Musings

Remember the great Laundry Challenge? Well, unlike the Great Breakfast Challenge (which perhaps should be renamed "Breakfast: Accomplished-Sometimes Twice"), it remains an elusive, un-achieved goal. Perhaps I should rename it "Clean Clothes Confronted"- no, in actuality the dirty clothes are being confronted - and put through quite an ordeal. It isn't only them being agitated over this. The good thing about the word 'confrontation' is that it  puts me into a more aggressive planning mode. I know what I need to do. Get a better system. Right now I have two baskets. One for clean, one for dirty. I run three types of loads: darks, lights, and towels with bleach. My single basket overflows before there is enough to run one of these loads. This makes me look and feel more behind than I am. Tomorrow I am going out.... The good news is that last week I was great until Wednesday. Then I never folded Thursday's until Friday....you get the picture. Right n...

Faith Cook pens a lovely little biography of Anne Bradstreet entitled Anne Bradstreet, Pilgrim and Poet . Anne was a leading lady in the American colonies early in the seventeenth century. She mothered eight children, and endured multiple illnesses (and pregnancies!) that taxed her physically for long periods of time. This book is wonderful! It spans 168 pages, concluding with a letter Mrs. Bradstreet wrote to her children to be read after her death. Two things immediately impress me about her. First, she clung to the Lord while living a colonial life fraught with challenges. She emigrated at the age of eighteen with her new husband, Simon Bradstreet, as well as her mother and sisters. They started in Charleston, and moved on several times after that. She faced the normal dramas of mothering as an emotional female with physical and hormonal swings. She was often ill, and in spiritual, and emotional valleys. I appreciated this quality, and felt immediate ...

So, last Saturday I turned 30. And vomited. Because I had the flu. Just like last year on my birthday. Yes, it makes me feel fragmented. And headachy. Back to normal sentences. There were some similarities to last year, such as my husband sympathetically joining me in this illness, leaving us both weak and tired. Thankfully, there were also differences, such as not being hospitalized due to preterm labor being brought on by said illness. While I was thankful for this, I really struggled with missing church! This particular flu has hit both my littles, making the total of missed sermons 3! I am so excited to be able to fellowship this coming Sunday. As far as goals go, I did achieve running three miles without stopping prior to December 1st, which shocks me. In fact, I am so shocked that I have nothing more to say about it. Except that today, owing to illness, 10 days between runs, and general malaise, I was only able to do a mile and a half, then a quarter. Bleh. My 15 minute pl...

Going into our marriage, we both thought that I would make lunches.You know, the kind that you pack for your husband to take to work? Well, I did. This went rather well, overall, until my first pregnancy. After that, it became hit and miss. More miss. He got used to making his own lunch, in addition to breakfast, and I got used to going back to bed with a baby. Five years went by. Two weeks ago, I started adding breakfast to my menu planning (my two week rotation has been going pretty strong!). I have been getting up, making his breakfast and lunch, then either making my tea for my Bible reading, or going back to bed….depending on what time he leaves. I am really happy about this! Of course, I have to menu plan, or I stumble around my kitchen aimlessly looking like a mole. If I can keep it up for another two weeks, in December I am going to add something else. The great laundry challenge. I am terrible at laundry. Half of the time my husband does it. The other times I create amazin...

So I am going to experiment with some different formats. If I reveal what the actual experiment is, I will look foolish....

This  Morning we met with various family members on a grand adventure. This adventure would involve eight miles of hiking in the woods with five sweet children under five, crossing a river on a log, and enjoying the remnants of the ghost town of Monte Cristo. My Husband and I, with our three, were joined by his Parents, sister, her husband and their two, and his parents and sisters and a brother. We hadn't done a family hike in a while, and were looking forward to some lovely views and conversation. We got to the trail head, and eagerly situated everybody to hit the trail!           Here we see Abigail is ready to live the easy life, Hannah is also going to live the easy life, and Uncle James is holding Olivia before she gets situated to hike the easy way. After proceeding about a mile in, we had to cross a river via a large log, which we dubbed the "Robert. E.Lee Natural Bridge." The men were amazing enough to carry multiple children and strollers ...

This evening I completed my new two week cycle for dinners and breakfasts. I began doing this about two months ago. It is SO much easier for me to stick with. First of all, let me extol the virtues of menu planning. Your grocery shopping is more efficient, saving you time, money, and waste. This is especially true if you choose more than one dinner that will feature your newly purchased (and not part of your usual fare) asparagus or red bell peppers. You do not have to stress every day, hoping you have the ingredients for whatever it is you are craving. When your darling husband comes home and casually inquires concerning that evening's repast, you do not answer with the dreaded, brain emptying, "UMMMM" before you try to pitch tomato soup and tuna melts as an option that was planned. In this area it becomes extremely helpful to network with other lovely wives you know to see what they do. For some reason, every time that I have a baby I feel that I am completely start...

The words of Andrew Murray: "To know how to speak to God is more than knowing how to speak to man."  I found this convicting and encouraging. Since baby number three has arrived, it has been difficult for me to have a purposed prayer time for any length of time. I am still quite faithfully praying for others, but am not taking the time to really communicate with my Father. On my Kindle I have been reading Lord, Teach Us to Pray by Murray. He goes through the teaching of Jesus on prayer. Reflecting upon Jesus' directions in Matthew 6, Murray points out that  "...the first thing the Lord teaches His disciples is that they must have a secret place for prayer; every one must have some solitary spot where he can be alone with his God."  For me, solitary is not a spot, it is a time . My living room is not a lonely location, but at 6:00 in the morning I have ample assurance of not being disturbed were I to seek my Lord's face there. Sometimes I worry about ...

God was gracious, darling Hannah turned, and was born safely and easily at my midwife's. This Wednesday will mark the thirteenth week into my adventure as a mother of three. The transition itself presented unique challenges. On the one hand, things aren't that much harder because I already possessed a practical understanding of scheduling multiple variables. I remembered that adding a new baby meant that everything takes 30 minutes longer, but I forgot how difficult lack of sleep is to my general abilities. Unfortunately, at 5 weeks along, all the darlings were stricken with a terrible cold that lasted around three weeks. Then we got healthy, then sick again, I had a couple two day migraines, I haven't been getting up on time, etc. I have this delightfully planned routine that is even up on my refrigerator, but I am sabotaging myself by not going to bed on time. This week that changes! If  I get enough sleep during the night, I won't have to sleep during nap time, so ...