several thousand words (2)

What's been going on at the "buretachi" homestead lately (other than wording rants about chivalry)?  Take a look - you know what they say a picture's worth:

mycological mountain find

honoring our favorite mycologist's birthday

sauerkraut, the way we like it

men at work

husking the bounty

Golden Jubilee and Butter & Sugar

my Don Juan rose - perfection!

hibiscus secrets

guess who's pleased with her useful new skill?

the usual suspects

a night on the town

King's X - a new genre for me

rain + campfire + umbrella = contentment

the mystery caterpillar emerges from its cocoon

spectacular detail!

Luna Moth, released onto the crepe myrtle

Happy Birthday, Spice!

confection-esque hydrangea 

fiery gladiolus 

look what someone left for me on the counter!

beaming playhouse resident

the first tray of pfeffernusse ... ahhhhh!!

peeking around a tree near you ....!

what did you do all day??

When my Farmer comes home in the evening, we sit down to supper, thank God for his blessings, take a deep breath, and, after a bite or two, ask each other about our days.

"How was your day" I might ask.  And he'll tell me about spading and invoices and fertilizer and equipment design and interpersonal management.

And then he'll ask me, "and what did you do today?"

And I'll think to myself, now there's a good question.  What did I do today??  "Laundry," I might answer - usually a safe guess - or, "cooked supper" which is also nearly always true.  But the day is many hours long, is it not?  I'm pretty sure I didn't spend all of them doing laundry or cooking supper.  What, then, did I do??

So one day last week, after my Farmer waved goodbye from the Box (our Scion xB) as he turned out the driveway, I grabbed a nice long receipt from Kmart, and turned it over to keep tally on the back.  I was determined to find out just what I did do all day.

I got as far as 1:30pm.  Here's what my research found:

5:34 (I had to think back a bit from when I started writing around 7:30) - hit snooze on alarm
5:38 - hit snooze again
5:42 - hit snooze, roll over, turn alarm off and get up.  Shower, contacts, dress.
6:10 - check email & facebook while making coffee, read Bible
6:40 - make eggs for my Farmer & me; eat together and chat about our week

7:15 - 9:00 - a bit of a blur as the children come down for hugs & get their breakfast ready, put away dishes, feed cats, etc.  I get Lil' Snip up, change his diaper, spoon oatmeal into his mouth while he distracts himself with Legos, dress him, tell everyone the agenda for the day (we're on spring break, so no schoolwork - hurray!! - just housework and play plans).  Somewhere in there my Farmer kisses us all and goes to work, I start some laundry, oversee the girls' morning chores, take some clothes to the attic for yardsaling next month, and play Legos with Lil' Snip and Nice.

9 - 10 - put Lil' Snip in his crib for some morning quiet time, work on the budget, place an Amazon order, continue to oversee the girls' chores, and then bring Lil' Snip back down to play.

10 - 10:30 - comparison shop on Amazon for purses I will probably never buy.

10:30 - 11 - brief phone call from a new friend, business call to the dentist to make appointments and inquire about getting a crown (ugh), switch the laundry over to the dryer, make up some baking soda shampoo, and take the mail out to the mailbox.

11 - 1 - play Legos, start beans for supper, experiment with neodymium magnets and duct tape, look for my crab soup recipe, clean recipe box, fold laundry, try (and, largely, fail) to find out online whether it's better economy to buy new or refilled HP ink cartridges, read the grocery flyer and make up my list, during lunch when Victoria Falls comes up in conversation look up and admire video footage of the falls on youtube and possible origins on wikipedia, take photos of Sugar's birthday duds, load photos onto the computer and send them to my sister-in-law, read to Lil' Snip & put him down for his nap.

1 - 1:30 - read to Sugar, Spice, and Nice from Those Happy Golden Years, send them upstairs for quiet reading time, and work on my homework for the Bible study we're doing in our moms' group.

At which point I evidently abandoned my receipt (which was nearly full anyway).  Let's just assume it was more of the same:  lots of unremarkable little things that end up taking all day, and don't make for very interesting conversation.

But at least now I know.

[and, for the record, writing and editing this post took me about three hours - interspersed, of course, with receiving various mysterious blanket-and-ribbon-wrapped Lego creations, charting cross-stitch on graph paper & counselling a frustrated stitcher, putting down Lil' Snip and getting him up from his nap, receiving a ten-I-mean-40-minute phone call from a friend, getting everyone outside and then getting distracted and accidentally weeding three flowerbeds, coming inside for a pruners and seeing that it's time to make lunch ....]

snapshot

It's a lazy morning, overcast & mellow; I am too sleepy {thank you, Downton Abbey} to think of anything more productive to do than write for my blog.  Lucky you.

I hear .... the humidifier, the pellet stove, the clicking of my fingers on the keyboard, Nice saying the letters of the alphabet to herself as she does a dot-to-dot, Lil' Snip asking random questions to whoever might be listening, the arrhythmic thumping of Nice's feet on the floor, the faint strains of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos playing from the kitchen.

I smell .... the clean scent of a white jar candle burning off to my right.

I am waiting for ... 11:30, when I will blow the clay bird whistle I bought in Antigua to summon my little lunch-makers in from their mysterious outdoor play.

On the bookshelf .... lies Flabbergasted, which I am still reading, wondering if it will turn out to have any deeper meaning or remain pure fluff; Love & War, which I haven't picked up in a few days, but saw my Farmer had been reading while I napped on Sunday; and The Contemplative Mom, for which I had great hopes, but stalled out in the first chapter, when it became apparent that one needs to already have made space for contemplation in order to make the most of this book teaching moms how to make space for contemplation .... Maybe I need to write "The Wanna-be Contemplative Mom."

On my desk .... oh yeah, I have a desk!  I'd forgotten about it, since I haven't used it ever since we got wireless internet almost year ago ... but the only reception was in a back corner of the kitchen, where my laptop was promptly relocated.  My daughters now use my desk more than I do:  "Sugar, could you go get me some stamps?"  .... "Spice, can you grab me the scissors?"  .... "Nice, could you bring me the stapler, please?"  (Nice:  "What's a stapler?")

Projects pending .... bedroom curtains (one was made, months ago, out of five needed); painting the cellar steps; painting a final coat on the bathroom floor, then sprinkling silver glitter and top-coating with boat varnish; crocheting a shawl ... and that's just what comes immediately to mind!

Projects permanently shelved ... hand-quilting the comforter I made; designing new storage for the Back Kitchen; painting the door (& screen) to the backyard, as well as painting the garage door and its wooden framing, at least until warmer weather.

Plans for the rest of the day ... a nap, right after lunch & a story for the girls; some schoolwork with Sugar & Spice and then a supper of black beans and rice; and finally - the high point of my day - coffee with my cousin and a snuggle with my Farmer before falling asleep!

How 'bout you?  What does it sound / smell / look like around you today?

glimpses

Just looking closer, these last few days, I see an abundance to spur gratitude in me:

a rock vase, from a friend ...

... recipe dividers made with new markers ...

... a pot of chili to eat by the campfire ...

... one of Lil' Snip's favorite corners ...

... a towel I find eye-pleasing ...

... creamy homemade body butter ...

... the wonder of metamorphosis, every time ...

There is much.  I am grateful.

on the level

I'm going to level with you.

This sugar freedom thing ... I can't do it.

I hope you don't feel that I've strung you along.  It's been over a month (36 days, 25 posts) of education for me.  I've benefited greatly, and I hope you have, too.  I've learned a lot about biochemistry and I've learned a lot about how my body responds to sugar.

I've also learned a lot about my limitations.

Be it a lack of follow-through, a lack of discipline, a lack of character ... I just don't have it in me to do it at this pace (which, actually, is kind of what Kathleen DesMaisons has been saying all along ....  Supposedly the "sugar-sensitive" biochemistry comes with a sort of all-or-nothing personality; we tend to jump right into things, give 150%, and expect results within 48 hours.  So 36 days, really, is a kind of accomplishment.).

Don't worry, I'm not going to go have a big bowl of ice cream after I hit "publish" (although that does sound good).  I've learned enough science and enough "me" to know that that would not feel as good as I think.  I'm still going to aim for higher protein than what I used to get.  Breakfast within an hour of getting up.  Noticing how I feel and how it relates to what I've eaten.  Shoot, I'll still probably have the potato (or apple, or toast) three hours after supper.

But I think I've learned that this journey does not make for very exciting play-by-play.  It's not a 3-hour game.  It's not even a marathon.  It's more like ... mothering, or watching a flower unfurl.  It goes slowly, by baby steps.  Week by week, day by day, choice by choice.  So, no more "sugar freedom" blog series.

Instead, I'll give you ordinary:

Tonight on the hammock, I whistled through my thumbs with a blade of grass for a reed, and my daughters finally caught on to the trick.  We looked at the elderberry blossoms.  Lil' Snip brought me a corncob, proud.  He found mushrooms:  "Have some!"  (I told him no!)  We turned cartwheels on the grass in a sudden shower.  Back inside, they colored.  Tumbled on the sofa and read books about cats and nature crafts and birds.  My Farmer wrestled with an old doorknob somehow stuck on "locked."  We sang and read and prayed and tucked them all in bed.

Life goes on, despite my success (or lack thereof) at sugar freedom.

What's new in your life?

a day in the life ...

Since life's not all about sugar (well, okay, for me it is, right now, but ...), I thought I'd give us all a break and  do a snapshot of our Saturday  .... to kind of let my blog experience some "sugar freedom" as well.


Sugar and Spice just finished painting their toenails.  Sugar did her own, for the first time.  She was going to do Spice's, too, but when I came out to check their progress, Sugar's eyes looked suspiciously watery.  Spice was patiently waiting, so I did hers for her, and upon request, re-did one of Sugar's.

Nice and Lil' Snip are having their bath.  My Farmer, to my eternal gratitude, does the honors.  His apparently infinite patience is a little better suited to the task than my, er, shorter fuse.  He also recently took over my suppertime duty of feeding (and, usually, disciplining) Lil' Snip ... also to my eternal gratitude.  I think both Lil' Snip and I will learn a lot from this change.  And we will all get to hear each other's conversation a lot better!

I spent the better part of my morning assembling photo collages for Sugar and Spice's homeschool portfolios ... only to realize that my printer does a lame job of printing color photos, and printing them through Snapfish (my old staple, back when I actually printed photos) would necessitate hours and hours of redoing my work to size them for 8x10s.  The satisfaction I felt this morning when the collages were finally done evaporated pretty quickly.  Back to square one.  *sigh*

My Farmer spent the morning helping a friend move.  When he came home after lunch, we crashed on the sofa and didn't wake up till the girls came down from Quiet Time.  Ahhhh, bliss!

A few years ago, I went away for the weekend with some girlfriends, and when I came home, there was one more door in our house than when I left!  It had been there all along, covered in siding for decades.  Having that door opened up has made a huge difference in lighting and airflow, as well as the convenience of a more direct route to the backyard.  The only problem was that it didn't have a screen door.  Tonight my Farmer started fitting a door from another part of the farm.  That will help with the flies when it gets hot again!

An hour or so since I started ... teeth are brushed, hands pampered with our Saturday sugar scrub ritual, clothes laid out for church in the morning, and everyone is tucked into their beds.

A good night to all, and God bless us, every one . . . !

the last gift

Seven months ago, I started a list. 

Twenty-six pages of my composition book later, I am loathe to end it.  I have listed, in the last 200-some days, nine hundred and ninety-nine gifts:  noticings, lifted up from the ordinary into glowing shafts of gratitude, till their origins are obvious:  they are good and perfect gifts, showered down on me from the Father of lights, gift after gift after gift.

Seeing each gift required a stopping.  A stillness.  A savoring so difficult to come to
in life's swirling current.  Each gift was an island of quiet.  

They didn't come gift-wrapped.  No bows to alert my attention.
Some days I wrote nothing down; I never stopped to see.

Other days, craving more proofs of His love, I'd stop a long while
and write out a dozen or more.  I averaged four or five a day.  

How many did I miss, intent on other things?

: : :

My gratitude goes on, whether the list does, or not.
Maybe I'll just stop at #999, to leave room, always, for one more.

a puzzle

So.  Why is it that most days find me dragging along . . . facebooking every free minute down the drain . . . to avoid the fact that I am unable to string together more than two coherent thoughts . . . let alone accomplish any job requiring more than mere physical memory . . . just hanging on . . . to survive till naptime . . . and then bedtime . . . ?

And then suddenly one day I find myself out in the cold sunshine! lying on the hammock! watching Lil' Snip trot industriously from one mysterious mission to the next! organizing (and helping with!) work parties to pick up all the dropped balls from the sweet gum tree! and clean all the shelves in the refrigerator! and in my spare time, painting a door! door-frame! trim! and two trellises! . . . ? ?

I'm not bragging (about what - my usual ineptitude?!), honest.  I'm just frankly puzzled.  Does that seem a little off-balance to you, too, or is that normal?

. . . I didn't even start taking a new vitamin . . .

You know what?  Never mind.  What's that they say about gift horses?

goings-on

If you were to peek into our lives over the last few weeks, 

here is what you might have seen ....

Grandma not only gave Mommy the day off, she set the girls to making applesauce while she was there!  They made and canned 13 quarts, all finished before Mommy came home.

We spent a day baking and decorating cookies for Sugar and Spice to sell 

at church to raise money for Bibles for India.

For five lovely days we played at a cabin in the mountains, 

part of the time with extended family.  

Teepees that grow more elaborate with each year that we go.  

This year they made "natural museums" complete with little mossy displays.

Lil' Snip loves his corners!

My Farmer was thrilled to find over a dozen different (and new to him) forms of fungus.

And everyday adventures.....

Dressing Lil' Snip up in a Honduran vest that Daddy wore when he was little:

Bounty of colorful carrots from my Farmer's fields:

Tasting agar (!?) from an extra petri dish my Farmer filled for propagating mushrooms:

Tea party surprise one day after Quiet Time:

Sunshine transforming the ordinary:

Our "Farmers' Breakfast":  kale and onions, toast, egg on ham with broiled cheese & tomatoes, coffee, and two squares of dark chocolate to finish it off.