Here I am, neglecting my blog again. Or, was, because now, I'm posting!
I had pictures I was going to post, but then my camera told me that the memory card is kaput. Dead. Muerte. Done. Pictures allgone.
Rats.
Thus the dearth of pictures around here.
My brother warned me when he gave me the camera. He's had problems with that memory card... better replace it. Yeah, yeah. It was working fine, so I didn't bother. Because I'm cheap. And miserly. Thrifty. Etc.
In my research looking for a new one, I've also discovered that it's good to reformat the card from time to time. Hm... Good to know. Maybe that would have saved me the headache of lost pictures.
Anyway, I'm researching CF cards. I AM cheap, so I don't want to pay more than I have to for a new one, but I also don't want to get something that I will hate.
Hmmm... what else can I tell you about...
Oh, the van broke down on me in town yesterday. That van has bee getting worse and worse, so it's really amazing that we've gotten this much use out of it. Jonah really didn't want to go to town with me yesterday because he was so afraid that something would happen. We said a prayer before we left that God would take care of us, and He did, because when it wouldn't start, we had just finished picking up a co-op order and my friend hadn't left yet. So I called Nathan and he advised me to abandon ship. We just got in with our friends and went to their house to play for the day. Boy, that sure was an awful breakdown... (And I've been broken down a few times before...) Nathan finished his day of work and then went to get the van. Praise God that he didn't have to try to get it on a dolly or anything. He just had to bridge the connection between the thingamajig and the whatsit while turning the ignition just so and it started up so he could drive it home.
So the van is done as well. Nathan said he's not fixing it. He needs to find time to get a transmission into the other van and get it going. I'm told it's not an easy job... sigh. I just don't understand what the big deal is. It's just a part, right? Take the bad part out and put the good one in. Simple. (Dad, stop slapping your forehead that way. You'll leave a mark.)
I need to start thinking about a birthday party for Jonah in a couple weeks. Nothing fancy-- just invite all his little friends (and their families!) over and we'll eat spaghetti and cake and play and have fun. He wants a solar system on his cake, of course, so I'm trying to decide if I should find various round candies for planets, or go the cheap way and draw them on with frosting. "Candy is WAY cooler." my friend said and she's right. So I guess I need to go b-b-b-buy c-c-c-candy to decorate a cool space cake.
Jonah found three kittens under our porch the other day. We know the culprit well, she does it twice every year. Oh well. Kittens are fun. And at least it's only three and not... six.
Oh! Almost forgot-- The pictures I was going to post, before my camera ate them, were of my almost-finished kitchen corner. That naked little corner that has been waiting a year and a half now has cabinets (including a really-cool custom-made-for-me-by-my-sweet-husband lazy susan), countertop and an awesome pot rack (carried-home-on-a-plane-from-Switzerland-for-me-by-my-sweet-mother!). I love it. Sometimes I think it would be neat (and affluent) to move into a house that has every detail established (wait, are there houses like that?), but I have to say that the fun of updates is quite addictive.
A'right. I guess that is all the mundane bits I have for you today. Jonah is begging to do school, so I guess I should oblige. I've suggested playing hooky several times, but he won't hear of it.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Bustin' Out
I took a walk by myself this evening. At first, I went because I had to. Then I didn't want to come back.
This is the surely most glorious Michigan spring I've ever seen. I keep expecting disappointment, but it's never delivered. This early spring hasn't turned out to be a teaser-- it's for real. And for gorgeous.
I can't believe how green everything is and how all the trees are bursting into bloom and here it is, only April 11. I don't usually let myself get my hopes up too high until, oh, about May first.
I kicked myself for not taking my camera on my walk. Why I didn't pick it up on my way out the door, I can't understand. But I found that I just wanted to drink it in, this Spring everywhere, and I had no way to hold onto it. No camera, no sketchbook and box of paints (as if I even paint anymore... [deep sigh]).
I almost felt like I needed to use another sense in order to be satisfied. If only I could take a bite and taste it, dip my fingers into the glowing green-gold sunlight, sink my hands into a whole field of plush green grass so rich it could almost be deep-pile velvet. The blossoms and new leaves look so light and tenuously attached to the trees that I was just sure they could rain down on my face. The Red-winged Black Birds and pesky Grackles fussed in the trees all around me, making an enormous racket that I could feel in my teeth. The pungent, spicy, garlicky smell of wild mustards in the farm fields tickled in the back of my throat.
I think that was just what I needed. I've been a tight ball of nerves and emotions lately. I'm just not myself. I can't keep a thought in my head or focus in a straight line. I just want to cry about pretty much everything and nothing at all.
My body is taken over by this creative force that I have no control over-- a freight train in a quiet little whisper. I'm overjoyed and shaking in my boots. I tell myself what a wuss I am-- it's such an ordinary thing, this baby-growing. But it's extraordinary as well and I'm too sensitive to it. Everything we have is from God, so evident in Creation bursting all around me in springtime frenzy, and now here is a powerful little piece of creation happening right in me.
It's all truly astounding.
This is the surely most glorious Michigan spring I've ever seen. I keep expecting disappointment, but it's never delivered. This early spring hasn't turned out to be a teaser-- it's for real. And for gorgeous.
I can't believe how green everything is and how all the trees are bursting into bloom and here it is, only April 11. I don't usually let myself get my hopes up too high until, oh, about May first.
I kicked myself for not taking my camera on my walk. Why I didn't pick it up on my way out the door, I can't understand. But I found that I just wanted to drink it in, this Spring everywhere, and I had no way to hold onto it. No camera, no sketchbook and box of paints (as if I even paint anymore... [deep sigh]).
I almost felt like I needed to use another sense in order to be satisfied. If only I could take a bite and taste it, dip my fingers into the glowing green-gold sunlight, sink my hands into a whole field of plush green grass so rich it could almost be deep-pile velvet. The blossoms and new leaves look so light and tenuously attached to the trees that I was just sure they could rain down on my face. The Red-winged Black Birds and pesky Grackles fussed in the trees all around me, making an enormous racket that I could feel in my teeth. The pungent, spicy, garlicky smell of wild mustards in the farm fields tickled in the back of my throat.
I think that was just what I needed. I've been a tight ball of nerves and emotions lately. I'm just not myself. I can't keep a thought in my head or focus in a straight line. I just want to cry about pretty much everything and nothing at all.
My body is taken over by this creative force that I have no control over-- a freight train in a quiet little whisper. I'm overjoyed and shaking in my boots. I tell myself what a wuss I am-- it's such an ordinary thing, this baby-growing. But it's extraordinary as well and I'm too sensitive to it. Everything we have is from God, so evident in Creation bursting all around me in springtime frenzy, and now here is a powerful little piece of creation happening right in me.
It's all truly astounding.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Spring Ponderings
The trout lilies are blooming in the yard.
It's spring for real.
Nathan spent the whole day yesterday fixing up the garden fence. This is an urgent necessity with the imminent growing season if we expect to get anything out of our garden for ourselves. It also has a double purpose in (theoretically) closing the chickens inside the garden for a few weeks before planting (though I've carefully protected the few early things I have planted) so that they can work in the old mulch and find lots of bad buggies to eat up. Rototilling eating machines, those chickens are.
So he moved them all to a new temporary shelter in the garden after dark last night.
They were all on the wrong side of the fence by noon today.
That is, all except one straggly little hen who is usually particularly beset by the rooster. It is my personal opinion that she is faking an inability to get out of the garden.
Notice the cute little ladybug crawling down the stem of that little flower. Oh, what a fortunate shot! you're thinking. (Also: too bad it's not in focus.) No, on the contrary. There are pretty much lady bugs (the evil, biting kind, imported from Asia in a University Experiment Gone Horrible Awry) crawling all over everything, all the time. Everyday I vacuum several legions of them from the living room window. As I sit here, I find myself flicking them off my clothes and out of my hair and even, egads!, off my face.
Jonah is absolutely loving the gorgeous spring-time weather. He loves to be outside. He is somewhat hampered by a paralyzing fear of our (not-too-terribly-mean-just-a-little-pushy) rooster. Fortunately for him, Daddy's usually outside working, so Jonah can stick close and practice manly pursuits (like dragging a ladder to the playhouse and climbing on the roof to "fix" it) AND gain a little rooster-protection.
I am having a baby in three months. Three. A long time, and a very short time, all at the same time.
I think that the feeling of commingled anticipation, intense joy and vague dread is heightened for me right now, even though there are still three months to go, because five years ago (five!) we were awaiting Jonah's birth. I think I will always associate springtime with a little bit of that feeling. At the time, I remember thinking that it was very appropriate for the time of year.
I'm starting to feel somewhat unwieldy at this point. I realize that that is only going to increase from now on, and I have an awful lot of garden to plant in the midst of this growing lumbering bulkiness.
However, I find it endlessly amusing to balance my empty tea mug on my belly and watch it get kicked off.
Growth on all fronts. I love spring.
It's spring for real.
Nathan spent the whole day yesterday fixing up the garden fence. This is an urgent necessity with the imminent growing season if we expect to get anything out of our garden for ourselves. It also has a double purpose in (theoretically) closing the chickens inside the garden for a few weeks before planting (though I've carefully protected the few early things I have planted) so that they can work in the old mulch and find lots of bad buggies to eat up. Rototilling eating machines, those chickens are.
So he moved them all to a new temporary shelter in the garden after dark last night.
They were all on the wrong side of the fence by noon today.
That is, all except one straggly little hen who is usually particularly beset by the rooster. It is my personal opinion that she is faking an inability to get out of the garden.
Notice the cute little ladybug crawling down the stem of that little flower. Oh, what a fortunate shot! you're thinking. (Also: too bad it's not in focus.) No, on the contrary. There are pretty much lady bugs (the evil, biting kind, imported from Asia in a University Experiment Gone Horrible Awry) crawling all over everything, all the time. Everyday I vacuum several legions of them from the living room window. As I sit here, I find myself flicking them off my clothes and out of my hair and even, egads!, off my face.
Jonah is absolutely loving the gorgeous spring-time weather. He loves to be outside. He is somewhat hampered by a paralyzing fear of our (not-too-terribly-mean-just-a-little-pushy) rooster. Fortunately for him, Daddy's usually outside working, so Jonah can stick close and practice manly pursuits (like dragging a ladder to the playhouse and climbing on the roof to "fix" it) AND gain a little rooster-protection.
I am having a baby in three months. Three. A long time, and a very short time, all at the same time.
I think that the feeling of commingled anticipation, intense joy and vague dread is heightened for me right now, even though there are still three months to go, because five years ago (five!) we were awaiting Jonah's birth. I think I will always associate springtime with a little bit of that feeling. At the time, I remember thinking that it was very appropriate for the time of year.
I'm starting to feel somewhat unwieldy at this point. I realize that that is only going to increase from now on, and I have an awful lot of garden to plant in the midst of this growing lumbering bulkiness.
However, I find it endlessly amusing to balance my empty tea mug on my belly and watch it get kicked off.
Growth on all fronts. I love spring.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Colors
Jonah and I colored our Easter Eggs (Resurrection Eggs?) after supper tonight. He's been looking forward to it all week, of course. (That and jelly beans...)
Nathan had me do a couple dozen eggs with Scripture references and various symbols for an egg hunt with the kids after church tomorrow. He wants to have a discussion and make the egg hunt an opportunity for instruction as well as fun.
I have to say, though, that my favorite egg must be Jonah's "black for sin" egg that he made:
Oh, and speaking of colors, a little while ago, an Amish neighbor was here and we were talking about a very bright rainbow in our neighborhood a few hours before. (Rainbows are rare around here, but today we had sun and rain together for a rare treat of a rainbow!)
Jonah told him that "Sometime I'm gonna find a rainbow and go under the colors!"
The man replied, "Someone told me once that if you go under a rainbow you'll change into a girl."
Nathan and I cracked up while Jonah looked considerably embarrassed.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Life Abundant
For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.(Romans 5:6-11)
Blessed Good Friday to you.
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