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Home Sweet Home

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 Another cool Saturday, and this time no rushing out of the door. Today there will be a haircut and clothes shopping and maybe stopping by the chicken farm but none of that requires scheduling. Wrapped in a blanket in a corner of the porch, hiding from the wind and watching the chickens run across the yard. Yesterday we started setting up Christmas. I got out the snow village and set up each house on the white snowy shelves that are just a little dusty atop shelves full of books and games. I first thought of my mom and the Christmas shop, and how she admired each one slowly. How she loves the magic of Christmas time and wanted to share it with all of us. I remembered how 5 years ago Thanksgiving was on the 28th of November, just like this year, and how we ate our meal in the solemn quiet of the hospital cafeteria while mom was upstairs. How she didn't get to see the Christmas lights twinkling in the trees one more time, but just 6 days later she got to see something, and Someone pr...
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Warmth

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 Cold hands and Saturday morning in the sunshine. It started with a chilly and happy cat being let inside. Chickens who had managed their way out of the coop and partway out of our yard. One in the nesting box laying her 5th egg. I will soon be interrupted by a 7 year old indignant at finding herself alone in a cold bed even though she will be exceedingly happy she wasn't lifted out of it to get ready for school. The breeze cuts through me Florida winter style though it is only November. By Thanksgiving next week it will be 80+ degrees again. My coffee is getting cold beside me. This morning waking up before my alarm on a 4H day which isn't early but still always has us rushing out the door. I am so tired, even on the weekends. This stage of life? I can't explain, but it isn't physical tiredness so much as the desire to close my eyes just a little bit longer. Close my mind to all the incessant details and demands. Back in bed with the cold cat now growing warm with a pu...
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Offering

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 I have been having a hard time working up the motivation to write lately. Maybe I just don't really know if have anything worthwhile to say. Maybe it is just easier to research the best bush to plant by the east wall of the house. Maybe it is because when I do force myself to take a few minutes to ignore the pressing responsibilities around me, I don't really want to spend that time too deep in thought. I find myself wanting to think about nothing.  Meaningful. I heard this word repetitively on a podcast the other day while I was driving and they were talking about processing your day with your spouse. And for some reason, the idea of repeating the meaningful parts of my day, though I am quite sure I actually do that most evenings with my husband, sounded completely exhausting. It is funny how the only way of freedom and release often takes that final burst of energy that you don't think you have. Life has felt heavier for some reason over the past few weeks. I have been p...
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Psalm for the Hurricane

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 If in 2024 life rained a bit, which it did: if the saying is true that when it rains it pours, which it has...then the last 2 weeks the wind picked up too and things turned into a full-on hurricane.  The hard thing about a hurricane happening after a lot of rain is that the ground is already pretty saturated. It doesn't take much to cause a flood. I went into it all quite sleep deprived and honestly quite tired of all of this fighting. But the good thing about it is that quite a lot of preparation has been done up until this point. The rain doesn't sting my eyes like it did before. Or maybe it hurts even more but I have just gotten better at wiping them. I'm not turning into a storm chaser. I dream about brighter sunnier days. But if there is one thing, I can say about 2024 is that the Lord is truly close to the broken hearted. He saves those who are crushed in spirit.  In other words, even though it's awful, it isn't always that bad. The word God gave me at the en...
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Green Pastures

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 Today is Sunday, the day when our modern western culture supposedly observes the Sabbath, so it seems like a good day to talk about rest. Rest has been on my mind a lot since my "vacation". Partly because I was very concerned about getting it, partially because I did my annual summer reading of "Teaching from Rest" by Sarah Mackenzie, and partly because I amped up to my regular work schedule after my week off and by some miracle I felt strangely.... rested. Life is crazy during these middle years with the kids. We are always going in a million different directions. They stay up very late, and I get up very early to fit in work. But the past couple of years the weekends have finally become a time when some days I can get up slowly. Read my Bible and drink my coffee with only minimal distractions, and the main battle is just to keep my mind from racing to the details of my day that I need to prioritize. And today when I opened my Bible in the quiet of the kid's b...
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Red Letter Reminder

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I took a week off work, and you would think it would be easier to find time to write but somehow it hasn't been. Granted, Monday and Tuesday were spent trying to mostly keep the kids out of the house because it was being completely repiped with epoxy liner and our toilets were sitting in the middle of the living room and master bedroom. The little bit of time we did spend at home those days involved cleaning up the aftermath, dodging plumbers, and taking emergency bike rides to find a working bathroom. But it's done now. For the first time since we moved in, we have 2 fully functioning bathrooms and now we have a short break before the jack-of-all-trades contractor comes back. He will be putting in the hurricane straps for our new roof and continuing to battle the wasp kingdom that lives in the neighbor's banyan tree but sends its sentinels out regularly and have stung all of us at least once. Hopefully he will also soon begin work on our master bedroom floors and paint it ...
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Million Hour Days

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 If you ever start talking about joy too much, you'll end up waking up in a bad mood the next day, and that is sort of what has happened to me this week. Summer days, for anyone, but probably especially for a parent and maybe especially in the unbearable heat of Florida, are interminably long. Like a million hours in one day long.  To pass the time and burn the endless energy of 3 boys and their friends, we go to the beach twice day.  Every day I optimistically lug my folding chair down to the beach and set it down with the towels. Then I look longingly at it and head out into the ocean with my 3 younger kids and usually 2-3 of their friends. If the waves are like they have been, I am not only a mother, but a lifeguard and the currents whisk us at least half a mile down the beach while I count and search for heads bobbing in the white foam. Today I even performed a rip current rescue on a kid that was not in our group who drifted too far out and could not get back to shor...
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