July, what?

I have too many irons in the fire. On the writing front, I scratch out a daily diary entry and hope I don’t forget the big events. On the blogging front, some things are just too nuanced to write for public consumption. I feel that if I put my private life online, I should not be surprised when the general public wants to get a better grasp on the details, help me fix my private life. Of course, God can speak to me through complete strangers, but by far the most effective work in my life has been like bits of yeast in dough, caught locally. It’s quiet, and it affects all the dough eventually.

Sometime I will have courage to talk about how hard it is to relocate when you were firmly rooted and less adventurous than you knew. I might describe the blindsided feeling of watching your child struggle with an epilepsy diagnosis that changes all of his life. I might be able to unpack parenting young adults who have their own choices to make. For now I don’t have words, so we’ll stay carefully on the surface. Just so you know, there is nothing like perplexity to give a backdrop to the new mercies. Every. Single. Morning. I know a safe place. It’s mostly quiet there. Even God is quiet. I listen for the still small voice and some days I don’t hear a thing. But I believe and He helps my unbelief.

Since we’ve finished school, I’ve been spending most of my spare time in my gardens or outside the house somewhere, either sowing grass seeds in places where only weeds were growing, or mulching around baby trees, or making The Stinkiest Fertilizer Ever with comfrey leaves. I’m prioritizing gardening because it feels good. That’s all. I do it for fun, and I haven’t exactly been rewarded with stellar crops so far, but at least the plants are no longer just sitting in my new garden doing nothing. The comfrey tea seems to have helped them shake off their lethargy. I’m also daily angered by the critters that keep destroying large areas, as in entire rows of green beans nibbled off in a night, or all my beautiful stems of allium that were just starting to turn purple, felled by some sharp toothed rabbit that isn’t even supposed to like oniony things. Ever since I planted them in November, I have been looking forward to seeing their graceful orbs floating above the other plants on slender stems, and now they’re in a vase in my house floating above the table.

We’re still working on some house projects. Just before the 4th, we got our upstairs bathroom functional. I really wanted to have it done before Gabriel’s family came to surprise him for his birthday, so I dropped hints and finally just said that somebody is coming and I want the bathroom ready for guests. That worked, but he also figured out who was coming. I learned a few things through that project, like how to grout tile and lay vinyl plank floor, and even how to install wainscoting while my husband is at work. How am I in my 40’s and never knew that I could do this stuff? Probably because my man is the one who does anything DIY in the house. But with YouTube tutorials, and proper tools, there are few projects that a woman can’t tackle. I do know my place; I left the plumbing strictly alone, and I won’t be installing the door or the trim. I’m not detail-oriented enough for work like that.

• 

The toilet was flushing, the sink was working, and we hung a curtain for a door just hours before his family pulled in the lane. Gabriel’s 40th birthday is in a few weeks, but it worked better for his parents and three youngest brothers and one sister and their families to come over the 4th. There were 14 extra people in our house, and in tents and hammocks outside. We had a ball, and Gabriel was quite blessed.

• 

Addy hit a milestone too. She is ten years old! I have a tradition of doing a little overnight jaunt with the girls when they turn ten, which is where I am right now, in Pittsburgh at an Airbnb. We have a few more hours before we have to check out and go home. Of course, this begs the question: how is my baby so grown up already?

Early this spring our children were complaining that we didn’t camp at all last year. We concluded that last year we camped a large part of the year, and primitive conditions outside our house just didn’t seem appealing. But we’ve gone twice this spring, first to a campsite where we had to canoe across the lake to access it, and then to a campsite with a bathroom just up the hill. They were equally fun and relaxing, although it’s not my favorite thing to be in a canoe full of gear, paddling across the wake of the big boats, in the middle of a wide lake. It felt like they didn’t even see us, and might run over us.

Once we got to our site in a small cove, life was peaceful, optimum for fishing, reading in hammocks, and eating everything out of the food bag until there was nothing left but limp cheese sticks and granola bars that nobody liked. It’s funny how much we love camping, yet how much we rhapsodize about having showers and real beds when we get home. For us to see our children recharge by appreciating a sunset over water, or admiring tiny snakes and shiny beetles, or smacking their lips about campfire oatmeal without any milk… Well, it makes slightly deflated air mattresses feel just fine.

In our efforts to raise them differently from the technology-addicted norm, the easiest way to do that is to get them off-grid occasionally and show them some mountains. Of course, the first thing we do when we get back to WiFi is check our messages. 🥴

I just looked back over my photos to see what else has been happening. I reupholstered some chairs, an activity I don’t think I’d recommend. The jury is out until we see if my amateur job holds up. They look better at a little distance, and they do look better than they did, for sure. I’m planning a post all about newbie mistakes and how to cover them up, because I discovered that there’s a lot of bluff in the upholstery world.

We made a quick trip back to Bedford County for homeschool evals in June. There was time to connect with friends and to stop in at our old place, which is being rented to own. They gave us a hefty down payment that we get to keep, should they abscond on the contract (which includes property maintenance). We don’t sign over the deed until the place is paid in full. I’ll just tell you, it looks nice inside the house and horrible outside. Nine months of neglect is all it takes for nature to cover the work of years with weeds. I mourned over it, then I moved on, because what else can you do? Also I rescued my blueberry bushes out of the jungle and replanted them at our new property.

That’s the highlights of our headlong dash through June, which felt like it lasted about four days. I saw back to school shelves in stores yesterday, so I think I’ll log off and live July now.

Blessings all! May your watermelons be luscious!