What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow. ~ Martin Luther

Monday, March 29, 2021

Cousins

While the newest cousin was coming into the world, the rest of the cousins (*almost*) came to our house to hang out for the day.

Moses has a playmate almost exactly his age.  It was a lot of fun for him to have Nevaeh around and they took turns and shared like regular chums.  There were a few moments throughout the day where bittersweet thoughts choked me up, thinking silly thoughts about how this felt a lot like what life should have been like with the twinnies and how I missed a life I never really had to begin with.  

Funny, that.






Who's that determined little waif?



It was a glorious day!  Warm!  Sunny!  Muddy!  Delightful! And the crocuses were in bloom, just in time to garnish some delicious mud and sand pies...












And then, little Wyatt entered the world!

Due to CoViD restrictions, I couldn't visit at the hospital so it took an excruciatingly long FIVE WHOLE DAYS to meet him!





I may or may not have asked Matt if we could make a baby when I got home.


My Mom came to meet him too...


And look at that happy Mama!  


Looking good, Elizabeth! Well done, you.


 Welcome to the world baby Wyatt.  You really are a deer dear.

Friday, March 26, 2021

It's EEtza Night (as Ineke used to say)

Friday nights at our house look a lot like this:

Not because you care, but because I am self-conscious about my pizza crusts: those two pizzas in front are keto pizzas which is why they are as flat as pancakes.  My regular pizza dough makes beautiful crusts.  And now you know I have a pizza crust pride issue.

 Happy weekend, folks!

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Sudsy

When something doesn't work out the way I intend for it to, it irks me.  So when I decided to make a batch of soap for a supply of ready-made and Christmas gifts (yes, still working on that resolution to make a gift a month) and it doesn't work out like I had envisioned, I get all stubborn-like and refuse to move on until it does.

I will not be bested by soap.

The result?  LOTS of bars of soap, from LOTS of different batches and several different recipes.  I am not entirely pleased with any of it- not enough scent, needed to be rebatched, not sudsy enough, etc.  but I don't plan to stop until my lye runs out or I find a consistently reliable and wonderfully scented soap.

I will not be bested by soap.

The good news? We now have lots of reject soap to keep ourselves clean. 

 It should last us a good 10 years or so since it can be like pulling teeth to have certain of my children bathe.  

I mean, I am not one of those mothers that insists on daily tubs...but weekly is not too much to ask, right?  golly.

By the look of the last soap batches' dirty dishes, this soap recipe might be a winner!

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

March Musings














It looks like later this week we will be teased with some glorious 50 degree weather and I am choosing to believe that this may be the turning point of the transition from winter to spring.   In this vein of hopeful optimism, I am slapping all the leftover snowy and icy pictures on the blog with a bit of closure.

It CAN'T snow again if I blog all the snow pictures.  Right?!

Last weekend the boys tried out some ice fishing.  The weather was absolutely frigid.  The ice was at the very least 16 inches thick on the lake.  With several hours devoted to freezing off patooti's and half a dozen holes and lines, there wasn't a SINGLE bite.   I can't say I was too disappointed- I don't prefer the taste of fish anyway.


One day Andrew came back from chore time and told me that a deer looked like it was starving by the creek.  She couldn't move very well and looked half starved.  Indeed, the creature was very sad and her muzzle was so emaciated but even still, quite beautiful in her eyes.  We gave her hay and lettuce from the fridge but she didn't make it through the night.  So close to spring, and fresh, abundant grass.  It was sad.


About a month ago, when Matt went out to do the morning milking, he discovered our cow in the barn...dead.  She was due to give birth in May.  We have no idea why or how she died- she was healthy and happy the night before when Andrew gave her more hay and water before bed.  Losing both Acorn and her baby was a huge blow to us all and I am so sad about it.  Acorn's daughter Hazel won't be able to give us milk for another almost two years.


I have been keeping nightly vigils for a family whom the Lord have blessed with a hard providence.  A woman pregnant with a little Miracle who would not survive outside of the womb, each moment with her squirming and kicking inside her belly a constant gift- and reminder of a time when those flutters and kicks will be no more.  I cannot imagine a more hollow and empty loneliness than that.  How does one prepare to say goodbye without ever getting to say hello?  How does one clutch and cling, even while knowing it slips through your white knuckles like vapor?

~

“There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are

None may teach it.  Any
’Tis the Seal Despair
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air

When it comes, the Landscape listens
Shadows hold their breath
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death”   

Emily Dickinson

~

From the moment we are born, we are dying.

Melancholy winter reminds me of that death, that lonely echo, the great helplessness and dependence that we have in a way no other season can.

From the inconsequential to the much more profound, this winter in particular, death surrounds.  It doesn't help that news constantly berated people on how to act in order to avoid death in the face of Covid.  I write a quote of Calvins' on the chalkboard as a prayer for myself.

  As I walk through this winter valley that seems particularly mournful and permeated with despair and death while knowing my grasping at control is futile, I grasp at something else.  Something that isn't futile at all.

That is, the knowledge that the Lord works His biggest and best miracles through death.  Without His Son and the death that He bore, the greatest Miracle of all time would never have shined through countless generations of His kingdom and countless more to come.  

Without the dead seed that is planted in the frozen, dark ground, new life cannot spring forth abundantly.

It is not futile to remember that...

 The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.  Job 1:21

Blessed.
Meaning: it's a good thing.  It's all according to plan.  God will work this current pain for good.  For His glory.  

He alone can make glory from dust. 

There is nothing more hopeful than that.  

Monday, March 08, 2021

A 'Lil Buck Baby Shower

There were all sorts of jokes, at the beginning of COVID lockdowns, that there would be a boom of 'covid babies' next year... and my sister can assure you, it ain't no joke!

I got the distinct pleasure of finding out FIRST that Elizabeth was pregnant because she read the test while on the phone with me.  (Now SHE knows that I know that she pees when we chat on the phone.  Just sayin'.)  I won't tell you exactly what she said but suffice it to say, there was a fair amount of shock and awe.

And I was LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY for the rest of the phone call!

Not to make fun of her, by no means-  out of sheer and utter joy!

God is so good.  He so often takes our meager and feeble offerings of faith and returns to us overwhelming and staggeringly unimaginable blessings.  And I couldn't quite keep the giggles and joy from bubbling out.

Elizabeth named her womb baby 'Lil Buck. 

Let me tell you, having deer and antler obsessed boys made party decorations a breeze.  Also- plenty of leftover Christmas decorations and a few white party hanging things (of MANY!) leftover from the community-baby-shower-that-never-was. *sniff*


Don't think for a minute she is just innocently standing there... she has ONE thing on her mind.
These probably look like just little white blobs, but they are supposed to be mushrooms.  For all the time those tedious buggers take, you need to know what they are!  ;-)


My niece Christiana made beautiful cupcakes with woodland creatures on top- which are what those empty dishes are waiting for.  Sadly, people started showing up when the cupcakes arrived so I was bustling about and never got a picture of them!  



For the favors, I made bars of soap for people to take home.  From Elizabeth's shower to theirs!  How punny!

A little embroidered hedgehog and crochet bonnet I whipped up cough, cough the night before.  Thank you Amazon Prime, for 2 day shipping that little romper when I decided what to give her at the very.last.minute.

For those of you who do not know Elizabeth, these next pictures of gift opening may be tedious but I include them all here because she just looks so joyful and happy!  What a pleasure to witness.









 Alrighty 'Lil Buck!  She is ready for you!  And so are we....