Chattery

 

A storm rolled in late last week.  The Eastern sky was bright and cheery and to the west an ominous cloud grew into a sky of blackness.  The winds began to whip, the air tasted heavy and the smell of storm filled my nose.  I took a picture but not having taken a picture of the bright sky behind me, you can't see just how dreadful a sky it was.  Moments after grabbing clothes off the line, I came back in and a wall of water just fell to the earth...sheets, coming down.  I am certain, in those first moments, that the front half of the house was stone dry even as the back of it was being drenched, so exacting was the rain.  Little hailstones pelted the animals out to pasture and they flailed about a bit until they resigned to their fates, heads down and leaning into the wind.  I looked out at the animals and felt a moments' pity until my eyes landed on my fruit trees and then WOE!  WOE!  Those fragile little blossoms are being pelted by ice!  (I realize how this makes me sound...)

It wasn't long before ice balls turned into droplets again and the droplets didn't cease until a day later.  And thankfully, the fruit trees weren't too damaged in the process.  I think storms are cozy things.   Make you want to curl up with a book and ride it out.

I worry that my children won't know how much I enjoy reading because I so often save my reading until after they are in bed.  If I sit down with a book and intend to read, without a doubt a child brings a book (or several) and asks me to read to them.  That always wins out.  Truth is, I can't usually concentrate for more than a minute anyway- even if the children don't ask to be read to, they ask me if they can make cookies or share tidbits of "Did you know that the Netherlands helped to finance the Revolutionary War?" or "Would you let me own a rabbit or two?"  or less impressive things like "Mama!  Judah just jumped on me and won't let me be!"  It is impossible.  So I wait until children are tucked into beds and I am tucked into mine to bring out my book(s).  I choose from the pile of already opened ones.  And there are a few books I tuck into small spaces when I can't be found or won't be disturbed.

Currently:

Peace Like A River by Leif Enger (this usually makes the cut before bed.  I love it.  Matt usually forces me to stop reading it so he can finally go to sleep at night. It's nearly done and I'll be sad when it is.)

Perelandra by C.S.Lewis (This is one I come back to every now and again because I know I need to return it to its' owner soon...I want to get through C.S.Lewis' space trilogy but I like this one less than the first so it is often set aside for Enger.)

A Fine Romance by Susan Branch (detailing her trip to England and the many National Trust places she visited...including Beatrix Potter's beloved home and countryside, Rudyard Kipling's home, the home of William Wordsworth and William Morris, Hever Castle where Anne Boleyn grew up among many, many other places.  I travel vicariously through these pages and I long to one day walk the paths she walked with feet instead of eyes only.

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (I thought I had read this but when speaking with a friend, I couldn't remember the ending... I thought I would give myself a refresher so I got the audiobook.  I listen to this in the car or when I am working on cleaning rooms of the house...moments when I can actually listen.  Which is less often than I would like.)

I have been decluttering and purging, a typical spring thing for me.  The other day I tackled the storage container cupboard kitchen.  It was getting overrun with plastic stuff (and we don't even like USING plastic containers) so I hauled into it making sure each container had a matching lid and so on.  After I was done I had a full to the brim plastic bag of random plastic lids or containers that had no matches.  An entire bag of JUNK I have been pushing around and putting up with for who knows how long?  Getting rid of that bag made me feel so good...one more bag of headache OUT of my life.  I've gotten rid of trashbags of clothes, shoes....just STUFF.    How many times have I cursed that cluttered up messy container cupboard or stepped over piles of clothes that needed sorting?  Reminds me that everything we have takes up not only space in our homes- but space in our heads too.  I long for empty spaces and order.  It's in my nature.  The fact that I have five children means I have precious little of those things but I like to think that, when those rare moments happen, I appreciate them that much more.

My first harvest of 2017- fresh chives for cheese!  Oh blessed day!  I marked the day with a photo.

Sunday was my Mom's 60th birthday.  All of my siblings got together and a few of hers, as well to celebrate.  (I totally stole the above group shot from my sisters' facebook page.  I know she will forgive me.  But seriously scary as to how easy it was to do...)  A few people missing (Matt...ahem.  And Judah- who didn't want Papa to feel lonely.)  Mom and I share many genes, one of which is our  feelings of 'eh' in regards of traditional cake.  I made her, instead, an Angel Food Cake (with whipped cream and strawberries) and cream puffs.  It was the first time I have made cream puffs and they were too good to believe.  For the 'cream' I used cream whipped to peaks and added a sugar free box of white chocolate pudding with just a spoon of powdered sugar.  There was 1 T. of powdered sugar in the whole batch.  Practically health food, if you ask me. Which is why I had FOUR.

I've been negligent at answering questions in my comments section lately.  I am sorry about this!  I enjoy your comments so much I want to be sure I get back with you when you ask me something.  I resolve to be better at this starting now.  Wanna test my resolve?  Go ahead and ask me a question.  Anything you've been dying to know?  I dare ya.

Heralds of Spring

You can put the girl in the princess dress, but you can't put the princess manners in the girl.

I am not sure anything could herald in the spring time more beautifully than the bright yellow trumpets of daffodils.  Bright, sunny, cheerful yellow is the perfect color to first set your eyes upon after the gray and colorless months of winter.

It's been a bit of a tizzy around here lately.  I cleaned off the porch and readied it for the many months of porch sitting ahead.  (I can't wait!)  We ate our first porch supper on April 10th and I marked the occasion with a photo.

I saw baby plants fighting their way through the debri of their deceased ancestors in the flower circle and spent time before Easter (when I should have been cleaning for the company to come) clearing out the old to make way for the young'uns.   But I couldn't help it!  I couldn't pull myself inside on such a glorious day, trading the glorious task of baby flower admiring for cleaning a house.  You wouldn't have, either.  It felt invigorating to get my hands dirty and more so, to see new life popping up here and there, promises of the future.

Then there was the winter/summer clothing shuffle, which is always a monumentous task...and the sorting through bins to downsize since I am already out there- and the cleaning of the Granary that somehow once again became a dumping ground through the winter.

Then of course, Easter!  Prep work, cooking, cleaning, dying hardboiled eggs florescent colors, welcoming, refilling, hiding eggs and finding and then the cleanup afterwards.  Hosting an event is always so busy and so I took no Easter pictures of all the children together.  No homemade clothes this year- just hand me downs or secondhand clothes.   The closest thing that came to it was me adding a bit of a higher neckline to Corynn's dress and using a crocheted tiara for Ineke that I had made a month or so ago.  I can tell you though, they all looked spiffy.  They shine up nicely.

We've had several occasions of fancy clothes that would have been wonderful opportunities to take some family pictures- including a prom! this winter (hence the tiara) and I am just too busy right up until the very minute (and all throughout) to take nice pictures.  A quick snap is all I get IF I am lucky.  It's a regret...but I guess not a big enough one to warrant change.

I sent a box of cheer with a bunny on the package and the children started making bunny after bunny after bunny and lining the whole house with them.  Bunnies...EVERYWHERE! And at the very moment that box of cheer was mailed. a box of cheer was serendipitously sent my way too- brown paper packages crossing in the air to send hugs from kindred friends.

Among all of these things, puppies are growing and people are claiming them.  (You should see how big they are now!  I must post pictures soon!)  A chicken has a new little hatchling.

Now that the clothing exchange is done and the house has been put back into some semblance of order, I feel able to breathe a bit easier.

Hope your Easter was lovely!

Andrew at 11

This whole parenting thing, 13 years in, still feels pretty new and fresh to me.  Each new stage is still undiscovered territory.  Right when I feel like I might be getting the hang of things, some new season is upon us and I have to start back at the very beginning.

Andrew, in particular, has been an real eye-opener for me in this realm.  I realized with him that not everything that I understand or enjoy will follow through to my children and sometimes they will enjoy things that have me scratching my head.  And that's okay.  I don't want to limit him to the confines of what my feminine mind has envisioned for him... I am glad to see him making his own way, following the beat to his own drum.  But, sometimes, it is still surprising.

There are moments in my life when I pause at the ridiculousness that surrounds me and I laugh at how unexpected that moment was in my life.  Like the moment when something was shoved in my face with a "Look at this, Mama!" and I looked, thinking I would find some feather or interesting bone (as is often the case) and instead found a skinned mouse, dangling by the tail just inches from my nose.  

Or when I found almost an entire skeleton of deer parts in my mudroom.

Or the time when I looked out the window and saw Andrew flipping a dead squirrel up as high in the air as he could in order to watch the tail spiral downward in the wind.  

And for a brief moment I think.... Wow.  I never saw that one coming.

Whenever I find myself fretting over his love of animals, dead or alive, I remember Theodore Roosevelt and his self-same passions.  I can very much relate to his Mama, Mittie.  Perhaps I have a one-day president on my hands?

I never envisioned being the mother of a boy who carries around dead things and wears camo from head to toe.  But that is the job of a parents, I suppose, to stretch for their children.  I stretched for 9 months in the bearing of him, and the stretching didn't stop when he came into this world.

I continue to stretch even now.  He stretches me thin and makes me grow.  

And I love that about him.

He even, incidentally, makes me learn how to fry squirrel drumsticks.

yep.  I'm THAT kind of mother.

He has been saving up his money for over a year now in order to buy a gun for himself.  He got it a few days before his 11th birthday in preparation for....

...a shoot out.  

Matt's parents set up a little 'range' in their yard as part of their birthday gift to him, knowing just what makes the boy tick.

and he is a really good shot!  (Must be all the squirrel hunting.)

We all got turns shooting....Corynn and I like to shoot too.  We much prefer targets to animals, though.

This year, since he is enamored with coyotes and hunting I made him a hunting coyote cake.

Don't you love the fresh meat the coyote is eating?  Ah yes.  Gruesome birthday cakes.  I'm THAT kind of mother.

You can always tell how well a cake is liked by how long they want to look at it and soak it in.

This years' was a good one.

The other gift that Matt's parents got him was a coyote call.  It makes sounds like a dying rabbit.  So now, my son who loves to go for walks in the woods, will have the ability to call coyotes to him.  (Personally, that would have not been my chosen choice of gift....) Andrew wears it every day in his little redneck toolbelt.

And I get to hear the sounds of dying rabbits all day.

And I continue stretching.... and growing... right alongside of him.

Puppers

Our dog Ruby has a tendency to chunk up during winter months thanks to our very generous next door neighbors who feed her all their leftovers.  So it took a while to realize that this chunky...

may not be overeating.  

In fact, there was just about two weeks between thinking "Boy, I need to talk to the neighbors and tell them to cut down a bit on the food sharing..." and this:

 "Who me?!?!"   

Ruby, you naughty, naughty girl!

Seriously though, she is a wonderful mother and all SEVEN pups are doing well.  They are a Border Collie/ Labrador mix so we have taken to calling them Borderdors.

Figure with that awesome hobbit-like breed name, we oughtta make a FORTUNE selling them.

(This is not what I meant when I said look into the side business of dog breeding/puppy selling.)

If you want a family friend discount, however, just let us know.  

We can knock the price down...say... 100%.  ;-)

The Months That Were: February and March

(a monthly update on my yearly goals:: because revisiting my goals each month seems like a pretty great way to keep myself on task this year.  For a look at my complete list of 2017 goals go here.)


I'm still chugging along on my yearly goals though I missed the February update.  I'll put both Feb and March into one.  How's that?

I can't say I'm doing perfectly; there were a few weeks when exercise didn't happen three times a week, when Bible reading was overlooked or a meal was bought instead of made it at home (usually when Matt goes out of town.)  But I never claimed I'd get to be perfect at it.  The object is improvement.  And I am definitely feeling improved.  February was an easing in and by March some things had already found their groove.

I started a notebook at the beginning of the year where I write down what I eat each day and in the sidebar I include three different categories: KB, DEVO, PN (exercise: Kettle Bells, Devotions, and taking a prenatal vitamin in an effort to get my falling out hair staying put). Along with the food journaling, the goal is to check off these three each night.  It is surprising how the act of checking off these little things is so satisfying and so motivating.  In March, I added two other abbreviations.  BN (brazil nuts) and IO (Iodine) in an effort to remedy some thyroid issues I am facing.  Lots of check marks are happening these days!

I can't say I am pleased with the results on the outside...no substantial change in poundage lost or anything like that which is discouraging.  I'm still doing SOMETHING wrong on the food end of things because three months is a long time to not see any difference on a scale.  It bums me out because I want to loose 20 pounds and it ain't happening!  I try and remind myself that more importantly~  I feel more in control of myself and less like a victim, more disciplined and like less of a failure, more energetic and less lethargic.  I'd take those results any day of the week if it were an either/or situation.  Wish it were a both/and situation, though.  ;-)

I wrote more than 3 handwritten letters each month (the goal).  Total= 11.

The children and I read The Trumpet of the Swan and are still reading The Long Winter.  We also finished House at Pooh Corner as read alouds.  I am really bad at reading aloud in the evening because I spend the day reading stories, Bible, science, etc.  I'd like to be more consistent here.  I definitely didn't do it a consistent three nights a week (the goal).

 I basically failed my food buying goals for March.  We had a one month membership to a local YMCA  so the kids could practice swimming and get some much needed exercise/energy burned off of these hibernating bones.  In order to make it worth the months' price, I tried to get them out there as often as I could muster which was about twice a week.  Matt was also away on business for several long trips in March.  Being uptown that often and without a husband found us buying Burger King chicken nuggets (and salad for me) more than I care to admit.  And I ate ice cream waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much.  We also 'ran into the store' while uptown for random things- though usually it was not for anything too frivolous....cat food, toilet paper, diapers, etc I had forgotten about.  But we left out of there without extra bags of food.   Although...occasionally, ice cream. ;-)

Didn't buy any yarn- though I was sorely tempted to for a family prom our family went to!

Didn't drink any soda though a few days I was sorely tempted!  It is always the days that I have migraines that I crave soda.  But I didn't cave.  In my fourth month of no soda.  Why haven't I lost any weight again? Oh yeah.  The ice cream.

Almost done Hillsdale's online course on Hamlet and the Tempest.  I just need to take the test of completion.

I'm doing crummy at memorizing scripture but I'm working on Romans 1:18-24.  Daily Bible reading is now, happily, a habit and has become ingrained in my routine.  I literally had to pray that the Lord would help me to make reading His word a priority in my life because it was too hard for me to make the time for it by myself.  He has answered me and a day without His word seems strange and empty now.  Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find.  

I wasn't able to implement the budget I made in January during February because of all the beginning of the year expenses- garbage, life insurance, car insurance, taxes...etc.  Why do they happen all at the same time and when you are feeling the poorest?!?  In March, I was much better (other than the food spending).   Hopefully, being more consistent in April I will be able to see if the budget actually works out in real life, instead of just on paper.   Matt just keeps adding to the list of projects he wants done this year- and they all cost money.

With our tax return, I was able to pay off some debt and set some money aside for future Papa projects.  I was bummed that I wasn't able to finish paying off my hospital bills or put extra money toward paying off the car.  Someday before I am dead, I hope that we get a tax return that has not been earmarked for something or needed somewhere.  Wouldn't that be amazing?  I doubt it will ever happen though.  ;-)

I also made sure to give Matt some money from each paycheck.  Calling it an allowance is so silly.  But, that's kinda what it is.  : /

I am thankful the YMCA membership is over now.  It was fun and the children are getting really good at swimming.  Even the two Middles swam the length of the pool with no help.  But it really cut into the day and forced the homeschool day to be more stressful and harried.  I am hoping that being a homebody once again will fix a few of the temptations I had in March...like ice cream/nuggets/wasting time.

A few additional goals I had made for myself:

I pruned the fruit trees.

Made some maple syrup- though a measley gallon isn't too impressive.

I had made a goal to put in a seed order but then I inventoried the seeds I had leftover from previous garden years and I have quite a few.  Some of them are pretty old (2014!) so I am taking a big gamble here but I'd rather use the old seeds than waste that money buying new ones.  Provided, of course, that they sprout.  We'll see.  I hope I don't shoot myself in the foot on this one.

A few goals for April:

****start seeds indoors!!!!!!****

~ plant a few cold weather crops

~ can up some beef stew meat to get it out of the freezer

~ Order next years' school books by mid-April when my trial month of Amazon Prime (and free shipping!) expires.  This means I'll have an overall plan of next years' home education plans in place BEFORE the busyness of summer/garden/canning season.  Because eeking out time to plan a school year in the midst of canning hundreds of tomatoes just  does not work.  (Trust me.)  If this actually happens, it will be a first for me.  And a game changer, I'm sure.