Jacob, day 1: a special day for a first year

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Shanda

There is something about watering a garden with buckets of water from the pond (because the hose doesn’t work) throughout a dry spring to make a woman deep down grateful to wake up to a fresh morning of drenching rain. If I close my eyes, I can almost see the water trickling down-down-down into the dry earth. I can almost imagine the rate of growth on the next sunny day in our small vegetable patch. How satisfying it is to be a part of all that is happening outside.

Meanwhile, inside the house this morning I have been busy cleaning and thought I would take a break to type up a little blog post. This will start a week of my oldest son Jacob as the main subject of this little corner of the internet.

Yes, this is Jacob’s week, with so many blessings unfolding for him. It really all began on Friday when he went to the store to do this:

Yes indeedy, he gave gifts to his sweetheart to mark their anniversary. One year ago he and Emily started their relationship, and such a sweet couple they make. In fact, they are currently both on the couch watching “International House Hunters” right now. 🙂

Their anniversary was Friday and we planned a beach day for Saturday. Rich was gone last week on business so I was a bit on the *worn to a frazzle* side. He would not have minded making it a family day but I asked him if we could leave six of the children home and just take Jacob and Emily. It was a most brilliant idea…the whole day from start to finish was wonderful.

(I just had to leave and come back from the school. Ethan and Grace are now home after a morning of finals).

We went to Panera for breakfast. Everyone was happy and goofy, including my husband. It was nice to see him relaxed and enjoying a day off from work. After breakfast we continued to the shore. We arrived at about 8:30 in the morning.

That’s Jacob and Emily making a sandcastle together.

I sat in the beach chair for a while reading magazines. It was such a treat to relax and not have to worry about children wandering off or getting pulled into the ocean.

The finished sandcastle.

Rich and I went on a walk down the beach. The water was cold but the weather was lovely, warm with a cool breeze. The sun didn’t start blazing down on us until later on.

They showed us their bucket of sandy crabby creatures when we returned.

We dozed in the sunshine….again, I was so grateful to just melt into the towel, knowing that there was no one that needed to be watched.

We took a foursome selfie before we left the beach for lunch.

So thankful to have kids who enjoy being with us!

Buttery lobster roll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Salt potatoes and an ice cold Pepsi (a rare treat)! Wonderful lunch. We were all good and famished and enjoyed every bite.

Then we headed into Madison, CT, just a few miles down the road, to our next stop.

R.J. Julia Booksellers…a wonderful bookstore.

There were signed celebrity photographs all over the walls. I bought a paperback, a magnet for the fridge, and some yummy chocolate.

I stopped to admire these beautifully leafed geraniums.

We drove on home because the kids had to be back by 3:30 for further adventures. But just before our outing was officially over, we stopped at Carvels for some cones. I had the Reeses soft serve. Yum!

Our day, which is a highly recommended itinerary if you get the chance to visit the CT shore. 🙂

(Panera, for breakfast)
Hammonasset Beach State Park
Joe and Lenny’s Fish Tale, for lunch
R.J. Julia Booksellers
(Carvel)

{this moment}

Posted on June 12, 2015 by Shanda

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous. Aristotle

what would the wise woman do?

Posted on June 11, 2015 by Shanda

(i took this picture while flat on my back)

I ask myself this hypothetical question often, “What would the Wise Woman do?” and I asked it this morning after dropping a child off at school for a final exam. I would have to return to the school after 2 hours to pick him back up.

I like to pretend that the wise woman is my Mom, my Grandma, or my dearest friend. What would they tell me to do when faced with a certain decision? Somehow it makes it easier to find the right thing to do when imagining what they would do.

I felt depleted physically and run down mentally, from days of rushed activity. So I asked myself.

What would the wise woman do with two hours?

She would drive into town for a favorite drink and an apple juice for the preschooler, find a quiet table near the window and sit for as long as she wanted.

She would write a list of thankfulness with a pen on a paper napkin.

She would say “yes” to walking to the empty park nearby.

She would lay back in the grass under a bright blue sky and let the hot sunshine melt away that sinus headache and listen to the birds and her little daughter singing as she played.

She would loiter everywhere she walked…slowly…taking everything in.

Sh would really taste that iced chai tea, down to the last drop.

That’s what the wise woman told me to do. And that’s what I did. Thank you, wise woman!

singing we go along life’s road

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Shanda

I took Sarah to the doctors this morning and she has exactly what Seth and David had. It’s this weird cold that fills their heads up with mucus, I know that sounds gross but honestly….when I gave David mucus relief pills it would run out his eyes and nose! Sarah has pink eye from it. They are swimming in fluid, it’s so odd. It’s like the cold from “the bad place”…Evil Cold. LOL Sarah had fluid in her ears, one was infected, her left lung had bronchitis, she coughs like a bad muffler (?), pink eye, and sinus infection..her nose does not run, it goes right down the back of her throat.

I went to Target to get her meds and cans and cans of chicken soup and Ramen noodles. I never buy those ramen noodles anymore because they are basically empty calories but you would have thought I bought home shrimp and steak the way six of my kids immediately made themselves a pot of noodles after school. Makes me kinda wonder why I slave in the kitchen…….(not really)…I want my kids to eat healthy, and we do…but Dr. said lots of chicken noodle soup so that’s what they’re getting. Along with decongestant, antibiotics (for those that need them), saline spray up the nose (each with their own labelled bottle). Lysol, etc, bleach, fumigator.

When we got home she fell asleep in my bed. I had to wake her up an hour later to go get Jacob and Ethan. Seth had a “thing” at school today at 2. I wrote a note telling the teacher I couldn’t go but when Seth realized it he said with big troubled eyes, “You have to go!” So I ripped up the note and I got Jacob from school early (his last class didn’t matter) so he could watch Sick Sister Sarah. Ethan is sick so I picked him up early along with Jacob.

I’m so glad I didn’t miss Seth’s event. The parents had to wait by the main entrance and their child came to them with flowers saying, “thank you for coming”. So Seth did that, it melted my heart, he was so proud and wasn’t sure if he should hold my hand or not. He wanted to, I know, but was a little shy about holding Mom’s hand in front of his friends. He sat me down at a placemat that he made himself and we filled out our food requests for a snack. Did we want fruit? yes. Did we want cheese? yes. Did we want pretzels? yes. Did we want Summer Juice? “What’s summer juice? I asked….”it’s lemonade”. Yes.

The children were all called forward to receive a Kindergarten Certificate and their memory books. Then, the children served their parent(s) the snacks. After we ate, the kids sang us a song.

I had the great joy to sit with a friend who is going through the same thing as I am: a child graduating from 12th grade, and a child ending Kindergarten in the same year. In fact, this woman’s daughter was Jacob’s prom date last year. She’s so friendly and kind, too bad I found out today that she is moving away. But it was fun to chat with her. It was all special and I felt sad to think I almost missed out and caused Seth such a let-down, can you imagine him with no one? thank you Lord. And thank you to the boys for watching Sarah.

I was back home after an hour. Sarah was in my bed again, sleeping. She’s still sleeping as I type. Seth is outside the window riding his scooter, Grace is still at school, Jacob and Ethan are sleeping, and I don’t know what Caleb and David are doing but I have to take them to the fields soon for Little League games. (Dave has been on antibiotics for a week so he’s perking up).

Anyway, Grace and I sang a duet last week at our piano and we recorded it for our FB friends, I thought I would post it here, too, so my bloggy friends can watch, and my parents, too.

“It is easier to sing your worries away than to reason them away. Why not sing in the morning? Think of the birds–they are the first to sing each day, and they have fewer worries than anything else in creation. And don’t forget to sing in the evening, which is what the robins do when they have finished their daily work. Once they have flown their last flight of the day and gathered the last bit of food, they find a treetop from which to sing a song of praise!”

“Oh that we might sing morning and evening, offering up song after song of continual praise throughout our day!”

(quote from page 182 of Streams)

PS, Grace just got home from school and is making herself Ramen noodles.

the backpack

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Shanda

I’ve been enjoying the gardens this spring, more than I ever have. I think it’s because for the first time in almost 2o years I don’t have any children younger than five years old. Although with Seth in my life it is still questionable whether I should turn my back on him…for the most part the children can be trusted to play while I lose myself in the garden for brief periods of time.

I want to fill the house with vases of lilacs.

This is six year old Seth in the stream, peering into the pipe that allows the water to run under the road near our house. He was looking for snake skin. It is common knowledge to the boys that the local snakes use these pipes to pull dead skins off themselves. He counted six of them but after reaching one, he would not get the rest because he also saw a spider.

This morning Seth had a hard time waking up and getting motivated for a day of Kindergarten. He tried the typical “I don’t feel good” but I wasn’t falling for it. I put together his backpack and was quite pleased that I made him a nice lunch and remembered to put the strawberries in his bag for tomorrow’s event. I hung his bag on the doorknob right where he could grab it on his way to the bus. 20 minutes later the bus came…..and what in the??? no backpack to be found–was I going crazy?….I started running around the kitchen as the bus sat and waited. “WHERE is your backpack?” “I don’t know!” “I’ll bring it to you when I find it!” Seth looked at me in shock when I (GENTLY) pushed him out the door. He couldn’t believe that he had to go to school without it. It took some persuading to get him on the bus.

I found the backpack LOCKED IN THE BATHROOM.

I had to drive it to school.

When he gets home I am going to have to talk to him about ~~problem solving, creative thinking~~, telling the truth, responsibility, and the fact that the little trust I had in him is now damaged.

Anyway, back to the snakes. After pocketing the one snake skin that he was able to reach from the pipe, and the two of us talking a lot about how a snake takes it’s skin off like that and whether humans also shed skin (hard to explain), we entered the field not far from our house. I was on a quest to see if the wild rose bush was in bloom.

The wild rose bush was neatly clipped off at the end of each branch (deer?) with no buds to be seen on it (so disappointing) but we did find some wild strawberries.

Little ruby treasures.

There was spit everywhere…..inside of the spit there are little spit bugs to be found…

….they look like this.

water reflections in our pond

the daisies are in bloom

There was a nest was nearby and he did his best to keep me away from it by constant chirping.

This morning I have a cold, Sarah is coughing up a storm, and Ethan is home from school feeling wretched. The entire outdoors is in gloomy suspended animation as we wait and wonder if it will rain. A cool breeze blows through now and then, causing the wind chimes to flutter and play it’s notes.

“He satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.” Psalm 107:9

{this moment}

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Shanda

{this moment} ~ A Friday ritual. A single photo – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Shanda

“When Victor Hugo was more than eighty years old, he expressed his faith in this beautiful way:

‘Within my soul I feel the evidence of my future life. I am like a forest that has been cut down more than once, yet the new growth has more life than ever. I am always rising toward the sky, with the sun shining down on my head. The earth provides abundant sap for me but heaven lights my way to worlds unknown.

“People say the soul is nothing but the effect of our bodily powers at work. If that were true, then why is my soul becoming brighter as my body begins to fail? Winter may be filling my head, but an eternal spring rises from my heart. At this late hour of my life, I smell the fragrance of lilacs, violets, and roses, just as I did when I was twenty. And the closer I come to the end of my journey, the more clearly I hear the immortal symphonies of eternal worlds inviting me to come. It is awe-inspiring yet profoundly simple.'”

From Streams in the Desert, by L.B Cowman

“This is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.” 2 Corinthians 4:16

meatloaf and a book

Posted on June 3, 2015 by Shanda

I made a new recipe last night from the Saving Dinner cookbook and it was really good.

I doubled the recipe and we ate one whole meatloaf, plus a quarter of the 2nd. The boiled potatoes weren’t a big hit but I will be making a small batch of Aunt Colleen’s fabulous potato salad with the leftovers. I peeled and sliced dark orange organic carrots for a side dish, too.

M A K E M I N E M E A T L O A F

1 teaspoon chili powder
salt and pepper, to taste
1 pound extra-lean ground beef
4 ounces corn kernels, drained and chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 cup soft bread crumbs
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/4 cup green pepper, chopped
1/3 cup barbecue sauce
Salsa

Preheat oven to 350.

Sprinkle chili powder, salt, and pepper over ground beef. Add corn, onion, bread crumbs, eggs, bell pepper, and barbecue save, mixing thoroughly. Using your hands, shape beef mixture into blobby loaf and place it on a rack in a shallow roasting pan (so it doesn’t swim in grease). Bake for 1 1/2 hours or until cooked through. Cut loaf into slices and spoon salsa over each serving.

NOTE* I used extra lean beef so I did the traditional method of baking in a loaf pan. I let the children use their own topping; ketchup, BBQ sauce, or salsa.

The timing may be a little off, but I am currently reading this book and am enjoying it very much. Enough that I’ll probably read it again in February.

thankful

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Shanda

“….but encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today….” Hebrews 3:13

Over the last two days we have had four inches of rain. This is good news considering the lawn was already turning brown and it’s only June 2. It’s been so nice not to have to carry water to my flowers.

I’m sharing miscellaneous photos today, like the one of Grace’s rabbit, who was allowed to explore the outdoors for the first time a few weeks ago, with Grace nearby, keeping a sharp look out.

I’ve been turning over lots of logs as we walk in the woods…we find lots of friendly little woodland creatures, mostly the large beetle many legged kinds, but sometimes we get to say hi to a lizard or two, they have the loveliest earthy homes. So cozy. And then I gently turn the logs back over for them.

All the women in my family love wild lady slippers.

water balloon fight on a very hot day

Rich was on a business trip last week and I was at one of many little league games. I watched the games and kept a casual eye on Seth and Sarah but at one point I couldn’t locate Seth. I walked all over the place trying to find him. I finally asked Dave, who was in the dugout at the time, if he had seen him…..and yes, it turned out he was up in the score box hanging out with the scorekeeper. He’s wearing the bright green neon shirt in the picture.

Much to my dismay, Mr.R, our neighbor whom Jacob works for, gave the boys a HUGE old TV to play with. They took it apart this weekend and it was nice, after all, to see them busily doing a project. There are now baggies of copper wire and what-not in my cupboard, and they very neatly put the pieces they didn’t want into the garbage.

With Rich in my line of vision, and the three youngest in the pond, it was hard to concentrate on my book.

Then the rest of the children marched by, on their way to what they call “the murder scene” far away in the woods…..Jacob, Emily, Grace, Zac, Ethan, and Dave.

The new chickies are growing nicely. They are now in the coop with the seven hens, which makes for a slight difficulty as I am very protective of the chicks and keep them shut in the coop tightly (all sorts of creatures love tender chick meat). I go down in the morning to let the older chickens out to roam around. Therefore, the hens can’t get back in as usual and have no where to lay their eggs and I don’t know what they are doing with them.

Snickers smiling on the front steps.

The late-bloom lilacs are blooming. They smell divine. I have a bouquet of them in the kitchen.

Emily gave Sarah presents for her birthday.

Time for Birthday Cake! Will Parker the dog get some? He looks so sad.

Five candles

We gave Sarah a scooter for her birthday and she loves it.

She loves the little knee and elbow pads, and the little gloves. We bought her a helmet, too, but when we went to put it on her we realized it had a crack in it already so we have to take it back.

She took her scooter to David’s late game on Saturday night. It was great fun watching her go all over the place on it. The wheels light up as they turn, so it was especially exciting for her as it got darker outside.

“Let us fix our eyes

on Jesus,

the author and perfecter of our faith.”

Hebrews 12:2

There is so much to be thankful for, especially the holy Spirit of God within our hearts, turning our dissatisfaction to contentment, our bitterness into love, our “poor me” attitudes into confidence and joy. He gets all the glory forever and ever. He makes all the difference..anything and everything that is beautiful is because of HIM alone.

You are loved.