Tidbits

Confession: I take this blog way too seriously. If I don't post for awhile, I always feel like I should have something big to say when I return. When I don't have something big to say, I just keep on not returning. It's time to stop taking things so seriously.

And so..... a post of tidbits....

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My youngest has been going off to school three days a week since October 17. He absolutely loves it and has turned into a little man almost over night. He delights in telling us all the things he is learning!

People wonder how I'm doing with my baby going off to school? Honestly, it's a switch but so far I'm rather enjoying it.

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My view is returning! I'm not a huge fan of Autumn, it reminds me too much of what is coming next, but we have had some delightful weather and some pretty trees and I do look forward to that view...

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Speaking of views.

Charles: "Look at the clouds, mom!"
Me: [busily washing dishes] "They're pretty aren't they?"
Charles: "Yes! You should take a picture... pleeease mom?!"

Glad I did.

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For months now I've been listening to the chronological Bible in the NLT version as I have time and/ think of doing it. Listening to the Old Testament makes me deeply grateful that I'm living in the time of the new covenant; listening to Psalms makes me almost chuckle at David. Ever notice how often he's moaning and lamenting one minute and praising and worshipping the next?

Makes me feel like maybe I'm normal.

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This past weekend was a doozy. We had our first experience doing respite care + Chris and Isaac were gone Saturday - Sunday.

Walking and biking under the gorgeous blue sky Sunday evening was the perfect way to get some deep breathes for my soul.

I like these people. 

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A week ago I discovered a little, pink package in our church mailbox. Curiosity aroused, I quietly opened it while around me the singing progressed. Quickly scanning the note inside, I found the sweetest, most encouraging words and the signature of a friend far away. Completely mystified as to how this bit of 'water for a thirsty soul' had made it's way to our church mailbox, I could hardly wait to email the sender!

All of this to say, if the idea/ opportunity presents itself to surprise someone with a bit of encouragement, do it. Do it! You may never know how deeply a heart may be touched.

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Charles loves to rinse dishes when Lillian is the dish washer. There's often a lot more than dishes happening with these two. One night I caught them on video, Lillian pouring and Charles solemnly intoning (among many and garbled things), "Do you promise to be good? Yes. So I make it to the father, the son, and the holy ghost..."

You can bet there was a lot of laughter going on behind their backs!

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There's my tidbits, what are yours?

A Little Something of No Great Inspiration

I keep waiting for some great writing inspiration to strike but it doesn't seem to want to. And it has to want to, you know? Even Pooh knows that, and he only has grey fluff blown into his head by mistake.

The great dilemma is this -- Do I listen to the noble advisors like Pooh Bear and wait until it wants to? Or do I brush all wisdom aside and write about things without any great inspiration? Sometimes one can dawdle around at great length over such dilemmas until one is forced to just do something because surely, after all, something is better than nothing. Or something like that.

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Perhaps you would like to hear about the weather? It has been quite pleasant in Ohio of late. Last week we ate supper on the porch one evening because it was ju-u-u-st cool enough that I thought I could get by with it.

On a side note, 

that old table was a lucky

find at a local yard sale and

I am just tickled pink with it!

Sunday evening we took advantage of the lovely weather and hiked some trails at Barkamp. Everyone enjoyed the 2 mile trek, even the ones who generally complain about tired feet.

We managed to document the 

event with this blurry picture. 

This week there has been some beautiful rain showers and overcast days.

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Maybe, after all, you were wondering how my canning is going? Real well, in fact. All I want to do yet is frozen peaches for school lunches.  I'm not quite sure what the Lord is preparing us for this year. For one reason and another, I have more corn and green beans stocked up than I ever have in my life. Then again, maybe He just realizes how much more these growing kids will eat!

It is truly amazing the amount of help my children are these days when it 

comes to these projects!

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On the other hand, it could be that you're wondering if I'm learning anything new these days. Let's see, I could probably think of a few things.

* Ever hear of the Betsy-Tacy books? One of my girls was gifted a copy at the end of the school year and her mother kinda got into them too and ended up ordering the whole series from the library and reading them right along with her bookworm.

* Wise advice is much easier to give, than to take oneself. The glib counsel I once gave a friend who was teaching the adult lady's Sunday school class is not so easily believed when I am the one in those shoes. 

* When cleaning out the freezer uncovers old food long forgotten, the fact that some of it was shredded zucchini makes it a good day. 

* School shopping can actually be a fun time when you take your time and include places like Goodwill and Hobby Lobby... And you linger over treasures like these --

I played with a pan like this 

when I was little!

We could hardly tear ourselves 

away from this aisle; 

all the doll houses and accessories!

Also?

I need this in my laundry room. 

* Sometimes you read things that resonate immediately like this blog post by Rosina.

* Also, most of the time the littlest, most ordinary things are the things that bring the most joy.

Maybe kind of like blog posts

 without great inspiration......

A Little Of This And That

In case you haven't noticed, I've completely fallen off the blogging wagon lately. I've had dry spells before -- times when I felt uninspired and the words just didn't come. But I don't think I've ever felt quite what I've been feeling lately. For some reason these days I just flat out have no urge to write and, as a child said once, "I can't care."

I realized with a start the other night that June is just around the corner and the thought hadn't even crossed my mind to work on lining up 'How We Met' stories to share on my blog. The discovery gave me a twinge of something very close to guilt, like I had somehow failed all of you people. On the flip side, I felt no creative surge whatsoever to come up with an idea to remedy my slackness. I can't care.

The funny thing is, I'm not sitting over here feeling depressed or despondent. You'd think it must be something like that going on to bring about such long quiet spells and sporadic writing. That's not it. For the most part, my life is busy and happy and fulfilling right now.

I'm really not sure what the deal is except that, like I said earlier, the whole idea of fostering came up and I wasn't ready to share it and that kind of shut me down. Over that same time, as silly as I feel to admit it, I was obsessed with learning how to crochet and ended up injuring my hands to the point where I spent several weeks being really careful what I did in order to let them heal up.

I think maybe it's simply that those two things combined shut me up for awhile and now it's just taking too much effort to get back into the swing of writing. Or something.

So anyway, here I am. This is a feeble attempt at getting back on the blogging wagon. I'm guessing one day my urge to write will reappear but I ain't makin no promises, hunny. We're just gonna hang in there and do our thing and see what happens, I reckon.

As for story time in June? Unless I get some volunteers saying they would just love to write their story for me, I guess we'll skip the "How We Met" stories this year. I'm quite open to volunteers though, so feel free to send me an email at christopherbethany@juno.com! And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you can go read last year's introductory post here. You will find links to all the other 'How We Met' stories at the end of that post.

As to what I've been doing? A little of this and a little of that...

I agreed to mark off this quilt for a friend, even though I didn't really know what I was doing. It ended up being a kind of fun challenge, although I'm happy to say it's crossed off my list and if I had it to do over I could certainly do a better job.

Chris tilled up a little garden spot for me the other night, bless his heart. I am so thrilled!

My youngest three hardly know what a garden is and think this little postage stamp deal is huge. I know we tried to squeeze too much into a little space and I know we're probably planting free deer food and I know the soil is probably poor and full of grass and pieces of roots. But walking in that freshly tilled dirt and making rows and dropping seeds satisfies something deep down inside of me.

Charles thought it was all like a giant sandbox and loved chopping away at the dirt with his little hoe. Now the challenge is to keep him in his corner so he doesn't destroy all our nice rows of seeds.

Now that my hands are getting back to normal I'm anxious to do some sewing and to f i n a l l y get the girl's quilts finished.

They've been sitting here waiting on bindings for months now!

And now, I really must run along. Nice chatting with you all again and thanks for hanging with me in my silence. I would be so delighted if some of you would feel led to send me stories......

'Cats and Lilacs'

It is one of those "Cats and Lilacs" seasons around here. So many things tumbling around in my mind but none of them are things to elaborate on at the moment. The longer I don't push through and just write something, the easier it is to just be quiet. The odd thing about being a person with a need to write is that, while it is easier to just be quiet, the longer I am quiet the more restless and unsettled I feel inside.

And so, since I have no cat pictures and no lilacs blooming, I will show you the pictures that I do have.

We've had sunshine...

And snow....

 And rain...

And flooding...

All in the course of a week.

We also had two birthdays in nearly a week's time --

Jennifer turned 10 on March 30th. Her birthday wish was a trip to the American Girl Doll Store in Columbus. She was thrilled to have her dad promise a day together making her wish come true. At the last minute she opted to invite her sister along. They were two excited little girls!

Charles turned 5 on April 7th.

Remember the Curious George story a while back? I turned it into a book for his birthday. He loved it!

The incredible thing was that after several months of being missing, "Curious George" was found two days before Charles' birthday!

His sisters had great fun decorating his cake. They did a super job.

In other news, there's always new ideas and new projects happening at this house. Jasmine has gotten into playing with sourdough.

She's turned out some tasty muffins...

And some yummy crackers...

and some flops.

Her starter is finally looking healthy enough to try bread!

In spite of snow again this morning, outside the grass is beginning to turn green and on my daily drive to school I see more and more glimpses of tiny, green leaves. Inside, our windowsills are full of tiny seedlings, just waiting for warm enough days so we can plant them in the dirt.

So, there are my 'Cats and Lilacs'. Maybe one of these days the reminder rant or the emotions over another's crisis or the curious ways God leads will turn themselves into blog posts. For now, I really must run along and take care of laundry and get my hungry child some lunch. 

Normal Days And Saying Nothing

I probably shouldn't even mention the silence in this corner lately -- as if I believe myself to be so important that people are breathlessly waiting for me to say something. Somehow there hasn't seemed to be anything to say, so I haven't said it; that's about the only reason I can give.

To be honest, there doesn't really seem to be anything to say this morning, either, but I'm saying it anyway.

In Ohio, the battle between Winter and Spring continues to rage fiercely. One day we revel in short sleeves and the urge to dig in the dirt; the next, we are forced to admire the magic of a snow covered landscape. The grey, dreary days always wear on my mood but every sunshiny day holds the promise of warmth and new growth and Spring. I cling to those glimmers of hope and Jasmine's row of paper cups hold a promise all their own.

Life has been very normal here at The House On The Hill. We eat and sleep and go to work and school. We consume food and create dirty laundry and a messy house with alarming regularity. Except, if you think about it, it's actually not alarming but comforting. Normal means we're all here; healthy, comfortable and reasonably happy.

Normal means there are little girls creating imaginary houses and accessories out of upside down bar stools.

Normal means a little boy making up stories about 'Honey Bear' and strewing toys all over the floor. It also means shared laughter over the funny things this little boy says. Last night before bed Chris said, "I volunteer Charles Eicher to pick up all these toys. Everyone voting for Charles, raise your hand." Everyone quickly raised their hand. But when Chris told Charles to get busy he piped up, "But I didn't raise my hand!"

Looking back through recent pictures I realize that there have been extraordinary days too. Little things that switch up the 'normal' and keep life interesting and exciting.

One day, grades 1-4 went ice skating. Along with several other moms, I went along for the day. I tied skates and encouraged the wobbling ones, letting them hang onto my hand and even, once, landed hard on the ice when the wobbler lost their footing. I had some sore muscles the next day but it was fun anyway.

Speaking of school, Jennifer and Lillian are enjoying special days during the month of March. The latest one was Hat Day and different headgear seemed to put a sparkle in their eyes. Maybe I should try it myself someday?

Sometimes a cup of hot tea is just the thing to cheer up a cold, dreary day. It's even better to share a cup with a couple of friends, which is just what I enjoyed doing yesterday. I need to do that more often.

I continue to dabble in my new hobby. When I get started, it's hard to stop.

One day, the nice man at this house did his usual good deed of stopping at Aldi after work to pick up whatever it is that I'm desperately needing and grabbed some flowers while he was at it. They are still brightening my days.

That about covers it for normal days and saying nothing.........