church

This past week some of us were sick, and around here we treat sickness with (among other things) rest.  By Saturday we were feeling a lot better, but more rest seemed to be in order.

As much as we love our church family, going to church is not always restful, so last night my Farmer and I decided that our family would hold services at home today.  (And although we don't operate by democratic vote, we did ask the girls, individually, for their opinions.  Sugar, Spice, and Nice each said, hopefully, that they thought they'd like having church at home).

So after the breakfast dishes were cleared away this morning, the cats and chickens fed, we gathered by the piano to sing "Joy to the World" to Sugar's accompaniment, with Spice playing along on the lap harp.  That's the extent of their accompaniment abilities at present, so we moved to the kitchen table with our hymnals and sang "Blessed Be The Tie That Binds" and "The Servant Song" and "How Great Thou Art" and a few more, till our voices ran dry.

Lil' Snip was provided with Legos and a couple of Golden Books, and the rest of us pulled out our Bibles.  Spice volunteered to take notes.  Since we were "being church", we wanted to see what the Bible had to say about it.

Sugar remembered reading Hebrews 10:24 & 25 the other day, so we started there:

"And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

We added to that Hebrews 3:13, which reminds us that we are to encourage each other daily to keep ourselves from being hardened by sin's deceitfulness.  From this, we decided that "meeting together" must mean something other than only Sunday morning church meetings, if we're to be encouraging one another every day.  Might it mean simply that we keep company with other believers on a daily basis?

We talked about how spending time with people regularly helps you to know them better, and then your encouragement can be more specific, and probably more beneficial.  That "spurring one another on toward love and good deeds" might take the form of giving vision to each other of what could be, something to move toward, like a mule moving toward the carrot dangling in front of him, getting the hard work of plowing done because his eyes are on the prize.

Sugar read 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 for us.  We decided that Paul's point was for us to wait for each other, share with each other, don't be greedy, and don't be divided.  We turned to 1 Corinthians 14:26-40 to see again that we should be orderly and take turns, that everyone has a part (see also 1 Corinthians 12:12-31), and all are needed.  Singing would be part of a meeting, Paul assumed, and teaching, prophesying, and speaking in tongues (but only as long as there was an interpretation).  We confronted those troublesome verses about women and their role in church services, reading the study notes in the Bible and talking about our own experiences.

Time was flying by, so we only looked at one more passage:  Colossians 3:12-17, which doesn't tell us what to do at meetings, but how to live with each other.  We should be peaceful, thankful, forgiving, teaching & admonishing one another.

Another hymn, a break for tea and graham crackers, and the children began to disperse.  It had been an hour and a half.  (I should blush to say it, maybe, but I don't remember our family ever sitting down together for that length of time before for anything, let alone to study the Bible together.  Our evening "family time" which does include singing and Bible reading is usually only 20 minutes, max.)

"That was nice!  The time went fast!!"  Spice said happily.  "It felt more like church, somehow."

"It was more restful," agreed Nice.  "We didn't have to hurry and get ready in the morning, and then hurry to make lunch when we got home."

Staying home, in fact, gave me ample time to make a simple - but hot! - lunch of rice and chicken, a nice improvement over our usual PB&J.  We ate early, comfortably instead of ravenously.  Going to church somehow always works up in us a terrific appetite.

After lunch, Sugar, Spice, Nice & Lil' Snip changed into playclothes, put on their snowsuits and headed out to play in the snow, a motley crew of colorfully padded roly-polies.  They're out there now, scooping up the fluffy stuff and kicking it, making piles and messages and occasionally flinging it at each other, while my Farmer and I relax a bit before calling them in for afternoon Quiet Time.

I don't know when I've enjoyed a Sunday more.

                  - - - - -   < * >   - - - - -

Do you know of other passages about Christians meeting together?  I'd like to hear them ...

un-movie night

It's happening again, right now.

A week ago I found an old VHS of Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang in a thrift store, remembered enjoying it as a child, and brought it home to show to my children.

They still haven't seen it.  Each afternoon or evening that would have been just right for a movie night - it was cold and grey, or we'd been home for "x" days in a row - I've thought of hauling out the TV (which we keep on a high shelf) and VCR (which we keep in a closet) and lining up the children on the sofa to watch a slice of my childhood ... but I don't do it.

I hate to disturb them.

It's dark outside; we've eaten our supper and are planted in the living room where the fire burns hottest.  Spice is curled up on the sofa reading a Dr. Seuss biography from the library.  Sugar plays Colorku, a beautiful wooden version of Sudoku using colored balls.  Lil' Snip is building Lego tractors under the direction of Nice (who is living up to her name instead of plaguing her brother for the pleasure of hearing him squeal).

And I just can't make myself break up all the coziness, an almost palpable sense of "we are us; we are family; we belong here together."

So the videos I bring home gather dust on the shelf, and the children ask from time to time when we're going to watch them, but they never seem to remember to ask when we could watch them .... so we don't.

And no one seems to mind.

And Sugar learns new songs on the piano,
and Lil' Snip builds a million Lego towers,
and Spice makes music on her recorder,
and Nice sings songs she made up in her head,
and Sugar teaches herself new crochet stitches from a library book,
and Nice reads the Little House series,
and Spice teaches "school" to her siblings,
and Lil' Snip drives his trucks
and the girls dress up in ballet leotards and dance "The Waking of the Spring Flowers"
and it's all too lovely to interrupt for a mere movie ...


[for more thoughts on the TV-less life, check out this blog]

happily snowed in

Well, sort of.  :)

My Farmer read me some dramatic headlines about tens of millions bracing for a storm in the northeast, so we planned to revel in some of our favorite indoor activities today - reading, reading, and more reading.  Preferably by the fire, and preferably uninterrupted by small fry begging for stories and games.  One can dream.

But the snow didn't come.

I had gone for groceries the night before, so the larder was stocked.  In the words of one of our children's favorite poets, Clyde Watson:

Let the fall leaves fall

And the cold snow snow

And the rain rain rain till April:

Our coats are warm

And the pantry's full

And there's cake upon the table.

But, no snow.

I took advantage of the still-clear roads and made a run to the health food store and the library, Lil' Snip happily in tow.  We made it back with our giant bags of rolled oats and stacks of books to a house smelling deliciously of granola.  Sugar, Spice, and Nice had been busy while we were gone.

Still no snow.  How were my Farmer and the children ever going to finish the igloo they'd started with last week's snow?!

We lunched on hot dogs and sauerkraut and Reese's peanut butter cup cookies (a library bake-sale find), and I finished baking the last of this year's newest addition to the cookie list:  pfeffernusse.  [baker beware:  these may not look like much, but they are dangerously delicious!!]

And still the blizzard hadn't arrived.  Oh well, we settled in and read anyway.

Finally, midday, the snow started to come.

We started a meal of comfort food - baked ham and mashed potatoes - and my Farmer lost himself by the fire, reading my library book.

The small fry mostly entertained themselves, dressing up stuffed bears, chasing each other in circles around the downstairs (which is most conveniently arranged to accommodate this impulse), coloring, and building with sofa cushions and stools.

By nightfall the snow was coming down steadily.  Sugar was devouring a book on orchestral music and its accompanying CD.  Spice was hunkered down with Louisa May Alcott's Eight Cousins.  Nice and Lil' Snip were alternately sharing the music player that Cousin R just passed on to us and getting their baths.

The candles burned, and the snow fell.

And now, supper is put away - the ham cubed for tomorrow's soup, sliced for sandwiches later this week, and some frozen for another day - the driveway is shoveled (thanks to my Farmer), the children are all tucked in bed, and the fire burns, and we are happily snowed in.

closing up camp

I'm inside now listening to the rain.  For the first time in our Family Week history, it held off till the end.  We got our fill, almost, of campfires and s'mores, tenting and outdoor living.

This afternoon Sugar, Spice, and Nice had their last Quiet Time in the tent, kitties curled up beside them in their sleeping bags (except for the ones who couldn't resist the smell of the sausages I was cooking over the fire for tonight's soup).  Then, in the wind from the approaching storm, they helped my Farmer pack up the tent.  I put away camp chairs.  Stacked the few remaining sticks of firewood against a tree.

The fire still burned - low -, a lone potato and a handful of chestnuts left on the grate.  We kept the fire going all week.  This morning's breakfast fire was the first time we needed matches since we started it last Saturday.  Even then, the ash was warm.

Every meal for a week, we ate around the fire.  Most days we cooked once or twice using the campfire:  hot dogs (of course), toast, chicken satay, grilled tomato & cheese sandwiches, hobo packets of potato and sausage, scrambled eggs, potatoes in foil, apples, onions, sausages, and more and more s'mores.  Meals took forever, somehow.  No one seemed to mind.

We didn't do anything flashy this week.  No grand experiments.  No pricey field trips.  Not even many photos.  We just lived.  Outside.

Nice found her own "poking stick" for the fire (I'm a little possessive when I've got a good one).  Spice made "pencils" to write on an old pallet, by holding sticks in the fire till their ends were blackened.  Sugar hauled firewood and cut brush for resurrecting a fire from the previous coals.

They played with corncob dolls with braided "hair".  Baked "bread" wrapped up in grape leaves in the fire, to feed the cats.  Went fishing.  Walked back in the woods to wade in a very small spring-fed "swimming hole".  We went to the tractor pull at a local fair, ate funnel cake and elephant ear.  One day we took bikes to a nearby park to ride the trails and spent the morning riding, walking, even running in the sunshine, and ended up getting pizza to eat in the pavilion.  For a very cold ten minutes on the warmest day, the children and my Farmer had the last swim of the season in our pool.

Last night after dark, we walked over the rise to catch the moon as it came up full over the cornfield.

And now the week is over.

Tonight Lil' Snip will get a much-needed bath.  We'll tuck them all into their inside beds, their pillows still smelling faintly of campfire smoke.  We'll leave the windows open a crack for the music of rain and cricketsong.

And then in the morning we'll eat breakfast sitting at the table, dressed in churchy clothes like civilized folks, and go sit in circulated air for two hours, listening to people sing and talk into microphones and surreptitiously thumb their smartphones ...

... and our week outside will fade into vapor like a dream ...

caged poet

This morning I sat by the fire we brought back to life from last night's coals, watching smoke spiral upward into the morning sunshine which streamed through the dancing leaves like so much gold dust poured down from heaven.  Oatmeal in a mug, with swirls of maple syrup, warmed my hands.  Sugar, Spice, & Nice dressed in the tent to an accompaniment of their own squeals of excitement.  Their favorite kitten had figured out how to unzip the tent flap, and dashed out with her booty: Spice's shirt.

After our oatmeal I speared some bread & cheese to experiment with toasting.  Spice & Nice happily shared my first batch, assuring me that it was a success.  I fed the second round to Sugar as she washed up dishes, and my Farmer and Lil' Snip (who slept late after a stuffy-nosed night) took turns with the last of it.

Next up for today:  digging worms and fishing for my Farmer and his progeny, while I enjoy the quiet solitude of laundry and more campfire cooking.

I love my family.  I am grateful for this week of interlude.   I can say, in all sincerity: "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance."  (Psalm 16:6)

And yet ... to have the heart of a poet, and to be trapped by the myriad mundanities of serving a family, is to live, though winged, in a cage.  If I ever finally learn lasting contentment, it will be the fruit of surrender.  

I am determined to find beauty in the bars that enclose me.  

And when I do, I think I will find that the bars do not enclose so small a space as I first thought.  

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some tomatoes to transform into bisque for our campfire lunch.

family camp 2013

This marks year three? Four? Six? of our now-traditional "Family Week" (a.k.a. staycation), in which my Farmer takes a week of vacation and we camp out in the backyard.

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I guess you could say it really started on Friday, this year.  My mother came to watch the children for my (almost-) monthly day off, and I roamed the Southern End in the minivan, from library to river overlook, at my leisure.  Saturday, my Farmer took the children (all four!) to work with him while I stayed home to read, nap, and take a nice long walk in the sun.

Sunday after church we attended a feast of locally-grown goodies at my Farmer's farm, a fund-raiser to which we were given complimentary tickets.  From the smoked potatoes and fried green tomatoes to the cheese trays and mini-burgers on freshly-baked buns to the peach cobbler and molasses ice cream, it was a palate-pleasing experience we will not soon forget.

After the respite of Sunday naps all around, we gathered up the firewood and started the first of what we hope are many campfires this week.  We roasted apples, fresh bread, and marshmallows.  And then ...

... we had a drop-in!!  Family from California, in for a funeral, stopped in to hug, chat, admire, and share dreams.  Acquaintances were refreshed, photos were snapped, farming methods were swapped, and walnuts were juggled.  As night fell, Lil' Snip - accustomed to daylight bedtimes still - came to me, enraptured with the sunset:  "the sky looks different, Mommy!"  We tucked him in and waved them off ...

snippets

Lil' Snip, awhile back eating his first french fry, asked: "Are there mashed potatoes in these?"

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A homeschooling mother's victory: daughter pulling the wrapping off of a frozen pizza to exclaim "dendritic crystals!!" and sending an excited sister to find her magnifying glass.

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Lil' Snip (the only son among three daughters) looking adoringly at his colored pencil, which he has just discovered can be extended by twisting the end, cooing "cuuuute!" in an exact replica of our expressions over him.

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Spice one morning told me about a dream she'd had [my thoughts in brackets]:  "I had a dream last night about a monster [oh, no!] that I was chasing [you GO girl!] that turned into Truffle [(a beloved cat) - that's my girl, turning monsters into playmates!!]"

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Isaiah was showing me, rather vigorously, how he pats his head. "Be nice to your head," I told him, "because it's your head!"

"And," he reminded me, "my face is on it!"

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Spice asks me if she's a pessimist or an optimist. Trying to avoid labels, I tell her that she's just her. She counters with: "Does that mean that I'm a pessimist and you just don't want to tell me?"

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... and one from my Farmer:  My elliptical and I had started getting reacquainted (slowly), so I was disappointed to see that the bathroom scales hadn't moved in the direction that I had hoped. My husband, quick-witted, quipped "Boy, you must put on muscle fast!"

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the farmer takes a wife

Remembering this evening, first posted two years ago ... my children still astonish me, and leave me amazed that a subdivision-raised girl like me could have daughters (and a son) so confidently knowledgeable about things I am only now discovering, both about the natural world and myself.  May God Himself sustain their faith and make it sure.

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This evening, after supper, I walked with my Farmer (who carried our son) and three daughters, back behind the barn and along the ridge through the cornfields to the neighbor's pig barn to watch giant tractors bring their manure-spreaders in to be filled.

One was green (John Deere).  The other was red (Case IH).  The green one had huge double wheels.  The red one was hinged in the middle ("articulated", to those in the know).  Both pulled 7300-gallon tanks of liquid manure, the weight spread over three sets of tires (the front two could be lifted free from the ground).

My daughters held their noses and exclaimed over how big the tractors' wheels were.  My son, ears covered by his fleece cap but his little legs sticking out, chilly, where his pantlegs had ridden up, just gazed around in wonder at the wide, wide world.

I watched them, my children.  I am their mother - these offspring so foreign to me, sometimes.  They know so much about tractors, growing things, and manure.

We drove out to buy milk from a neighbor's dairy this morning.  We spotted some new calves and day-dreamed about having one at our house.  Sugar, in her 9-year-old wisdom,  said we couldn't keep it in the barn, though, or it might get hoof disease.  Hoof disease?!  Was that in the science curriculum somewhere that I missed?

On the way home,  I admired the green growing in a field and Sugar said it was probably rye.  

After we (well, I) had marveled long enough at the giant tractors, we headed back home over the cornfields.  Sugar and Spice ran ahead, hair flying brilliant in the setting sun.  Nice stayed with me, hanging on to my arm and telling me what a nice mommy I was.  Lil' Snip bounced along on Daddy's arm and just looked and looked and looked.

I wonder what he was thinking ....

happily hating my sofa

Fourteen and a half years ago, my Farmer and I, flush with wedding gift money, set out to buy a sofa for our little apartment.  We wanted something well-made, durable to withstand the years, and Scotch-guarded to withstand the children we were sure to have.

In the second store, we found what we were looking for - a classic design, of sturdy construction, long and deep enough for even my six-foot-one Farmer to nap on comfortably.

We decided to place an order, with a wing chair on the side, and were presented with the upholstery book.

We flipped through the samples, trying to recall our research:  olefin wears better than cotton, a pattern hides dirt better than solid, blue fades first.  I admired my mother-in-law's sofa, and looked for something similar, a neutral background with a small embroidered pattern.  There was nothing quite like it in the book, but we found something not too dissimilar, in colors we liked, and placed our order.  There were three swatches of the sample, a small pattern, a medium, and a large.

I assumed the small pattern would dominate.

A few weeks later, the sofa was delivered.  I stared in amazement.  The lines of the sofa were familiar, certainly, but had we really chosen this upholstery??  Large, bold flowers?!  Prominent vertical bars and a diamond crisscross of vines?  Where was the discreet pattern of small flowers and dots?!

I looked closer.  There, on the very tips of the cushions, was my small pattern.  But the entire piece of furniture was dominated by leafy vines, framed by loud flowers the size of my hand.  What had we done??

And it was made to last.

Sigh.

Well, fourteen years, two moves, three daughters and a son later, and I'm glad I'm not in love with my sofa, for it surely will not last the lifetime we expected.  There is a definite sag under our favorite end by the lamp, and the {admittedly pale} neutral background has, er, developed a bit of a patina from all the Farmer naps and bare-footed children.

Should I have told them to keep their feet off the sofa?  Banned all bare skin or unclean clothing to spare the upholstery?  Kept jumpers on the trampoline and builders restricted to Lincoln Logs?

I used to feel a little guilty that I let my children jump on the sofa (up till age 3 is the house rule), build forts with the cushions, and gallop around the house using cushions for horses.  Sort of like I was lacking in the responsibility department of parenthood.  But I have fond memories of doing the same, and after all, childhood is short ....

... and the upholstery is ugly.

separated? never!

It had been one of those days:  Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice at each other's throats like wild dogs, bickering and blaming and outright brawling, and under and around and through it all, Lil' Snip's grating whine - when did he become a whiner?! - insisting that someone hold him, that someone read to him, read to him, read to him, again!, that someone play with him - nooooo, this way!!

I was ready to die.  [sorry, I know it's dramatic, but that's the way it was.]  Actually - by God's grace alone - I had died, over and over, to my self that day.  And as naptime mercifully approached, and I tucked the loudly protesting toddler under my arm and carried him, struggling violently, up to his cage, I mean crib, God shone His light on my heart, and taught me something beautiful about His own.

I still loved that Lil' Snip.  He had been purely intolerable that morning, and somehow I had not only tolerated him, but I still loved that inharmonious, recalcitrant bundle of muscled will.  All his discordant belligerence, his complete lack of courtesy and grace had done nothing - nothing - to separate him from my love for him.  I was happy to be separated from him for a few hours, it's true, but at my core, my heart still beat love, love, love, love toward him.

And that's God's heart toward me, toward you:  nothing, nothing, can separate us from His love.  Sin keeps us from intimacy from Him, but even sin does not change His love for us.

When Lil' Snip awoke, cheerful and compliant (actually, his snit lasted a few days, but let's compress that for the sake of brevity), ready again to receive my love, I forgave* him his obstinance and accepted him gladly back into my arms.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? 

Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine

or nakedness or danger or sword?

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, 

neither angels nor demons,

neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,

neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, 

will be able to separate us from the love of God 

that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Romans 8:35, 38-39

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* a difference here is that my toddler does not confess his sin; when we, however, "confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (I John 1:8-10).  Needless to say, another difference is that I, unlike God, am powerless to cleanse Lil' Snip from his unrighteousness, much as I would like to be able to!

house of cards

I've been hiding in a house made of cards.

I've mentioned before, I believe, how much I dread fellowship meals:  crowds are not my thing.  Yesterday we had another one at church.  We stayed; there was a meeting afterward that we wanted to be part of.  And things went fine, mostly, until the food was finished and I started to look around .... at the people talking, laughing, enjoying each other's company ...

... and all I could think was "no one's talking to me."

I'm ashamed, of course.  So "poor me" I blush to write it.  But since I know I'm not the only one, I take a risk and publish my awkwardness for both of you - the ones who feel it, too, and the ones who can't imagine.

A friend and I were talking recently about high school, and how lonely it was for us, and how startled we've been, sometimes, to find out that others were lonely, too - even some we thought so self-assured.  We all hide, maybe.  At the fellowship meal, my inner ache tells me I'm unwanted, superfluous, unseen.  Look at all the others, talking to each other, laughing, sought-out.  And on the periphery (where I usually choose to sit), alone stand I.

So many things you could say to me, to convince me that I'm wrong.  I've heard it all.  It does not penetrate my armor of alone-ness.

But yesterday, a gift:

At the meeting (again sitting at the fringes), I looked at all the heads in front of me, and like Paul's light on the road to Damascus, epiphany struck:  this is my family.  These are my people, and they love me.  Hardly a soul there that hasn't said a kind word to me at one time or another, exchanged a smile.  They are for me.  We are one.

As a group, they overwhelm me to the point of intimidation, yes; but one by one - I love them, too.

Fear fled, as the house of cards crumbled.

I am safe.  I am loved.

This is my Body.

[now, let's see if I can remember that at next month's fellowship meal....]

"so in Christ we who are many form one body,
and each member belongs to all the others."

Romans 12:5

O Christmas Tree

Tonight my Farmer put the Christmas tree together (yes, we're one of those) and the excitement in the room was exhilarating (if you like that kind of thing).  I stayed out of the way, catching up on my blog-reading (in which I discovered that two good friends, in two very different parts of the world, just bought/moved into their dream homes.  More later, maybe, on my conflicted internal response.).

Here is how I shared about this precious family bonding time, on facebook:

"It's awful but I don't even like the way they decorate the tree - I know it makes me Terrible Mother of the Year, but I would really love to have a color-coordinated tree, without all the trinket-y ornaments ... true confession."

"So, after they all go to bed, I get to put up the rest of the decorations, where I want them, without excited children dogging my every step, offering helpful choruses of suggestions."

"It's trinkets all the way here (and multi-colored lights- ugh).  And of course the irony is that when they're all grown and gone, and I can do the tree how I want it, I won't want it anymore, and I'll miss their excited gibbering."

Here is what I didn't share on facebook, that happened just a bit later:

Lil' Snip came into the livingroom and, unfazed by my laptop shield, exhorted me to "come see the lights, Mommy!  Come in to this room!!"  (Lil' Snip almost never speaks without exclamation points).

So I came with him, into this room, to behold the ugly multi-colored lights with my son.

The room lights were off, the better to admire their awkward handiwork.  The bottom half of the tree was highly ornamented.  There were dark, unlighted regions where the string of lights had been a little too eager to get to wherever it was going.  And under the tree, as close to the glory as they could get, lay my children.

They invited me to join them.  On the floor.  Under the tree.

So, I did.  I looked up through the branches at the lights, listened to Lil' Snip's nonstop excited commentary about the "sparkly-feeling" tree needles, watched his twinkling eyes reflect red, blue & yellow, and when he drummed his feet on the floor in sheer exhilaration, I joined him and drummed mine.  He looked at me, surprised, and smiled.  "Slowly, Mommy," he told me, slowing his own rhythm down.  Spice yelled "Mommy's having fun!!"

And I was.

They sang Christmas carols - O Come, O Come Emmanuel and Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming and Go, Tell it On The Mountain  - around that ugly, beloved tree.  Lil' Snip gave everyone goodnight hugs and kisses and was trundled off to bed, pleading "can we leave it up?"

The tree is up.  And thanks to the innocent delight of my children, so are my spirits.

I might even let them help decorate the rest of the house, tomorrow.

quiet, again

The clock says 8:30 but I feel like midnight.

My family was here today, all twenty of us, for Thanksgiving.  As each family bustled through the door, laden with food & children, our old farmhouse felt smaller and smaller.

When the last of them had left, over eight hours later, I cannot tell a lie:  I was glad.

It had been a good day, as family gatherings go.  Things went right far more often than I had expected.  I had forgotten far fewer things than I had feared.  Children played happily and toys were shared, mostly.  The food all turned out well, even the impromptu supper.  There was laughter and talking and the coffee did not run out.  Nothing broke.  No one was mean (not even the grownups).  Toys were cleaned up and toilets flushed the way they're supposed to (not something to be taken for granted in an old farmhouse!).

But I am a quiet person.  Oh, I can talktalktalk with the best of them, as my children, who regularly eavesdrop on my phone conversations, can attest.  But when it comes down to it, what I need after a good talk, is a good silence.

So while I enjoyed having them all here, I am also enjoying my quiet house, flickering candle, and the comforting presence of my Farmer, who also likes a good dose of quiet, reading beside me at the kitchen table.

rained in

Hurricane Sandy is approaching.

We all mob the stores for milk, bread, or our own personal emergency supplies of choice (chocolate, for instance, or sardines, or pretzels).  Excitement and dread transform the checkout lines:  everyone is a friend with whom to discuss the weather and your preparations.  Facebook abounds with photos and commentary, predictions and confessions.

Our bathtub is full of water, the trampoline is weighted down with pellet bags, the pantry and fridge are stocked with no-prep foods, and the children are going stir-crazy.

I feel a certain poetic obligation to regal you with tales of how we all gathered in the kitchen today to bake chocolate chip cookies and play board games together .... but alas, it would be pure fabrication.  Mostly I tried to block out the piping voices of four excited, house-bound children - no, wait, they weren't even entirely house-bound!  We actually sent them out into the storm this morning to play for a bit (well, sort of:  they were allowed to dash through the rain to play in the barn for an hour, and they took a walkie-talkie with them for communication purposes).

Power outages do give me warm fuzzies, sort of.  Preparing for them, not so much.  Candles and story-telling and singing are the stuff of memories .... but as long as the lights are still on, the noise levels tempt me to use my Farmer's target-shooting earplugs.

Just sayin .....

drops of rain

The talk at church this morning was as much about Hurricane Sandy as it was about communion, almost.  Facebook was full of it (as usual).  After lunch, I hard-boiled the eggs, filled water coolers and five gallon buckets, baked a gingerbread, and, feeling a little crazy, invited a friend's family to come for supper.

Outside the window, the sky was overcast but calm, the windchimes far from frantic, yet.

Our last-minute social plans fell through, and we gathered around, just us, for our usual simple Sunday night fare:  popcorn, fruit, pretzels, cheese, trail mix, and - just for tonight - my gingerbread & applesauce.

Night fell quietly, and Sugar & Spice laid aside their earlier squabbles to play Mancala.  Nice & Lil' Snip made their own peace, and built forts out of the sofa cushions.  My Farmer strummed his banjo thoughtfully and I peered over my book at my lot in life, spread out across the livingroom.

I'm low today, a little.  Ungrounded, adrift.  It anchors me to watch my children play, to hear their happiness, to bear their fighting, even.  They're mine.  They came from me, and God knows where they'll go.

A night of family shores me up, fills in the cracks of dryness in my soul.

The rains begin, outside.

time

Breathe in .... breathe out ....

Two weeks ago our family took a break from life's everyday pace,

to better experience life every day.

For half a decade, maybe, we've been doing this in the fall.

We call it "family week."

We un-attic (& de-stinkbug) the tent ...

... build a fire, and see how long we can keep it going ...

... coffee sets the mood for relaxing ... 

(with an impromptu science lesson regarding coconut oil & cream)

... eat outside every meal that we can ...

... make the most of the new "living space" ...

... learn new skills ...

... smile a lot ...

... firegaze a lot ...

My Farmer took our daughters to the county park to hunt mushrooms.

They also found a grapevine big enough to swing on!

... and a covered bridge ...

One night for supper he made arepas - 

two corn fritters fried with cheese in the middle.

We ate them so hot they burned our fingers.

We didn't care.

Spice & Sugar made dyes from pokeberries, walnut hulls, and pulverized grass,

to color corn husks for corncob doll clothes.

Off on another mushroom hunt, this time in our own woods.

... puffballs ...

... gleaned corn, more mushrooms, and a snail!

Can you see him?

Nice shelling her corn.

... and Spice claims the snail for a pet!

We gathered chestnuts from the treeline, 

roasted them over the fire ...

... and created the Perfect S'more!

... went fishing ...

... looked for beauty in the ordinary ...

... lounged on the hammock ...

All week, we breathed, in & out ...

... talked, read, sat in the sun ...

... drank in the outdoors God gives us for our inner calm.

It stilled our souls,

readied us for "regular" again, 

made it easier to say no, thanks to things that steal our still,

our gratitude re-birthed.

Better than a vacation in the tropics

was this week at home.