To break or not to break

We've been on summer break now for over a month. It's a working vacation. We're exploring new ways of living: hanging out laundry (or hanging in laundry, as it is gray in Michigan most of the days I do laundry), bringing down the food bill, getting used to not using air conditioning. The list will look familiar to anyone whose husband is working reduced hours. It's been fun and challenging. I've enjoyed The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyzyn very much.

The children have built with all the block sets we've got in the house. E and L are reading up a storm. J and R stay with K while I take E and L swimming 4 days a week. So we are very busy!

The break has allowed me to step back and think about what direction we're "shootin' fer." It's also given me time to assimilate some of the good of talks and visits I've had with my sisters and mother. (And here are some pictures on the blog, because it's nice to blog during a break! Recalling the visit pictured here is great. . .more than a little embarrassing when I discovered one of my children had colored all over one of my sister's children. . .)

I've thought about why it's not enough just to teach girls to be good housekeepers. If you give a girl a college education or a marketable skill, you've given her what she won't be able to get easily once she has a home and family. If she has an education or hard-earned skill, it's very likely she'll be able to pick up all the ins and outs of homemaking without much trouble. So here's a big thank you to my parents for oomphing me through college, despite all my desperate desires to be married with kids. Married with kids is great. But I see now that it's no time to go back for that college degree!

Here is a recent picture from a zoo trip. The girls love playing on the bronze statues all around the zoo. When they are more interested in the statues than in seeing more exhibits, we know it's about time to head home! Just before this photo was taken, the girls were playing "shoot the lions," "tame the lions," "ride the lions," "I'm a lion, too!" and "Let's be a lion family. . .R can be the baby lion!"

We loved the monkey exhibit, where we watched a mama monkey keep ahead of her little baby all around their enclosure. We gasped as she forcefully placed him on the chain links beside her some 10s of feet above the ground. But he was equal to it, despite his small size. When he got stuck, his big brother would come and help him out. He tried to nurse, but the mama wasn't interested in that, either. The few times the baby caught up, she'd only let him cling to her for several seconds before repeating the "disengage" routine.

This is the opposite of what we've observed of the robins in our back yard. Several weeks ago, we saw a small robin in the back yard. He had feathers, but not enough to fly. His mama hopped out of the bush and beckoned for him to join her under the lilacs. Nothin' doin'. She flew away and it was several minutes. . .the girls and I discussing whether we should "rescue" the baby before the neighborhood cats found him. . .before she flew back with some insect in her beak. She got close enough for the baby to just nip at the insect, and then hopped backward into the lilacs, the baby following her the whole way. The outcome for this particular robin family is hopeful. Since then, we've seen the fledgling hopping around with his sibling, both of them being fed by the parent robins, who are looking skinnier and skinnier as the juveniles get larger and larger. Not for long, though. Just today we saw our juveniles attempting to "dive for worms" by themselves. Not very successfully, but with all the correct mannerisms of the parent robins: head to the side, hop, hop, look around, head to the side, peer into the grass, dive. . .

Time compression

So So much has happened in the last several months. E's birthday, with a splendid M&M birthday cake and, to her delight, her first Bible, was followed by her dropping her afternoon nap completely and losing her front two bottom teeth. K's birthday cake was more of a flop. . .or the candles were, at least. The cake hadn't cooled, and the warm temperature melted the bottom of the candles, which fell out of their holders. Doesn't it look like he's blown the candles over?

Our last trip of this "winter" was to Cincinatti, OH, to see friends, relatives, and the Creation Museum. Our plans were Providentially changed, and we got blizzarded into our hotel room and saw, well, our hotel room. And the next-door local Meijer. The girls and I took a trip with my mom to hear a senior piano recital at Wheaton College in Illinois. This classic picture shows that my siblings and I aren't the only ones to hold a three-way conversation in the "everyone has the floor at once" style.

When spring came, we planted a garden. I say "we," but really K and the girls did the majority of the work while I stayed inside feeling queasy. Here are some shots of L watering the apple tree, the dandelion plant, and the true garden, with the help of her enthusiastic sisters. Our most beautiful bulletin board to date was assembled between Easter and the following month. The best of the girls' projects get pinned up here. We had a lovely long spring break this semester, and are just finishing up the year before heading out to K's sister's wedding. The girls are already plotting what they will wear. Their junk jewelry is high on the list of "glorious" apparel appropriate for the occasion.

Courage

Today was a rough day at the end of a rough week. We came out of the weekend with a little stomach virus: enough to make everyone but me sick to varying degrees, but not enough to justify shutting down any work loads completely. I'm thankful that I never did succumb!

K sold our '85 Plymouth Reliant this week. Monday night we showed it to the prospective buyer, and she picked it up Tuesday morning. It was sad to see the car go: that dear old thing that took us down to TN on our honeymoon, and that I "personalized" when I was expecting L (the lamp-post didn't fare too well, either). Tuesday it was warm enough to walk outside. I bundled the girls just to be sure they were warm enough. E was alternately too hot or too cold the duration of the walk. In the process of taking off and putting on again, she inadvertently dropped a mitten, and we had to double back for it. I was so thankful we found it within a block of where we discovered it had gone missing!

The warm weather was not to last: it's been bitterly cold here for a couple of days. I've decided that, on the whole, I prefer "warm" snows to cold wind. Wednesday, we found the lid of our turtle sand-box in the front yard, and had to wrestle with the wind to get it back into the back yard. I was thankful that I didn't have to bundle everyone up that day to run around the neighborhood looking for a green turtle top! That afternoon, the four of us who were interested painted our toenails. Not alternating red and green, which we did in December, but all shades of pink, purple and red. But first, I spent a good 45 minutes or so trying to salvage the library book that J dumped in the bathtub while I wasn't looking. I'm thankful the older girls alerted me as the second book was poised to follow hard after. We were able to rescue it from a similar fate. Tomorrow when we go for story hour at the library, I will be buying a new, slightly wavy, book for our shelf. I'm thankful it's a book that I like!

Nothing too earth-shattering happened today: just a long day at the end of a series of long days. I tried to remember Hezekiah's words to the people of Israel.

"Be strong and courageous, be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him: for there be more with us than with him: with him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD our God to help us, and to fight our battles. And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah king of Judah." II Chron. 32:7

I was not very successful in being strong and courageous. When K said that he'd be home later than planned, and would that be okay, I didn't outright say no, but I sure thought it. And it must have come across to him, because he revised his plan and brought some work home so he could be here with me. I'm such a wimp! Strong and courageous? Do I get another shot at that one tomorrow?

Colds and kinks

We had a lovely visit down to Indiana to visit friends and !!!sing psalms!!! in the new RPC building in Columbus. The psalm sing was recorded and posted on the church website, so for those who love to hear a psalm sung, feel free to check it out. (columbusrpc.org website, under sermons, "Psalm 103 and others" from 11/25/07) I actually am not technologically with it enough to make it work, but I'm sure K. can help me at some point.We also enjoyed time in Lafayette, helping friends pick out their Christmas tree, among other things. And L is now three. Enjoy some pictures of a cake and a kid with a cake. On the way back from IN, J and L entertained each other in the back seat. Here's a picture of J pretending to chew L's foot, and L just giggling and giggling about it. I've got a drippy nose, and kinks in my legs (although, unlike Mazy, the lazybird, they do NOT make me wish for a vacation way off at Palm Beach), but my woolen underwear (L.L.Bean, from thrift store for under a buck) are warm and toasty (which is probably why no Palm Beach is necessary). You might ask, how can you do woolen underwear? Aren't you allergic? Ah!!! the glory of cotton lining!!! Joanna is supposed to have a warm bath EVERY DAY to help her skin condition. Now to carve out time for that!!!

Wouldn't it be nice to be incorruptible? One of the reasons I love Jesus is that His things are incorruptible. The inheritance I have through Him is incorruptible (I Pet. 1:4). The Word of God is incorruptible. Jesus Himself was incorruptible, without blame. The writer to the Hebrews says, " For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. . ." And this high priest, Jesus, who is fitting for us because of his incorruptibility, has let me in on it! "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: if ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard. . ." I'm corruptible now, but Jesus has the power, through His death, to present me spotless. After all, I am of Jesus, and the things of Jesus are incorruptible.

L Winks

Here are some recent pictures of L practicing her new winking skill, and of the big girls playing in leaves from the trees in our yard. They helped me rake them. It was thrilling to be out in the wind wielding large tools against the big piles of leaves. Notice how low E sometimes wears her glasses? She likes to imitate K and look over them with a smirk. Except her smirk isn't at all smirky, as seen in the two close-ups of her.