The Garbage Bucket and I
If you were to ask me what I consider myself, I am not sure how I would answer. I am not primarily a [school] teacher although that certainly consumes a large chunk of my efforts. I am not primarily a gardener/farmer although that certainly is a very large part of my history and interest. I am not primarily a homemaker although that should consume more of my time than it does. I am not an avid cook or baker although that consumes an annoyingly large bit of my energy and I think I am a seamstress because I love to do that, but I have not really sewn, as in really sewn, in years. I am not a theologian although I generally love to cogitate on such matters and I am not a philanthropist although I certainly am convinced we must do good to all men, especially those who...
An unspoken question, answered
Truth to be told, I have very few good memories of going to church as a child. I tend to remember the hassle of getting ready to go, the complaints of older siblings, the dreary loneliness of being the only girl in my Sunday School class and very few of us total, at that. The mild torture of sitting through a boring and incomprehensible church service, the awkwardness of static in my skirts and gross gum stuck to the undersides of the church benches. As an aside, allow me to balance that list. I loved when Daddy was the song leader and I loved Nancy Brubaker’s quavery voice when I was in preschool and she was the teacher. I loved putting stickers on charts and playing wild games of tag with the large group of older kids after church. I loved the smell and...
Millinery
She loves hats. “I wanted to make it really beautiful Mom, so I put these leaves on top” I think I’ll keep her.
Fear No Eagle
It is always quite humorous to hear the botching of perfectly good lyrics, words and phrases that children come up with; sometimes eyebrow-raising, even embarrassing, but yes, always funny. I spent a good deal of time today thinking about how one of my children has interpreted a certain verse out of Psalms 23. “Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no eagle” Perhaps it begs some explanation as to why a small one would hear, absorb, and conceive this as making sense. A while back, my husband procured a game for the kids to play on the Ipad called ‘Oregon Trail’. In this game, you choose your characters and various criteria about food, money, and I don’t know what all, as you travel by covered wagon...
Church Retreat
October Sundays have to be my very favoritest days of the year; 4-5 crisply clear, invigoratingly warm days sandwiched between coolishly cold nights. (btw, sometime I like to make up words) I am always sad when it rains on an October Sunday. I feel like I’ve been robbed, so glad not to be robbed this time. This weekend was the perfect showcase. For me it did not get off to such a glorious start since I did not so much think about packing until 9 am Saturday morning and we cannot even begin to get a family of 6 out the door in one hour without more forethought. So I rushed around (just for the record – not in this order), yanking a comb through my daughters hair (gave up and ordered her into the shower to try and tame/detangle the bush) threw random...
Too Nice a Day to Work
“I wish days like this would last forever” and “It’s too nice a day to work”. Thoughts that ring down through the years for me. Thoughts that I associate with my Dad, with a smile attached. And of course I tried to cram way more work into such a gorgeous day than the children would happily endure, so after tiresome *gasp* indoor school time and washing too many windows, on a whim I decided to make hotdog sticks. The kind my Dad made, and I thought a lot about him as I crafted. As usual, two of the kids were under my feet crafting their own hatchets and I don’t know what all, while the other two sat in a 1/2 bushel box (yes, it looked really funny) playing a pretend game of cards and fighting over the rocking horse that has...