Potpourri

 A little of this and that on a snowy Saturday with the sun trying to shine. 

We got a beautiful snow early this week and it's still hanging heavily on the trees, turning the view outside into a thing of wonder and beauty. I must say, the number one advantage to homeschooling is the privilege of not needing to get out in the cold nor needing to navigate snowy roads. I will be relishing every single snow this year. 

To be honest, part of that might also be due to the fact that my children can now bundle up all by themselves and go out to play for hours, then come in and take care of the mess on their own. Amazing. The two youngest have played and played in the snow this week!

That rack was my mom's "dryer" back in the day. She used to set it on top of the wood stove and dry clothes in the wintertime. 

We've been on a puzzle putting together binge lately. We've done a number of easier ones that we've put together multiple times and a couple of harder ones that I picked up recently at the Goodwill. I love doing puzzles. I'm almost as bad with a puzzle as I am with a good book -- can't stop till it's done. 

This one was the biggest challenge! It was also missing a piece, but for .99 cents, one can't complain. 

This one was easier but still a fun challenge. I opened the box to find that the previous owners had put all the edge pieces in a ziploc bag. Did you ever?? Felt positively like cheating! I guess I've burned the rest out; I basically put this one together all by myself. Then again, it's partly just that someone in the house has a new toy that's more fun than puzzles. 

She's already turning her squawks into actual music and it's so fun to listen; especially when they all three get in on the action. 

I really should stop this rambling and run along to my cleaning and laundry and responsible activities. This post makes it sound like my week was all cozy and cheery and fun, and that's not entirely true. I had a bitter disappointment, a humbling blow to my pride and my share of the grouchies this week too, just so you know. Life is most always a mix of the good and the ugly, no matter how rosy it looks from the outside. 

Have a rosy weekend, ugly bits and all!

Dear Mom

 Dear Mom, 

I've been thinking about you so much this week. Today you would be 77 and I've been looking forward to this day for awhile now. Guess what? We finished your book!

I've had some tearful days this week, Mom, wishing that you were here to see it. 

I'll always wish we would have helped you finish your project while you were still here. I guess that's just a reminder that we don't have an unlimited time with the people we love. It's so easy to put things off and not get them done! I know, in the light of eternity, a book about the history of our church is not really that important. I just wanted you to know that we did it; it's here, and how I wish I could show it to you. I'm pretty sure you would love it. 

Rach was the one who got serious about it, Mom. She stuck to the project for the past two years and has spent hours and hours getting it done. You can imagine how many times we threatened to forget the whole idea or to just type up the stories we had and staple them together and call it good. If it had been left up to me, we still wouldn't be done.

I'm not sure exactly what you had in mind when you wanted to write down the history of Shady Lawn, Mom. It was hard to decide how to do it. How do you know what all to include? How do you make sure you don't leave out important information? What is the best format to use? And if we did get it written, how do we go about getting a book printed? You weren't here to answer any of those questions, so we hashed them back and forth and around and around. This is what we finally came up with.

We ended up going with kind of a scrapbook look, taking the stories you had already gathered of the people who first moved into the area and adding several more. There are so many things that could have been included from 65 years of church history and it was so hard to decide where to start and stop. We talked about Vacation Bible School, The Quilting, how the church building has evolved over the years, and included a bit of a timeline with important dates of interest. We barely touched the surface, really. I think one of your favorite touches would probably be your granddaughter's contributions of artwork scattered throughout the pages. Rach ended up setting up the whole book herself and, after checking out every different self publishing option we could find online, she bravely uploaded her files and printed a book!

It's not perfect by any means, Mom, but I know you wouldn't be concerned about perfection. We captured the stories and the vision of those early years and preserved the memories, and I think that's really what you wanted to do. You were always so passionate about preserving history for the next generation. 

I have missed you so incredibly much this week, Mom. Holding the book in my hands and reading the stories again has brought wave after wave of nostalgia and sadness. But I'm also thankful. Reading these stories makes me realize again how much my life has been impacted by parents who were invested in caring about people. Moving to a tiny little church, hundreds of miles from family and everything familiar, couldn't have been easy. You didn't have to live where there were dirt roads and no telephone in your house and attend a church so tiny that any given service found you with multiple responsibilities. But I am forever grateful you did. 

You were human, just like everyone else, Mom. You made mistakes and had your flaws but when it came to modeling a love for Jesus and your community, you did it well. Thank you. 

Love, Bethany 

********

To see a short video by my 11 year old about These Stones, and to find information about ordering a copy, go here. If you are reading on your phone, you may need to scroll to the bottom and click 'view web version' in order to access the video. In the web version of my blog, I will now have a button on the right side called These Stones, where you can access that information any time. 

Hometown Sentiments

Last weekend we made our somewhat- traditional visit to our local town to see the light display at the courthouse and the Dickens Christmas displays along the streets -- or, as we say, we went to see the statues.... technically, I believe they are called mannequins. It made me start thinking about hometowns. 

Are you proud of your hometown? Where is your hometown? If you move, when does the town/area you move to become your hometown? According to the dictionary definition, it is possible for it to change locations: /ˈhōmˌtoun/: town of one's birth or early life or of one's present fixed residence.

I was born in the largest city in Stone County. Meaning, I was born in a little country town in the hills of Arkansas. But who wouldn't be proud of a hometown nicknamed the "Folk Music Capital Of The World"? Mountain View was a thriving tourist town, bolstered by its plethora of unique small shops, its festivals that drew crowds spring and fall and by the nearby Ozark Folk Center. 

                Mtn View Courthouse 

We local people would joke that festival time was not the time you wanted to go to town -- the crowds and the traffic made getting anywhere fast an impossibility -- but I have fond childhood memories of watching the parade during the spring Folk Festival. In my mind's eye I can still see the high school band, marching down the middle of main street, playing their music. The rows of horseback riders and the long line of antique cars were never the highlight, although there was lots of candy throwing. It was the floats built by local businesses and the school that were always the favorite. I'll never forget the one depicting preparing for a burial, and the oft repeated, "We're sad to see Aunt Maude go -- We picked the ticks off and washed twixt her toes!" 

I only attended the fall Bean Fest once, and that was after I was married. We didn't partake of the free beans and cornbread on the square but we did watch the famous outhouse races. Yep, you read that right. The outhouse races are a big deal! We still laugh about the poor people who thought they had a choice seat for the festivities but ended up not quite being in the front row after all. They weren't too happy about it and made sure everyone around them knew it. 

I thought about all of this Sunday night as we walked down the streets of Cambridge. Bundled in coats and boots and our hands tucked deep in warm pockets, we admired the lights and the statues and I pondered hometowns. Cambridge is a pretty cool little town, really; the kind that a person could be proud of. Would my children have the same sentiments toward it that I had for Mtn View? Actually, they probably won't. We're positioned squarely between a couple of towns that we visit about equally, so their experience is a little different. But,  I wondered, is that how my parents felt about Arkansas? After all, both of them were transplants from Indiana. In fact, they had only lived in Arkansas twelve years when I was born! Realizing that fact made me do a double take on the whole subject. In my mind, my parents were always Arkansas folks to the core. When did that happen?

The Christmas light show at the  Cambridge courthouse is a must see! It never disappoints. 

And a walk down Wheeling Avenue to see the characters in Dickens Victorian Village never gets old. 

    I like the one on the left in particular...

I realize that hometown sentiments aren't really that important. I could turn this into a convicting conversation about this world not being our home and Heaven being our real hometown but that's not really my point. The fact is, I don't really have a point, other than the whole subject being an interesting and rather intriguing one. 

Are you proud of your hometown? What are your hometown sentiments?

Enter Into His Gates With Thanksgiving

Calvary Messenger is a small, Mennonite publication that is sent out monthly. When I was a child, my mom served as editor for the "Junior Stories" and "Hints From Home - Acres" sections. 

Incidentally, I have a stack of the old, original articles from her files.... 

I well remember mom's editor job, mostly because I typed up articles for her at a very young age -- long before I knew which finger to place on which key! I loved it. I also remember her stress over meeting those deadlines every month, although I was young enough that I didn't understand all of that fully. 

Recently, I had the privilege of being asked to write an article for the section of Calvary Messenger that is now titled "A Woman After God's Heart". This is really the first article of mine that has been published anywhere other than my blog, so it felt rather special for it to have a strong connection to my mom's writing. I know many of you may have read it already but a kind reader suggested I share it here, so I am doing that today. 

   Enter Into His Gates With Thanksgiving

There's a small, black journal on the floor by my bed -- yes, I know you probably keep yours neatly in your nightstand; some of us just make stacks on the floor. Anyway, there's a small, black journal and in it is scrawled Diaries of the Coronavirus March 2020. For nine long weeks I kept a daily record of one of the most surreal times of my life. Days when time seemed to stand

still and accomplishing any task felt like pushing your way through a sea of sticky peanut butter. Days when the only way to survive were putting one foot in front of the other and snatching chances to hide in some dark corner with a large box of tissues.

My life before March was an easy one. I'm the wife of one, stay at home mother of five. My oldest is a high school graduate, now working with his father, and the rest ranged from tenth to first grade. My days were spent cleaning, cooking, doing laundry -- so much laundry! And having ample time alone to nourish my introverted soul. If I wanted to accept outside activities, like volunteering at a local thrift store, I usually could. If I wanted to stay at home and do my own

thing, that was usually a valid option. March 2020 changed all of that.

"Sunday, March 15", the first entry in that black journal reads. "The first day of canceled normality."

In one fell swoop, during that fateful week in March, my world turned completely inside out. Church was canceled, school was closed and we welcomed our first foster placement, a four year old little girl. In one weekend's time, my days went from 7 hours of alone time to zero; from many hours of independence to high alert 24/7. To say it was an adjustment would be the

biggest understatement of the year.

I don't know how you deal with life when it throws you big challenges? Maybe you are the kind who enjoys them -- I live with a man who seems to. The bigger the challenge, the more optimism and determination to solve and conquer exudes from his person. You would think that nineteen years of living with that attitude would somehow transmit at least a small portion of it to my soul. Sadly, it hasn't. My instinctive modus operandi when big challenges appear is to run as

far and as fast as possible. But, sometimes there's nowhere to run. Sometimes the challenge must be faced and walked through, even when it feels impossibly hard.

So, I walked.

I walked into homeschooling using Abeka videos with only cell phone internet and four students who all needed to watch Math and Phonics and be in a Zoom meeting now. I walked into coaxing a first grader through his work who, when asked if mom is just that bad of a teacher replied promptly and adamantly, "Yes!!" And I walked into the heart of a four year old with whom the 'honeymoon stage' lasted about one week. Essentially, I walked into a life so out of my control that every day became one more vat of peanut butter to wade through. I dreaded getting up inthe morning and starting a new day. 

Added to the stress of everything else was the fact that underneath it all I was sure that I was not cut out for foster care. I never dreamed of doing this, see? I never really wanted it; never longed for it. I probably should have said no long ago and we never would have gotten to this point. "Foster care isn't for everyone," said all the wise people. Why couldn't I just be one of

those and stop feeling guilty? Why couldn't I just ignore the fact that we had prayed about a ministry opportunity for our family and because the need was great, we felt led to make ourselves available?

Every morning I would lay in bed and beg, "Please God, give us a good day. Please help me be patient. Please let school go smoothly. Please make the children play nice. Please help the four year old not to have a tantrum; please help me know how to handle it when she does". I knew

there was no way I could do this on my own, so I turned to the One who had strength to give away. Somehow it didn't really make me feel that much better.

Oh sure, if the day went well, I felt better. If the sun shone and the school work got done and the time outs were minimal, then the begging felt helpful. If my kind husband brought pizza for supper or spent his precious after-work hours taking the youngest members of the household to

the park, then I felt much, much better! But on the inevitable days when things didn't go well, I lived for bedtime and wondered if the energy expended begging was really even worth it.

I don't remember exactly what brought me to the Sunday where I looked my choices squarely in the eye. I only know I had been wallowing in self pity and constantly thinking how much easier all this strange life would be without a four year old yet too, and I realized that it had to stop.

Somewhere in the process that day of choosing repentance and joy, the verses in Psalm 100 became a word picture in my mind.

"Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him and bless his name." (Psalm 100:4)

In the days that followed, I began picturing the start of my day as entering into His gates. Making a conscious choice to enter those gates with Thanksgiving changed my prayers from frantic begging into grateful praising -- "Thank you Lord, for the gift of this day! Thank you for your faithfulness! Thank you for answered prayer yesterday!" This adjustment in perspective changed nothing in my situation but the resulting peace and joy made an astonishing difference. Almost without realizing it, my focus imperceptibly shifted from inward to outward, bringing a

change in my own heart that spilled over into the struggles and challenges of each day.

It would be completely dishonest to leave the impression that this practice of gratitude turned me into a bubbling fountain of perpetual joy. All you would need to do is ask my husband and family to find that to be untrue! However, there is no denying that the practice did make a

difference. The idea of entering into His gates with thanksgiving is jotted down in the little black journal on the floor beside my bed. When I look back on those nine, dramatic weeks of quarantine I will remember many things. I will always remember the fear and the turmoil; the

challenges and the enormity of change; the days of struggle and putting one foot in front of the other. But I hope that in my memories I will also recall the gem of truth that I learned from Psalm 100:4.

Thanksgiving

 Happy Day-After-Thanksgiving! I hope yours was a good one. Mine was, in a quiet, non-hectic kind of way. Ever since we've lived in Ohio, Thanksgiving is the holiday we spend with Chris' family. This year, all but one of his brothers - he has three; no sisters - live in the area. The brothers had gotten their heads together several weeks ago and unanimously decided to have a no-fuss, relaxing day for Thanksgiving. No big meal, just an afternoon and evening together and everyone bring snacks. Suited us women fine!

I thought it would be fun to do a big Thanksgiving meal just for us, so I planned to have ham (One turkey is enough!), mashed potatoes, dinner rolls, a vegetable, pumpkin and apple pie and ice cream. At the last minute, the plans got changed to having all the Eichers living in the area here for our meal, with grandma bringing turkey and chocolate eclair pudding and a sister in law adding baked corn and salad and a cute little miss for all of us to laugh at. It was a good day. We moved some furniture and toys and added leaves to the table and the girls had fun with decor and name places... We spent a laid back afternoon playing some music, singing some songs, playing a few games, working on a puzzle and turning the artists loose on art supplies.

My youngest daughter has a love affair with YouTube channels and making videos. Chris got her an editing program and we gave her a small tripod/selfie stick for her birthday and she has spent hours taking pictures and videos and editing them for her pretend channel! We get a lot of laughs out of her creations but she really has a talent for it and does a very good job. True to form, she was around constantly yesterday with her "equipment" in hand - an old cell phone and her tripod - busily filming and snapping. I thought it would be fun to share her video here on my blog instead of writing lots of words about our Thanksgiving. Being like her mom, she tried to protest against the idea but I knew she would secretly be thrilled.

So, here you go. I hope you enjoy her capture of our Thanksgiving!

The Terrible Tale of the Turkey or The Tale of the Terrible Turkey

 "I thought someone had died!" Chris told me later. "I was like, who died now?!" I guess that could be a reasonable thing to think when you're jolted out of a sound sleep at 5 something in the morning by a slightly hysterical woman with a severe case of bed head.

But, in order to understand this story, let me take you back to the beginning. It started with the electricity going off on Sunday afternoon... no, let's be honest. The story started with a sign up sheet on the church bulletin board for the youth's Thanksgiving Supper. You see, every year the youth do a Thanksgiving Supper for the senior citizens in the community. It's a lovely, sit down meal with turkey, mashed potatoes and the works. This year it got converted into a drive through supper but the menu remained the same, complete with your choice of pie accompanied by ice cream.

I've said it enough times that I probably should stop mentioning it, but cooking is not my thing. Cooking for other people, particularly in large amounts, terrifies me. I have no confidence whatsoever in my abilities and, quite frankly, as a general rule I do my best to avoid terrifying experiences. I mean, come on -- don't you? I confess: when there are sign up sheets for food, I go for the baked goods or the salads or the things you can just buy. I know. How do I expect to ever gain confidence? I guess the answer is, I don't. And yet I battle with guilt and humiliation every time there's an event involving food and me helping. 

But hey. How about we get back to the story before this turns into one long confessional of all my innermost feelings? 

So, the sign up sheet. I forgot to look at the thing, see. All the pie slots were taken, see. And the four empty turkey slots stared at me reproachfully and said "You have a turkey that's just been sitting in your freezer for...well, a very long time." And the empty homemade bread slots said "Just humble yourself and buy bread from the bakery; you've done it before." It sounds completely silly trying to explain it here but the guilt and the terror are real to me and the mental anguish I put myself through over such things is something I am quite ashamed of.

I promise there is more to this story than unending naval gazing; stick with me.

Since I've prepared turkeys so rarely in my short life (cough cough), I took to Google and dutifully put the turkey in the fridge to thaw and made plans as to how I would get it baked in a timely manner. I ordered my bread and lined up my ducks and felt like maybe I was making some progress in this growing up business at last. See, I told myself, if you had just done the Terrifying Things instead of avoiding them all your life you wouldn't be like this at 41 years old! Wise, wise words.

Sunday afternoon a storm blew in and took our electricity with it. What we expected to be a couple hour outage at the most, turned into overnight and into the next day. Between the complete silence of the night that a power outage brings and the worrisome thoughts about that turkey in my fridge, I got very little sleep. When electricity was at last restored, I pulled out the fowl and discovered the thing wasn't even completely thawed. No need to panic, I had time. They say you're not to thaw the silly things in cold water but I happen to know my mother used the cold water method and what worked for my mother works for me, or something like that. 

Well, it took the rest of the day to loosen up the icy depths but, no problem. My mother also baked her turkeys through the night and so could I!  I would just get up early and there would be time to debone the thing and still get to the church to help with preparations -- seeing as how I am the mother of the son on the youth committee, this is the expected procedure, you see. My stove has this handy dandy time bake feature and my husband is the expert on setting it for me, so I was all set for this slight hiccup in my well laid plans. We double checked the recommended baking temperature, counted up  the hours and set the oven accordingly. Then we crawled into bed, thankful for the noise of a fan and a good night of rest.

I woke up around 5 a.m. and, like Piglet with the Heffalump, my first thoughts were of turkey. Had it baked ok? Would I get it all taken care of? Did I smell it? I thought I did but the more I tried to smell it, the more I was sure I should be smelling it a whole lot more. Did I smell it? I remembered being a child and waking up to that turkey smell permeating the whole house on Christmas morning. Did I have the Coronavirus?? 

I fumbled my way out of bed and into the kitchen. The oven was on, there was no question about that. I felt the heat through the door and saw the red coils inside when I peered through the glass in the door. Suddenly, a sickening feeling hit the pit of my stomach. I let out a muffled noise akin to a strangling mouse and grabbed for the fridge handle. And there, my friends, was my big granite roaster perched just where I had left it with that bothersome turkey laying innocently inside. 

That's when I rushed in our bedroom, scrambled onto the bed and blurted out, "You are not going to believe this!!" in a voice that made my husband think someone had died.

I didn't cry over the whole bizarre thing until after I said (as I laughed a bit hysterically) "I can't believe neither one of us thought of it last night when we were figuring out the oven!" and he said, "I just set the oven. You said you were going to put the turkey in at 10:00." Ok then.

The rest of the story is that I stuck the thing into the oven straight away. It baked while I helped at the church and I had time to come home and take care of it. Everyone was as kind as could be and all was well that ended well even if it didn't seem very well at all at 5:00 in the morning. And that, is the Terrible Tale of the Turkey. I hope it gave you a laugh, because the one redeeming thought a couple hours after the horror wore off was -- this sure will make a good story for the blog!

Words About Weather

The weather the last two weeks has been like a special, surprise gift from a Father who knows you well. 

Fall is a beautiful season; I know this in my head but when the leaves begin to change, I always struggle to enjoy it. With the changing leaves comes the end of long, luxurious days of sunshine. In their place come the grey, bleak days and the long, dark evenings. I know only too well how they threaten to suck the life from my soul. The beautiful leaves just mean the end of my favorite season. 

The last week of October was full of rain and grey, heavy skies. But then November rolled in with two weeks of mostly blue sky and sunshine and I think maybe I should stop dreading fall and give it a chance... at least a little bit. 

We've been on a bike trail kick lately, loading up bikes and people three or four times in the last two weeks. It's just the perfect way to get some exercise and fresh air and we have to take advantage of our chances. It's also a great opportunity to show my skills at airing up tires and wielding wrenches on too high seats and cramming bikes into the back of a van. 

It's been worth the effort every single time. 

School at home gives you the advantage of getting your work done early and taking off on a glorious afternoon adventure. But it also gives the disadvantage of not getting daily, vigorous exercise and fresh air. Bike trail for the win. 

Yeah that's me on the tiny bike. 

Like I said, an opportunity to show off all kinds of skills!

It's also been perfect weather to rake leaves, relax in a hammock and play "cowboy". 

I still can't say that Fall is my favorite but these golden days have been a lovely gift and I have enjoyed them to the fullest. I know these days are numbered but I'll relish every one that I get. Also, not gonna be mad if there's lots of snow this winter -- since I won't have to be getting out in it!

A happy weekend to you all.... in a world that seems constantly teetering on the edge, may you find little gifts from the Father, whether sunny or grey.