redeemed–to compensate for the faults or bad aspects of (something)..

(in this case, a bad grilled cheese)

good morning, it’s Wednesday and my children started their school year yesterday with a trip to school, wearing masks, and encountering a lesser populated classroom experience. It was good for them, good for me, good for this house.

I’m finally feeling like I am truly “back” after being at our cottage home on Jekyll Island for three months. And I credit the kids starting a new school year. The schedule works wonders. I’m laughing because it’s only been a day……….but Brittnee and I accomplished so much yesterday that I can sit here and relish a time of typing out a blog post and oh it feels so good to do so.

*****

This morning Brittnee called Sarah, “woman” and Sarah said, “I’m not a woman……. I haven’t even lost all my baby teeth.”

So then, Brittnee said to her, “When you do lose them all you still won’t be a woman yet.”

“Brittnee, you just burst her bubble,” said I.

“Someone had to,” says she.

Little conversations like this keep my heart full of joy on a continual basis.

I was looking for my laptop. I eventually found it in a laundry basket of clean clothes downstairs in the boy’s room and here I am, sitting on my bed……..

*****

So anyway, Brittnee thoroughly cleaned the kitchen yesterday.

This is a good image for the day…vacuuming, throwing things away, rearranging, sweeping, dusting, washing, organizing, and endless laundry to do. We even went to the post office and had time to do a little reading and watching TV together.

I concentrated on the Pantry. Oh my, it was a disaster. A mess in every sense of the word. As I cleaned, I emptied out old cereal and crackers into a bag and took it to the hens. We only have these two ladies now, but thanks to me getting my husband books about farming and homesteading, he readily agreed to Sarah’s and my slight pressure to get us new chicks. He cleaned the coop, got new water and feed containers, new mulch, fixed the fenced in area, sawed down broken branches from off the fence, and made everything look neat and tidy again.

Ready for our new up-and-coming egg layers! He bought 15 baby chicks of three different varieties; Rhode Island Red, Ameraucana, and Isa Brown.

****

David just came in my room (the door is open, which means “you are welcome”) to chat. He is talking about how his friend messaged him that I made muffins and he hadn’t even known yet (I had posted it on instagram) and then he told me that he maxed on dead lift but his video timed out before he even lifted the bar so it wasn’t recorded. He’s sitting on the recliner now quiet, I can continue now………

****

The boys got home from school and I stood in the kitchen talking to Caleb (I have to look up to see him now, he’s growing like a weed) and he began a story of woe about how “LUNCH was TERRIBLE! The only thing I look forward to at school is LUNCHTIME and it was GRILLED CHEESE MOM, a disgusting grilled cheese, the worse I ever had, the cheese was WEIRD and there was too much of it. It was like they melted the cheese in between two pieces of bread that wasn’t even TOASTED. It was SO bad!! I didn’t even know what lunch was gonna BE because they gave it to me in a BAG and it was terrible Mom.” Then Seth added his complaints, “I asked the lunch lady what the hot lunch was and she just put a grilled cheese in my bag, I could have had HAM.”

“Mom? Could you make us grilled cheese?”

I was surprised they even had the desire, but I gathered that the “terrible” disappointing school grilled cheese somehow had to be redeemed by yours truly. Plus they were hungry.

“I don’t have American cheese, only cheddar”

“That’s okay, we don’t care.”

“Alright, go ask David if he wants one, too.”

******

Brittnee just came in to complain to me about her Bible homework that she just did that should have taken maybe 10 minutes but it took her half an hour to do. “How am I supposed to know how the people in 1 and 2 Kings lived by faith? They were stupid!” (somehow this seemed profound to me, like being “stupid” or, “not relying on their own intelligence or knowledge” was a key to having child-like faith in God). She and David are both on the bed with me now………but I cautioned them NOT to be in sight of my screen or I wouldn’t be able to flow out a blog post.

Also, she’s wearing one of my shirts which was kinda a surprise. She said I had given it to her. It looks better on her, though, so I gave it to her again.

*******

I made the grilliest, toastiest cheesiest sandwiches with all my heart.

And got doubled hugged without even asking!!!!!!!!!!!!

Within seconds, the school grilled cheese was completely forgotten.

Moms, we got powers!!!

just saying!

David needed me to take him to his friends house to deliver a birthday gift. I had already been to town with Brittnee so I said “no” in my heart but wrote “of course!” to him (via texting). I said yes because one time I complained to my mom about having to take Jacob someplace before he got his license and she put it in perspective by telling me, “He depends on you, Shan”…….so thanks mom, your advice is evergreen.

Evergreen: universally and continually relevant: not limited in applicability to a particular event or date.

I got back from that errand and got busy making cookies for the kids, with Brittnee’s help. Once again, because Mom told me to. I could sense it, “The kids need cookies, Shan, especially since it was a busy day for them.” Rich took this photo of me holding the flour while Brittnee measured it out, I’m yelling at her not to pack it down, “KEEP FLOUR FLUFFY!!!” She’s the type that immediately packs it even more just to bug me, we are always laughing.

Waiting for the cookies to bake….they must be perfect!

thanks, mom! thanks, mom!

So that was yesterday. This morning, I made two dozen muffins (Ethan had seven) and am thinking about maybe going to the library later since Seth and Sarah are already done with school for the day. (they homeschool three days a week).