Inspiring books, challenging realizations, a freezer clean out, and the French and Indian War.
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Lately, I have felt as if my life is running away with me. Here we are, well into June, staring down the halfway point of the year, and yet, I am pretty sure I just cooked Thanksgiving dinner and celebrated Christmas!
Over the last couple of years, you’ve heard me complain mention that I am having a difficult time finding my footing – online and offline. And recently, I’ve begun to pray diligently about the WHY behind that feeling, rather than just trying to FIX it all the time. And slowly, but surely, I am finding some very clarifying moments within the months and weeks that seem to pass so quickly.
Some of this clarification came this past weekend when I took my Mom, who lives with us now, back to the place/places we consider to be “home.” For my Mom, it clarified that she does not feel connected there anymore and a lot of “homesickness” has subsided for her. For me, it did the opposite. I have been telling my husband for years, I do not want to go back there (he does…someday). But, visiting made me realize we do still have a connection to that place, even though many of the family members who used to be our tie there have passed on.
And so, I told my husband I would be willing to live back there (someday) with two conditions…
- The property must have nice, big trees.
- It must be a big enough house to accommodate our ever-growing family.
I have no idea what life will be like nearly 10 years from now when my husband will most likely be retiring from the military, but I am keeping my options open.
After our drive home, I got Mom settled back into her apartment and then I settled myself in for a relaxing evening. I had the kids get their own dinners and I took a walk with my oldest daughter who will probably be living with us for only a short time longer.
While the little girls made fairy gardens in the front yard with friends, I began reading Theo of Golden – what a beautifully, inspiring book!
I borrowed the book from the library and had to wait an inordinate amount of time to get it and guess what?! I can only have it for a short time because someone else is on the wait list behind me. I may have to buy this one…it deserves a markup with a pen and my thoughts.
Speaking of marking up books (a habit learned in my college days when I spent most of my time in the English department)…our dog spilled coffee ALL OVER my marked up copy of Sally Clarkson’s Lifegiving Home.
I had just started re-reading it (which says a lot for the book since I rarely re-read books!), and was beginning a second round of markup, when it became a sticky-mess of Cinnamon Roll Latte from 7Brew. Because I adore this book so much, I decided to buy another copy (thankfully, it was only $10!) and begin re-reading and transferring all the old markup to my new (un-sticky) book.
Another reason it’s a good thing the book was only $10 is because we recently found out our 2019 12 passenger Ford Transit needs a new transmission…and radiator. And that, my friends is no cheap repair. We are able to save around $1000 if we let our usual mechanic fit it into his schedule, but that means no van for about a month and no vacation the end of June as previously planned because we have no other vehicle that fits all of us.
So, this week, I sat the kids down and explained that we would be eating out of the pantry and freezers as much as possible and shopping very little beyond that, and I would need their help to come up with good meal ideas and execute the plan.
I started by making a list of everything in the freezers in the garage. These included several corned beef briskets I bought on a huge sale after St. Patrick’s Day, a turkey breast and 2 hams from the holiday sales, several bags of frozen and vacuum-sealed rhubarb and apples from their respective 2025 seasons, a bag of King Salmon from the neighbor, random vegetables, and a mish-mash of other odds and ends that probably ought to be turned into something just to get them out of the freezer.
This week, I’ll be making Butternut Squash Soup with some I must have squirreled away at some point, a Cinnamon Apple Cake, Asian Bowls, Granny’s Skillet Roast, and Reubens. I did buy Chicken Nuggets for our 9 year old’s Special Night, but that’s not a huge expense and well, it’s Special Night!
I also got my kefir and sourdough out of the refrigerator and got them back up and running. We’ll have Farmhouse on Boone’s Sourdough Skillet later in the week. So yummy!
Our 15 year old’s Martial Arts class has been pushed to later in the day on Tuesdays and Thursdays, making it easier to get everyone fed before needing to head out the door with him. His older brother should be getting his license soon, so I’ll probably start having them go together so I can have a little less time out of the house. This season has certainly caused me to be out of the house so much more than I am used to or prefer. I just do not like being “busy” all the time.
Speaking of busy, our oldest daughter planned a rather impromptu trip to Europe and I took her to the airport on Wednesday to catch her flight, only to have to turn around and pick her back up because the airline app had failed to inform her that she needed a UK-ETA to enter the country (a fee and documentation recently required by the UK government), so she ended up flying out on Saturday instead for her 3-country tour. When she gets home, she’ll need to finalize taking a new job and moving. And she still hopes to go on vacation with us before she moves away! This is my child who seems to thrive on BUSY! Give her too much downtime and she starts to lose herself.
She and I did find time to go paddle boarding for the first time this season before she headed out. I paddled a lot with my 21 year old daughter before she got married and moved away, but hopefully, when she comes to visit in a couple of weeks, she will bring her board and we can go out while she’s here!
We are getting a lot of rain here taking us from drought conditions to flood warnings in a short span of a few months. I did plant some tomatoes in containers that my boys brought home from the bee farm, so they have been getting quite the soaking on the back deck!
I also have my usual “herb garden.” This year, I planted cilantro, dill, oregano, and basil in rectangular planters I keep in the deck. So far, I’ve been using the cilantro and basil more than anything. I also have a couple of citronella plants out there and a white geranium that keeps blooming despite my best efforts to kill it over the years.
Now, I know most of you are probably taking the summer off from homeschooling, but we are still going strong! We are nearing the end of Tapestry of Grace Year 2 (ends shortly after the Revolutionary War), and while we will most definitely take off here and there over the summer, we never take a long break. This has been our method since my soon-to-be senior in high school was a baby!
This was our little family back then…
Our teenage boys dissected their last animal – a fetal pig – for Guest Hollow Biology. I chose to have our 17 year old (the littlest one in the photo above) go through the entire class before doing the dissections, and our 15 year old got part way through the course before doing the dissections alongside him, so they could use one kit from Home Science Tools. They just took turns dissecting and reading the manuals aloud. The manuals were very well done, and they learned a lot together.
All of the kids are finishing up their own versions of Pilgrim’s Progress except the 9 year old. She’s been reading a book about Haydn (the composer) and a few other books that go along with our History lessons. Speaking of music – we’ve been doing Music in Our Homeschool Middle Ages alongside our Tapestry of Grace Morning Time lessons all year, and the kids are quite relieved to have finally reached the Classical period because they are more familiar with this type of music and feel like they can actually enjoy it! (They called the Gregorian chants “yawny music.”)
I did realize this week that my 15 year old son is quite far ahead in his studies and we need to slow down a bit. Once upon a time, I would have said graduating early was no big deal, but I’m no longer interested in my children being on a college campus (which he is planning to do) before the age of 18 (or even older!). There’s a lot to navigate these days, and no reason to send them early.
As my husband likes to say, “You have the rest of your lives to work a full-time job,” and if all you’re doing is sending them to college early so they can get out in the work world earlier, their time might be better spent getting more culture training at home.
Listen to this podcast for more on that topic…
Of our 4 adult children, 2 went to college and 2 did not. As I watch my younger set of kids grow up, I realize there will also be a mix among them based on their interests. I’m pretty sure our 17 year old is headed toward an apprenticeship or trade school and our 15 year old wants to pursue a military career via ROTC. We just keep praying for them to be a blessing to others through their faith in Jesus no matter what life path they choose.
I remember Ty and I agonizing over wanting to take the “right” job to glorify the Lord. We asked a couple of godly older gentlemen their thoughts on finding the right job. One told us he always just took the next thing that presented itself if it seemed like a good thing to do…and it always was. The other man told us God gifts with you certain aptitudes and they are all useful to the Lord, so do that. Ty took their advice to heart, and has worked several different jobs over the years, but all to the glory of the Lord, and the Lord has blessed us immensely, and we pray we have been a blessing to others through those jobs as well.
We’ve tried to teach our kids not to find their meaning or worth in a job, but to do what they choose to do heartily, as unto the Lord. I even see that play out in homemaking, to bring this conversation full circle. Recently, I have discovered large swaths of time within my day that are wholly unaccounted for. My afternoons and evenings are much less “planned out” and busy, so I find I sometimes fritter them away. I was struck by this quote from Theo of Golden:
“The busiest people always find time, while the lazy people are the ones who always say they have less time.”
In Titus 2:5, the NIV chooses to use the words, “busy at home” to describe the job of a wife and mother. I do believe somewhere along the way, I became a bit more lazy in my homemaking and a bit more self-centered and self-indulgent, and as a consequence, I began to feel as if I had less time because I began to see every little interruption in my life as an affront to the peace and calm (and frankly, laziness) I was cultivating. The seeds I have been sowing are weeds, and weeds will choke your schedule to death if you don’t get busy working on the things that matter.
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