Privileged

Every February, our school has a week off for winter break. This year, we spent the week in Florida. 

We are privileged. 

Months ago, when Chris asked me if we should go somewhere for winter break this year, I said I'd be fine with staying home. Our three week trip out west last year was enough of an extravagance to last for quite some time. Later, when he commented that we may not have many more winter breaks that we're all at home, I didn't argue with his idea to go to Florida. 

We are undeniably privileged. 

He found a lovely condo at Lake Berkley Resort for a ridiculously good deal on Airbnb. Gated community, well kept buildings, plenty of space, lovely pool...

We are unquestionably privileged. 

Since the time that Isaac could hold a putter, miniature golf has been a favorite family activity. Our splurge for the week, was buying a one week, all you can play pass at a mini golf course about ten minutes from our condo. With the exception of Thursday, we played multiple rounds every day we were there. We split up and played boys and girls games, we teamed up and played best shot and alternate shot games, and a few times, only some of us played. We won't soon forget the music, the dry humor of the man behind the counter, and Charles's face when he hit his multiple, lucky, hole-in-ones. 

We are exceptionally privileged. 

We didn't have a lot of plans, other than relaxing. One evening, after mini golf, we walked the boardwalk at Disney. 

Quite the unbelievable place. 

Chris and Isaac played some disc golf one day; the rest of us hit the pool as many times as possible.

(Well, at least once a day.)

Thursday morning we got up bright and early in order to go to the beach and watch the sunrise. 

Worth it. 

Then we climbed 203 steps up the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse, and toured the surrounding keeper's houses and other outbuildings. 

Fascinating history. 

And, of course, we binged on Worst Cooks of America, Love It Or List It, Kitchen Nightmares, and the like. We'll be using pet phrases from the most hilarious moments for years to come. We cooked and we ate, we lounged and we laughed, we stayed up late and we slept in. 

We are absolutely, positively, without a doubt, extravagantly and unbelievably privileged. 

A Long Exposition of the Trials of Life

It all started with a week of meetings at church, and the resulting hectic/ crazy feeling that comes with the whole homework-right-after-school, supper-eaten-in-a-rush, going-away-every-night situation. It was all very much worth it, as listening to the speaker was like drinking deeply of cold water on a very hot and dry day! However, the pace was a little exhausting for my usual stay at home self, and my dry, brittle soul had a hard time soaking up all the water quickly enough. 

From there, we went straight into two days of school being canceled due to weather and spending just shy of 48 hours out of electricity. Fun times. 

That first night, we rounded up our meager supply of candles (I'm not really a candle person and barely have any around!) and spent a long time huddled around the table playing a game together. I was in the middle of making supper when the electricity first went off. When it came back on twenty minutes later, I finished supper up in record time, while Chris filled the bathtub with water and we gathered jugs and pitchers and water bottles and cranked up the thermostat. Living in Arkansas for ten years, where ice storms and tornado weather make power outages a semi normal occurrence has given us plenty of practice! Supper was just ready when the lights went out for good. 

We all slept cozy under plenty of blankets and I thanked the Lord for our battery operated fan that we took out west. When you sleep with a box fan on a regular basis, the silence at night makes it very difficult to sleep!

Friday morning, Chris crawled out in the darkness to dig his vehicle out and make his way to the tire shop. We spent the day (my birthday, incidentally) eating snacks and cold food and playing games in a house that stayed right at 62 degrees all day. If the roads hadn't been so bad we might have spent some time at the library, but none of else really felt like braving the ice and snow. Chris brought a generator and supper home around 5 and we rounded up heaters and cords, closed the basement door, and brought in tubs of snow to add to our bathtub-toilet-flushing supply.

What a difference one lamp makes compared to a few candles! 

When we got news that Chris's family three miles from us had power restored, our hopes got pretty high but come bedtime, we shut off the generator and piled on the blankets. The children camped out in the living room for the night and we all slept quite cozily.

Scrambled eggs!

I'll stop boring you with all the gory details. Saturday was a beautiful, sunny day! I should have gone outside to take pictures but I don't think even that would have done justice to the glittering beauty. 

There was great rejoicing when the electricity came on around 3:30 on Saturday! I immediately tackled piles of dishes and a filthy bathroom. Everyone was feeling quite happy, with hot showers and spaces restored to order, when the house went black again around 8:30. To our relief, the outage only lasted about an hour and a half. We went to bed in comfort, with the heat on and the box fan humming. 

Monday was back to real life with a vengeance. The four oldest headed out early for their Bible Quiz Meet that had been canceled on Friday. Charles went to school, and I tackled piles of laundry. When Jasmine called me around noon to say that Lillian fell on the ice and hurt her arm pretty bad, my heart sank to my toes. I was already feeling a little guilty that I hadn't gone along to be the good mom who supports her children and now I felt doubly bad for not being there! All I could do, was pray a lot of prayers for them that afternoon and make a doctor appointment for Tuesday morning. At three, when I couldn't get the car backed out of its icy spot to go pick up Charles, I could only shake my head and say, "Ok Lord, just whatever you think."

I didn't sleep very well Monday night. Every time I woke up, all I could think about was dreading being the parent to take Lillian to the doctor. I know, it probably sounds silly. But doctor appointments are one of my Very Worst Things -- especially ones where I know I will probably be sent here and there and will have to make decisions. I can't ever think of the right questions to ask and I am directionally challenged in the worst way! When Charles woke up feeling sick and I discovered he was running a temperature, and Chris ended up being the parent to go to the appointment, I felt a little dumbfounded at the way God took care of things.

The day was quite bizarre but long story short (after x-rays and coming back home and then getting x-ray results and many phone calls and Chris coming back to head to another doctor in a different town) they diagnosed it as a buckle fracture in her upper, left arm. She didn't get a cast, just a sling, with instructions for stretches and a return visit next week for an x-ray to check that it's healing properly. 

This morning I woke up to more fever and another day of children at home and laying down all my plans for the day once again. I was feeling rather whiny about my life, until I remembered how small my problems really are. Buckle fractures and fevers will pass; I have fond memories of power outages as a child and I hope my children will too. I'm not facing a cancer diagnosis or a death, and the errands that need to be run and the things I wanted to do will wait. The sun is shining and life is, after all, quite good!

Sometimes dumping one's trials into sympathetic ears + refocusing on one's blessings is the best medicine. 

P.S. Thanks for being my sympathetic dumping place, I'll be glad to return the favor in the comments!

January Brighter Winter Favorites

I filled in most of the challenges for January! Let me tell you about a few of them...

Over Christmas, our family booked an Airbnb near Ripley, Ohio to spend the weekend just being together and relaxing. One of the days we were there, we did a little sightseeing down along the Ohio river. We specifically stopped to see this landmark:

But then enjoyed reading more history about the houses along the river. I've always loved stories about the underground railroad -- inspired largely, I believe, by A Lantern In The Window being read for story time at school when I was in maybe third grade. (Incidentally, there's a great audio version of that book that I got through the library recently...)

Anyway. 

After seeing/reading lots of information about John Parker, and seeing there was a book about his life called His Promised Land, I promptly put it on hold at the library for my January reading!

I thoroughly enjoyed it. His Promised Land tells amazing stories of John Parker's own life as a slave, and then his incredible accounts of helping other slaves find freedom. It made the book doubly interesting to have just seen the house and area where many of the stories took place!

I would say the most intriguing book I read in January was a recommendation I had seen for a book written in 2021:

Blythe's stories about tutoring children in upper class New York are mind boggling. I think, perhaps, I found her stories extra fascinating because I had recently listened to my brother telling his experiences of teaching in the opposite public school spectrum. Both extremes are equally foreign to my small world! I got lost amongst some of her detailed percentages and statistics, but overall the book was highly interesting. 

The book that kept me enthralled and on the edge of my seat was this one:

I listened to the audio version and the reader was amazing. Told through alternating voices in present day and Nazi-occupied Poland, the author weaves a spellbinding, heartbreaking story that will leave you unsure of the ending until... well... the end. While the book is technically fiction, the story is inspired by the author's own family history, and the events of wartime Poland are highly plausible. The things those people went through are both horrifying and inspiring, all at the same time.

I'd say out of the ten books I read in January, those were my top three favorites. But maybe that's just because, apart from Mr Revere And I (a new to me middle grade book I picked off of a library shelf because it also had a yellow cover), they were the only first time reads out of my stack. 

The rest - plus the Gospel of Matthew and the audio version of The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn - I had all read before. 

And now, on this dreary evening while we wait for the rain to turn to ice/ snow, I can mark off the February challenge to "tell someone about a book you read for Brighter Winter".......

Cheerio!