hey, look it's only been a month!

Okay, I'm getting better - honestly I expected you had all dropped me by now, so to come back and find you had noticed I posted makes me feel wonderful. Thank You!!

Have you ever noticed how nearly impossible it is to go counter cultural?

Matt and I have chosen to value several things our culture doesn't:

We want and work towards being debt free. We are living it out so far with "just" a house loan at the moment.

We have three children, ages four, two and four months and I'd like to have one more within the next two years. Is the word "insane" running through your mind at the moment?

We would like to be eco-friendly: drive economically, garden, recycle, etc.

These three values are up for grabs at the moment however, because "real life" has crashed in on us.

Car seats are legally manditory. I have three children with seats to fit in a vehicle. Car seat manufacturers do not make seats that fit three across the back in fuel efficient cars (or maybe just ours). Safety sites warn about not putting children in booster in front seats because air bags can prove fatal. Hmm...

So, what does it say about our culture that your choices narrow to seven passenger minivans or suvs. And minivans are being dropped by most manufacturers. So, what is the eco-friendly family to forced choose from? Or for that matter, the family that doesn't want to go into debt. Obviously we aren't giving up our children...

Hard choices. It'll be interesting to see what we finally decide.