My Leaking Brain Cells

I think I've finally accepted the fact that I have pregnant brain--permanently.  I have a text from a neighbor from mid-April wanting to get together for dinner, that I still haven't replied to.  Another one from a neighbor from March asking a question about chickens.  Facebook messages and phone calls, also unreturned.  I still haven't told a family member "Happy Birthday" from his birthday last week, and today is my sister's birthday and yet I only have one part of her present.  Actually, that reminds me that I haven't mailed Erin her baby gift from when she gave birth back in March . . .

I am hopeless.  Today I've fully accepted it.

So when Erin and I talked on Saturday, and she was admiring how organised I am, and how together I have it, I laughed outright.  I only have it together in my head.  But it never actually all comes together once I put it to action!  If the laundry is going well, the bathrooms are gross.  If the house is clean, my garden looks like a jungle.  And today, the house is not clean, and the garden does look like a jungle.  And I have cakes to make for a party with friends later this afternoon, and I still need to take a shower.  I'm not feeling confident both will happen.  I'm that scattered.  On the upside, I made pillowcases for the guest house bedroom last night, so all is not lost, right?  Right!

I feel like I have a fragmented brain, and it can't hold everything in it lately.  One new text sends an older one into space, to be forgotten for months.  Trying to finish a school year, plan for family visiting for much of June, getting ready to go on vacation, and doing some renovating to make room for baby is quite possibly killing my brain cells.  It's like the child inside me is somehow taking up brain room, too! I don't know.  Just know that if you've contacted me in some form, and I haven't gotten back to you, it's not you.  It's definitely me.  And try me again, because you never know when I might have a great brain day :)

And on that thought, I'd better go take a shower before I forget.

Monday Morning Ponderings

This Monday morning I'm stealing little moments of quiet out in the guesthouse-turned-schoolhouse, sipping hot tea and reading my Bible before we start lessons and noise and mess and all that!  As I glance around me, I'm surrounded by sticky notes of what I can't forget, plans for renovating the Happy Room bathroom before the boys move up there, my sketched-out plans for sewing the rest of the curtains and linens for the guesthouse bedroom in the next two weeks, calendar pages reminding me of vacation and summer plans and birthday parties and everything else, and my binder of notes for planning for our coming school year.  It's a little overwhelming, because none of that includes laundry or dinner or grocery shopping!

So it was very timely that this morning's read in Sally Clarkson's "Mom Walk" was about Proverbs 17:22:  "A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones."  Sally writes about how, if we focus on all the tasks of being moms, we can quickly dry up and become discouraged and defeated.  And of course we spread that to our children!  So instead, if we focus on the good God is doing, and on the things that bring joy, we will spread life and joy to our families.  If I'm going to be contagious, I'd rather spread life than death!!

So in that spirit, I have chocolate chips out on the counter for my family-famous oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and I've written into my calendar time this week to take the kids swimming and on a special trip with our co-op so my they can have one more fun field trip before summer begins.  I'm planning in times of fun and little moments of celebration because if I don't, I'll forget, and I'll just live in an overwhelmed state with a dried-up spirit!

And these guys are worth putting down the paintbrush, or sewing needle, or sponge, and just enjoying!

Happy Monday to you, too!

Stopping in to say

that I'm just peeking in really quickly while at my parents' to let you know the baby is a.....


















GIRL!!!!!!!



















We're still doing the happy dance, thanking God for answering a four-year long prayer!  Addie will finally get her longed-for sister, which has been fodder for so many fun conversations over the last few days, and we're all over the moon to be having another little girl among us.  I was absolutely certain it was a boy, so the shock of hearing, "You're having another girl!" still hasn't worn off.  I'm so tickled!  It has been a very fun week at our house.

And now I have blackberries to go pick!  But I'll be back soon. :)

And the baby is....

healthy!  Everything at my ultrasound looked great today:  the weight and length, the measurements of brain and tummy and thigh bones, and all the detailed looks at the brain, heart, stomach, etc.  Having a level 2 ultrasound was awesome--so much more detail!  We could even see the colors of blood in the heart!  And although everything looked perfect, he wants me to come back in 6 weeks to take another look just to be on the safe and cautious side.  Fine with me!  We loved watching this little one do flips in real-time!

And yes, we found out what the baby is, but I can't reveal just yet.  I bought a gender-reveal gift for my sweet ones this afternoon, and they're going to open it tonight.  They are going bonkers with the wait!  And then we're going to tell my parents in person later on this week when we go to the lake.

So stay tuned!  But in the meantime, I'm very thankful that this baby looks healthy.  God is very gracious, indeed.

Mother's Day

Generally on Mother's Day you'll find me at church, but this morning I'm pulling true motherhood duties:   Addie is sick, so she and I stayed home.  We all caught a cold a couple weeks ago, but she just can't kick it and has been running a fever on and off for the better part of a week.  So this morning I sent the boys off with Daddy and put Addie in the tub, which is usually a cure-all for her, but within 30 minutes she was teary and asking for a nap.

So I'm alone, in my house, with sleeping Addie, on Mother's Day morning.  Bliss!  I've already done laundry, had a truly quiet quiet time, tidied the house, worked on school stuff, and now I find myself with three hours to go before the boys get home.  What's a girl to do?

I find myself lured by the guest house, which is turning into our little schoolhouse and is now my favorite spot on earth.  The guest house was once a garage, about 20 years ago, but some wonderful soul turned it into a mother-in-law cottage.  It has a living room with kitchenette and full cabinets/bookshelves built in, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a wonderful screened-in porch that is my morning happy place.  Last month I kicked out the treadmill, a loveseat, and the bigscreen TV, moved in an armoire and table/chairs, sewed curtains and pillows, and made a matching duvet cover and bedskirt.  I still have some curtains and a few pillows to go, but overall it's pretty done.

I'll take pictures later, but it's the sweetest little space now, cheerful and homey and a 100% improvement from its former life as a rarely-used guest house.  I can't wait to start back to school in here.  The kids are mostly excited that there's a microwave in here, so we can have popcorn while we read aloud.

My brilliant mother suggested I move our computer desk into the bedroom closet, and that's now where I'm typing away.  The French door to the porch is open, birds are singing, and every once in awhile I can hear the sheep.  I love it here!  I keep finding reasons to need to be over here :)

This weekend I went to our local homeschool book fair, a first for me, and got to hear Sally Clarkson speak.  I was re-ignited in my passion for so many things, and I bought her talks on CD to listen again when I need encouragement.  As we wind down our school year and plan for the next, it's always good to have a fresh remembering of my original ideals and hopes.

This afternoon my wonderful husband, who already spent his entire day off with our kids so I could go to the book fair (and rearranged a business trip to make it possible!), is sending me to my favorite local hotel.   He did this for Mother's Day for me several years ago, and it's quite possibly my favorite thing on earth--an entire evening of silence, where I can read and write and plan and pray.  He and the kids are meeting me at a steakhouse (I adore steak when I'm pregnant, and baked potatoes all the time!) for dinner, and I'm already hungry just thinking about it.  It's such a gift from him, because he gets just one day off a week and often works during it, and I know he could use a break, too.  He's a keeper!

Here's my packed suitcase:  (Notice the stack of books is larger than clothes!)

And to continue randomly-placed photos, here's what's been going on around here lately:

We had this one Sunday after church.  Breakfast-style pi__a (Remember that letter doesn't work?  Such a pain!)  The kids thought it was awesome because they love runny eggs, but I could hardly look at it.

These were my favorite shoes.  This explains why some of my pets aren't my favorite.

When my sister was here, we went to a tiny local _oo, (darn letter!) and this tree was at the entrance.  It took four of us to reach around it.  You don't find trees that big here in North Texas very often!

I killed my first (and last) snake!  The entire story is worth telling someday, but let it suffice to say I wasn't brave at all:  I tried to talk both Caiden and my sister into it first before I had to do it, and my hands were still shaking hours later.  But it was terrori_ing the sheep, so it had to be done.  Blech.

My garden for the first time in a few years, is actually GROWING!  I keep getting great harvests from the boys, who do most my gardening duties for me since two of our roosters hate me and I'm scared to go out there.  But look!  Tons of cucumbers, and a _ucchini the si_e of Texas!  (Who knew the letter _ is so popular??)  Grayson has discovered he likes to eat cucumbers straight out of the fridge.  He eats them like bananas, and that's good since we're getting like 10 a day.

My handsome husband is a baby whisperer, for real!  This is him and my beautiful nephew at a birthday lunch for Addie's birthday last weekend.  My nephew is super energetic and not cuddly right now, but as soon as we handed him to my husband, he got all snuggly!  He (my husband) loves babies and is known to slightly startle first-time visitors to church by just reaching over and grabbing their babies.  And the babies always--ALWAYS--love him.  This is a wonderful trait to have in a husband, especially when you're about to have your fourth child . . . Grayson has inherited the gift, so I'm pretty blessed!

While my sister was here we also went to Legoland, which is Grayson's vision of heaven.  Even Addie absolutely loved it, and we stayed there for hours.  I loved having our kids together.  Despite a 2000 mile separation from their cousin, they are all such good friends, and since my sister is my best friend, this is good!

On Addie's birthday we took her to a local Mexican restaurant and set our timers to go off at her special time.  (Her time of birth, which we celebrate loudly and daily at our house for all our kids.)  When it went off we all cheered like cra_y people, and everybody else cheered, too.  I can't believe she's six!!

 Last but not least, we told our two thumb/finger suckers in the house that the day after Addie's birthday was boot camp for breaking the habit.  Grayson got this nifty little "Thumb Buster" in the mail and loved it because somehow in his mind it gives his thumb super powers.  He wore it for one day, lost it, and has completely stopped sucking his thumb.  Maybe it does give super powers!  Addie chose to have her fingers painted with Mavala, a finger-biting/thumb sucking inhibitor that tastes terrible, and all it took was one night, too.  I'm still a little in shock.  Each night when I check on them asleep, I take a photo to show them that they made it another night, and they're both so proud!  I promised them a day at a local waterpark after two weeks of success has passed, and Caiden is thrilled that he gets to go without having to actually give up any bad habits :)

So that's what's going on around here.  I'm sorry to be so sporadic in writing and then write a novel-length catch-up, but if I want to have anything to write about, I have to do the living first!

Happy Mother's Day to each of you, and I'll come back with baby news soon!!

Laundry Solutions and How God Cares for Me

Recently, while doing yet another load of mostly-clean laundry (One of my boys has a penchant for trying on an outfit, deciding against it, and then throwing it into the laundry basket instead of putting it away.  And although it was clean, after being piled up against stinky socks all week, it gets smelly and has to be washed.), and wondering if I'm ever going to get my act together fully, I had a moment of inspiration.  I'm convinced it came from God, because He alone knows how often I feel overwhelmed by a houseful of animals and children and noise and mess and homeschooling and laundry.  I love all those things (except some of the animals!), but sometimes I feel bone-weary from the constant work.

So, when God gently reminded me that I can think out of the box as a mom and find creative solutions for age-old problems, and He gave me an idea I know had to have come from Him because I'd never have thought of it, I got busy.

Here's what I did:

I have two standard closets that are side-by-side in my bedroom.  They've always been a catch-all for random things because I also have two walk-in closets in my attached bathroom that my husband and I use for our clothes.  I cleaned out those two closets in my room and then brought all the kids' clothes into my bedroom.  I used the smaller closet for the boys' hang-ups, and I bought extra hangers to hang even t-shirts.  All the boys' shirts are now hanging, one boy's on each rod, with all their shirts hung by type.  The other, larger closet has one hanging rod and several long shelves, and I hung all of Addie's shirts and dresses on the rod.  Then I put her shorts, skirts, and pants on the shelf above it.  Her socks, underclothes, and pajamas went in separate small bins on another shelf.  The boys each got two shelves for their folded clothes, as well.

There's one laundry basket on the floor of the larger closet, for all the kids' dirty clothes.  They come into our room in the morning, put away their pajamas, and get dressed.  The rule is that nobody may go into the closet to change clothes without permission, and I check the basket each night to make sure only dirty clothes are in it.  The boys put away their own folded laundry, and I hung a bunch of hangers in the laundry room (which is right around the corner) so that I can hang up all shirts straight out of the dryer.

To keep Addie happy, all her dress-up clothes are still in an underbed bin in her room, as well as all non-church shoes.  Church shoes are in the closet in my room, so that she remembers not to wear them scootering around the driveway.

Now their bedrooms hold only dress-up costumes, their books, and their beds.  The dressers, which are empty, are still in there, and I'll leave them for the time being.  The closets are empty.  I really thought my husband would think I was nuts to move all their clothes into our bedroom, but he took one look at the neat rows of hang-ups and folded clothes and said, "Excellent!"

It's been about two weeks since I made the move, and I'm down to one load of laundry every other day, rather than the two I did every day.  I can't believe how much less laundry I have now that my unnamed child can't throw his clean clothes into his hamper and now that the kids don't have unsupervised access to their clothes!  Their bedrooms are cleaner, I can always find the clothes I need for them when it's time to get ready to go to church or somewhere nice, and they're not wrinkled from being smashed into drawers.  I do all the laundry in the laundry room and then take it all just around the corner to my bedroom and put it all away.  I haven't had a pile of laundry sitting forlorn in the laundry room since I made the change!

If you're a mom of several kids, you can understand how getting a handle on the laundry is really a pretty big thing.  It's something that has driven me bonkers for a long time, and I think it was especially nice of God to give me the idea of how to change it.  It reminds me that He cares about my everyday issues, and that if I will come to Him when I'm in need, He'll provide.

And to prove that, He sent me my wonderful sister for a visit earlier this month, and she solved my what's-for-dinner problem without involving a complicated system.  More on that later!  In the meantime, all this has me examining other areas of our home that frustrate me, and praying for simple solutions.  Having a baby coming this fall definitely has me on the lookout for some better ways to run our home!

p.s.  We find out what the baby is on Monday at our level 2 ultrasound.  My dr. wants me to have a specialist do the anatomy scan to check for heart defects, etc. since Addie had some health problems, so if you think of it, please pray for us and for a healthy baby!  And please pray for Addie if this baby is a boy ... :)

Just the Girls

This weekend, while the boys were all away for a father-son retreat, Addie and I had our own in-house retreat. We hunted for treasures in antique malls (and scored--Pyrex mixing bowls for me and a porcelain doll for her), and she went with me to my doctor's appointment to hear the baby's heartbeat, a first for her.

We lunched in tea rooms and 100-year old diners, went to the movies, ate ice cream in bed, and spent hours in an amazing quilt shop.

She finished the weekend with an hour in my claw foot tub--definitely a good choice.

It was quiet and calm and very girly all weekend, but we were happy to see our boys come home, all the same.

Regular Life

Oh, these days are flying!  How is it already mid-April?  I feel like it should still be somewhere around Valentine's Day.  I'm hardly used to writing "2012"--slow down, year!

This last week was a blur of recovering from Easter, figuring out the sheep, getting back into school, and enjoying as much time as possible outside.  Spring here is beyond beautiful, and from morning til bedtime the kids are outside, except for school hours.  We've weeded garden beds, drawn on the driveway with sidewalk chalk, and done a lot of scootering up and down our long driveway.

I've spent several evenings with the sheep, plopped on a bale of straw in the stall, cooing to them and feeding them alfalfa from my hand.  The lambs are still skittish, but Clover is not at all afraid of me and will come up for an ear scratch.  It's very peaceful in the dark barn at night, hanging out with sheep and listening to the chickens sleep.

Last night was a little less peaceful--Ivy went for a swim in the horse tank before bedtime and had to be rescued.  I was more shaken than she was, and I sat in the barn for a long time, cuddling her in a blanket.

Last week I hit the second trimester, which seems impossible.  In a matter of weeks we'll find out what we're having, and this little person will have a name.  If it's a girl, the name is already chosen, but we're fine-tuning boy options.  Everybody is hoping for a girl, so Addie will have a sister, so we're holding off on boy choices until we know.  Oddly, I can imagine another daughter but can't imagine a boy who's not either Caiden or Grayson.  Maybe because I've had the two of them for so long that another boy seems unimaginable?  Addie says if it's a boy, she's naming him "Junior," after the asparagus on Veggie Tales.  I'm pretty sure that name is not in the running, though.

Other than school, sheep, and regular life, the only thing I've really had time for is sewing curtains for our little guest house.  It will become our school house sometime later this spring, to make room for the baby, so I've been steadily working on redoing it.  The treadmill has been moved, the loveseat found a home in our family room, and my husband graciously gave his TV to a friend of his from church.  I was very happy to see that behemoth leave!  All the furniture is now in the right places, and I ordered 50 yards of fabric for the curtains, pillows, and guest bedroom bed linens.   I'm 20 yards down, now, with just bedroom curtains, a duvet cover, bedskirt, and some bed pillows to go.  None of those is crucial, though, so we may be moved in before they're finished.  I'm still tired a lot, despite sleeping a ton at night, so productivity comes in small spurts that don't last long!

Tonight we're heading down the road to a neighbor we've only met on the phone.  We've long admired his sheep but had never met him, and we found out this week that he's also a veterinarian!  He invited us over tonight to have a little banding/docking party for all of our lambs.  He's had a bunch born this week, and he said he'd be happy to educate us.  Talk about a great neighbor!!  He'll also come over to shear our ewe, and after You Tubing it, I'm pretty excited to have an expert do it!  So I need to go make dinner before we load up our lambs and head over.

Sometimes I'm not sure whose life I'm living, but I really love it.

Love at First Sight

Last week we brought home new friends!  Four sweet little friends who will happily munch down our back pasture and paddock, along with the barnyard area, and look plenty charming while they're at it.

A little shy at first, the mama, Clover, warmed up quickly when she saw that we provide treats.  The three little lambs, Casper and Ivy and Dandelion, were still shy around us so the first night of trying to put them up was rough.

The next night, though, they followed Clover right into their stall, and we all exhaled mightily.

Every morning I feed Ivy her bottle and then let them all out to munch.  And munch, and munch, and munch.  They wander all over the paddock and pasture, not at all minding Scout or the chickens or the kids, and when they need a rest, they file into the barn and plop down in the shade.

They're exceedingly charming, all right.

We've come up with plenty of excuses to abandon work right in the middle and sneak out to the paddock to check on them.

Not much has gotten done around here in the last week, unless you count sitting on the garden bench and admiring sheep as productive.

It may not be productive, but it's very nice.

My Mowing Ministry

Holidays are a different thing in a ministry family. If you're in full-time ministry, you know what I mean. There's all the same activities that everybody else does, of course, like planning the menu and hosting family and getting to service on time, but in addition we have the responsibility of crafting those worship experiences that we're all trying to be on time for. There are a lot of people involved who are responsible for running the sound and planning the music and writing the message, in addition to all their holiday/family activities.

For our family, that means my husband is at the church until very late every night the week before Easter, and I take on some Mrs. Dad activities. (Remember the movie, Mr. Mom?)

 This week, I've mowed the lawn and back pasture, weed-eated, driven to the feed store four times (more on that later), chased livestock for an hour last night to round them up (more on that, too), made a decision about a couple of large purchases, killed black widows, fixed a fence, went to Lowe's at least twice, calmed the kids during terrible storms, and stayed up way later than normal, to see my husband for a few minutes each night.  None of those are in my norm, and a few are WAY outside my comfort zone.

 Sometimes people ask me what I do as a pastor's wife, and it's a hard question to answer, because some weeks that means we host people in our home or I help out at church in different ways, and other weeks it means I mow, despite the unspoken marriage vow that I'd never do yard work and he'd never have to clean the house. Supporting my husband in ministry sometimes means I serve dessert for dinner to lift up the spirits of kids who miss their daddy when he needs to go in on his day off.

 It would be easy to throw myself a pity party when I have to pull more than my share or I go to bed alone the third night in a row. But when I look at Who we're really serving, and the people whose lives are changed because of it, mowing the pasture is a very small act of service. And it doesn't even really count unless I do it with the right attitude. Sometimes the attitude is a lot more challenging to get right than the mowing.

 This Easter we're hoping to see lots of new faces in the crowd. Faces of people who wouldn't have come if he hadn't worked extra and I hadn't served and supported, too. Remembering that makes getting my attitude right simple. Remembering that no act is too small for Jesus, and that my role as a pastor's wife is an honor, makes mowing and fence-fixing very small gifts I can give to both Him and my husband. And myself, really.

 Besides, deep down, I actually like mowing. Just don't let that get out.

 Happy Easter, He is risen!

Projects

How is that another entire week has passed by?  Spring is flying, my belly is growing, and I'm really in no hurry for the days to pass this fast!

We are deep into our third term of school, and the days seem to be getting longer.  Often we don't finish until nearly 3, and if I run to the library or on another errand, it's dinner time before I know it!  I'm still fighting the laundry mountain, but nobody had to ask for clean underwear this week, so I think maybe I'm heading to the top of it.  Last weekend some energy came back, and my anti-nausea meds are working much better now, so I feel nearly normal.  Except that my pants are evidently shrinking :)

Today I spent nearly the entire day in our little guest house, working on getting it ready for moving school into it later this spring.  We've decided to move the boys up into the Happy Room, which involves putting in a window to make it fire-drill safe (The only window is nearly 12 feet up!) and putting flooring down in that bathroom.  The bathroom still has the harvest gold tub, sink, and toilet from 1978, but the boys don't care, and it's not in this year's house plans, so it'll be gold awhile longer.  But the floor is just the sub-floor because I pulled the carpet out of it.  Carpet in a kids' bathroom is not a good idea.  Especially not in a boys' bathroom!  Yuck.

Anyway, since the boys are moving into our school room, our school room is relocating!  I've promised my husband that I can make our guest house look better than ever and still make it a great place for school.  I think he was afraid I'd have alphabet flash cards tacked up along the walls, and that's great for a schoolroom but not so great as guesthouse decor, you know?  So I've been thinking and Pinterest-ing for a couple months now, and I think it'll look great once it's finished and be an even better place for our school than our Happy Room has been.

BUT--We have to build a shed first, to move all the tools out of the guest house cabinets, since our current shed is decrepit and has a dirt floor, so the wood siding is rotting.  (I'm guessing the same person who put a wood shed on top of dirt also put carpet in the bathroom.)  After the shed is up, the tools can go out, and school can come in, so the boys can go up, so I can use their old room for the nursery!  A lot of chain-of-events, and everything has to happen in order.  To complicate it all, we're re-siding our house, so we have to coordinate installing the boys' window at the same time.  I'm feeling a little impatient to get something moving, because I feel like the days are flying by, and my project time is limited!

But I'm trying to just take it once step at a time, and doing what I can, which for now is painting all the trim in the guest house (fully ventilated, of course), waiting patiently on my back-ordered curtain fabric to arrive, and figuring out how to get rid of a big-screen TV that's as big as a pony.  My husband is convinced somebody will buy it; I was hoping we could give it away to anybody who'd bother to come get it!  So we still have a few details to work out :)

That's really all that's going on here.  I'm just trying to stay on target for school with my three, keep up with the laundry, and remember to plan meals in advance (i.e. before 5 o'clock).  I still feel constantly overwhelmed and behind, but I'm beginning to think that whenever I do get caught up, I shoot myself in the foot by coming up with a new project, and that maybe I like being overwhelmed?  Or, maybe I just love projects and am not great at sticking with my daily chores routine.  Yes, that's probably the true culprit.

And honestly, I don't see that improving anytime soon. Especially since I bought a stack of fabric for dresses for Addie just yesterday. :)

Getting Busy

Spring has sprung!  Yesterday it was 80 degrees and blue skies the entire day.  We had a minor interruption in our day early, making it impossible to start school until noon.  That rarely makes for a productive day of lessons, so we declared it a work day instead.

Accomplished:

• Trimmed all 40 chickens' wings x2.  80 wings' worth of feathers makes for a messy coop!  But nobody can ransack my garden now.
• Mowed part of the pasture for my husband. 
• Did the laundry, including folding the load that's been sitting in the dryer for 5 days
• Grocery shopped
• Made dinner
• Talked to both my sister and brother on the phone
• Painted a closet and an armoire--more on that later!  An exciting project is in the works.
• Picked up and put away all the piles that had been sitting around
• Changed out all the winter bed linens for our warm-weather ones

That's the most productive day I've had since sometime in December!  I'm nearly past my first trimester now, and this weekend was the best I've felt yet.  I think some energy is coming back, which is good.  Until now, I've felt like an invalid.  Walk up the stairs, need to sit down.  Do a load of laundry, need a nap.  Being pregnant at 36 is a different story than being pregnant at 29!  

We have some major room-moving and some minor house renovating to do in the next couple of months, and I was terribly overwhelmed just thinking about it all last week.  This week, I feel like it's possible. As long as I get nine hours of sleep every night and take it piece-by-piece.  :)

For today, nothing big:  just doing yesterday's lessons and then heading to church this afternoon.  I'm emceeing our ladies' event tonight, and I already have butterflies.  I married the extroverted, loves-the-stage guy; I'm much more comfortable in the seats than on the stage!  So if you think of me today, please pray that I'll come across clearly and not get flustered.  

 I hope your Tuesday is calm and productive, too!

Passing By

I can hear her laugh outside, probably on the tire swing, from all the way upstairs.  Her laugh is so infectious, she makes strangers belly laugh with her.  For such a serious baby, she has turned into a silly, carefree girl.

It's funny how they change like that.

Her next-up brother was placid--calm as still waters--until he turned three, and now he's an imp.  Unbelievably charming, with sky-blue eyes that keep him from receiving enough of what he deserves.

And her oldest brother?  He was a tornado until he turned six, and now he's the quiet, responsible one.

They keep me scratching my head, wondering.

She turns six soon, and I'm still wondering how six years have gone by, and I don't want another six to rush past.  So I slow down now to read books, play dolls, and bake with her, remembering to relish these days, even when I really need to get to the laundry and clean the bathrooms instead.

These are good days, full of learning and laughing and training and making memories that we will cherish.

These are hard days, full of teaching and bickering and sinning and exhaustion.

The work is constant.  The rewards are nearly so, too.

I consider where my path could've gone, where my feet were heading before He lifted me out of the pit and set me on sure ground.  I am awestruck at the blessings, these flesh-clothed reminders of His astounding mercy and grace.  And to have been gifted with another one, after such a long space?

It isn't real yet.  Nothing outside of my gently swelling belly and the day-to-day nausea that I carry.  It's too far off, to think of cradling another one, with any sense of realness.

But I am filled with gratitude, that He'd give me another of His best gifts.  I'm in no hurry for the weeks to rush by; this one's siblings are already growing up too fast.  And I can't imagine who this one is--the possibilities are endless. And, if he or she is like the others, what we first receive will change over the years, too.  His gifts are surprising like that.  


Tonight, as I head downstairs to do the nightly brushing of teeth, monitoring showers, saying blessings, and re-tucking in the reluctant one, I'm thankful to be in this season.  Thankful for these gifts, reminded to treat them as priceless.

Lord, thank Your for reminding me today that these children are a privilege, a high calling.  They aren't obligations or tasks to be checked off.  Thank You for these years of high needs and lots of hugs and endless pleadings to be with them.  I know these years will pass by, and so tonight I'm thankful that these days feel long.

How to Keep From Being Overwhelmed

Today I sit amidst papers everywhere--clipboards, charts, checklists--pencils, books, flashcards all around me, and I feel overwhelmed.


Another term starts in the morning, and I'm not ready, but we will start anyway, because I will never be fully ready.  

I am tired today, and I would rather crawl under covers and hibernate, letting somebody else draw up the plans and clean up the schoolroom and serve up dinner.

And I think back to the lie I spoke the other day, well-meaning, but false nonetheless:  "It will get easier," I said to her.  She, who has two 2 and under, is overwhelmed under the diapers and needs and constant crying and night wakings.  I remember that life, and how unrelenting it was.

So I spoke the words, fully meaning them, but that's because I was zooming down the road, my children all quiet and tucked into seatbelts, nobody needing anything right then.  I forgot.

But it was a lie.

It doesn't get easier.

It gets harder.

In the beginning, you worry about their health and safety and sleep and food.  It's all-consuming, and it takes every fiber of your being to summon the strength to smile at a fussy two-year old when you've only had 3 consecutive hours of sleep for months on end.  Newborns are precious and worth it, but the lack of sleep feels deadly, and you wonder sometimes in that season if it really is worth it all?  You call your mom and ask, Is it possible to actually die from lack of sleep?  And when she says no, you doubt her.

So it stands to reason, when they can bathe themselves and dress themselves and feed themselves, and you no longer have to cover electric outlets and worry about choking hazards, that it would get easier.

That part of it does, surely.

But the rest?  It only gets harder.

Teaching and training and caring for emotional needs, and spiritual needs, and dealing with endless sin--yours and theirs--is relentless.  It drains the spirit so fast that unless you constantly feed it, you'll just dry up.  And sometimes you forget to feed it.

Today I feel dried up.

This is not an easy road, this seamless life of living and loving and learning under one roof.  There is no day off.  School during the week, church on both days of the weekend, and the laundry?  It never takes a day off.  I can choose not to do it, but then I have double the next day.  The dishes?  Always there.  And even if I'm not the one doing them, I'm the one reminding somebody to do them.

It's ceaseless.  And that's the good days.

The bad days--when rebellion stirs, or hearts are hard, or disease sets in--those are the days when we have to wonder how strong He thinks we are, that we can handle it all.  At all.

Those days--

those days are the days to settle in.  To read the words again:  "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."  And again.

"Cast your cares upon Me."

"Be anxious for nothing but pray about everything."

Everything, Lord?  Even when the waves are threatening to overwhelm me?

And then I remember:  "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you."

This relentless, ceaseless calling is a lot of things.  It is hard, and it does not get easier; you'll just trade one set of cares for another.  There is no break for mothers.  But here is one thing it is not:  It is not overwhelming, because He says nothing shall sweep over me.  Nothing will overwhelm me.

This feeling of being overwhelmed I have?  The one that makes me want to rest my head down on the desk and sigh, the feeling that this is too hard and too involved and too much?  It's just a feeling.

He is true.  My feelings?  They'll lie to me.

It doesn't get easier, yet He says His load is easy.  I have to put down my load to pick up His.


So I carry on.  We still start another term tomorrow, and I'm no closer to being ready than I was before.  But somehow, knowing that it will not sweep over me, that questions and concerns and worries and fears will not triumph over me, that inexplicably changes everything.

And once again I marvel that He chose me for this job, to raise these children.  I know that I can step in sync with Him, and that He won't allow me to drown under the waves.

Not this time, and not next time.

So I guess then, in light of that, it does get easier.  I should call her back.

And this time, I'd tell her the truth.  His truth.

Green Pastures

"The earth is the Lord's and everything in it." Psalm 24:1

Lord, the beauty that surrounds me feels like springs of water to my spirit.  Thank You for mudboot walks and cupped hands of boll weevils and wide, green pastures.  For hay bales to sit, swollen ponds to poke, and space to think.  You truly are the Giver of all good things.  Today felt like a gift that I know I didn't deserve.  Help me make the rest of this day beautiful to You.

Soul Gardening

A day in the long-neglected garden gave me much to ponder as I stooped, pulling weeds.  Close to the earth, its aroma of dew and sun and  chicken manure, so close to my nose, so many thoughts making their way in my mind and around--and around again:

How this space of green had been left on its own during last summer's drought.  Plants battered by an early June hailstorm, then gnawed on by waves of locusts, and finally scorched by relentless waves of heat, caving in to death.

Not a single fruit for an entire garden, for an entire season.  There wasn't much to hope for, between storms and insects and endless heat.  Nothing to water, really.  What was the point?

I didn't want to see it, but I mirrored that parched garden.  A season of drought had left my spirit dry, parched, barren.  I found myself wanting.

But oh, the weeds, they prospered!  Entire beds of stubborn weeds, knee-high, covered the garden.  A garden of weeds.

Earth obscured beneath weeds and chicken manure,  and the weeds' roots were so deep I had to dig them out with the shovel.  Huge clumps of thriving weeds.

And I couldn't get the image of weeds as habits, weeds as sin, out of my mind.  It's so easy to pull out a single weed, a single habit.  Roots are shallow, not much damage done.

But when left untended, my soul's garden grows only an oxymoron:

Fruit shrivels, weeds thrive.

And when better to water a garden than during a dry spell?  When better to nurture weak plants than during the storm?

"Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life."  Proverbs 4:23

There's that saying, that nobody is at a standstill.  If you're not moving forward, you're sliding backward.  And you don't even know it.

It's like driving next to a semi, and you can't tell if it's going forward, or you're going backward, and if you watch it too long without looking straight down the road, you lose all perspective.

It's heart-stopping how easy it is to lose touch with the One who made the earth and the rain and the sun and the seeds.  It's breath-taking how quickly self-reliance sets in, or busyness adds distance, or exhaustion hides the fact that my spirit is a plant, and I need daily, hourly, minute-by-minute caretaking.


If I forget for too long, the fruit dries up and the weeds move in, and I take a step back and see only a garden of weeds.

So I pulled.  Hour after hour, and clump after clump came out.  Beds slowly took shape again, and although we had to do it by flashlight and frog-song, we planted that garden, and the roots are already digging in.

I watered it again today, imagining red, ripe tomatoes and fat orange pumpkins and spicy pink radishes.  I already see the baskets of beans and peppers and onions, and I smell the basil and oregano and dill.  I smell hope.

If I weed it.  And if I water it, and brave locusts and mid-summer heat.  If I remember to go out every morning and check the newly-rising plants, and give our garden the attention it will need.  Apathy can't set in, or I will find myself next spring pulling out clumps of weeds and regretting another season of neglect.

It can't be a coincidence that man's first job was taking care of a garden.  God is gracious to remind us that we are as tender as plants, and that we need time with the Gardener, or we will dry out and shrivel up.

Lord, it's all too easy for my life to be consumed with homeschooling these children and washing their mountains of laundry and picking up the same messes everyday.  The unending work of loving and taking care of this family clouds my vision, and I see you as a part of my life.  Time in the garden reminded me You are my Life.  I dry up without You.  Water my spirit, Lord, and help me remember that time with You isn't part of my to-do list, it's the very water I drink and food I eat.  Help me drink deep today.

Images of a Seamless Life ...

Building towns and driving cars,

Camping in the back pasture,

Creating our own "I Spy" pictures and poems on a rainy afternoon,

Playing Legos with Daddy,

Hanging out in a nightgown, mid-day,

Smiling just because it's sunny and the grass is green.

Yes.

Lord, You are good and You are the Source of all good things.  Thank You for the many ways You seamlessly weave our lives together in this place.  Thank You for allowing me to be the steward of it all.  

Living Seamless

Vacuuming out the car again today, sucking up endless debris--bread crumbs-apple cores-lost Legos-stray milk tops-straw wrappers--wondering how it gets so dirty, so quickly.

Every week, in and out, I clean out the car, always throwing away the same things, and carting in the same things to the house.  Books, baby dolls, jackets, Legos, always Legos.  And every week I wonder: how do we go from so clean to so dirty in less than seven days, spending a few mere hours in the car?

And I thought, as the vacuum sucked up leftovers from our week, that I do the same thing:

I formulate new plans, new lists, new ideas, new ways of gaining control over this household of people and messes and laundry and meals and animals and life,


and every week, somewhere nearly half-way through, I feel the same waves rising up.  Overwhelmed, messes on every side, Didn't I just clean that room?  And it feels hopeless to even try to get it under control, except if I don't, nobody will, and we'll just slide further toward mayhem.

Somebody has to be the Mama.  Somebody has to wash the clothes and teach the children and plan the meals and hand out chores and the training and somebody has to pray over it all!

And I feel like it's rising up to my neck again, and I know a new little one is coming, and that school only gets harder each year, and is this one going to learn to read, and will that one ever be able to spell, and will anybody want to read their Bibles without me making them?   Or maybe even pick up their dirty socks?

The doubts rise up, and my confidence falls.


And I want to quit, but I can't, because I'm the Mama.  There is no back-up plan.  I am the back-up plan!

I realized, while pushing the vacuum attachment around the crevices of the cupholders, that I will be cleaning out this car for the rest of my Mama-years.  And that even if I write new rules and outlaw snacks and drill-sergeant the kids about taking their belongings into the house, it's going to get dirty again.


It's only reasonable, after all:  I have to take a shower more than once a week.  All the perfume in the world won't make up for lack of hygiene.

Our life is seamless.  We live here.  We learn here.  We are several, and we live a messy life, and no amount of rules will keep the floors clean or the laundry in hampers or the school lessons confined to 9-3.

And more important than a clean car, I have to be made clean routinely.  I have to go to Him and bow low, acknowledging what we both already know:  I don't have it under control.

I don't need to have it under control.

He has it under control.  I'm the manager, not the owner, and the ultimate responsibility doesn't rest on my shoulders.  He's not calling me to perfection; He's calling me to willingness.  He's calling me to come to Him, to rely on Him, to remember that they are His.  It's all His.

The doubts fall, and my trust in Him rises.

And for tonight, my car is clean.

But I am weak, and forgetful, and if I don't run to Him more often than I need a shower and the car needs vacuuming, I will fall under the surge again.

Lord, tonight I'm surveying messes on all sides, despite so much work today.  Give me Your eyes.  Let me see what You see, and lean on Your everlasting arms when I'm blind. And over it all, remind me to be thankful for this seamless life.  

How to Be Alone

Once, when my husband was in Australia for two weeks, I drove home from dinner late at night with the kids to find my way to the front door blocked by an enormous snake eating an enormous toad.  There was a bloody-death scene at the door, blood smeared across the front walk, and the snake just wouldn't move.  I don't think it could, actually, so stuffed with the toad as it was, but eventually my hysterical screaming and Caiden somehow appearing with a rusty machete (We have a machete?) convinced the snake to move.  It slithered around the side of the house, toad still hanging half out of its mouth, and I tiptoed around gore to get in the house, a little shaken.  The violence of it was stunning.

This time he was in Oklahoma, and I had to let him know that Shadow, his beloved lab, found a chicken and played with it, and Caiden had to wrestle his dead chick from the dog's mouth.  It's one thing to have a hawk hunt the chickens and eat them as a course of nature; it's another to have your pet needlessly kill your other pet.  That's a hard pill for a little boy to swallow.  My husband felt bad, and I did the right thing:  instead of cursing the dog, I reminded Caiden that dogs have instinct, that if a hamster ended up in the chickens' coop, they'd eat it in a heartbeat, too.  It's nothing personal; it's the way animals are.  It ended all right, with only a few tears, and an understanding boy.

But the next day, when we drove up after running errands, and Shadow was running around the yard with yet another dead chick in his jaws, feathers spread across the lawn, it felt like too much.  The boy had to dispose of another body, I had to remind him of wretched instinct again, and the silly lab chased him with a toy in his mouth, wanting to play.  Caiden's thin shoulders sagged, and he shook his head.  Tears spilled out of both of us, and I just wanted my husband home, to help him bury the chick and hug his boy and make it all right.

Instead I made comfort food for dinner, with chocolate chip cookies afterward, and let the kids play hide-and-seek in the darkened house.  But by bedtime, my nerves felt stretched and I felt thin-boned and thin-skinned and sad.  I'm not good at being alone, without his help and encouragement and presence, and I think to friends who are shouldering their homes and their children and their lives alone, everyday.

I feel stretched after a few days; I can only imagine a few months, years, forever.  I admire them.  I don't want to be them.  I am terrified of ever being them.

Nothing reminds me more of my frame--it is but dust--than days alone, surrounded by children, and mess, and noise, and clamor, with my most beloved one far away.  I become quick to snap, quick to tire, ready for bedtime early, for a respite, only to lie in bed sleepless.  But it is on those days when I am reminded most that He is here to lighten my burdens, to shoulder them with me, that I am not alone.  I am never alone.

And I lay down the burdens, leave my tender ones in His care, and sigh as I slip into worn-thin pages. "Cast your cares upon me."  "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."  "In peace I will lie down and sleep, for You, Lord, alone make me dwell in safety and confident trust."  He is right.

And I sleep.

Unrelated Thoughts

Just like these completely unrelated pictures, I'm writing out my unrelated thoughts, so I don't forget them.  At this point, if I write them down on paper, I will misplace them, but the computer is large enough there's hope if I store them here.

And so:

 I think perhaps I've posted this photo recently, but I love it so much.  Caiden's bedhead (Oh, the glories of learning at home!), Addie's lips pursed, reading, and the little marker-covered hand because she's currently into personal works of art.  So many things to love.

 Scout is a lot like Winn-Dixie, if you're read the book (We finished it today, and as Caiden said, I cried the last ten full minutes as I read.  It was such a fun book, and I think I'm going to have to read it again, just because I love India Opal and her dog so much.).  Anyway, Scout has a "pathological fear" of thunderstorms, and you just can't convince him he doesn't fit under--or behind--my bathtub during a storm.  Bless him.  At least he's not still trying to climb into my front-loader washing machine.  He did that three times, and I had to replace the rubber gasket all three times.

 Addie is a true girl.  If you have boys, you know what I mean:  boys do not sit and color for long stretches of time.  I mean, some might, but not generally, unless the coloring accompanies drawings of aliens or battleships or pirates or cowboys and Indians.  Addie, on the other hand, will stand at the marker board for literal hours and draw.  Lately it's mermaids.  Sad and happy mermaids, evidently.  Notice the three with blacked-out bellies.  She decided Mermaid on the left was a little inappropriate, I guess.  Bless her.

 If you can't tell what this is, that's understandable.  Obie, our little happy Persian, is stretched out on his back.  That semi-round but sort of flat thing at the top is his head, and his little arms--I mean, front legs--are curved into a sort of heart up by his neck.  It was the weirdest thing ever, and he lay like that for a long time one morning.  We'd walk by and scratch his belly, and he never moved.  He's the nicest cat, ever.  He's like part-dog, part-cat, having the best characteristics of both.  We might need to get him stuffed when he dies, Caiden loves him so much.  Bless him, too. (If you're not familiar with the South, we say "bless him" whenever we just don't know what else to say.  It covers a lot of ground.)

 Grayson, in his typical out-of-the-box--actually, it's more like, "There's a box?  Where?  I didn't notice."--fashion, read in a Childcraft book how to plan a party, so he did.  He invited some friends, sweetly asked me if we could have a party for no occasion, and planned all the details, including favors and decor and activities.  We invited two friends who are also homeschooled, to come over one Friday afternoon, and all four boys spent the entire day playing Legos, eating massive amounts of food, sword fighting, chasing guineas, ziplining, and building forts in their bedroom.  We invited Addie's best friend, who's the sister of one of Grayson's guests, so for an entire day I had six kids, and it was very sobering.  But it made four seem like a piece of cake, so that's good, right?

 Ruth Bell Graham's gravesite.  We visited the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, did the entire 1 1/2 hour tour, and then I cried at her gravesite, while my husband pretended that was normal.  But really, it was so sweet and so touching.  And the landscaping was phenomenal.

And then there's my landscaping.  A little less preened than Ruth's, no?  Actually, this is the grass in my garden, which I later mowed.  But underneath that red bench is a guinea, practicing laying eggs.  We left the nest, hoping to find some eggs once she really starts laying.  I'd love to see a guinea egg; they're usually hard to find because guineas are totally spastic creatures, and there's no chance they'll lay in the nest boxes like normal birds.  But maybe she won't know we're onto her.

Other unrelated thoughts:  Sarah Clarkson is studying in Oxford right now, and she wrote about what learning is like there in this post.  It was so interesting to me, as one who earned an English degree here in the States, in a totally different approach.  I would've loved to have her experience instead, but just reading about it inspired me as a homeschool mom.  So good.

And did you hear that the Pioneer Woman has a new cookbook coming out?  I'm excited about that, although cooking and I haven't been friends since early February.  I'm hoping by the time I have the book, my stomach has made friends with my nose, and I can cook real food again.  The kids haven't gotten tired of shells and cheese or PB sandwiches yet, but they can only hold out so long.  (Note:  the cookbook comes out next week, but if you order it now on Amazon, you'll get it cheaper than if you wait.  Pre-orders are always cheaper, I just found out.)

And that's about it.  I'm still plugging along, gagging my way through the day, but thankful for a strong, healthy bean-sized baby.  The kids have all decided the baby is a girl ("Because why on earth would God give us a boy if we've prayed for years for a girl?" says Caiden.  He tells me to go out on a limb of faith, so I'm just calling the baby a girl, too.  If I find out otherwise, we'll deal with that then.). And they've adopted her as their own, personal baby, calling her "Our Baby."  I'm pretty sure this child is going to have five parents, and that she's never going to be allowed to date.  Or fall over.  Or cry.  That actually sounds nice.

And that really is it.  Thank you for reading this entirely-odd-and-random post, if you made it this far.  Bless you, too!