent job, end up in  something like minimum wage… unhappy and stuck in a cycle of paying off student loans by doing jobs that she wasn’t passionate about– and living at home.

    I offered a potential solution we both agreed to pray about it.

    What if you moved in with us, watched our kids during their summer break, and spent the summer chasing some of those social justice dreams by volunteering with San Diego-based non-profits?

    Lo and behold after a month or so of praying about it we all agreed it’d be worth a shot.

    Starting in June Lisa is coming to live with us. She has the first 6 weeks of time with us to volunteer for some non-profits. (We’re basically paying her to be a volunteer!) Than the second half of the time her concentration will shift to watching our kids when school ends July 15th.

    We pray it’s a win-win. She gains some experience and exposure to what God is doing in the social justice community in San Diego. And our kids have a sweet nanny.

    The hope, naive as it may be, that this will be a “halfway house” type of experience. We hope that through this experience that she’ll be able to find a permanent job, land a place to stay, and move on at the end of the summer to the next phase in her life. (Probably grad school being in the not-too-far distance.)

    Independence is possible. We just need to facilitate it as opposed to fostering dependency.

    This is how we’re helping a societal problem. How are you?

  • Plethora

    Plethora is really the only word I have to describe my life right now.

    There are so many things going on, so many amazing opportunities, and so many more things I wish I had time to do. Here’s a glimpse into the madness…

    • NYWC has taken over my work life! Because of the changes we got a late start to planning this year’s convention… but we have a big deadline coming up and every intention of nailing it. So it’s crunch time for the website, the brochure, the video, and a whole lot more. I’m way more involved in all of that than I ever have been.  Which is fantastic and crazy to think about at the same time.
    • PlanetWisdom and the Canadian convention are also about to ramp up their stuff for next year. Yowsers! That’s a lot of websites.
    • I’ve got a couple McLane Creative projects right at the launching point. In the midst of that God is brining me a big vision to expand these side jobs from 1-2 projects per month to 5-6. I have to make a strategic decision about how to either grow or contract this part of my life soon. And that decision is stressing me out.
    • Next week I hit the road. It’s kind of related to NYWC but it’s really a trip where Shawn and I hope to meet-up with and encourage as many youth workers as we can. I’m not a natural detail person. So nailing down all of the meet-up locations, places to sleep, travel plans, and stuff like that has been a bit nutty! We still don’t have a place to sleep in Redding, CA. God… provide!
    • I’m in full-on recruiting mode for the Haiti trip this July. The team will be 20 people and we have 6 confirmed. There are a bunch of folks still praying about it, trying to move dates around, stuff like that. That’s a joy in my life… but there’s a lot of details, too. (We still have room if you are interested.)
    • Kristen and I just booked a beach house for June. Besides a weeks vacation by the ocean, we’ll be hosting a 13th wedding anniversary BBQ and a snarky renewal of vows. It feels good to have a signed contract and deposit in for that. But we still have a ton of planning to do.
    • I’ve got a series of articles to write about social media in ministry. I wish I could do more of this, but I’ve had to say no to some things recently because I’m over-committed.
    • I’m kicking around a book proposal. I’ve had an outline and some starter chapters for a while. I need to decide to go forward or to trash it soon.
    • Some people from our church (not our church, per se) are starting a charter high school in City Heights. I’m trying to gauge what my involvement with that will be. I have a passion for public school education so this something I care a ton about. And, of course, this would be the school Megan and Paul would eventually go to.
    • God’s moving some spiritual mountains in our midst within the high school group, I.O.B. and within our small group. I feel like I just get to witness that stuff and my heart longs to be more intimately involved.
    • In just a few week’s Lisa moves into our house for the summer. She’s graduating from college and.. well… the job prospects in California are actually much better than in Michigan. So, she’s coming to live with us, be our summer nanny, volunteer with some stuff, and hopefully get a clear vision for what the next step is in her life after college. Kristen and I take a long-range view of discipleship and this is definitely part of that. Can’t wait for her to get here.

    I wish that were it. But I know there are lots of other things going on which I just label, “the plethora.”

  • Watching our garden grow

    January 10th, 2010
    March 5th, 2010
    March 29th, 2010
    April 10th, 2010

    You don’t notice the growth day-by-day. But when you look at it like this, it’s plain to see!

  • 3 Upcoming Things I’m Excited About

    I’ve got 3 big things on the horizon which are capturing a ton of my attention. Both the details and the scope of them are great!
    1. In just a few weeks I’m embarking on a road trip up I-5, through California, Oregon, and Seattle. The goal is simple, connect with a bunch of West Coast youth workers, hear what’s going on in their ministries, and share what’s going on at YS these days. Since it’s a youth ministry trip, it’s a low budget deal. Shawn Michael Shoup (my travel buddy) and I will be either crashing at churches, youth workers homes, or sleeping under the stars.
    2. In June, Kristen and I are hosting a 13th anniversary party. It’ll be a small barbeque with some close friends. We’re also going to do a snarky renewal-of-vows type of thing as part of it. More like a celebration of marriage than anything else. As we looked at venues for that we quickly discovered that it’d be better to just rent a beach house for a week, host the barbeque there one evening, and turn it into a staycation. So we think we’ve nailed down the beach house… but still need a contract. It’s kind of funny when you live somewhere that’s a vacation destination.
    3. In July, Kristen and I are hoping to head to Haiti for a week of ministry in Port-au-Prince. Lots and lots of details still to be determined on that. But I’m pretty sure it’s happening.

    With the difficulty of 2009 it’s fun to have exciting stuff planned for 2010.

  • “I don’t have any dreams”

    Just a little reminder from my son that the job of passing on from father to son doesn’t happen by osmosis.

    Deep exhale.

    Of course, I looked at this and watched Dr. King’s speech– yup, Dr. King’s dream was for his kids.

  • Tide pool fun

    This is why Cabrillo National Monument is one of our favorite places to go in San Diego County.

    We made 3 videos as well. 1 2 3

  • Little Italy Mercato: $10 Challenge

    HT to Beyond the Zoo

  • McLane Kid Update

    In Fall 2000, when we found out Kristen was pregnant with Megan, we both kind of rolled our eyes when people would say “Enjoy it, it goes by too fast.”

    How right they were. Our kids are in a fun stage of growing up… but life moves so fast that we don’t pause enough to truly enjoy it.

    Megan – Our crazy 8 year old

    Megan is almost 9 year old. N-I-N-E! She is our sweetheart. Megan has a deep love for reading, animals, and origami. She never ceases to amaze me with the stories she weaves together or how perceptive she is. She is so quiet that you can sometimes forget that she is capable of outbursts of wild running around. She is in that stage where she plays hard and intense.

    She also has an imagination that lives halfway between fiction and reality. She loves pretending to be a cat. She will crawl around her bedroom for hours, she’ll meow at you, and when she gets annoyed she’ll even hiss. (We have a no hissing rule in the house, that’s how common it is!)

    Megan got a camera for Christmas and puts it to good use. Check out her photo blog, MeganMcLane.com. When she opened this present she carefully examined it. When she saw that it wasn’t a kid camera– it was a really nice adult camera– her face lit up and she instantly started making plans.

    One of the highlights of my day is hearing Megan’s laugh. She has a normal giggle. But when she is really pleased she lets out this high pitched squeal that lights up the room.

    Megan and I connect through exploration. She loves adventure and I love going on adventures with her. Whether its looking for shells at the beach or looking for the perfect toy at Target– we bound when we’re just checking things out and being quiet.

    At school, Megan takes after her mom. She is a quiet achiever. She’s that student in class who doesn’t say much, takes the teacher literally, and is so competitive she has to be the best at everything or she won’t sleep at night.

    Paul – 1000% boy at age 6

    Paul is six. He is our complicated boy. We probably spend 25% of every day trying to figure him out. And he wouldn’t have it any other way. He is full of dichotomy. He loves to cuddle and be quiet. But he’s always ready to wrestle and try to kick some butt. He is fully engrossed in everything he does. But he is always listening to every noise in the house to see if there is something he can jump in on. Developmentally, his life is all about fairness. As soon as he perceives the slightest slight he pouts, “That’s not fair!”

    Paul has a deep hunger. Since the day he was born he has been hungry. And  for as long as I can remember his first words every day are either “What can I eat?” or “What can I do?” Unlike his sister he likes all things spicy.

    Paul has fully embraced life in his school. I’m pretty sure he likes spicy things because his latino classmates love spicy things too. “Can I get hot cheetos?” “Can we go to Mexico this weekend?” The kids school is representative of the diverse community we live in. And Paul seems to really enjoy that most of his classmates speak Spanish, Swahili, Vietnamese, or one of the multitude of other languages spoken by students at Darnall.

    Like his sister, Paul stands out academically. But he’s also a lot like me in struggling to know how to ask to be challenged. He’d rather get his work done early and mess around than ask his teacher for the next challenge.

    Paul’s life is dominated by his loves. He loves his Nintento DS. (It’s the first sound we hear nearly every day in our house. He wakes up about 5 to start playing.) He loves playing hard with dad. (Wrestling, boxing, etc) He loves playing games on the computer and watching Cartoon Network.

    Paul and I connect best through quality time. Whether its going to Home Depot or playing a video game or planting tomatoes in the garden– Paul loves 1-1 time with dad and I love 1-1 time with Paul.

    Paul is also our family elephant. He never forgets a detail. “Daddy, you promised two days ago to give us our allowance if we cleaned our rooms, we cleaned our rooms and you haven’t given us our allowance yet.” Or “Remember when you said we could go back to Legoland sometime? When? What day?”

    Our kids fascinate us. They challenge us. They force us to grow. They are the best accountability partners, ever. They are not our gods but we are thankful to God that we get to enjoy them and pour our hearts into them.

    And as I look at them I’m left– over and over again– speechless.