Norah Heads Back to College

Norah left for college this morning. She took a year off to heal from Lyme and her other active co-infections, work, and save money. At first, it was heartbreaking that she was not healthy enough to stay in school. But early on, when I was in crisis over her health, I felt the Lord say, "This time is a gift." And that is exactly what it has been. Her sisters have enjoyed having her around, talking late into the night many times. I'm glad they will have more memories together. Obviously, the main thing was that Norah had time to heal, but the time together truly was an unexpected gift. 

Father's Day 2025

Father's Day 2025 Itinerary

We attended church. 

We lunched on leftovers, napped, read quietly, etc. 

We went to Wayback Burgers for dinner. 

We saw the live-action remake of one of our top five favorite family films, one we can all quote.

(It was awesome, so moving at times, it was like seeing it for the first time.)

We overheard the girls discussing the film, enthusiastically comparing and contrasting, for hours. 

Visit To My Mom (And My Dad)

I went to visit my mom in SC for a few days. 

During my visit, she was dog/ house sitting for close friends of our family only a few minutes from her apartment, so during the days, I visited her and the dogs at our friends' house where she was working, but in the evenings and early mornings, I stayed in her small apartment and took care of her cats while she was away.

It worked out beautifully, since I needed to get a few hours of work done in the evenings and mornings and her empty apartment provided the quiet space I needed, and I was there to help the cats, who get anxious and needed some attention while she was away caring for our friends' dogs. 

I also got to see our old friends when they returned to town and visit with them, too- an unexpected blessing! 

 

While I was in town, I was able to help my mom set up and start learning to use her new cell phone, a hilarious and exhausting endeavor. 

Curse words were said in plenty; She almost threw the phone a few times. 

Above is the pic we used for her new contact card, taken at the senior center - beautiful! 

She's getting older, certainly- and it's something I never thought would happen to my mom, who was always incredibly strong, so I value the time visiting with her knowing from previous experience with my dad, it won't be forever. Yet. 

Early Sunday morning, I went to see my dad's grave. I hadn't seen his new headstone. 

We placed his grave in an open field with a wide view of the sky. 

I always feel like he'll get a great view of Christ's return from that particular place in the earth. 

But I guess every grave, no matter where on earth, even the deepest sea, will ultimately have the same perspective of Christ's return, since the dead in Christ will all equally rise in Him. 

I prayed about what I might take to place on my dad's headstone as a sign that I had been to visit. I know people often bring rocks, but I wasn't sure that was "right" for my dad. 

I ventured into a drug store to perhaps find flowers, but instead, I found the home improvement section and saw... a level... perfect! 

My dad was a craftsman, trained by his dad, and the art and skill and interest in working with wood was shared by at least some of my dad's brothers, too. 

I have a few things my dad built for me- tables, a rocking horse, birdhouses, etc., and I have a cross on the wall his brother made. I really cherish those items though they are simple, after all, and some are rough and obviously handmade out of wood. But they are some of my favorite things on earth. 

You should know that it is a cherished family memory/joke that my dad's level wasn't always correct, so some things he built were ever-so-slightly crooked. 

But, of course, in Heaven, everything Dad might make there is at perfect right angels; Heaven is the only place where perfect right angels actually exist. 

I've been reading the Bible and following Jesus since I was a teenager, but right now, I'm also studying Ancient Greek philosophy in graduate school, so placing a level on my dad's headstone was the perfect symbol for my dad, for me, for my family's running joke, indeed- for what any gift left on any headstone ever represents. 

I'm thankful for the way my soul felt like God was with me as moved in prayer that morning from my mom's apartment to the drugstore to the graveside. There has been and still is a lot of disorder, sin, and outright chaos in my family, but there are times in the midst of that chaos, when my soul can perceive that things are obviously being ordered, and the only explanation for that is that God is, and He is with us even in the chaos we create. 

I listened to the songs we played for my dad as he laid in hospice and those we had on the playlist as people came into his funeral service, hymns sung by Southern musicians, the style my dad liked best.    

While I sat and visited at my dad's grave and prayed, I played the song "I Come to the Garden," one of my dad's dad's favorites, if I remember the things my dad told me correctly. Though my dad or mom did not walk openly with God most of their adult life, his dad had been a preacher. So, when I came to faith in God apart from my parents' example, it was a sign to my dad that God had kept His promises through generations, and my dad admitted as much. 

My dad recognized my Christian faith as the same as his father's, and eventually, Dad would confess Christ as His Savior, too, but always only rarely, in certain moments, after talking for a long time out in the yard under the sky, or on hospital beds when reality of death closed in. 

I placed my cell phone on the headstone just as I had placed it near my dad's pillow while he laid between life and death in hospice. I still remember how he seemed to smile as the music played. 

As I listened to the song quietly at his graveside, I noticed seeds/ seed husks on the ground around me at his headstone. But once I actually noticed these seeds, they seemed to pour out of ground around me, because there were thousands of them! 

So, I dutifully picked several up and took them home in my pocket. They are with me here in CT now. I plan to grow them and just see what they might be. 

To me, every seed is a symbol of the Resurrection. When we die, our bodies are planted in the ground, but our bodies will rise again someday with Christ. 

I myself was the one who placed the remains of my dad's body in the ground at that exact spot several months ago, and I can still feel the memory of in my muscles, bending, placing, etc. 

So going home from my dad's grave with seeds in my pocket felt like a promise, like the Lord gave me back a symbol to carry home with me for the one I'd left. 

It was a few hours later that I also connected that fact that my mom likes to collect seeds. She'll dry anything and everything- flower, plant, vegetable- and collect seeds from them to grow again. As I moved around her tiny apartment, I even found some containers with seeds in them on this visit. 

It's an obsession. She'll find seeds and grow them just to see what they look like. It doesn't matter to her that the plant is actually ugly when it grows. She takes childlike wonder in the whole process, and it's a quiet habit she has had for as long as I can remember. 

So again, going home with seeds in my pocket now also seems like something my mother's daughter would do. It's fitting that I have my mother's instincts. I was Created from her seed, and it is likely something she may have passed on to me just as seeds always pass on what they are to the next generation. 

I plan to bring my mom whatever plant these seeds grow when I visit again in March, and I'll tell her this story then, if the Lord allows it. 

In her small apartment, Mom has a sunroom (of all things for any small apartment to have). It is filled with plants she grows from seeds. 

She doesn't have the heart to visit Dad's grave, and probably never will, but I know she'll love having a plant from his graveside. 

To us as we were looking for the right apartment for mom after dad died- it was another sign that God provided an apartment with a sun room. It was, to our hearts, proof that God sees her, knows her needs, knows our particular family intimately, and really takes care of us just like a master gardener, planting us each in just the right spaces so we can grow best.

Order in the midst of chaos, simple earthly things that reflects God's glory- This is my family's story.

 

The Days After Christmas

The days following Christmas are some of my favorite days. There is usually nothing at all on the calendar for a span of three or four days, so we are able to spend the whole day however we want- at leisure or at work or some combination of the two. 

After spending the early hours of today quietly reading from the Gospel of Matthew, and some of the book Kingdom, Grace and Judgement by Robert Farrar Capon, and some of Brandon Sanderson's newest book Wind and Truth, I inventoried our fridge and pantries and planned our meals for the week like I usually do. 

Dwayne is in the habit of handling the shopping on Saturdays, so I sent him off with the lists, while I spent the next several hours inventorying and organizing several cabinets, drawers, and closets all over the house. 

As a homemaker, I find it very useful to open briefly inventory/ quickly organize every single space in our house, so that I simply have a better idea what's there. Having a mental picture of what things we have where makes the next several weeks/ months go much smoother, because I simply know what things we have and where those things are. The last several weeks have been so busy with such an intense focus on graduate school that I felt like it was time to literally take stock of my home again. 

But this inventory/ reorganization effort was also prompted by the urgent need to find a new home for all the card games and at least 1/3 of the board games that were piled up in the basement, because they had to come out of the wet bar area and find a new home somewhere else, since we recently got a fancy ice maker installed in the cabinets down there. This was one of Dwayne's Christmas presents to me. I love ice water, iced tea, etc. I use a lot of ice. So this will be a constant blessing. 

We decided to move all the card and board games to the hall closet upstairs, but that prompted a reorganization of all the drawers and cabinets in the wet bar area and the upstairs hall closet, too. 

We collected many items the girls don't use anymore to donate. We're setting things aside for friends, and the girls rediscovered some like-new paint brushes we'd totally forgotten we had in craft supplies rediscovered in one of the cabinets. In all, it was a very productive day, and I feel refreshed having a much clearer mental picture of our home heading into the coming season. 

For dinner, I used my fancy new pot, another Christmas gift from Dwayne, to make a fancy new recipe- chicken with tarragon cream sauce (made without any dairy or gluten). I played Taylor Leonhardt loudly, and sang out loudly while I cooked. Fact: Taylor Leonhardt is my favorite singer/ singer writer at this point. 

This new chicken recipe was amazing; Everyone agreed. It will go on our list of family favorites to have again and again. I served it with roasted carrot strips and with basmati rice to soak up all the delicious sauce. 

After we cleaned up from dinner, we played Cartographers, a game we rediscovered as we were relocating all those games today. While we played, we ate some of the gluten, dairy, sugar free treats I made yesterday- homemade almond joys and peanut butter/ chocolate balls. 

Now I am sitting up writing this post, enjoying the tree lights, while the house is quiet and dark. 

I thank God for today and everyday like it. 

I love reading for hours in my cozy pajamas on the couch under a heated blanket while sipping a cup of hot coffee prepared the way I like it. 

I enjoy spending uninterrupted hours caring for my home, so I can spend the next days/ weeks/ months living and working in well-organized spaces. 

I love having extra time to learn to cook something new for my family. 

I love eating delicious yet nourishing foods I made myself, and I enjoy basking in my family's praises over my cooking. I'm forty-five, and at this point, I've done enough to have experienced esteem and praise from various groups and people in public, but I find that nothing compares to the simple appreciation my family can show for the meals I make them. 

I even love cleaning up after dinner, especially when my family helps, all of us moving together and helping one another efficiently. 

And I especially love board games in this season of life, even when I lose badly like I did tonight. 

These days after Christmas are a blessing to my heart, and even when they are filled with much labor, it is labor that brings a much-needed reset before another busy season begins.  

 

Christmas 2024

On Christmas Eve, we had a late, large, luscious breakfast thanks to a gift box of breakfast items sent from Dwayne's boss, and we played a very competitive game of Catan. We attended church in the early evening and then made a meal of sausage, cheese spreads, crackers, grapes, etc. while we played Seven Wonders. After Advent readings, the girls opened new pajamas on Christmas Eve as is our tradition.

We had another big breakfast Christmas morning, finished our Advent readings, then opened gifts. I'll share pictures of a few gifts below. 

Norah got me a few records of poetry being read aloud. 

This one of Robert Frost reading his own poetry is particularly special since an old mentor/family friend of ours, who has now been gone for years now, used to tell the story about changing his major from Engineering to English after attending poetry readings at Frost's house as an undergraduate student at his college. I always wondered what Frost might have sounded like reading his poetry. Now I know! 

I usually buy a Lego set for the family. This year, I got the Mona Lisa. It actually has a Lego piece on the back that allows you to hang the painting! I love Legos, especially the things they make for adults these days. 

I bought the girls much-needed art smocks. Hopefully, they will put them to use and protect their clothing. The smacks they had were made for children, so they were hardly even useful/ hardly ever used anymore. I hope they might prove to be gifts for a lifetime. 

Later on Christmas Day, Dwayne and I worked together to prepare a dinner of prime rib, sweet potatoes, corn, and peas. I used Ree Drummond's recipe to make a sea salt rub with crushed tri-colored peppercorns and herbs for the prime rib. The girls said it was the best beef they'd ever had, and we all had seconds/ thirds. We'll enjoy the last of the leftover prime rib again this evening with other sides.  

Keep Extra Supplies in Your Pantry and Plan Your Meals

We do the household and grocery shopping only once a week- usually on Saturdays. 

Shopping only once a week saves a lot of time and effort and allows us to just focus on homeschool during the week without any interruptions. 

I suppose I live too far away from the store to ever just "run to the store." 

Running to any store usually takes up at least an hour when it is all said and done. 

So it saves us time and effort to shop once a week, but when all is said and done, we find that we actually save money, too. 

We are never using extra gas, never shopping based on mood or impulse, and we are never in the stores mid-week seeing more and more stuff we want to buy, so it really saves to simply go into the store less often. 

To make it possible to go to the store only once a week, we have learned to do two main things:

#1. We have to plan all our meals for the week on Saturday before going to the store, and we make a grocery list based on those meals, buying little to no extra food, which means we save money.  

#2. We also have to have extra products on hand to be able to "shop" from our own supplies that we have in the house when we run out of something mid-week. 

Keeping supplies in the house-

It will take a while to figure out the products you use all the time and need to have on hand. 

It will also take a while to buy the extra portions over time. 

But it's a great idea for any homeschool mom to try and keep a limited supply of all of the products, food and non-food, you consistently use, and these can be stored in your pantry, storage closet, or freezer, depending on the product.  

For example, in the freezer, I keep chicken breasts, ground beef, ground turkey, ham, sausage, etc. in meal-sized portions and each week, as I plan meals and as I fill in the grocery list, I "shop" from the freezer, bringing the meat I want to use up to the fridge in the kitchen to begin to thaw in time for me to use it in the next few days for meals. 

In the pantry, I always have somewhere between 1-12 cans diced tomatoes, tomatoes and chillies, beans of all varieties, refried beans, enchilada sauce, etc. -things I use all the time. I also need to keep extra oat milks, rice cakes, nut butters, tortilla chips, etc., because we burn through those products quickly. 

In the closet, I also keep at least one container of all the necessary household supplies like trash bags, toilet paper, paper towels, laundry detergent, ziplocks of all sizes, personal hygiene products, cleaning supplies, etc. 

Now that I have extra food and supplies on hand like this, I literally never have to take time or effort mid-week to run to the store. 

We can simple "shop" from our storage. 

When we run out of paper towels, we "shop" from the paper towels in the closet. 

When we run out of laundry detergent or dish washing soap, we "shop" from the closet. 

When we need beans for dinner, we run down to the pantry and get what we need. 

If I use the last of something mid-week, or if I notice that inventory is getting too low on an item, I add that to the shopping list for Saturday, but in the meantime, we still have whatever we need, because we got it from our excess in storage. 

Having supplies means our home just keeps moving on with our school day, day after day after day. 

Plan Meals-

We keep a shopping list and add things through the week as we notice we are out of something or running low. 

But on Saturday morning, I also take a more careful inventory of everything in the house- the fridge, freezer, pantry, and closet- and based on what I see, I add needed items to the list. 

I also decide all the meals I'll be making that week (including snacks, breakfasts, lunches, and desserts), and I check to see if I have all the ingredients, or if I have them in storage, and if I don't (or if I'm running low), I add those items to the list, so I can make those specific meals.  

When we come home with groceries, we open the garage and honk the horn, and the kids know to come down and help us carry everything up and put it away. 

We teach the kids where to put things and that way, they can run and get it mid-week when we're in the middle of doing something like making dinner. 

We definitely expect our kids to help with all the household chores. 

It's part of their homeschooling. 

By keeping supplies on hand and planning our meals, we have all we need once the homeschool week begins again. 

Every decision has been thought through and made and prepared for. 

This means that during the weekdays, we hardly have any errands to run- not even one. 

Of course, there's still the dentist and orthodontist and pediatrician, but generally speaking, having meals planned and all supplies on hand means that we are just free to do our homeschool work or read, etc. 

 

The Best Christmas Movie Ever

We have been reading "The Best Christmas Pageant" aloud at Christmas time on and off for ten years or more. It's hilarious and heartwarming. You will laugh. You will cry. 

It was made into a movie, so we took the family to see it this week. Dwayne and I tried to surprise the kids, but they figured it out when we turned toward the theater. We don't do many out-of-the-ordianry things, so I guess we are quite predictable after all. 

It was a great movie! It has a very different pace than most movies these days- much, much slower- but if you love the book, they've honored the book, so you should love this movie. We did! 

Taylor Leonhardt

We attended the Taylor Leonhardt concert at the Community Coffeehouse in Danbury last night. It was surreal to hear the songs we have listened to for months sung live. Since the girls are guitar students, it was fascinating to watch her play the guitar with such mastery. The Taylor gifted the girls her set list and even signed it! 

How to Manage Housework While Homeschooling (with some advice on life in general)

Lately, I've been killing it as far as my housekeeping goes. I'm just saying... 

I'm on top of things like I've never been before and my husband keeps saying things like, "I love our home," at the same time I'm thinking that I love our home, too. 

Or he says, "You have made this home so beautiful. You know that?" at the same time I'm sipping coffee with my feet up contently enjoying the work of my hands. 

This post has been two decades in the making. So here are some hard-earned tips to take your housekeeping to the next level. 

But don't keep reading if you already have no idea how someone with a brain might want to talk about cleaning or hear about cleaning. Go watch a make-up tutorial video or something. This post is not for you. 

But if you've moved to the edge of your seat and maybe even leaned in closer to your screen to hear what I have to say about housekeeping, this post is for you. 

First, you have to establish a routine for basic housework morning and evening-

I have had a morning and evening cleaning routine that I've kept for almost two decades. The basis of my morning and evening routines came from Fly Lady.  She offers suggestions for what housekeeping jobs to do and when to do them. If you don't have any cleaning routines established at all, I suggest that you begin with Fly Lady's morning and evening routines (and a few other jobs she suggests) until you establish your own morning and evening cleaning habits. 

Next, try to create a plan for ALL the other housework that needs to get done so you can do it before it gets totally out of hand-

I do not suggest following someone else's schedule for the big housework jobs-not even Fly Lady's. I have never had success trying to follow someone else's schedule, because I always found I was cleaning something that was already clean while something else that was dirty had to wait till next week if I was working according to someone else's schedule. I just couldn't do that. Also, I do not suggest making a list of everything you aspire to get done and trying to meet your own ideal goals. The list you make will probably be too big and unreasonable. Instead, simply start paying attention to when things really need to be done and then do them, but then, right then, make a note of what you did and when you did that job. I use my phone to make these notes. Do you notice the toilet is looking gross and it's time to clean it? Pull out your phone and make a note. Write something like "Clean the toilet." And if it's been at least a month since you did that, write "Once a month." Then clean the toilet. (And maybe wipe off your phone, if needed.) By taking these notes of what needs to be done and when you do it, you will eventually create a routine for ALL the housework that needs to be done at a time that really works for you. 

Give yourself lots of grace-

For almost twenty years, just the basic housework was getting done everyday with my morning and evening cleaning routines. But those other, bigger cleaning jobs, like scrubbing tubs, washing sheets and blankets and curtains, and mopping floors, etc. were getting done at random times throughout the weeks and months when something was so dirty or dusty that it could no longer be ignored and simply cried out for attention (or we were having company and we were panicking to get things presentable.) This was because I was nursing babies, working a part-time here or there, or I just really needed to start our homeschool day, so I just couldn't do as much cleaning as was actually needed. 

Consider what else might be taking time, attention, and energy-

Are you actually wasting lots of time? I used to be spend an inordinate amount of time on Facebook. I never planned to spend a lot of time on there, but without fail, I'd usually ended up staying longer than I sat down to stay. "Just five minutes..." was usually more like twenty minutes before I realized it. I justified this use of time, because I was "seeing" friends and "connecting" there. But, when I finally gave it up, I found that I actually answered the phone and talked when people called instead of letting it go to voicemail, or I called people and talked live and in real time. In my experience, those have been more meaningful connections, and I have felt much less isolated and lonely, more loved and loving towards others. Now, I usually call someone daily and text several, specific friends or relatives throughout the day. I even have more time to actually plan to go to lunch with people. So consider how something like Facebook (or something else that you might be dong to "relax") is actually stealing precious time, energy, and attention that you really desire to give to yourself, or your family, or your friends in other ways. 

Are you trying to do too much?

Are you doing too much to still manage to have the time, energy, and attention to simply clean your house? If you are type-A like me, you probably want to do it all. For many years, I was leading and teaching at our beloved co-op. I liked the job. It was way more interesting than a million other things I could or maybe should have been doing, so I didn't mind the hours it took from me away from other things (like housework). At some point, after one million small and a few really big internal shifts, I perceived that the job had become far too costly to me. Of course, I should have known that every "yes" is a "no" to something else, and I think knew that, but I wasn't really conscious of what the job was doing to my life. I realized I had been saying "no" to some of the most basic things like friendship and housework to say "yes" to something more appealing. I suppose the appealing choice could be the right thing for you, but if you can't manage your home or homeschool well, I suggest things might be way out of order. they were for me. I know that I stayed home from a career, so I could actually work in my home and homeschool my children. When I couldn't even do that (and finally realized I really wanted to), I killed the job that gave me meaning for the job that is more meaningful.  I just did not have any margin for these good, simple, human things when I was spending my time, energy, and attention on other (arguably good) things instead. 

So after all those tips, here's my recipe for housework: 

Sundays- 

I have found that Sunday afternoons are for perfect for mopping and speciality laundry. 

I only make one meal after church. It's either lunch or dinner, and it's usually on the simple side. Today, it was grilled cheese and made-from-scratch tomato soup for lunch. After that meal, we all clean up the kitchen from lunch, empty and load the dishes, and then we start picking up the chairs and (most of) the stuff on the floors. Then I set the Roomba to clean all the floors, because Dwayne bought me one as a gift. (We call our Roomba "Alice" like the housekeeper from Brady Bunch.) At that point, I also gather the bath mats, or pull some curtains down, or gather up all the dirty towels from all the bathrooms, or gather the blankets from the girls' beds and the couches, and I wash a load of something "special" that isn't in the dirty clothes baskets that we wash throughout the regular week. Then I go put my feet up or take a nap or read and enjoy the rest as I listen to the hum of the machines as they do the work. I try to limit the housework I do on Sundays to the basic morning and evening chores and these two jobs, so that I can observe a day of rest and deliberately cease the usual amount of striving that I do during the week. 

Daily in the morning and in some cases, again in the evening-

Feed and give fresh water to Arcus (our parrot)

Sweep kitchen 

Unload and load the dishwasher

Recycling/ Trash

Rotate the laundry- fold or hang what's in the dryer, put anything that's in the washer in the dryer (or hang it to dry), start a new load of dirty cloths, and put away all the clothes 

Make master bed

Every other day- (In addition to morning chores, every other day, we add some of these and so, these chores generally get done every other day)

Sweep living room, hall, downstairs bathroom, and/ or classroom

Change Arcus's (our parrot's) cage liners

Empty little trashes and replace their little trash bags

Gather hangers from the closets and bring them to laundry room so they are ready for more laundry

Once a week- (We add one or more of these chores to our morning routine and so, we get them all done at least once a week)

Empty stuff baskets (little foldable, cube-shaped containers on every floor where I throw all the stuff the girls leave laying around the house)

Wash cage or bird perch

Sweep upstairs hall and stairs

Sweep stairs going to basement and the basement living room

Water plants/ Weed garden path and/ or beds (if needed)

Deep clean one bathroom 

Vacuum all the rugs

Once a week as I cook dinner- 

While I am cooking dinner one night a week, I'll cook other foods like boiled eggs or quinoa salad or chicken salad, etc. (These are foods that are nice to have on hand for snacks and for healthy food on-the- go. Since I am already cooking, I just cook these things once a week while making dinner.) 

On Friday-

Inventory the fridge, freezers, and cabinets (So that I know what I already have and need to use up)

Plan meals for the week and make a shopping list for groceries (I usually plan at least four meals, sometimes five, knowing that some night, I'll choose to breakfast for dinner or cook egg sandwiches or something simple in place of a more formal meal.)

On Saturday- 

Clean out the fridge (as needed)

Organize the groceries into the fridge, freezer, or cabinets

Do any special loads of laundry that need to get done

Clean a special room that isn't normally cleaned 

Every two weeks on Saturday-

Wash everyone's sheets

Once a month-

Wash comforters and quilts on everyone's beds (Usually this happens on Saturday/ Sundays)

Wipe off all screens in the house

Dust everywhere

Every three months-

Wash curtains

Twice a year-

Clean out each closet or cabinet or drawer and purge old and unused stuff and reorganize 

Notice that I don't have every job here yet. So this is still a work in progress. But I am enjoying unparalleled success in my housekeeping and peace and joy in my housework, so this plan of action is really working for me. 

It has honestly been a delightful relief to work out this schedule for myself. 

This is what is working for me, but I hope sharing it will bless you. 

Mount Washington

 

On our way home from the Jeep Jamboree in the Maine mountains, we stopped at Mount Washington. Dwayne and the girls took the trip up the mountain. That's a picture of our black Jeep (bottom right corner) heading up the mountain. Note: I did not go up the mountain. I stayed in the cozy visitor's center, and I shopped for stickers and socks, and I edited my paper for graduate school. 

So a great time was had by all! 

Maine Mountains Jeep Jamboree 2024

We attended the Maine Mountains Jeep Jamboree this year. It was bitterly cold at registration on Thursday, and it was raining for a time, but then a beautiful rainbow showed over the parking lot full of Jeeps.

Early Friday and Saturday morning, the mornings of the Jamboree, it is fun to see all the Jeeps lined up according to which trail they are heading out on. 

Then you head out towards your trail following your guide. 

There was a lot of mud. We all got stuck several times and needed to be wenched. 

I thought the tires looked exactly like chocolate doughnuts with all the mud caked on. 

We encountered several obstacles and had to spend quite a lot of time in the woods waiting for each Jeep to either make it through the obstacle OR be wenched out to try again. 

But the fall woods were beautiful and there were beautiful views.

We're thinking about which Jamboree to attend next year... 

 

Braces, Braces, Braces

 Adele got braces today! 

So since Norah's have been on far longer than planned, 

and Avril's, too, have taken slightly longer than expected, 

that's all three daughters with braces at the same time. 

Who could have predicted this triple orthodontic event? 

Not me! That's certain!  

It's like when three planets align once in a century or something... 

only it's cosmically more expensive than that! 

 

Home Makeover

I made a smash-book spread to capture images of our recent home makeover. 

The work started earlier this summer. 

First, we paved the driveway that had basically been reduced to gravel after many years of rain storms and snows and ice and winter plowing. 

Next, we painted the girls' bedrooms, something we had never done in all the years we have lived here. We just made the girls live with the (tolerable) colors the previous owner had chosen. 

Then we added AC. (I have developed severe asthma and allergies, so this will be a life-changing blessing.) 

Then we replaced the roof. It was at end of life. 

Then we replaced all the windows and doors and sliders, some of which are so large, they are the size of walls! These were also at end of life. 

Then we painted the outside and all the inside walls that were damaged/ affected by the work. 

It was quite a project, stressful, etc. but we had great people doing the work, and we actually enjoyed getting to know them and having them around. 

We continually meditated on the urgent need to make our home healthy for the humans who dwell in it. 

We also considered the ongoing command to steward our property and handle all the deferred maintenance as a testimony to our neighbors and as an act of faith in the Lord, believing He wants us to really dwell here. 

May the Lord be banner over our home.

May we dwell under His wings in this our nest. 

"Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness." Psalm 3:37

 

 This picture reminds me of the Andrew Wyeth painting "Christina's World." I'm going to call it "Adele's World." 

Our visit with Grandma continues... with cookies and ice cream in the evenings, and a visit to Brevard Zoo, one of her favorite places. On the way home, we had dinner at Rib City, which is now one of my favorite places. 

Dwayne's cousins came to visit before we left town. Our nephew and his wife live nearby, so they also came to visit. They have a new puppy that we all enjoyed so, so much. 

These two are watching through Star Trek Next Gen together. 

It is our duty to bodly pass on culture to the next generation. 

This Time and Place

We're visiting Dwayne's mom at her home in Vero Beach. Mom has been in the hospital and rehab since Thanksgiving, so we've come to give Dwayne's sister a break and simply enjoy the time we have with mom. It's in the middle of our homeschool year, and we all have so many responsibilities, but as we order our lives, nothing is more important than being with mom right now. 

We take at least one walk on the beach everyday, and the landscape varies constantly, drastically, yet it's always beautiful. 

What Grandma wants, she gets. She wanted snickerdoodle, so...

The exuberance of nature overwhelms my senses at the beach. I can almost hear the earth singing. The sun warms my face and the cold waves roar and then whisper and break on my toes and the salt spray mingles with the salt tears at the corners of my eyes and a chuckle rises in my belly at the exact same time it rises in Adele's belly, too, and we laugh in unison at the sandpipers feet, at it all, at everything. It's like all created things are laughing with us or they were laughing first and we are just now joining them; Genesis was just a minute ago, and the new earth and Heaven are only one minute away. Beauty smiles at us, and we are welcomed into the dance. 

This crab lifted his claws as I came near to take his picture. I lost my nerve and ran away when the wave broke behind him and he came barreling towards my bare toes. I ran like a school girl. 

I noticed how the water wrapped around itself and flowed back to the sea in the shape of a backbone. There were little and smaller backbones appearing all along the beach as the water got closer to the waves. 

Look carefully, there's a crab.

The girls enjoy more freedom now that they are older and so do we. They are not so hard to keep alive at the beach now, and we often can let them go and explore while we just sit and rest. 

We've taken this same picture of the girls at the top of the stairs for many years.

We're collecting shells (and rocks and coral, etc.) and playing cards with Grandma and playing pool (badly) with each other. On the trip, Adele has learned to shuffle under Grandma's faithful and patient guidance. 

It's remarkable what we find. But I've come understand there are three rules to finding outstanding seashells. #1. You must be on the beach. #2. You must be attentive. #3. You must trouble yourself to stop, bend over, and pick them up. It is no more complicated than this. 

Even as we are better at being available to find some of the most glorious shells, we are also starting to collect the gnarly, beautiful things, too, because even the broken things, they are, nevertheless, so very beautiful. I love to sort the shells and study their colors and shapes. Glory be to God for dappled things. 

We're enjoying hours of quiet together as we often do when we are here. The ceiling fan clicks just like a clock, and we're all getting a lot of reading done. 

I found this book at the thrift store here. 

It's such a fitting read for this visit as we take the time to be in the same place as Grandma. 

More than anything, Wendell Berry teaches me to be content and happy with being myself. 

I'm just one particular creature relating to all the other particular creatures God has made me in relationship to. 

I'm a dappled thing, strange and spare, and so are you, and praise God for dappled things.