Our home is like a walled garden, here is a peek at what is inside. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/ en-us Homeschool Blogger Sun, 18 Jan 2009 10:18:00 -0600 Sun, 18 Jan 2009 10:18:00 -0600 I have had a few tired days, but on the whole I have felt more energetic than I have in a long time. It's a  funny thing....the heat of summer makes me want to hide, but the cold of winter cheers me.  My blood quickens.   It is a rare day  when snow does not fall here, and every glimmer of the sun brings precious sparkles.  I haven't known what to blog about.  It seemed for a long time that I was in a holding pattern, that we weren't getting anywhere.  I felt like I had two blog posts: "things are getting more normal" and "no sorry they aren't" And I haven't known when to blog.  For this particular blog, I feel like I need a quiet space of time for thinking, and I just can't spit it all out in a few minutes. But suddenly, like a gift from God, I am teeming with ambitions.  We are doing school again, and we are following the schedule.  We are reading and learning and talking together. Missionaries to the Dani, a native American girl living alone on an island.  We draw connections, we wonder.  The kids are sitting down with their math books and working through them with relish, and I am enjoying the chance to help. I'm picking my herb studies back up and making plans to finish them. The seed catalogs have come, and I am looking for all of the disease and drought resistant varieties, especially those that thrive in poor soil.  I am collecting compost, and hoping that our farmers can spare some manure from their fields and donate a little to us.  I have a garden in my mind, and who knows if it will someday exist in reality. In the meantime, the six little plants of our house are growing, and the watching of it brings me much pleasure.   http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/646945/ Sun, 18 Jan 2009 10:18:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/646945/ The tomatoes have withered, all but one, victim to some virus.  The cucumbers are dropping their blossoms, no fruit.  I try to plant seeds to fill bare spots in the garden, but something roots around in the garden in the night, and the soil, so sandy, is all mixed up.  But the sunflowers grow with gusto, and the pole beans are blooming purple.  Morning glories are climbing, preparing blooms.  The days are long, and I can almost see things grow from the beginning of the day to its end. Our days seem to grow longer indoors too.  Suddenly there is time again to read to the children.  Time to gather and read a chapter of this school book, a Bible story, a picture book.  I feel like I get a little part of myself back.  I have missed this.  The children asks, Why does the story sound more interesting when you read it, Mommy? The littlest ones are in the delectable ages.  Cute, happy, busy.  They play around each other and with each other.  They show marvelous acts of unselfishness and giving.... how special, I think, to have a twin....  and then they grab and fight and pout.... I walk in the mornings, exploring a new road.  Pine stands, birches, many deer.   Wild flowers, morning mists. Fields full of grain, fields lying fallow. I glimpse Intermediate Lake here and there, but two miles down the road she is right by the road, clear water  stretching out in the morning.   Vacation homes with cute names.   Other  people, walking.  In my mind, they are all on vacation. For an hour, so am I. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/568438/ Fri, 1 Aug 2008 04:17:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/568438/ Sometimes a vacation can be a very good thing.  It can help smooth out the changes in life, making sure that everything stays connected.  People, present, past.  It can be a rest from the ordinary  and  increase your appreciation for the ordinary.  It can be a chance to get some distance, to evaluate, to make resolutions in more effective way than at new year's.  I knit in the car, and read.  We visited the church in Akron, the Creation museum, and most wonderfully, my family.  I saw my father, my mother, my youngest sister..... my grandfather and his wife.  We saw the new and shining Greenville Seminary building, and visited the home where we had had our wedding reception. We went to the Scottish Games on a very hot day.  When we left the South the temp was 100 degrees. The Lord watered my garden for me while I was gone, and when I returned it was to a revealing of mysteries (what is this plant?  I will weed around it in theory that it is not a weed)  I discovered that our bulbs were irises, that there were gorgeous red poppies in the back, some pink flowers that look like a yarrow, and something purple and spikey.  Also many of the seeds that I had planted had sprouted....sunflowers, sage, parsley, oregano, summer savory, purple basil.  The lettuce had grown enough so that we could make salad.  The air here is cool at night, and the days have been pleasant.  I love our little home.  I love how the clouds are low in the sky in the evening, how they peel away in layers, white on grey on pink.  I love our church, and our people.   When we got home, the round of sickness started, and there has been a lot of nursing to health, and bathing, and extra laundry.  There has been another migraine, and the smell of wet summer wafting through open windows and memories of how I used to sleep when I was single, at the "ranch", with my head on the window sill so I could go to sleep to that smell and wake up to the sight of the woods.....Such a time that was, a mixture of exquisite loneliness and of making new and dear friends, of opening truth from the Word and how keenly I felt the Lord's kindness fall on me.  ... each time of life has its own blessings and struggles....the beginning always looks fresh, the middle looks riddled with error, but the end is maturity.... and it is all Coram Deo, when I feel it and when I do not.... the end of a thing is better than the beginning, and the middle is on its way to the end. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/548088/ Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:03:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/548088/ Last week was Benjamin's birthday.   He got a little truck which he likes a lot, with a little Diego with his pets, a fox, a monkey, and a maned wolf.  The fox's name was Sammy, the monkey's Amy, and the maned wolf's was Sam.  He also got lots and lots of cards, and a cute little shirt and a pair of navy shorts from Grandma.  We had the party at breakfast time. The cupcakes were going to be a breakfast dessert.  They were carrot, with vanilla frosting.  After the cupcakes he opened the presents.  Four days after that was my birthday.  I got a pink dress and a green dress(also from Grandma), a kite(which didn't fly because there wasn't enough wind), a set of jacks, a book called Kid's Weaving, and a game called Cadoo.  And a necklace and card from Mercy.  My party was at lunchtime.  I made my own cupcakes, except for the hard parts, which Mommy did.   They were yellow with pink lemonade  frosting.   I would have eaten Mercy's frosting, but I was full enough already, so Peace ate them.   http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/533174/ Fri, 16 May 2008 09:33:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/533174/ We have a Venus Fly Trap that I bought at the grocery store.  We touched it with a toothpick to watch it close.  We watched an insect land on it, and nothing happened. We saw a halo of light around the moon,  a wide strange halo.  I got the children out of bed and we looked up at it. We planted lettuce, tomatoes, and peppers, and we watch them come up. We have picnics on our sandy lawn, and the children bring out blankets to drape over the swing set and turn it into a house. The babies discovered the out-of-doors.  They like it.  Very much.  They escape out the door whenever possible.  Jonathan can climb to the top of the slide.  He toddles over to a lamb's ear plant and touches it.  Charity twists the swing around and around since she is too small to swing in it.  I try to decide on the best place for the garden. Slowly we get back into reading aloud.  The pile of school books that we have not read dwindles.   It is time to order more workbooks.  We go to the park and play with friends.  The children wade on the sandy edge of the lake.  Jonathan sits down in the water.  Looks surprised, then does it again.  When we leave he is encrusted with sand.  We saw violets today. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/520661/ Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:42:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/520661/  We went to the C's and to the backyard.  We got there a few minutes early,  for they hadn't started sledding yet. It was so much fun.  I  went on a blue sled at first,that didn't go as far as the other, though I didn't mind it and the spills that I got.  It seemed worth it just to have another ride. I didn't even mind it when it was time for a snack, one, because I was so hungry, and two, because my ride with another girl on our pink sled was so long. On some of our rides, we went down, down, up, down, and across.(imagine sledding up a and across a hill!) Soon we went inside for some snacks. We had cheese, some kind of fruit cider, and our Sweet&Salty nut mix. There was a really steep hill and when you went down it you got kind of scared, but when I had the other girl with me, we didn't have as many spills. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/478175/ Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:53:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/478175/ For the first time, I am not floundering, wondering if I should have brought plates, or where we should sit.  I know that fellowship dinner is the second Sunday, every other month.  I know, and I have brought food,  and I help make lemonade. Scripture is read.  You cannot serve two masters.  Love and hate, cling and despise.  Prayer.  We get our food.  Jonathan is sleeping, and one of the young girls is eager to feed Charity at her high chair.  I look at the faces around me, and they are familiar. The snow is whirling and blowing outside the windows all around, the trees are snowy and the air is snowy and I know it is cold, very cold out there.  But here it is warm and we talk comfortably of getting out of driveways and exploring new roads and of crunchy snowdrifts on the trip back home.  Of sicknesses and body aches and health and God's gifts that go unnoticed until they are gone.  Of how children get home from fellowship dinners and complain of hunger.  http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/478100/ Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:16:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/478100/ There is a farm.  A farm with a cow named Melody, a cow who supplies our whole family with milk, good rich milk encased in shiny glass with the cream slowly floating upwards.  A farm with bees that fill a big jar full of honey for us to take home, amber honey behind the glass, glowing in the sun.  Marble white and amber. ************************************* The glass doors in the kitchen look out on the back yard, all surrounded with pines laden with snow.  Snow falls in light flakes, the sun catches the glint of them; the trees shake off snowflakes in shining clouds.  Still they are dressed and laced in snow.  The sun sets behind those trees, and sometimes I catch a glimpse of the show,  in pale pastels or glowing pink. There is little traffic through these doors in the winter, and so I push my kitchen island up against them so I can watch it all while I cook.  My spindles and fiber are there, so I can spin in those minutes when cooking means waiting;  here I feel my inner letter-writer awakening.  I put the stamps here, my address book, and some note cards.  I can write while I am standing, looking out the window.  The moment, caught on the paper. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/466158/ Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:40:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/466158/  I have a migraine.  The kids have been sick for a few weeks, the strain of extra activities around Christmas time has taken its toll.  Even though I had tried to cut back, no cards, no presents for extended family, no professional photos, all the things I used to do.  I even skipped wrapping presents.   The house is at its worst.   A late Christmas letter straggles in, with a note that has been sent by one who only knows my life through my blogs.  "You are so organized." My migraine pounds me.  Liar.  Liar.  Why do I make my blogs so upbeat?  Why?  I know the culprit, the schedule, the schedule that I tried to fit onto the family like a shoe onto the wrong foot. Everybody read it and thought that was the way it is.  But it isn't. My blogs are the only pristine place in my life, the only place I (seemingly) control.  Nothing happens to them while I am gone.  No toys strewn there, no dust settling, no coffee spilled.   I want to keep them beautiful.  Why shouldn't I? But not at cost of truth. This has been a hard year, a one foot in front of the other kind of year.  All the changes are good, blessings abound, but even good in this fallen world comes with many pitfalls and challenges, and my weakness and inability and sin have never been more apparent to me. But I keep putting one foot in front of the other, and hope that things will grow easier.  Sometimes I take a few steps without thinking about it, and grow a bit giddy about it, and the glass is all half full.  The babies had their birthday.  One year passed us, and we move on.  Am I getting more energy?  Is less time spent nursing going to help?  Is my  soul waking up? I clean the master bedroom and organize it for the first time since the move.   The whole mood of the room changes.  It smells good, faintly of lavender where I have spritzed the pillows, and I even wax the headboard til it shines.  I haven't done that since we were newlyweds. The kids' rooms are cleaned, and then the toy area  in the basement.  The house seems almost like humans live here now. I pick a chapter from James for us to read daily, to memorize, like we used to when there were only three. I am building a new schedule, slowly, a schedule not to fit my dreams but to fit the family. I take a breath.  Perhaps...perhaps I will walk, perhaps we will walk together, perhaps we will dance.  Perhaps it is too soon to tell.  But I will keep putting one foot in front of the other, and we will see. It's all about sowing in tears, and reaping in joy.  In patience.  Hope in what we cannot see. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/464802/ Sun, 20 Jan 2008 13:02:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/464802/ We went to the D's (all except Mommy, Peace, and the twins). The sleigh ride was fun, and we would have gone on the second ride, except we were much too cold. We had real jingle bells, and we sang Jingle Bells on the way. After both rides, we had supper at the D's. The supper was meat, baked beans, apples, bananas, cookies, apple cider, and hot chocolate and marshmallows. Then we played with a toy farm for a while, and then went to see the farm's only cow, Melody. She was pretty, light brown with a white upper face and a few white spots. Then I watched Chris and Alan play a game for a few minutes, and then we went home. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/456032/ Sat, 5 Jan 2008 13:01:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/HerbLady/456032/