Greetings!

I’m sorry I am a terrible blogger. And I thank you (all who continue to visit) for your care and friendship. I am not the same person I used to be. And yet, I am the same in the most important ways; heart, soul, and mind. Life is a journey and I shall rejoice and be glad.

I have a lot inside of me that I can’t seem to get out, I don’t have the words neat and clear yet. I don’t like having my blog private, it feels restrictive. So that right there; these two things; this already dampens my writing obsession.

Also, the children have taken over my computer. It’s rarely charged and rarely available. I could put my foot down; but I don’t care enough to do so.

I feel like I am in a waiting room. I’m stuck here for now. Some days are better than others.

And yet, here I am!! I’m doing it today!

I send lots of love to each of you. No matter what, you are loved. Do you feel it? If not, go look at the sky for a while……….look at the trees, and how the tops of them blow gently in the breeze. Notice the little wild things around you; the insects, the birds. Listen to water, of streams, of rain, of ocean. Watch how people smile at you and say hello. Perfect strangers with lights of friendship in their eyes! Hold a child close to you……. remember the Words of Life. Listen to music, read a good book. All these things are gifts.

I care a lot about people, and I want to care about you and love you. This blog is a sort of love letter, you know that? It’s mine, from my heart to yours.

This is the face of our little cottage by the sea. We live in a neighborhood of like cottages, they all look slightly different though, because people like to make things their own with different wreaths on the door, different gardens, little touches of personality, I notice them all as I walk or ride my bike. We have a wicker rocker on the front porch right now, which I had Seth carry from the back porch, but we are planning on finding something permanent in the next week. (Rich is taking next week off from work).

This is our downstairs back porch. It’s screened and there is a ceiling fan. You can see the top of Sarah’s head (just barely) she is inside watching TV so you see how the view is close to everything we do. We have a corn hole set (on the right), and it’s such fun to play in the evening when the back yard is in the shade (still hot though!).

The rope is the edge of our back yard, then there is sand and then the rocks. There is a walk-over on the right (not pictured) so it is easy for us to get to the water. However, at high tide we can’t go as the water is up the rocks. I have an app on my phone that tells me when the tide is rising and falling, it’s been such an education to learn the ocean’s ways. It’s always changing with different sunlight, weather, wind, tides, clouds or no clouds, smooth or rough. Such a delight to notice these things.

For example, sometimes the water reminds me of that old “fuzz” we used to get when a channel on the TV went out. The water glitters and moves just like that.

And then, another day, I just got settled with my book when a rain cloud opened up above me. It was the most magical experience to sit in the rain by the ocean. I took the photo right after it stopped, when the sand was so wet it became a mirror of the sky…….

Books read on the beach get rather abused. I’m sorry, books. (they are mine, not borrowed, don’t worry). I’m making memories with them! They are forever baked, wetted, and sanded by my hours reading.

I try to bake or cook in the mornings. Today I did bacon, eggs, and toast. The children were very appreciative; Sarah said, “I just love it when you make us breakfast.” And Seth said, “yes, it reminds me of home.” (to them, this is not home, CT is home.). My heart melts.

A few days ago I stood and sliced fresh peaches into a pie plate, I pulled apart fresh cherries to get the pits out and added them, too. Then I sprinkled on some frozen blueberries, and some sugar, and then a crumb topping. No recipe (signs of a maturing homemaker)…..

The cups are new, I found them at TJ Maxx and I had to have them because they made my heart sing. I love the very light beige color and the blue hydrangea pattern. I’m drinking iced tea out of one as I type this.

Rich likes to use heavy cream AND half n half in the coffee now which is so nice because that means I always have it on hand to whip up for a topping; here’s my fruit crisp on a fiestaware cinnabar small plate. I was VERY generous with the crump topping made from white/wheat flour, dark brown sugar, and good butter.

I opened up an organic avocado and found it was already growing, so I got potting soil but forgot a pot. I made my own out of a cardboard box……and yesterday I found the first sprout!

Rich’s morning alarm goes off at 7 and I spend a few lazy minutes in bed while he showers. Then, we get dressed, he makes the coffee, and we walk outside drinking it while he reads a devotional of the gospels out loud. He took this photo while I was waiting for him to get ready.

Some mornings, like today, I am too tired to get up and I sleep in.

I went to Brunswick, a town I love, to visit the library this week. I went by myself and it was food for the soul. I looked at a dollhouse book but spent the most time looking through a nature book filled with photos of New England plants and insects, butterflies and moths, berries, trees, etc. How charming, to know oneself, and delight in the things God gave me a passion to know about.

So when I saw this children’s illustration on instagram I immediately knew it was me.

When Rich and I came across a huge spider web I asked him to reenact the” illustration of me”; as you can see it didn’t turn out. However, it gave me a huge laugh. The spider IS in the photo, but he focused on me and my face instead.

Here’s the spider from my angle. It really was a very impressive personage. The web! So intricate. He wasn’t thrifty or stingy or lazy with his work. Recklessly (joyfully?) used TONS of webbing. I really should go try to get a better photo of the web, it’s quite hard to photograph, or maybe I can draw a picture of it. That’s a good idea.

We drove over to beach volleyball to watch Caleb and Seth play with a community group that meets every Thursday and I promptly saw this amazing sight. AMAZING.

Rich took this photo of me giving praise.

David my son saw the photo and said “You are incredibly dark. That’s sick, I’m glad one of us can actually get dumb tan.”

To which I laughed continuously over, for the rest of the day. He has a way with words. His own way.

The nicest people ….. welcome the boys and anyone who has any desire to play. It was a joy to sit in the shade of some bushes and watch them. Rich made me laugh to tears when he said in his calm way to me, “Oh! did you leave that there.” I looked at what he was pointing to on the ground between us; deer droppings.

Another kitchen success; French bread pizzas that I made (Caleb sliced the pepperoni). This is Seth doing a happy dance over his first piece.

Grace sent us this photo today; David. My heart can’t take it. Look at him. I miss him so much, this is the longest we have been apart (he went home with the others in the beginning of this month). He had a job interview this morning at the Big Y (grocery store) and got it!

My mother texted me this photo that I just had to share with you. She found this old mailbox in the stream by her sister’s house and took it home (she loves rusty things). She hung it up on the woodshed and……..

Look! A robin made a nest in it.

I told her it was more beautiful than a Tiffany jewelry display.

Don’t you agree?

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“the woods call to us with a hundred voices. but the sea has only one — a mighty voice that drowns our souls in its majestic music. the woods are human, but the sea is of the company of the archangels.” ~LM Montgomery

“I find it very moving that after all is said, experienced, and done, the words, ‘I love you’ end up being the most important words left to say.” Joyce Landorf

Just a quick post to say hellllllllllo to my friends here in blog-land.

We are still on Jekyll Island in our cottage. Rich and Seth are cleaning and organizing the garage. Rich bought two paddleboats and needed to hang brackets on the wall to hang them up safely. I went out to check on them and found Seth using the power drill (for the first time) under his Dad’s guidance. I am very thankful for the blessing of a good father for our seven…….what always impresses me the most is his instant belief that once they are taught they WILL DO IT RIGHT. He had Seth drill in a screw for him and the the next one he let Seth do by himself WITHOUT HOVERING OVER HIM waiting for him to make a mistake.

Inside, I made homemade blueberry muffins (1 dozen), roasted sausages, and hard boiled eggs for breakfast//brunch. Caleb is still asleep. I have a radio station called “Hymns and Favorites” playing through the speakers, and a soy candle lit on the counter. The dishwasher is softly washing the dishes and I am getting ready to put clean sheets on our bed that I freshly washed this morning. So we have a lovely atmosphere inside, too.

The kitten is alive and well and getting plump! Thank you for praying for her, she is Sarah’s particular friend and they spend hours together every day. I will post photos soon, I hope.

Anyway, I wanted to show you something that amused me as I scrolled through instagram this week.

first; from a bird account:

And then, from taproot, a post about a knitting pattern:

I had to keep going back and forth, it was so charming to me.

you get me?

In order to keep going, she had to stop and rest now and then.

*I sat on the beach this morning, utterly fascinated by this elderly woman walking the beach with her cane.

I woke up for good this morning at 9am. This is a nice and lovely later hour for me. I feel rested. I made coffee and took it to bed with me, after voicing an open invitation for anyone who wished to join me in my room (the Queen’s chamber). I turned on lights and opened the curtains, revealing a rainy world outside. Seth was the first to come in, to eat his breakfast on my bed. He had made himself a piece of toast cut in half corner to corner, an over-easy fried egg that ended up dripping on my comforter (ignored because it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things), and one slice of bacon. Funnily, it was the “last egg” and the “last piece of bacon” in the house…….”It must be his birthday,” I said to Sarah, who had in the meantime got under the covers with me to complain that there was “no cereal”. She and Seth left and Ethan came in with his coffee to drink, sitting in the recliner positioned by my side of the bed. Soon Seth came back in with the laptop open and Ethan helped him order a new playstation controller “because ours all stick”. He left again and Ethan went in my bathroom to take a bath, he’s getting a cold and is all stuffed up this morning. Grace came in with her Bible, I was already reading a book, and she snuggled close. This is where Rich found us and he took a photo at my request………you may see it on the ‘gram.

We are dressed for the day now, and out of the bedroom. Grace is at the other end of the table doing school work.

*********

The other day I went walking in the woods and made a first-for-me-nature-discovery.

It turned out, after I did some sleuthing on google, to be MOOSE POOP. I had no idea they made a multitude of pellet-style poo when they had to “go”. I had no idea that some people even make crafts with them.

We hear of Moose sightings in our area, and I would absolutely LOVE to see one and photograph a Moose, like I did in Alaska once. In the meantime, I delight in the *sign of life* I found. Now I know where a Moose has been, in the woods, by the stream, less than a mile from home.

Then, the woods offered up a proposal to me. A ring in my size! Yes, it is a perfect round circle with no breaks……we sealed a lifelong promise with one another, the woods and I. A promise to always maintain a good and wholesome relationship. I will visit it and enjoy everything I see, and the woods will soothe my soul and calm my troubles. It will add to my joy and subtract from my sorrow. It will give me fresh air to breath, and calming scents to inhale. How can I thank it enough?

“For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.” God our Father, to His people, in Psalm 50:10-12

I brought home pinecones and some moss. I emptied Tylenol into a baggie and used the empty jar for my specimens. When I texted my Mother, she said, “Someone will eat that, you better label it.” I was feeling obedient and mischievous, so I did.

She wasn’t going to condescend to answer, so I pressed. “Oh brother” was her reply. I offered some of the “chocolate” to the children but NONE of them were even slightly convinced it was a treat. They all knew right away to be suspicious. They were more alarmed as to why their mother had POOP in a jar in the first place.

It was Saturday morning and we woke up to every growing thing outside bowing down under a heavy load of SNOW. Can you believe it? It was a winter wonderland and we didn’t even mind in the least because we knew it would not last long. In fact, we started a fire and played Christmas music.

Grace and I were on my bed being mom and daughter and I began telling her about what I hung on the wall recently.

My mom sent me a package in the mail for my birthday and inside was a gift wrapped in the paper of my childhood bedroom. I cried and cried. (Not that much though. I slightly cried.) I was moved. I loved it so much that Rich agreed that it should be framed and he even measured the paper and found the frame for me at Michaels. This was way back in February but being quarantined all, I finally got it hung up the other day. Then, it got me to thinking about the little band box that Mom made me a very long time ago, using the same wallpaper. I had Grace get it out of the bathroom for me and I dusted it off. Inside it is nothing but pedals and ribbons from flowers my boyfriends gave to me. Not all of them, as *I received so many flowers that they were too numerous to save, but just a select few, and at this point I don’t remember who they were from except for one and I’ve told this story to Grace several times so obviously it made an impression on me. ….this one flower was NOT from a boyfriend, but from a boy who became mesmerized by me as I sang a solo way back in H.S. during the awards ceremony. I sang an entire solo dedicated to a classmate of mine who had died that spring (heart breaking, I can’t talk about it). The reason I was the one to sing was because I had gotten the highest mark on that year’s NYSSMA solo. I sang the song in German, and a very lovely lady from the school taught me how to pronounce all the German in the song and it was a very lovely song, I still have the sheet music for it. So I was to sing the solo at the awards banquet but then my music teacher changed my song to “I hear Leesha” by Michael W Smith, to be dedicated to our dear classmate. After the banquet was all over, this boy came to me and gave me the flowers off his table. My mom told me that she saw him staring at me as I sang. This was touching enough for me to remember all these years later and I mention it here because it’s just one of My Little Stories.

Then, I had Grace get me my bear that my mom made me and we agreed with each other that Mom (Grandma) was very crafty indeed. Artsy. I texted Mom right the to tell her that I never got tired of looking the wallpaper, with the pretty girls and flowers on it, and that she did a great job picking it out and I asked her where she got it. She replied, “Binghamton at a wallpaper store off the end of Bevier Street. I can still drive right to it in my mind. It’s no longer there.”

It was the “I can still drive right to it in my mind” that got me in the heart.

Then I decided that I wanted to find a pattern online of a bird. I traced the pattern on a piece of tissue paper and cut it out for the “bird window” that I watch the birdfeeders through. I only made two. I’ll make more someday maybe. One is yellow and the other is green.

I got some lovely bird photos with my big camera. I hope I post them, but I can’t make promises. I have so many things to tell you that I don’t know exactly what will happen or when.

But this blog post is titled “Toadally” for a reason.

It’s about a toad.

A toad on the snow.

A bleeding toad, hopping very very slowly on top of the snow.

I was alerted to it by Sammie the cat. She looked out the window and said very quietly, “there is a toad out there” and I rushed over to the window in disbelief.

Then naturally I had to go outside to rescue the poor frozen toad. I could tell it was frozen by how slowly it was moving.

I made it to the back of the house and found toad in this position. I had never seen a toad on top of snow before. Then I noticed it was bleeding. Whenever I see a small creature outside bleeding I blame the cats. I did ask but he was too cold to answer and I agreed it didn’t really matter. I picked it up and held it in the palm of my hand.

It was a very beautiful toad.

And it matched my brown slippers. It pressed itself into my hand, it was grateful I think.

I took it inside and sat with it for a while until it revived. As I sat I began to feel motherly.

Incidentally, I clipped my nails because Seth tried running from me when I asked him to empty the dishwasher and I grabbed at him in fun, but scratched him. “YOU NEED TO CLIP YOUR NAILS!” he scolded as he lifted up his shirt to look at his mom-scratch. So I did, right away. I need to be able to grab running children without scratching them.

I couldn’t sit and hold an energetic toad and I didn’t want to put it back outside in the snow, so in a box it went. Much like how I dealt with Seth when he was a crawling baby, come to think of it.

This is when he was named Chewy the Toad. You can say it was inspired.

While he stayed in the dark box, I went on to do other things…….

I wanted to show you my “Magpie Findings” of things I pick up off the road while I am walking. This represents about a year of walking. I found two more things today for my jar. I tend to gravitate toward metal but I have also found perfectly good string and brought it home. Honestly, some of the money you see here wasn’t from the road, it just ended up in the jar after I picked it up in the house.

See the cat?

Sarah was reading the paper and then wadding up the sheets and throwing them in the fire.

I am currently reading The Harvester, by Gene Stratton Porter

By the end of the afternoon, the sun was warm enough to melt a lot of the snow so I took Chewy outside to let him go.

I toadally enjoyed his visit and pray he has a nice long life. I hope to see him again.

Wait til you hear what I saw today!! Stay tuned…….

*just trying to be funny, I didn’t get THAT many.

It’s 8pm on a Sunday evening. I am in my room with the door shut but I can hear the children loud and clear. Sarah is playing with the dog, I can hear her talking to him and laughing. I hear a ball bouncing hard on the floor, and the voices of the children talking. I’m smiling, but I’m tired. A lot of their sentences start with “I remember one time……..”

Today started out slowly, I slept in and Rich brought me coffee and opened the curtains to the bedroom. I sat up and sipped my coffee and read my book. He sat in the recliner with his, and when Brittnee also got her cup, she sat on the bed next to me on her phone. I was determined to finish my book before the sermon, and I did.

Our pastor preached an appropriate Palm Sunday sermon but made us laugh when he, for one thing, kept saying the word “ass” (Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the foal of a wild ass). And, for another thing, he kept mispronouncing “foal” as FOWL. (Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the FOWL of a wild ass). Gary is happy-go-lucky, in his mid 60’s, very personable, so we felt perfectly free to be amused at God’s messenger. We know he wouldn’t mind.

Sarah and I recently met this mouse under the bird feeder. He was stumbling around with his eyes shut searching for seed. I carefully tossed some under his nose and he immediately worked on nibbling it down. Something was obviously wrong with him, I asked and asked but he never replied. Sarah said, “I want to keep it.” She even told me what she would name it (I have since forgotten). I thought about it as we watched the poor thing but then I told her, “Um, I don’t think so, it seems like maybe it’s sick and we probably shouldn’t touch it.” We observed it until it scurried away.

It was Brittnee’s idea to make stuffed shells for Rich’s birthday (March 31). Without realizing that several of the boys would turn their noses up at them, we made all of what you see here. We ended up eating one pan, freezing one pan and are still eating the third pan.

I put David in charge of washing my biggest pot (which we used to boil the shells) and then was so surprised to walk in my bathroom a little while later, to find him IN MY TUB washing it out. It felt weird to me but as I stood and watched I realized that, after all, he was using the same water that comes out of the kitchen sink, and the same soap, so it was quite a genius move.

I’ve been drawing things. This was a dog that I found a picture of online and I looked at it and copied it on paper with pencil, then traced it in black marker, then colored it with Jacob’s art markers. I have also drawn my first doll, (literally the doll of my youth that I have kept all these years) and my childhood teddy bear. If you want to see, they are on instagram. This dog one wasn’t ever posted on there. I wonder what I shall attempt next?

This was the end of the day of Rich’s 46th birthday. The girls and I made a bowl of non-bake-cheesecake-ish stuff and we scooped it out into waffle bowls and served it with cherry pie filling. Some of the kids put Hershey’s syrup on theirs. It was good but Brittnee was right, we should have made it earlier in the day so it was cold. The leftovers have been enjoyed by me on a daily basis (again, we made too much).

Mr Seth enjoying a show on TV with Samantha cat.

our pretty pretty pond

Well and then I saw this bird dazed and half dead on the ground and Seth said, “Yeah, mom, Sherlock caught a Hummingbird!” I looked around for the hummingbird but then realized he meant this bird, because of it’s long beak????? I mean it’s about 50 times larger than one, and I’ve never seen a brown hummingbird, but okay maybe I can see a slight resemblance?

We found out later it was a Woodcock. Such an interesting bird that eats earthworms. Look it up online and watch it’s fascinating walk as it’s searching for worms.

This one must have been caught by the cat, but I saw no cat by it and I picked it up feeling quite distressed and grieved that my cats would harm such a bird. I didn’t know what to do. It revived a little in my hands and I ended up washing it’s beak and eyes (which were stuck shut with feather-fluff) with pond water and putting it on the edge of the property in the bushes by the pond.

(before the wash)

After the wash (see it’s beautiful black shiny eye?). Oh it was hard to leave it outside in the cold breeze but the next day when we checked on it again, it had vanished. So I hope it goes on to live a long life.

Last but not least, this is what I woke up to one morning. The kitchen and I spend a lot of time together, but the kids also help and with all 10 of us working it can get done in no time.

Grace made dear little mini lemon cupcakes this evening.

I am praying and thinking of all my blog friends.

You are loved.