Today was a full and busy day.   I had a training day for Community Bible Study.  I am training to be a Core Leader for a group of ladies, which means I will be facilitating (not teaching) a group of about 10.  I am not used to speaking in groups so I am not sure why God has called me to this particular ministry, I am much more comfortable with writing and staying behind the scenes, but I am looking forward to the blessings of studying God’s word with my classes.  I think the commitment will cause me to stay more faithful to Bible reading, which is a very good thing…and also the fellowship with believers will be a huge blessing.  I hope to be a friend to all, and to be my genuine self, oh please say a prayer for me.  Even after one day with the leader’s group I have learned a few new things that excite me about prayer and being a shepherd under Jesus, to care for others.  These things will be wonderful tools for nurturing relationships with everyone in my life.

Seth and Sarah were both very timid and cried when I had to leave them in their childcare rooms (at the church)…I was never far away but I was out of sight and they were with strange children and grown ups.  Thankfully, they got through okay and I know they will enjoy making new friends, too.  They will have their own classes soon when the Bible study starts officially on September 18. 

If you aren’t a member of a Bible study I would highly recommend a CBS experience.  They have a website so that you can easily locate a study near you.  It is Bible centered and not affiliated with any particular denomination, in fact, we don’t even “go there”.  We get tremendously blessed just by basic in depth study.  Our area group is studying Deuteronomy, Daniel, and Ephesians this year.

************

When we were home this weekend of course we made time to squeeze in a couple of visits with my parents.  Along with visiting, I wandered around and took pictures of the house.  My mom’s home-making skills inspire me and I really look up to her.  I recently found and read a beautiful book titled A Perfectly Kept House is the Sign of a Misspent Life, by Mary Randolph Carter and I thought of my mom the entire time I went through it.

There were a few years when I tried and felt guilty trying to keep a spotlessly clean house (with so many little ones I never succeeded) and the pressure was astounding and ridiculous.  In my 20’s I was coached by a well-meaning lady (not my mom, why didn’t I just ask my mom?)….she taught me that it was a good Christian testimony to always have my house very clean in order to be a good witness and example.  To a certain extent I agree, but this older-lady friend was a perfect housekeeper, with perfect interior design, perfect furniture and dishes and things just so perfectly perfect.  Truly she had a gorgeous home (if you like that style) but it never worked for me, I actually felt on edge at her house, and now that I am older I can see that my number one shining example of a good housekeeper has always been right in front of my eyes, my own mama-dear.  Hers is the home that inspires me the most.  For me, it.is.home.  It is fresh and clean but beautifully cluttered up with tokens of life.  Everywhere you look there are things that mean something to the whole family. 

This style of my mother’s is what is explained so well in the book I found. 

“I fell in love with lived-in, not perfectly kept, homes filled with collections, memories, children, pets, clutter, work, and lots of creativity.” 

collection of framed photographs of all the babies, hung on old shutters, with a strand of dried rose buds on a string

“For me, this is what good housekeeping is about:  keeping our houses real and making them places that embrace everyday living.”

fabric backed bookshelf with lamp, books, and knick knacks

“While I don’t imagine we honor God when our homes are in a state of disarray or chaos, I do believe that we can allow the pendulum to swing the other way and concentrate too much on housekeeping and not enough on things that matter.  Those things are, of course, the family, friends, and animals that we love, which can be inconvenient and messy but should always override spotlessness.”

living room: with couches, coffee table, table with lamp, arm chairs, instruments, desk, baskets,….a cozy room with a place for everyone if not much room to walk around

“A clean house is probably a little more godly than an unkempt house, which may account for the expression ‘what an ungodly mess!’   But a house scrubbed to death is at risk of something more ungodly–losing its soul.”

(all quotes from above mentioned book)

decorated window with draped curtain, strand of lights (we each bought some on that day; mine are orange), small plates on the wall, china cabinet, house plants, blue glass, angel of gardening, lamp with red shade

More pictures:

tomatoes out on the back deck; old bucket

the small granddaughters love this area, with play kitchen and dolls

blue bowl of old beaded fruit

Mom said I had art work hanging up, I said, “I didn’t draw that!” but she said, “Yes, Isaac found it in the art room at school after you graduated and brought it home.”  Sure enough, I had signed it.  Funny how I don’t remember.

Jacob and his Grandma; Jacob had a LOT to say to her.  They’re all caught up now.  So precious.

beautiful bowl of tomatoes from the garden

Seth joining in on the jam session

my beloved friend and brother Dave, with Seth, outside at the fire pit in the blueberry patch

Mom and Sarah Joy

the love birds; they just celebrated their 38th wedding anniversary in July

Mom and Dad

Frazzled.  Tired.  Frazzled and tired.  Quite thankful to sit and put the feet up for a few minutes.  I took Ethan and Grace to their check ups this morning (with the little ones in tow, to make things EXTRA interesting).  Ethan grew almost 2 inches and is now 5’8 and 3/4 inches tall (60%).  Grace grew one inch since last year.  Both 100% as HEALTHY as little horses so I am very grateful for that.  I went to Costco afterwards for toilet paper, which we have been out of for days (been using tissues).  I question, why don’t the stores stock the t.p. on shelf right by the milk?  Then I would not forget it.

This weekend we went back home to NY for a family reunion for husband’s side of the family.  It was at a beautiful state park in Whitney Point, NY, by a quiet lake.  Our pavilion was right next to a playground and bathrooms.  Bliss, as Sarah needs to be by bathroom since she is only 3 and can’t wait.  The children loved the park.  Rich and the older boys brought three footballs and Ethan promptly jammed his pinky badly while playing catch.  I had to ask around for some Advil and get ice out of the beer cooler (ahem).  Then, a little while later he got a sliver up his fingernail on the corner of it….had to ask around for tweezers.  Family is wonderful and supplied all that we needed.  I should carry a first aid kit.  I had bandaids in my purse, however, no one needed those. 

After lunch, Sarah was playing with cousin and fell off a picnic table on her head and someone had to come and get me.  The first sight I saw was the aunts on the ground around her.  I only saw her tiny legs sticking out from under them, still and quiet…thought she was half dead, paralyzed for life, knocked unconscious, or worse.  Thankfully, she was crying and okay, just scared and wanting her mommy.  Very soon afterwards, she was asleep in my arms, for a much needed little nap.  I think I stopped shaking about half an hour later. 

David spun Caleb around and around on the swings until he had to run for the bathrooms and lose his lunch.

It really was a most wonderful time despite antics of large family.

1. My little nieces went swimming.
2. After lunch was over Seth ran around and collected every empty cup he could find; so cute.
3. David wanted to see how high he could go on the swings. 

It rained so that most of the boys were wet by the time we left.  I stayed under the pavilion as much as I could, however my sis in law and I enjoyed a walk toward the end.  We walked and talked and put our feet into a stream.

The food was good.  My favorite dishes were Aunt LouAnn’s macaroni and cheese (I swear she made enough for an army!) and my sis in law’s baked beans. 

Apple Bean Bake

1 (48 oz) can Great Northern beans
2 large Granny Smith apples, pealed and cubed (about 3 cups)
4 T. butter
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. white sugar
1/2 c. catsup
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 T. molasses
1 tsp. salt (optional)

Melt butter, add cubed apples and cook until tender.  Add brown sugar and white sugar and cook until sugar is melted.  Stir in catsup, cinnamon, and molasses.  Add beans and mix well.  Pour mixture into a 2 quart casserole dish.  Bake at 350 degrees about one hour.
recipe from cooks.com

The beans were so good I would be happy eating just a bowl of them for a meal….perfectly satisfying, no meat….and the recipe is nice because you could adapt it easily to what suits you (reduce sugar?).  I think you could also use your favorite canned baked beans instead of plain Great Northern ones.  Then just omit extra ingredients and add the cinnamon for unique flavor.  (I loved the cinnamon and apples added).  YUM.

My friend Joanna and her husband adopted their youngest daughter and Dawn made the dress she came home in.  Dawn also made my little Sarah a dress using the same pattern.  When Joanna came to visit me recently, one of the things we wanted to do was a little photoshoot of our girls wearing their matching dresses.  After I got the photos developed, we mailed a card to Dawn, thanking her once again for the gift of handmade loveliness that she gave to our daughters.  Handmade dresses with smocking!  And little puffed sleeves!

I’ve never met Dawn, but she has been internet friends for years.  She’s a wonderful Christian lady and has done so much to encourage me and Joanna.  If you visit her site, you will be encouraged, too.

“May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.”   2 Thess. 2:16-17

******

This morning I took Seth and Sarah with me to Bible study at church and then those of us who could went out to lunch together. 

The best part about it was how utterly sleepy I was this morning,  I came so very close to not going.  But, I did get there and it was such a blessing to study God’s word together and then sit around a table like a big family and eat.  I love these people!  The moral of the story:  If you’re too tired to go to church, or a bible study, go anyway.  🙂

Happy Thursday!  (already?)

Rich left for work at the same time the older kids left for school.  Grace started High School today, so we have one Freshman, one Sophomore, and one Junior this year.  They have grown up fast and beautifully.

Origami is still all the rage in David’s life.  He folds paper every day and tries to teach Caleb, too.  But when he tried to teach him the Ninga star, he got frustrated that Caleb had problems focusing.  “Yeah, I can’t focus!” Caleb agreed.   One hopes that Caleb learns to focus in third grade.

They are really handsome.

“The First Day of School”

You are sending your child to school for the first time.  You are dreading it all exceedingly.  You want the child to start his school education, but you hate to have him leave you.

You think it will be fine to be free from his demands for the hours he spends in school.  But fast on the heels of that thought come the others.

Perhaps the teacher will not be kind to him.  Perhaps he will be thirsty and she will not let him have a drink.  Perhaps the children will not be nice to him.  Maybe he will miss you and cry.

If you worry about these things you will show your fear to the child and to the teacher.  The teacher will not be pleased to know that you think she will not take good care of the child.  She will.  She has been trained to do that very thing.

She will see that he gets a drink and she will see that he is comfortable in every way.  She will not “baby” him, though.  She will show him his seat and give him his lesson and expect him to fit into the scheme of the classroom.

There is nothing in that scheme that need alarm the most timid mother.  The teacher knows exactly what the first day’s work should be and she knows how it should be done.  Leave it to her.  Show her that you have faith in her.

You can’t blame the teacher who glares you out of the room if you insist upon seating yourself beside your child on an eighteen-inch bench nine inches from the floor in order that you may see that the teacher does her work properly that morning and does nothing that might upset your child.  The teacher of the baby class has enough trouble on her mind and in her hands without a dozen tearful mothers sitting and standing about the room suggesting worry and fear to the children.

Leave the child with the teacher and go away cheerfully.  Keep out of the classroom.  Try to behave as though sending a child to school for the first time was something that you had done every day of your life.  Just a matter of course.

That will make the child feel that going to school is an ordinary and natural thing to do.  It will save his nerves and free his mind for the work of the day.

Whatever you do, don’t stand at the classroom door and throw kisses and sob brokenly:  “Goodbye, dear.  Mother will be so lonesome.”

From the book:  Child Training, by Angelo Patri, published 1922
printed in the United States

I have an extra large house full today.  There are about five construction workers here, busy with the new addition.  At any moment the door will open and one of the guys will walk through the house.  Also, our friends are taking their daughter to a specialist in Boston today and we invited their two teenagers over for the day.  Michael, Jake’s friend from church, is here, too.

The morning air smelled so sweet and soft, and a veil of clouds covered the sunshine as I sat and read CS Lewis in the rocking chair at breakfast time.   Since then, we have had a few light rain showers.

I just made a six box batch of Annie’s macaroni and cheese for lunch.

My 13 (soon to be 14) year old daughter, Grace, is going to the High School today at one o’clock for her Freshman orientation party.  She is ready to go, with black pants, a long sleeved purple shirt, hair brushed, earrings on.  I had to stop her from playing football with the boys so she didn’t get all sweaty. 

I have mom-guilt.  The plans I had in the beginning of summer, to teach cursive, to read the Pirate book out loud, to make sure they got their summer math papers done……(cries)…….didn’t get done.

And here I am, sitting at the computer when I could be giving Caleb a cursive writing class!

It’s the first time I’ve sat down all morning.

And I’M GONNA enjoy it!  Everyone else is in the upstairs of the garage playing Apples to Apples.  I have some time to post pictures from the weekend.

Kathy came over with her kids on Friday and we went downtown for pizza.

This butterfly fluttered it’s wings constantly as it sipped from the flowers.

Kaitlyn, Emily, Caleb, David, and Seth is under the dock.

Bethany Grace and Sarah Joy

Ethan and Kevin all of these children have been friends since the diaper days.

I made cookies!  I only had enough butter for one batch.  And then, when I was out of the room Sarah fed about 6 to the DOG. I also made a chocolate cake.

We moved the table into the new addition and put all the leaves in it and the chairs around it.  VERY exciting.

the other side of the room; pantry skeleton on the right.

The kittens curled up on the paper and slept all day (Saturday)…at one point they woke up, shredded up a page, and fell back to sleep surrounded by bits of paper.

I went to Old Navy. (new shirt, new pants)

new sneakers

Jacob ate a peach off our tree and found a small white grub in the middle with the pit.  So I picked every peach.  This is a half-bushel basket….I spent hours in the kitchen peeling each one and getting the grub out (if there was a grub).  I am sickened and will probably not eat any, but I got four bags of perfectly clean peaches in the freezer, ready for smoothies.

These are my children for the day–my seven plus Mike (red shirt and hat), Ethan (orange shirt–he likes Grace–) and Erinn (girl holding Sarah).  They are such great people, and what a joy to have different ages.  They are each so unique and fun.  And, good-looking, too!

Ethan found this baby snake on our dirt driveway.  Isn’t it the cutest thing?

 W E L C O M E S

(pictures from today):

This morning I had my coffee out on the porch with morning sun and the hummingbirds.

See it?

our dog Parker

my son Caleb, reading….every time I turn around he’s on top of the armoire

“O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever.”

We went for a walk today and noticed the wild grapes were ripening.  These are at the tippy top of a tall tree.

climbing for a bunch of grapes

jewelweed

the prize

at the edge of the woods we found wild berries rambling through the grass

this caterpillar looks like the top of a toothbrush

both of my daughters went home with things; Grace had an armful of milkweed seedpods and a handful of berries sarah had two little red leaves

afternoon project; Ethan and Dave made grape juice from the wild grapes

and look who made it home.

What is it about these “end of summer” days that pull the heartstrings so?  I love this time of year, it appeals to my sentimental personality.  Besides savoring the lastness of this glorious season before school starts again, I am greatly enjoying my home and eagerly longing to nest, rearrange, decorate, clean, organize.  I love beautiful things and making a house into a home.  This afternoon I’ve been looking through a new Country Living magazine (British Edition).  I have some extra time to relax and enjoy it, as apparently I don’t have to make dinner tonight.   Rich says all he wants…….is me.

“The best welcomes are waiting just inside the door.  Nothing beats a warm hug and a personal greeting from a friend, a child, or an excited barking dog, for getting a visit, a dinner, or a party off to a good start.”  Mary Randolph Carter

There is an older gentleman down the road who grows a most fantastic garden every year.  He sells the bountiful produce by the side of the road at the end of his driveway.  This week, indeed this very moment, I am working through a bushel of his tomatoes, making and canning a basic tomato sauce.  Yesterday I did four quarts, and as I sit in my cushioned rocking chair which my son pulled in from the porch, I am keeping an eye on a simmering pot of batch number two.

There is a contentedness in preserving food, although it does take hours to complete the process from start (sterilizing the jars) to finish (cleaning up the kitchen).  What I love about canning is using the fresh produce which has been grown in the local earth, water, and fresh air.  I’m making tomato sauce which contains not only tomatoes, but the heart and soul of people I know and love.  Every time I pop open a jar throughout the next three seasons, I’ll say a thank you prayer.

Our local gardener extraordinaire is currently selling his property, so next year the tomatoes will hopefully come from even closer to the kitchen, like, from my own (bigger) garden.  Tomato sauce from the yard will truly be wondrous (and something my mom has been doing for years and years)……..goals and dreams for the coming years.  

For this sunny late afternoon, I putter away in the kitchen with a little help from my daughter and we work, cut, drop, stir the pot, simmer, sift, and simmer some more, fill the jars and process.



view from where I sit in my rocker, a bubbling kitchen



my chair, book, and phone to text husband who is stranded at the airport



when I got up to stir I turned around to find a sad boy.  why is he sad?

because Grace and E won’t jump on the trampoline with him and he doesn’t want to go to school next week.

In other news:

it will eventually be covered up but we will always know our names are under the fireplace hearth

We wrote our names in wet cement in our new addition.

And Sarah drove her brothers crazy by remarking OVER and OVER that SHE got a new magazine when she went shopping with mama today.  It’s hers.  She got it with mom.  It’s Strawberry Shortcake.  But it’s hers.  Don’t touch it, you two.  You two cannot have it.  She got it today while shopping with mom.  It’s her new magazine, etc.  Finally, (after ignoring her didn’t stop the talking) Caleb, still playing with trains, yelled, “I don’t WANT your magazine!  I don’t even LIKE Strawberry Shortcake, Sarah!”

“You must taste and taste.  Taste everything, and often.  Taste even if you’re scared.”  Tamar Adler

The earth is full of the goodness of God…
Psalms 33:5b

Hello, dear friends.  The laptop is back in my lap and so I take a moment this morning to say hello and share some simple photos of some little creatures in the great outdoors.  I was thinking recently, that it has been a while since I’ve taken a good long hike.  Maybe you are like me, in a stage of summertime life with lots of busy children around, and there is no time for walking for hours through the woods and fields.  Thankfully, there is a lot to see and observe just around the yard.  All of these pictures were taken down at the bottom of our property, not far from the stream.  I was down there again last night, snapping away, and thinking how blissful it was to be under the twilight sky and hearing the (MY!) little ones running around the house above me, laughing and calling to one another at the end of the day…….

Yellow swallowtail butterfly on a lavender Joe-Pie-Weed flower.

A tiny yellow spider, gripping a helpless bumble bee around the neck.  On goldenrod.

My son in the stream.  He was watching a frog.

Frog in the afternoon sun, in a cozy wet spot by the edge of our pond.

Lady bug.

Bumblebee on Joe-Pie-Weed.

This is a common garden spider, commonly known as the black and yellow garden spider, writing spider, or corn spider.  I am familiar with these from childhood and often came very close to running through their webs as I played across the road in the blueberry patch.  I hated them, they filled me with the creeps and their webs always seem to be right at my waist, impossible to avoid.  They still give me a shiver, but as I was reading about them this morning I found myself fascinated.  One interesting fact is that they eat the middle of their web every evening (perhaps because of tiny particles and insects which have been caught during the day) and spin a new one in the morning.

Queen Anne’s lace is abundant at this time of year and is a very interesting flower.

Groundnut



dragonfly; it was sitting so still that I gave it a poke to see if it was alive.  It was.

The brownness of the Queen Anne’s lace against the purple of the Groundnut, so beautiful.

A brown mama spider, guarding her babies.  I’m pretty sure this is a harmless Grass Spider.

“O Lord of love and kindness,
who created the beautiful earth
and all the creatures walking and flying in it,
so that they may proclaim your glory,
I thank you to my dying day
that you have placed me amongst them.”

St Francis of Assisi