Don't Call It Luck

I've been hearing a lot of comments lately about how lucky I am. You're so lucky to stay home with your kids. You're so lucky you get to homeschool. You're so lucky you have time to make dinner every night. I've been hearing it, not from the wounded and broken who have no other choice, but from happily married couples. Christians who have all the same options that I have.

I am lucky - don't get me wrong, although blessed is the better word. I love having time to sit and knit with my daughter while the tea steeps. I love cleaning out the broom closet to the very corners. I love reading Good Wives in the sunshine. I love home cooked meals and chocolate chip cookies and whole wheat pancakes on Saturday morning. I love school days and lazy days, work days and Sundays.

But it is not a matter of luck. Once we have kids, who demand everything of us, anything we do requires sacrifice. Going back to college requires sacrifices. Or running a business or serving your church. They all require a sacrifice of something. I have sacrificed a thousand little things I could have done. I have sacrificed a thousand days I might have called my own; a hundred nights of quiet sleep. I have sacrificed a thousand dollars I could have earned. I have had my eye on a better prize, on sweeter promises.

I wish they wouldn't call it luck. Not when they could wake up in the morning and make all the same sacrifices - and discover the same joy.

Listen to Alvin York, World War I hero, genuine mountain man (yes, that's his grammar, not mine) praising his mother. After reading this, my own sacrifices seem slight.

...Father built the log house at the spring and that's where most all of us were borned and growed up. The children kept coming right smart until there were eleven of us. Mother had to work from sunup often until ten o'clock at night to keep us clothed and fed...She milked the cows, made the butter; she looked after the hogs and chickens. She made the soap and the tallow candles and fixed the grease for the lamps. She carded the wool and spun and wove the cloth and made all our clothes. She was a good mother to us, and with Father she brought us all up and we are living today. We're all strong and healthy and well and she enjoyed every moment of it. She enjoyed life much more in those days, so she says, slaving and working for us, than she does today, Jes quietly living with us with not much to do or bother about.

She jes didn't have time to worry or be unhappy. Life tried to crowd in on her and bust her up right smart and she jes wouldn't let it nohow. She knowed what she wanted - she wanted her home, her husband, and her own children, and she knowed she would have to pay for those things with work and sacrifice, so she was willing. That's a mother for you!

I know what I want. I am willing to pay for those things with work and sacrifice. I am willing, not lucky.

Glories of the Day

These days Arden and I are reading about the incomprehensible devastation that was Gettysburg. The Wheat Field, the Peach Orchard, Devil's Den: all unimaginable. Lines of men marching (men like us) under the bronze July skies, across open fields, to fall en-masse, and die alone. Arden glories in the generals, the battle maps, the strategy, the heroes.

Kara and I are reading Good Wives. Arden can't help himself: he listens too. Thus far Good Wives is all sweetness and joy. Domestic bliss, noble poverty, and twins. Today Jo winced and groaned as she dressed to go calling. She was altogether too much like Kara herself, preparing for church. I enjoyed the scene just a bit too much.

In my rare moments of domestic bliss, I am working on a pair of socks for Kara. I just finished the first sock tonight. My handmade knitting basket will join me in the quiet moments for a couple more weeks. A finished sock provides a wonderful sense of satisfaction.

To Slow and Ponder

Too often I am a speed reader. Too often I speed read the Word of God. But I think God's Word is meant to be savored. His Word is meant to be meditated, pondered, and prayed over. Though I know these are not the words of any ordinary book, I find it hard to change speed when I transition from the novel to the Words of Life.

I have borrowed a tool from the kids' school days: copywork. The process of reading, remembering, and writing the Psalms helps me to slow. To ponder. To give the Word of Christ the consideration it is due. This is a discipline I plan to continue; when I finish the Psalms I'll pick an Epistle of Paul, perhaps, and appreciate it as I ought to.

"May I learn from you, who are Truth, 

and may I put close to your mouth the ear of my heart..."

St. Augustine 

What I'm Reading in 2013 (Maybe)

Back by popular demand: a blog post. And per special request of my mom,

2013 Reading Goals

Christian Books:

1. Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices

2. Calvin's Institutes

3. Augustine's Confessions

4. Imitation of Christ

5. Shaping of a Christian Family - Elliot

6. Desiring God

7. Give Them Grace - Fitzpatrick

8. Holiness - Ryle

9. Resolution For Women

10. When Sinners Say I Do

(Other options...in case the above are too few...smile...Letters of Rutherford and City of God)

Biographies:

11. My Heart In His Hands

12. A Chance to Die

13. Passion for the Impossible: the Life of Lillias Trotter

14. Killing Lincoln

15. Becoming Dickens

Classics:

16. Mill on the Floss

17. Jane Austen Book

18. Jane Austen Book (I mean to read one a year and skipped last year, this is make-up work)

19. Anna Karenina (maybe??)

20. Herodotus

21. Plutarch's Lives

Other:

22. Shelby Foote's Civil War Vol. II

23. Shelby Foote's Civil War Vol. III

24. Lonesome Dove

25. Book on keeping chickens (maybe someday?...sigh)

26. EntreLeadership

27. Financial Peace

28. Another book on finance

(I'm thinking of reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I might finally be ready.)

If you have a very good memory, or the patience to check, you'll notice there are several titles that were also on last year's list. I did not read "well" last year - at least in terms of meeting my goals. Perhaps I need fewer 700 plus page books on my list, at least during my mothering years. Maybe next year; this year I'm still planning ambitious goals.

These 28 titles leave a little room for fun. And there's always fun to be had at the library.

 You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.

C.S. Lewis

Cost Comparison

What we ate for dinner tonight:

• White Bean Rosemary Soup (The author of this blog is a Mormon; I am not. Just so you're aware.)
• Cabbage slaw with apples and apple cider vinegar dressing
• Roasted zuchini
• Buttermilk biscuits with butter and strawberry jam (these also fulfill the need for dessert!)

While we ate I did some figuring in my head. This dinner came in at around $4. It was quite cheap until I added the biscuits. The shortening and butter made the cost climb quickly. 

Last night, after his meeting, Bryan surprised me with a Decaf Grande Mocha from Starbucks. I loved the surprise. I loved the mocha.

At the table tonight one of the kids quips, "This whole dinner costs less than your mocha last night." You see, there is a certain amount of guilt in drinking away the equivalent of an entire meal to feed a family of six. Kids are very good at cost comparison.

Mass Production: Cocoa Mix and Chai

We are all stocked up for winter. Applesauce in the freezer. Hot cocoa and chai mix tucked in the cupboard. The staples of life, right? Maybe not, but little pleasures certainly. I'll share my recipes for the chai mix and cocoa. I don't often have a cup of either, they have too much sugar. But the kids love them. And best of all, they keep my husband happy. The only warning I'll issue is that this is a dusty process. You might need to wipe down your cupboards afterwards and you must blend the mixture. That is the part of the process that helps the mix dissolve well in hot water.

Chai Tea Mix

2 c. sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

3 c. powdered milk

1 ½ c. instant tea

2 tsp. ginger

2 tsp. cinnamon (I often leave this out)

1 tsp. ground cloves (and sometimes leave this out too)

1 tsp. ground cardamom

In a small bowl combine sugar and vanilla and allow to dry.  After it has dried out; break up any clumps. In a large bowl mix all ingredients.  In a blender, blend the mix, 1 c. at a time until it is a fine powder.  Put the mix into containers and attach the following instructions:

            For each mug of tea, mix 2 rounded tablespoons of chai tea mix with hot water.

Hot Cocoa Mix

16 c. powdered dry milk

1 ¼ c. cocoa powder

5 c. sugar

½ tsp. salt

In large bowl, mix all ingredients well and store in an air tight container.  Run it through the blender for a smooth hot cocoa mix.

Package in glass canning jars and attach a card that says:

            For a delicious cup of hot cocoa, put 1/3 c. mix into a large mug, pour in boiling water, and stir.

The Fall Garden

Lettuce -  coming in

Kale - with itty bitty curls

Swiss Chard - bugs love organic greens, especially the chard

Basil - hoping the seeds mature before frost

Lettuce -  thinnings for the salad bowl

Basil - for the freezer

The summer garden was a failure. We are thankful for our fallback plan: the grocery store. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. To date, the fall garden is growing nicely. Except the Swiss Chard. The bugs have a love affair with the chard, entire plants suddenly disappearing. Consumed so ravenously I can only find a quarter inch of red stalk pressed down into the dirt. I am incredibly grateful for the fallback.

Fall Friends: The Turtles

Arden and I had just finished reading Minn of the Mississippi when we spotted the first turtle. It was making its way up the neighbor's driveway. It was old, the old crack in the shell speaking of a hard life. It was shy, not moving as long as we were in sight. Arden was thrilled, a real, live turtle. A snapper, like Minn, would have been more exciting, but not much.

We see turtles every fall. Only in the fall. They make their way through our yard, going where turtles go when its fall. We usually see just one. Sometimes two. This year three. It's a good year for turtles.

The fellow with the gaudy orange spots wasn't the least bit shy and he was in a bit of a hurry. His legs churned the whole time we held him, and he ran, a turtle sort-of-a-run, as soon as we set him free.

And the baby was a singularly wonderful surprise. Everybody loves a baby.

What We Ate For Dinner Tonight

You're curious, aren't you? What did we eat? Why would I post about our dinner? The answer...there is no good reason at all. I wanted to and I'm not worried that you won't be impressed.

Bryan is out of town. Last night we had McDonald's for dinner. I won't lie, we enjoyed it. We have not eaten there in ages, but the kids were convinced they could win the Monopoly game after just one meal. I remember the unbounded optimism I had when I was ten, so I humored them.

Well, tonight I made Black Bean burgers, oven fries (with olive oil and skins on), and fruit smoothies. It struck me that it was similar to what we ate last night, only made with the foods we eat at home. That struck me as funny.

And that is what we ate for dinner tonight.

In Review: One Week Off

A well-deserved week off was a pleasure. No school work hanging over heads. No guilt. No ridiculously inflated plans. My only mistake was in putting off until the end of the week all my outdoor activities. We had a rainy weekend. A rainy weekend is always lovely, but a few of my plans came to naught.

What did I do?

• The living room curtains.
• The front hall closet.
• Moved the rose bush.
• Painted the pantry. The white paint is quite spiffy. Today Ally and I did some pantry reorganization.
• Ally sewed doll clothes by herself. I did help her a bit one afternoon this week instead.
• Sorted through storage boxes. This was an ordeal. The kids had been in the closet and reorganized all the boxes into a fort. Before I could begin sorting there was a 2 hour clean up session. In the end I had 3 trash bags for Goodwill and a couple of boxes of clothes for a friend. This is very impressive. You could ask why I had all that junk sitting around in the first place, but be kind and don't mention it.
• I bought a box of apples from a "wholesale guy." It was one of those "Arkansas" experiences. Sometimes I have them. He sold a bushel of apples for only $15. This seemed like a really good deal, about 36 cents a pound. They were quite soft, so we hustled and made 52 cups of applesauce (plus what we ate while we worked). We froze it in Ziploc bags; 4 cups to a bag.

We finally made it to the apple orchard this week. We only picked two small bags of apples. Just enough for eating fresh. I am hugely frustrated with the Christmas knitting. I've been searching, for days, for the pattern I was sure I had kept. I was sure I had knitting patterns in only two file folders. That was a misplaced confidence. I have found patterns in three places and am still searching. This always happens to me. I think I am organized, but I'm not. Not really.

The time I spent on the couch watching a movie with Arden, in the middle of the day (gasp!), might have been better spent organizing. The hours I spent reading The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection could be considered wasted. Or I could consider it a little vacation. A vacation to a sunny land in which food, cooked with love, undoubtedly tastes better and a mechanic judges a man's character by the car he drives. A vacation under a sunny African sky, with a "traditionally built" woman drinking red bush tea at a rate of 100 cups per week, and where good-hearted, common sense people triumph in the end.

"Do not take on a traditionally built person unless you are prepared for a heavyweight bout."

That, my friends, is good, common sense. And maybe part of the appeal of Alexander McCall Smith's book is the appeal of a culture that moves at different pace, not constantly measuring what they have accomplished in a day. Or a week. In that sense it may have been the perfect book for my week off.

Fall Break

We are celebrating here this week. Celebrating having finished nine weeks of school. Celebrating by going to the library, enjoying lazy mornings, and lazy afternoons, and lazy evenings.

I gave a few moments of consideration to attempting a Fall Cleaning. It would have been ambitious. It would have resulted in a clean house top to bottom. It would have been a good use of my time. It would also have been a lot of work. Even mom gets worn out by the school schedule: it's very time consuming.

Instead I opted to complete one big project each day. One project I've been putting off. One project that has felt overwhelming. I will accomplish a few things I can feel good about and still have time for the library books I checked out. (I am always overly optimistic in the library.)

So far here is what I have done:

• My living room curtains shrunk last time I washed them. I let out the hem, ironed, stitched, washed and re-hung them. It took almost all day. That's why my curtains have looked silly for so long.
• Cleaned out the front hall closet. The shoes were piled high. Six people times five pairs (or so) each equals a disaster. Of course, there were also outgrown coats, discarded tee-shirts, books, marbles, and other detritus of life with children.

I have a long list of ideas for the last three days of the week. You see, I can't do it all. I'll dream big and pick and choose.

• Pick more apples. Make more applesauce. Try homemade applesauce fruit leather and oven-dried apples.
• Plant one more batch of lettuce and Swiss chard in the garden. Move a rose bush.
• Sort through the storage boxes in one closet.
• Sew doll clothes with Ally.
• Paint. I have enough leftover paint to spiff up the pantry and my TV stand. But I probably only have enough time to do one.
• Start knitting Christmas presents.

Hooray for joyful, lazy mornings, busy days and weather that allows for open windows and lots of time outside!

In the Kitchen

Yesterday was the grandmaster, homemade, chewy granola bar bake-off. We tried five different recipes trying to balance the store-bought taste with a nod to healthy eating. The recipe using marshmallows was quite tasty, but not what I want for a long term solution. The recipe that tasted an awful lot like an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie didn't win either. Nut butters are obviously out, though I scrolled through pages and pages of those recipes. Here's our winner at Brown Eyed Baker. Thankfully, most recipes claim the bars can be frozen, and we have a whole stack that went into the freezer. We will eat them down, then mass produce our favorite kind. Extensive math yielded a cost of 20 cents per bar, our size bar that is. Our size is slightly larger than the kind you pull out of the box and unwrap. While they may not exactly be "healthy," they at least fall into the category of "you know what's in them."

We picked apples two weeks ago. We've eaten and cooked to our hearts content and have been slowing down, the apples being neglected. Today I cooked a giant pot of apples down into a little bit of applesauce. With a bit of sugar and a good dose of cinnamon, the kids ate it out of the pan so fast I thought I was going to run out. My goal was one jar to stick in the freezer for wintery days. (I hate canning! So I'm certainly freezing anything I make.) It's no survival plan, but still satisfying to have made it ourselves.

Strawberry Bluff

There are no road signs to all of the best places. Merrily setting off on a birthday picnic, only the sketchiest of directions from a friend, we followed the road until it became gravel. We curved left through the stand of pines, followed by a left turn on Forest Service Road 1444, marked on the maps but not in real life. Then things became a bit confused, the road forked. Left or right? Our directions at that point only said to continue up the mountain. We chose left, bumping along, feeling quite adventurous. Arden, in the back seat, was yelling, "Death ride." Hyperbole, perhaps, but things were getting worse not better on that road clearly not designed for the family van. After a ten point turn, we headed back and took the fork to the right. Then up the mountain. We parked, "where the road gets wider." We followed a short trail, unmarked, and were out on Strawberry Bluff. We think. One can never be quite sure.

We picnicked on baguettes and Havarti and Brie, grapes and strawberries, French biscuits and lemonade. We sat in the sun, we kept the little ones far from the edge of the cliff. We admired the view and found the farm where we pick berries and apples. Then we watched the sun set, and wound our way back down the mountain.

A Phantom Life

What if I lived to be forgotten? In this age of accomplishments, accolades, achievement, platforms, and posturing, what if I lived as if none of this mattered.

A history professor we know says historians are speculating that 1000 years from now only two Americans will be remembered. The first president, George Washington, and the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong. Immediately I want to press this list. What about Jefferson? What about...? Only two? How many of us even know much about our great-grandmothers. Can you name them? Or great-great-grandmothers?

Then I think back 1000 years ago. How many names can I name? William the Conqueror comes to mind first, 1066, you know. But who else? Not many others. There may have been 275 million people alive then. There have been a lot of forgotten people.

I say this not to be depressing. I think maybe it is good to know my place in the world. I've been asking myself how knowingly living a forgotten life might change how I live each day. This is what I am musing on today.

LORD, make me know my end...let me  know how transient I am. Behold, Thou hast made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing in Thy sight, surely every man at his best is a mere breath. Surely every man walks about as a phantom...

And now, Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in Thee.     - Psalm 39:4-7

Ally's Dollhouse Desk

We painted Ally's desk. Clean and white, like a doll house table. We followed the instructions on Young House Love, except we used a brush and sanded with very fine grain sand paper between coats. The desk is still not perfect, you can see a few brush streaks.

We think it much improved from the days it belonged to the raccoons, obviously having done a good bit of cleaning and sanding before we took that picture.

Opening the Father's Hand

In the mind of English Puritans prayer was a duty. Prayer may have been a duty of delight, but still a duty. Duty: a moral obligation, a required action.

In my own mind prayer has been an act of worship, therefore an emotional response. I pray when I feel like it. Or I've thought of prayer as a gift. I'm not gifted. I rarely feel like praying. Just not a prayer - my common excuse. Then, too, prayer takes time. I must slow, I must quiet my soul, and those are qualities too rare in all of our lives.

I am reading William Bridge, A Lifting Up for the Downcast. A Puritan who published these thirteen sermons on Psalm 42 in 1649. It seems even then people did not "go to duty" as they should have. Bridge urges not discouragement, instead gives comfort and recommends humility. Come to God as a beggar.

Hundreds of years later the heart of man is unchanged, still sinful before a holy God, still fighting for our own ways. But God also is unchanged, faithful, with mercies new every morning.

Indeed, God seems to deal by us sometimes as a father does by his little child. He holds a piece of gold or silver in his hand, and says, If you can get this out of my hand you shall have it; so the child strives and pulls, and works, and then the father opens his hand by degrees, first one finger, then another, and then another, and at last his whole hand; and the child thinks he has got the money by his own strength and labour, whereas the father intended to give it him, but in that way.

 -  From Chapter 3: A Lifting Up In the Miscarriage of Duty      

A little pulling, a little working, a little labor, a little opening of the Father's hand.

On Reading

In a conversation with a fellow book lover, soon after pleasantries, there is always the inevitable question, "So what are you reading?" This is old, familiar, comfortable ground. This is just what I wanted to talk about. And a true book lover is inevitably reading something I want to go and find myself. I leave each conversation with a library list.

Book lovers keep to another well-worn path. One, who claimed to be a bad reader (a claim I know to be false), told me he never read Shelby Foote's novels because he had learned Foote was good friends with Walker Percy and that launched a complete reading of Walker Percy. This is how it goes. Thomas Merton, who wrote The Seven Storey Mountain, comes recommended,in part, because he was a friend of C.S. Lewis.

I'm making slow but steady progress on my book list for the year. Reading Money Saving Mom the other day I was discouraged by the numbers, then tempted to turn up my nose. "Well, of course you can read more than twice as many books as me if that's what you read." But, aside from the Bible, it doesn't really matter. I have seven books on this year's reading list over 700 pages. As of August that seems too ambitious. Playing the comparison game I was tempted to count each as three or four books. But it doesn't really matter whether I reckon them as seven or 21. I chose Shelby Foote not for the 700 pages, but because I was interested, and his Civil War Trilogy was highly recommended. And if I read Foote, then I'll want a Walker Percy volume to go along with it.

A Bush in the Desert

A bush in the desert. A man living in stony wastes. A land of salt without inhabitant.

This is how Jeremiah describes those who trust in mankind. A man who makes flesh his strength. A man who turns from the LORD.

There is an austere beauty in the Arizona desert, in the forests of cacti. It is not like the deserts of the Bible: deserted places without bushes, or even weeds, to give beauty. The eye seeks and finds only dirt, stones, and barren hills. A wasteland. So is the man who trusts in human flesh. Whether I look for satisfaction in government, in the influence of men, in family, a friend, or my husband, all are sure to leave me empty. Or if I place my confidence in self, my heart would be a land of salt.

In ancient times after the victorious army sacked a city, tore down the walls, and burned the houses, as the final insult they would sow the ground with salt. Ground, sown with salt, cannot sustain crops. In the days before refrigerated trucking, to sow the fields around a city with salt was the final death blow (at least in theory, in actuality it didn't always work). If a city could not grow food, it could not rebuild; their name and memory could be extinguished. Think of the Dead Sea, nothing survives there.

In chapter 17:7-8 Jeremiah goes on describe the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD, using words echoing Psalm 1.

He will be like a tree planted by the water,

That extends its roots by a stream

And will not fear when the heat comes;

But its leaves will be green, 

And it will not be anxious in a year of drought

Nor cease to yield fruit.

Trust in the LORD is the way out of the desert. The LORD plants us, that He may be glorified, by streams of living water. Living water draws down our roots, and trees with deep roots are drought tolerant trees. Though the summer should be hot and dry, though the rain doesn't fall from heaven, though it is a time of fear, the planting of the Lord is green and bears fruit.

I have left behind the desert wastes. He has transplanted my heart from dry, rocky soil and set me down beside streams of life. I pray the conquering King would go back and sow salt in the soil of my flesh. Tear down the walls of self-confidence and leave an uninhabitable wasteland, so that my hope, my confidence, my joy and my satisfaction, are in the Lord Jesus Christ. In Him alone.

No Tricks, No Easy Ways

I was organizing the papers and books beside my bed. The tower of books is still dangerously high, threatening to topple when I add the seventh or eighth book to the top. There is still a little pile of notes on bits of paper. I still have work to do. One small scrap caught my eye. The very words I wanted to inspire me in the midst of this season of life. I carried it downstairs and left it lying around, first in the dining room then on the kitchen counter. I have been reading it once or twice a day, saying it aloud to the kids, saying it aloud to myself as I tackle the next little task. If the quote becomes my ethic, my habit, then success (as a wife, and a mama, and a homemaker, and a disciple, and a teacher, and a student ~ monetary success being far from my thoughts here) may follow, though the paper was long since crumpled and thrown in the trash can.

Success travels in the company of very hard work.

There is no trick, no easy way.

John Wooden

God Has Begun to Speak Peace

Do you want peace and inward quietude of soul? Whensoever the Lord then does begin to speak the least peace to your heart, take heed that you do not refuse it, but rather improve it (put it to good use), and stir up yourselves then in a way of believing. Praise God for every smile, and rejoice in the least. If a bowed (bent) sixpence, as it were, be sent you from heaven, lay it up, even every love token. Peace is a tender thing. Does the Lord speak peace to any of your souls? now stir up yourselves in a way of believing and Christ will give you more.      ~ William Bridge, A Lifting Up for the Downcast, 1649

I don't mean to be a perfectionist. Still, I am. God has promised peace, joy, love, fruits of the Spirit, Christlikeness. Why not now? In my flesh I say: let's skip daily death, frequent repentance, constant reliance, Spirit conviction. I would skip ahead and be done. Holy living, have it now.

I find holy living elusive. Sure, I avoid the big sins (by the grace of God). But there are plenty of little sins that make their way out every day. There are plenty of dark corners in my heart. I get discouraged.

Has God given me any peace? Well, certainly, lots of peace. Then I want to qualify, but not perfect peace. However peace is not an all or nothing proposition. Has He begun to speak peace? Put it to good use. Make the most of it. This is only the beginning. Rejoice in every gift from heaven, no matter how small. Hide His love tokens in the secret places of the heart and cherish them. Believe and Christ will give more.

I've been carrying these words in my head since I read them. God promises faithfulness that is new every morning. God promises good gifts tomorrow. What use will I make of them?