Year: 2014

When I used to write my blog I had a weekly review that I did. It was actually one of my favorite posts because I was able to track what happened in our family that way. I’m really super sleepy after having spent the entire evening at our barn party so I’ll see how this post goes tonight.

Last Saturday was the Homecoming Dance. It’s one of only two dances for the High School (the other is Prom) so lots of kids go. Here are a couple of pictures, one of Matthew ready to go, and the other of Jack with some of his friends. The ninth graders went to a big group dinner, which of course shows the value in the parents organizing some social activities early on in their middle school career. The tenth grade isn’t really like that and I wish it were!

Sunday was church and then a pretty relaxed afternoon. I was able to get the groceries bought, which always means that Monday is saner. Bill smoked chickens that night for dinner–and don’t they look lovely picking over the carcasses!

The week was a bit of a regular blur: Monday riding for the girls, Matthew practicing football late every night because this was a big day, Jack practicing his guitar every afternoon and running so that wrestling practice doesn’t kill him next week. I got two lessons in on my Finn (riding lessons).

The week in fact seemed to revolve around getting the dinner made on Thursday night. I wrote about it here.

Thursday night my eye started hurting again so I had to go back to the doctor on Friday. I’m back on full doses of medicine, which I hate. I have a hard time even remembering to take vitamins ever day! Five weeks on medicine is for the birds.

Last night was a huge, huge game for my son and his team. Sadly, we lost 28-35. It was so hard to watch! Our boys have so much heart. I just wish they could have pulled it out.

And, finally, today was our annual fall festival at the farm. The kids dress up along with their horses, and then we have freestyle dressage tests. We let the horses bob for apples (so fun!) and finally, we ate. Bill smoked his ribs, and we had a huge spread of food. A great ending to the week. I am looking forward to sharing more pictures soon.

Okay, it looks like I got through this before I fell asleep. What was the most rewarding part of your week?

 

**My photo stream doesn’t seem to want to cooperate, and I’m falling asleep. Pictures tomorrow. Meaniwhile, ‘night!  **Updated again because I added the pictures!

Several days (weeks?!) ago a friend challenged me on Facebook to name the ten books that have influenced me the most. Of course I have a tendency to think of the last ten books I read, but this time I wanted to dig in and see if I could come up with a real list that spanned more of my life. Sandi, here is your answer, finally.  And I figured that anything that took this much thought deserved its own blog post!

I’m not counting the Bible. It continues to influence me. How can you hear something ten times and then, on the eleventh hearing, get something completely new? So I’m leaving it off.

The Little House series: Seminal books in my growing-up years. I read and re-read these and I still love them.

The Phantom Tollbooth: Also a kid book! I had no idea how much wit and sarcasm an author could fit in one book. I reread it recently and it held up well.

Deliverance: An odd choice…because I loathed this book. We were required to read it in 12th grade English and I just thought that it wasn’t worth the time. I was disappointed in our teacher for requiring it, and I think that I was one of only two students who didn’t think our teacher was awesome for requiring it. (Several days in the library for us, right, Kris?)

The Great Divorce: I could name several by C.S. Lewis, but I’ll just pick one. I re-read this about every 18 months. Lewis opened my eyes to what real love is in this book, and he forever altered my vision of Hell.

Love and Respect:  Bill found this book, and we read it together. It was the first time we tried to apply, in a concrete way, Biblical principles in our marriage. It made our already good marriage great, and helped us to learn to trust God and His Word.

Same Kind of Different as Me:  Another earth-shaker. I so closely identified with the white guy in the book. It was eye-opening to read Denver’s point of view.

Great Expectations:  Hands down my favorite novel. I read it first when I was in my early 30’s and was blown away at how much I loved Dickens. I’ve read others but this is always the one I come back to.

The Artist’s Way:  The book that convinced this engineer/actuary that I could write and paint (not well!) and be creative. And also that I didn’t have to do things perfectly for them to be worthwhile.  The process changed my life…but you can only do it once!

Painting as a Pastime: Probably Winston Churchill’s shortest book, really more of a long essay. Necessary reading for all adults. I’m sorry but it’s true.

The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: Mostly because I wanted to list an influential book I read this year. Read this book.

Gates of Fire: Possibly my favorite historical fiction novel. Plus the Battle of Thermopylae is widely discussed in our house. Win-win.  Pressfield is so accurate in his descriptions of ancient Greece that history professors have their students read this book for the history.

Oops, that was eleven.

So I’d love to hear what books have influenced you over the years!  And do you find fiction or non-fiction to be more influential?

I’m sure you’ve seen Renee Zellweger’s new look by now. I hate to say it, but I miss your old look, Renee!

That second picture is only a year old…I think she’s had work done.

I get it. I’m a year older than Renee. While I don’t make my money from my face (a good thing!), I’m just like every woman. I watch the lines creep in, the fullness where it wasn’t before, the sag in another place. And it isn’t always fun or easy. But it has to happen.

I’ve realized you wear your life on your face.

I’m not anti-injectables! I think Botox has it’s place in delaying the inevitable. Heck, I even used it a few times in my late 30s and early 40s. I knew those lines were coming, but I just wanted to put them off for a year or so. I knew they had to come eventually. Nobody hits fifty unscathed.

Those laugh lines? They come from laughing.

The worry line, right there between the eyes? (Ugh, and the ones around my eyebrows?) They come from loving some people and caring about them and worrying about them!

The freckles and sun damage? In spite of all the sunscreen, they bear witness to the hours at the lake and the farm with my people.

And it would either be unnatural or really, really sad to get to my age and not have that experience to wear on my face.

When I think of the women I most want to be when I’m 65 or 70, I don’t think of Joan Rivers. I think of my grandmother, my mom, my aunts. Dear ladies at church who are gorgeous and loving and happy. And I don’t see how I get to that beauty with frequent stops at the plastic surgeon.

Well-maintained, however, is another matter altogether! Facials, a good diet and exercise–they are all important. It seems to me that just as important as those is loving the people in my life.

I do have a confession, though. When I was little I hit my nose on the very hard head of Jane my neighbor while we were running through the sprinkler. I don’t know if I broke it then, but the lump remains. Since cartilage keeps growing even as I age, my nose has gotten a little more crooked over the years. I do think about getting that straightened out…

What about you? What do you think about Renee’s new look? And what do you think about your own looks as you age?

 

**One of my fellow 31-dayers is posting a fun series on beauty and aging.  You should check it out!

 

I don’t write a Bible Study or devotion blog, but I do like to share what I’m reading or thinking about. Right now, that’s Jeremiah.

I listen to Daily Audio Bible as part of my devotions (almost) every day. I started listening in January and have found that I really love hearing the Bible as a change from reading. We have an Old Testament reading, a New Testament one, and then a Psalm and a Proverb each day.

We’ve been in Jeremiah for the last two weeks or so. I love Jeremiah–he’s definitely my favorite prophet, and this might be my favorite book in the Old Testament. I love that he was young when called, and goes through some odd trials, and stays faithful and just keeps telling the truth. In the last few days, three sections have stood out for me, and I’d like to share them.

In Jeremiah 18, God tells Jeremiah to go see a potter, and then God describes Himself as the potter. God is going to have to treat Israel the same way that a potter treats a spoiled vessel. God used this illustration to say, “Look! I’m a potter, and I’m shaping some pretty bad stuff for you. Change your evil ways!”

So here’s what I love: A potter shapes a vessel by applying pressure from the inside and the outside. The image of God as potter is so useful when I think about the ways God tries to change my heart. He works on my from the inside AND the outside, from quiet whispers to my heart and the life circumstances that I find myself in. He uses them TOGETHER to work me into a vessel that pleases Him.

Now I’ll jump to Jeremiah 29. Did you know that Jer. 29:11 is the most searched verse on Bible Gateway? Sure enough. Haven’t we all heard it as a young person we love is being launched into a new phase of life, like confirmation or graduation? It seems so reassuring:  God has this, God has a plan and you just need to find it. Except, that isn’t exactly the context.

Jeremiah has just gotten done telling the nation of Judah that they are about to leave Jerusalem. Not for a couple of months, or one or two years, but for 70 years. The people who leaving aren’t coming home. And it’s not a vacation. They are being exiled by Babylon, sent to live in a foreign land. But the message God give Jeremiah is hopeful: Yes, it is bad–but you must go through this to be the people I know you can be. Go and build your homes, plant gardens, marry and have children, find husbands and wives for your children. Then, one day, your children will come home. And then God says: “For I know the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” Think of that–the people are being exiled but God speaks and says that I have a plan. I will use this circumstance to help build your future. Do NOT lose hope.

And then, two verses later, he says the most hopeful verses of all: “If you seek Me with your whole heart, I will let you find me…” That’s the plan! That is what God truly desires for all of us. Here God is, speaking into the darkest situation the Hebrews can face. The siege ramps are being built. The soldiers are massing outside the walls of Jerusalem. And yet God reassures His people that if they will only seek Him, there is reason for hope. A reassurance of crops and homes, children and grandchildren and a return home.

This hasn’t been an easy fall in our home (I’ve had shingles, remember? STRESS), and when I realized the whole context of this verse, the richness and the promise, I just grabbed it and held on. Even in the dark times God promises good, He promises He has a plan.

Finally, in Jeremiah 32, we find the city of Jersualem right at the tipping point of the siege. Jeremiah is imprisoned because, as usual, the king doesn’t like what Jeremiah has to say. Out of nowhere, Jeremiah’s cousin shows up and asks him to buy his field. Now what this cousin was really after was some money, because once the kingdom of Judah goes into exile, this land will be worthless. And Jeremiah is in jail anyway! But God says to Jeremiah, “Buy that land!” and Jeremiah does. He carefully records the deed in front of multiple witnesses and seals the documents in a strong clay jar.

Later, Jeremiah says to God, “I don’t get it! Why buy this land that will be worthless to me soon?” And God says, “It won’t always be worthless. You did it as a sign that the day is coming when people will buy and sell land again. You are coming back.”

A promise. The barbarians (or Babylonians, in this case) are literally at the city gates, and God is still trying to get Jeremiah to focus on the promise that is coming.

I love that these stories, not new to me, are standing out in a different way as I listen to them. If you are looking for a different way to experience a quiet time, I’d love to invite you to join me and thousands of others who download the podcast every day. And I’d love to hear how you have read or heard an old story in a new way!

I seem to always have a bunch of projects in the pipeline, and I thought it would be fun to periodically share what I’m working on. Both of my grandmothers did tons of sewing or quilting, and I find myself coming full circle to that since I just finished my first quilt last month. And since I am a self-avowed “bad finisher” this might be a good place to ‘fess up to all the projects that sit around!

Plus I’m a dork and can’t resist a bad pun. Sometimes actuaries have to explain what they do, and a pretty pithy explanation is that we are exceptionally creative accountants. (We even get to predict the future!) So this title is kind of a groaner, you know?

Anyway, when I’m not writing jokes, here are a few things I’ve got in the pipeline right now:

Pillows for the couch. I’ve got some lime and turquoise ones right now but they are KILLING me because they look too summery. The rich blues, greens and magenta feel like fall to me. I need to quilt these tops and then get the pillows made.

This is a LemonDrop Tunic from Anna Maria Horner. Seriously, I just need to add sleeves and pockets and sew up the side seams. But I haven’t finished it even though it is prime time for wearing it! I tried on a sample when I went to AMH’s CraftSouth workshop in Nashville during AUGUST–how can it have been two months ago?! It is super-cute so I really need to do this. But I want those pillows worse…

Bill’s needlepoint belt. So preppy it just makes me smile. It’s the alphabet in nautical flags…right now I’m up to “M.” I love this simple needlepoint, and I was making good progress on it until I started walking instead of working on this while I listen to Daily Audio Bible. Stupid FitBit, keeping me from the couch and my needle.

A patch in an intended Alabama Chanin-style throw. It’s reverse applique using jersey knits. Actually, it’s just practice for me to make my skirt. But I have a stack of patches I could make…someday…Natalie Chanin was the other instructor at the CraftSouth class. I fell in love with hand-sewing that weekend!

The hat that needs to be my number one priority right now! Done with the ribbing…now I’m into the body of it.

And that’s it (or all I’m admitting to right now)! Hopefully I can post another accounting in a couple of weeks and there will be some progress. Are you working on anything right now?

I read this today: What if Having an Extraordinary Life Isn’t the Point? (via Maggie’s Farm, a source of endless great articles for me!). Go read it. I’ll wait.

So here’s the deal:  I enjoy writing, like to write a blog, and I’m glad I’m doing it again. But we are just ordinary. So ordinary. And I always felt like I needed to say something earth-shaking, make an IMPACT for goodness’ sake. Or I was just wasting my time.

But frankly, I don’t have time to shake the earth while I am raising my four sweet kids, keeping up with my husband and farm and the endless laundry.  I don’t think that I’m called to do something more earth-shaking, more extraordinary, than just these few things right now.

My ego wishes it weren’t so. I love talking in front of people. But I don’t really have anything extraordinary to say. Wouldn’t it be cool to have some awesome insight, a great message to take to people? But that’s not who I am. I’m ordinary.

I’ve committed to writing every day in October as part of the 31 day Challenge. I didn’t really have a topic; instead, I just wanted to find my voice, see what my sweet spot of writing might be. I think I’ve found it.

I’d like to just share our ordinary life. I think that for me, the writing will be good, a way to notice and record. And for my friends and far-flung family, it is a fun way to keep up. And for other readers who choose to join me, maybe it will be just another peek into one way ordinary life can look. I’d love for you to join me.