A Rainy Saturday's Musings

It's a lovely , RAINY Saturday afternoon. My house is quiet. That is a rare treat. I can think. I can process stuff in my head. I can write.

This week has been busy. Leon says we have revolving doors on our house. People come. People go. Every day. I love to share my home with guests. I love to share my gift of hospitality. I love to cook and entertain. But I love quiet, too. A lot.

God has felt distant this week. I don't know why. My prayers felt like they were hitting the ceiling. I almost felt depressed. I felt lazy and unmotivated, whenever I had a minute to myself.

Leon has been very busy. I love a lot of things about the harvest season. The schedule is not one of them. A tired husband is not either.

I went to some garage sales this morning in town. I enjoyed the alone time as much or more than the garage sales. I prayed on my way to town. I needed evidence that God cared. I know He does. But today I needed tangible proof. Guess what? At the second stop, I found a tote that slides under a bed for 75 cents. It's a little thing, I know. But it was on my shopping list to buy on my next trip to Walmart. They usually cost $10. It wasn't an accident. It was my tangible proof that Jesus cares about ME!

 I stopped at the nursing home to drop off a treat for my niece, who works there. I also stopped in to see my friend, Audrey. Audrey is one of the sweetest old ladies I know. Audrey loves people and Jesus. I've never seen her without a cheerful smile. She was reading her Bible this morning. I wondered what I would do when I'm in my 80's and stuck in a nursing home. I hope I'm sweet. I hope I'm still pursuing Jesus.

Last night, I helped my Mom with a small group. After the pie was served, one of the guests spilled his just-filled glass of iced tea. No big deal. Happens all the time. His wife lit into him. She really let him have it. When I refilled his glass, his wife sarcastically commented that she sure wouldn't fill it, he'll just spill the second one. These people were pushing 65. Seriously. He was a jolly sort of fellow, but after that tongue lashing, he was very quiet. I shared this story at the lunch table today. I hope my children got the message. I hope I got the message, too.

I've been thinking about the love of Christ. How I want to understand it. How I want to KNOW it. I read a terrific blog on this subject this week. One line jumped out at me.  "A love that can't be lost, because {we} never earned it in the first place."  barefoot missionary. 

"For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen." Ephesians 3:14-21

Powerful verses. Powerful message.  

                                            Brooklyn reading her very first story to Daddy!!!!

My Darling Daughters

(My birthday theme this year on my blog, was to write a letter to my children. My girls' birthdays are a week apart, and a lot of what I'm feeling/thinking applies to both, so I'll take the liberty to combine the two.)

Dear daughters,

You two are some of God's greatest gifts to me. How I love having daughters. I love how you are so different from me, yet we have so much in common.

I love the girl things we can do together, the fashion discussions, the tea parties, the shopping. But somehow, I also love, love to see you shoot guns, play like wild Indians, and get dirty. I want you to enjoy life, even if it doesn't fit into my neat, tidy boxes. I don't want to place expectations on you that you can never meet.

This past year, I have watched you two learn to take your tough stuff to God- nasty attitudes, crying fits, you name it. I've seen you come away from praying alone in your bedroom to hugging and apologizing. You have no idea how much that means to me. You two have your sweet little prayer list going on. You pray for the things listed there nearly every night. Sometimes I see your light on well after bedtime, and I'm tempted to get frustrated, then I realize you're still praying. 

I am convinced that Satan loves to wreck mother/daughter relationships. He's done a pretty good job of it over the years. I pray often for our relationship. We have to fight for it, girls. It's not going to be easy. We won't always understand each other or care for each other like we should. I hope I'm never too proud to say I was wrong or to say I'm sorry. 

You two are some of my very best friends. May you always live life to the fullest. May you have a passion for Jesus that can't be contained. And may you always find a friend in your mother.

I love you both.

With all my heart,

Mom

*********************************************************************************

Brooke's birthday fell on a youth camping trip. She enjoyed the attention she got from everyone. We had a quiet party at home the next night. She ordered grilled tilapia, baked rice, cheesy green beans, and strawberry shortcake.

Annika's birthday was a special day for her. She wore her mini bride wedding dress to church. (from her Uncle Lowell's wedding) She invited several friends home from church for the afternoon. She ordered baked chicken, baked potatoes, green beans w/ bacon, and key lime pie.

And the traditional birthday breakfast in bed.......

Squeezing the Last Sweet Drops Out of Summer

What a good, busy summer we had. And now it's officially fall...I mean, the calendar says so. Who can argue with that? Tonight the children helped me pick 5 bushels of apples from our neighbors trees, for free. Tomorrow they go to an Amish farm and get turned into cider. Yummy!

Harvest 2013 has officially started. I take a deep breath and hang on for the ride. I will not complain about long days with no husband around. I will not complain about packing lunches. I will not complain about him always being tired and overworked. I will not complain....:) I will be thankful he is healthy and can work. I will be thankful my children can spend hours with their Dad on the combine, tractor or grain truck. I will be thankful that he comes home every night to me. I will be thankful.....

Today as we raced around the house during break time, and my 10 year old son was trying to catch me, I thought, surely I can still run faster than him. But alas! It was not to be. So now I am resigned to the fact that I have the athletic abilities of a 10 year old, which isn't too bad if it's MY 10 year old. But still....where did that 'fastest running girl in the youth group' go? (funny side note: we had relay races in the youth group once, and I was the fastest girl and Leon was the fastest boy. He likes to say that I had to marry him because he was the only one I couldn't outrun.)

My favorite pictures from the summer:

                                                      games with Great Grandma

Jamison's prize watermelon

                                                       Canning....snapping beans....

Slip and slide on hot days

                                                                 
                                                                    applesauce day

Cousin Fun

                                                       
                                                             Corn on the cob for lunch

                                                       (notice the kitties in the lunch bag)

It was a good summer. Yes, it was.

The Kitchen-At Last.

I know most of you know about our kitchen project but in case you're in the dark, I'll refresh your mind.

We moved to this dear old farmhouse 7 years ago. It was built in 1905 so that officially makes it old. While it doesn't have loads and loads of character like some old houses do, I appreciate the character it does have. But the nasty rug in the kitchen/dining room had to go.

We tore out the carpet on a hot July evening. The hardwood installation project began. It ended up being about 3 weeks of 'making do' until we were able to move back in. Leon still has trim to put up and the floor needs another round of sand and stain, but I'm loving the improvements so very much!

Leon and I tackled painting the kitchen counter tops. We learned a lot and I like to think that it was a special project for our marriage.:) We worked together on this one, and I get warm fuzzies just remembering. Leon, maybe not so much. The way we do most projects is that I get the wild idea and I believe he can do just about anything, then he gets stuck with the stress of making it work. See why he rains on my parade so often?:) The finished project isn't perfect, but most people don't notice the flaws.
Before:

After:

And a few more pretties in my kitchen:

End of Summer Family Vacation

Life has been a blur of one exciting event to the next lately. We started school, celebrated our 13th anniversary and  3 birthdays in our house as well as took part in a fun wedding of dear friends of ours.....then there's canning and Labor Day and youth camping and piano lessons and out of state family visiting for a week. All that since the 3rd week in August. no wonder I feel like life has been a little crazy.

But before it's just fuzz in my brain, I want to remember the very special 2 day vacation that our family took just before school started. We started out by heading to Boone, IA to the Kate Shelley Museum. Because I copied the wrong address down, we actually arrived at the old Moingona Depot first and got to walk the lovely, picturesque trail to the bridge. It was a perfect summer day and other than Annika getting a case of poison ivy later, we all had a grand time in the woods. It was hard to imagine Kate running through the storm in her heroic effort to save the midnight express and all 200 passengers on board. This has been a favorite story in our house for as long as I can remember so it was really special to finally get to see it in real life.

When we were finished there, we headed into town to eat lunch at Pizza Ranch. Then off to the museum. Museums can be boring, (yes, I said that b word and I'm a home school Mom, gasp!) but this museum really was interesting. Not only did it have Kate's actual lantern and a host of other interesting facts and items relating to Kate, it also housed a military museum. The entire upstairs of this old building was split into little sections. Each section had things from its era, starting with 1900-1910, and continuing on in 10 year segments all the way to the present. I felt a little old when I saw my segment of time, 1970-1980, and my children didn't  recognize all of  the 'ancient' items displayed there.

We headed out to see the highest railroad bridge in the world, the Kate Shelley railroad bridge, several miles out of town in the country. Then we were off to Omaha.....to our motel. Of course, the children wanted to go swimming immediately. Their kind father was all into that and hung out w/ them in the pool. I, on the other hand, am not crazy about water if I know I won't be getting any sun anyway. So I read my Bible, journaled, and started reading a good book, all while staying poolside. I felt naughty for not joining them, but Leon assured me that it was fine. I didn't argue. It was one of my favorite memories of the whole weekend. Relaxing.....

After showers, we all headed to Cracker Barrel in our pj's. Such fun!

When we got back, the girls were STILL hungry.:(( Seriously, let's not even go there!) So they ate fresh peaches in bed.

After a good night of rest, we were off to the zoo....

By day's end, we were so exhausted.
Here we are, waiting on the Imax to start...

And then we took our tired bodies home.....good memories, and a good last hurrah to summer!