… is that it’s just so good.

Occasionally I challenge myself to go 24 hours without a cup of coffee, and I do admit to getting a headache every time. On the days that I find myself drinking too much of the caffeinated stuff, mindlessly chugging along, I do not feel good about my dependence. So this year of 2021, I started a thing where I choose my mug carefully, I bring my water to the proper temperature, I grind my beans from Aldi’s with precision, I use a small French press, and I add some cream. Then I savor just one cup. Most days.

The problem arises when I have visitors. For many years I have had a drip coffee maker in storage that I pull out to make 12 cups. The last two times I have used it, it has let me down badly by deluging the water over the grounds, breaching the filter, and flooding my countertop with grounds and coffee as it overflows the filter basket. This is not a fun problem to have when you have company waiting for coffee with their apple cake.

I decided that the 12 cup coffee maker needs to retire, so I cleaned it well with white vinegar and it holds the place of honor in the girls’ play area in the basement. They use it to brew tea, and it works great.

I thought round and round about the need to be able to make large amounts of coffee for my visitors, since that is such a loving thing to do and I like my visitors. I honestly don’t care how it’s made, just as long as it’s there and tastes reasonably smooth. (Actually, I do care. But not so much that I won’t accept a cup of gas station coffee offered in a loving way.) Considering that it’s a pain to store a machine I don’t normally use, and that every time one of the children fetches it from its basement storage I am sure they will drop the glass carafe on the way up the steps, I looked into the options.

I was considering getting a fancy machine with a delayed brew timer so that I could keep it on my countertop and maybe have coffee ready for me when I get up. I could just retire the French press. Meanwhile we had lunch with old friends and they got out this massive stainless steel, double-walled press.

Ah. That was the deciding moment. I searched the interwebs and ordered the biggest one I could find, which is still only fifty ounces, but big enough that I can serve a number of people with one press. I like things that work without being plugged in. I like things that don’t break easily, but still look nice. And I do like French pressed coffee.

I just realized. My tea kettle isn’t nearly big enough to heat 50 ounces of water. Hm. I’ll have to be resourceful with that. There is also a 30 cup urn that I bought at a yard sale, so I think we’re set for serving the masses. Come on in and welcome! Would you like cream or sugar with that?

It’s kind of funny. This tiny bean that God made and saw that it was very good, and then he made some people with enormous brains to figure out how to roast it and grind it and brew it. It sure can get you. That’s the thing about coffee.

If you are one of those strong souls who do not like it, or need it, and refuse to taste it, I’m sorry.

I’ll get the girls to bring you tea when you come to my house.

…I know it’s the monster that swallows up the little guys. I know this, and I still go there sometimes. The thing is, it’s just so local and convenient. I can even get there without tripping over a Dollar General.

I needed white vinegar and pure cane sugar, toothpaste and mouthwash, and some peat pots for starting seeds. We had projects lined up for this afternoon, so I decided to drive the strenuous two miles up the hill to Walmart and buy the stuff we needed before we started the projects.

I found the things on my list, plus a yellow calla lily in full bloom, a variegated fern, and a pobby pink cactus. Also some deli chicken and a couple umbrellas.

The thing about Walmart is that it’s such a melting pot of Americana. I saw a lady overflowing her jeggings, loudly upbraiding the manager because the frozen ground turkey was outdated. Her son calmly played on his phone, not even noticing his mother’s upset. There was a middle-aged couple who had heaped their cart with clearanced children’s clothing, and then piled groceries on top of that, working as a team to push the cart and keep things from falling out of it. I waited in the aisle behind a guy who was selecting organic produce and lots of jugs of Naked juices, leaving in his wake a highly natural smell of one who avoids deodorant. My favorites were the nattily dressed elderly ladies who were making an occasion of their shopping excursion, savoring getting out, being careful to buy exactly the things they needed and no more. My vote for most incongruous went to the Amish gentleman with a beard flowing around and under a dirty blue surgical mask, and his wife dressed all in black from her bonnet to her shoes, except for a bright red bandanna tied over her face.

I could people-watch all day at Walmart, vacillating between hilarity, distress, and admiration. I hate how much money I spend there, and I like how organized the shelves are, and I hate how much planned obsolescence is part of their model, and I like that I can buy sea salt and socks at the same store.

That’s the thing about Walmart… there is just so much of it.

Do you shop there?

We’re in that stage of the wintertime where, quite frankly, torpor has set in. We move slowly, only stepping it up to a hustle when there is some sort of deadline. Yesterday I had a friend coming over for tea, and I hustled to make a sourdough apple coffee cake that never disappoints. Somehow I skipped adding one cup of flour to the one cup of sourdough starter, yet nothing looked amiss until I pulled it out of the oven a few minutes before my guests arrived. As it sank lower into a flat round in the iron skillet where it normally plumps out the top, I knew instantly what I skipped. It tasted surprisingly normal, but was just missing that certain crumbiness one expects out of coffee cake.

Taking a quick squint around the living space at the end of this day, I see plenty of evidence that we have been selectively industrious. There are a lot of projects littered about the living room where the girls listen to Audible stories while they craft. This includes embroidery, beading, knitting, and some fabric scraps that appear to be hanging out just in case they are needed. There are stacks of storybooks, as well, and some fifty states worksheets that Addy is working on with colored pencils. We have numerous school books strewn about, because we have not finished out our week of lessons and will conclude them tomorrow.

We are behind. The preposition dangles there, needing an object. Behind in our housework? Our obligations to keeping our floors clean? Our educations? Maybe it is that we have gently released our normal expectations of what staying ahead looks like, so that the “behind” feeling only niggles at us a little bit. After all, who makes the rules?

Early on in the week I picked up large bags of produce so that they would last awhile. Today we discovered that a huge bag of carrots, and a quantity of pink grapefruits and navel oranges got stowed in the freezer section of the extra refrigerator downstairs. Oh dear. Nobody remembers who put them away. I suppose the thing to do is to learn a lesson, but I am not sure what. PAY ATTENTION? FOCUS?

We are also ahead.

On Wednesday we ladies had a field trip in Erie while the guys went skiing. We checked out some of the mom and pop places including a crepery with no dine-in facilities, but the coffee shop next door welcomes people to eat crepes at their tables. It seemed an interesting arrangement, but preferable to eating crepes out of styrofoam shells in our vehicle. We visited a 3 story ramshackle thrift store that was recommended by a friend, and we discovered a candy factory that was established over 100 years ago. In pre-Covid days one could watch the process of candy-making on equipment that dates to the early twentieth century. So now we know a few places we want to revisit, as well as some we didn’t have time to explore.

We are a tiny bit ahead on the domestic scene. Addy and I did all the laundry today, even folded and put it away. We are ahead by a number of felt animals that the girls are cranking out as fast as their clever little stitching hands can make them. Gregory is getting ahead by ripping out the tile in the upstairs bathroom, and if you know about demolition therapy, you know that this is a good thing for a young man with excess energy. I got ahead by twenty-five pounds of clay thrown into forms that are not mugs, which is a special therapy for me.

So today I didn’t do any rushing. I just lived. The sun shone briefly and I thought that would be the time to take a walk, only it was so cold that I quickly walked back inside the house.

Alex has moved back to Bedford County and is working at the job he had before we moved up north. In a funny twist, he is renting an apartment in the house where Gabe lived before we were married. He talked me into downloading Snapchat before he left, and we have a streak going, if you know what that means. I am ever so grateful for technology to be able to stay in touch.

The pandemic seems to be giving us a bit of a break in this area. The crowding in the hospital is not as acute, and the stress on the nurses is letting up a little. Since the beginning of the year, Gabriel has been assigned to a blessedly normal cardio ICU.

I don’t follow the news much, expect for scanning the titles for oddities that make me laugh or shake my head, which is almost the same thing. In the past week I saw that a company in Hong Kong is planning to mass produce humanoid robots to “safely” care for the ailing/elderly in these unprecedented times. If I were an elderly person in a care facility, and a plastic person came into my room to help me, I would run straight to Jesus right then. That isn’t even a little bit funny.

There are some on the Safety First Front who are suggesting that double masking may be better than single masking, unless it makes it too difficult to breathe, in which case you should always choose adequate oxygen as the safer way to live.

There was an article about mulching that I read with interest. Apparently in Washington state you may not legally bury loved ones on your own property. Unless they are composted, that is. Once they are mulch, you may spread them around your shrubbery, but you cannot bury them to compost naturally. Who thinks these things up?

I also noticed that the earth is warming up, probably because the air is cleaner since the pandemic lockdowns. Never mind that this is a not-so-charming about-face from the narrative only a year ago when the earth was warming due to pollution.

On the food front: Kraft made a limited edition pink mac and cheese for Valentine’s Day. You could enter to win some, but I wasn’t really tempted. Also, hot chocolate bombs really are the bomb. We know because we tried them. Messy, not nearly as easy as the tutorials look, but delicious. Probably that would be a great thing for you to try this weekend, and you can pick one of the thousands of tutorials to coach you.

I just read God Knows My Size to my girls for our read-aloud. They are old enough to process hard things, and it brought us face to face again with a God who knows us all personally. When we read the chapter where Sylvia’s family received a box of clothes in exactly the right size for her, I kept choking up as I read. Rita finally marched across the room and set the tissue box beside me.

I bought a fat notebook full of writing prompts to boot me in the rear this year. It is a sort of memoir, and it makes me squirm a little with the preoccupation that is All About Me. Still, it is a good way to bring up reams of stories from my not-so-long life. It’s funny how random things come to the surface and suddenly connect to other random things, as if Someone was in charge.

In fact, that is where I am staking it all. Pandemic, fallen humanity, robots and all that mess cannot separate us from the LOVE that is holding all things together.

… Not quite like a boss.

As an overwhelmed, dearly-loved friend of mine said, “It will take years for me to catch up from this last year. How am I supposed to ‘pick a word’?” Incidentally, her past year was hard in an ongoing, dragged-out fashion that had only a little to do with Covid, and mostly was just a series of unfortunate events similar to the Biblical account of Job.

I read through some of my recent writings and found too many times that I used “weird” to describe a thing. My writing teacher repeatedly instructed us to use the Thesaurus and never to use the same descriptive word twice in a paragraph. He pushed us to vary sentence structure and to find exact and vivid ways to express our thoughts. I’m sure he would not approve of so much “weird”.

So. That’s a somewhat-resolution I made. Stop saying “weird” so much. Thesaurus, don’t fail me now.

I need this reset to help me look for God in the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up parts of life. He is there. All I have to do is observe, and maybe tell Him that I see Him so that it becomes a habit to notice. Maybe this situation I think is odd isn’t so weird at all, but Providential.

Recently I read how Mr. Rogers’ mother taught him to cope with scary things in the news. “Look for the helpers,” she would say. “You will always find people who are helping.”

Those are the two attitude shifts that I am working toward. I don’t have a specific word, but I do have the assurance of the kindness of God and His good intentions toward me.

I bought a cheap planner yesterday, four days late, but my old one finished out the week until Sunday, and I found I could cope. I jest. My planner is mainly my events diary, and the place where I write appointments that may or may not happen. (Some, like the filling and crown I was supposed to get yesterday, I do not mind rescheduling due to “staffing issues”. That’s code for The Dentist Has Covid.) The most important requirement is that my planner is big enough to write about three sentences every day, and small enough to fit into my purse. I like to have a month-at-a-glance page for appointments, (although my husband and I share google calendars so that we know who is coming and going). Having waited too long into the new year, the stock was very picked over, and I came home with thinner pages than I prefer to write on, and a nondescript blush cover with golden polka dots. Last year’s planner had a floral theme with wise sayings sprinkled through, and a thick notes section in the back that I hardly used except to feel glad that it was there in the event that I wanted to write notes. I have tried elaborate organizers with weekly meal planning sections and grocery lists and fitness goals all in one lovely book. In fact, I was looking at a simply gorgeous one online, with a reading plan, Scripture memory section, liturgical prayers, etc, and then I saw that it cost $48, so that deflated the optimistic moment that had me thinking I could compartmentalize my life so neatly. I want to be that kind of person, but I usually end up feeling like a failure at strategy, so I do not actually want it badly enough.

I find myself on a schedule to take my vitamin D, because my doctor was alarmed at how low my levels were and prescribed a mega-dose twice a week. I put that on my google calendar with a reminder that repeats obnoxiously until I do it. That is a goal I have set: swallow the pills.

In that same vein, I have determined to step outside if there is any sunshine at all. I find they were not kidding when they said that winter is cloudy here. Last week there was one day in the forecast with a window of partly sunny. I told the girls we would take scooters and bikes to the park as soon as schoolwork was done, then I looked at my weather app again and amended the plan to “let’s go right now.” It took us fifteen minutes to load up, and would you know, the clouds beat us to the park. I learned my lesson, because that was the only sunny hour in the 10 day forecast. From now on, kids, if the clouds crack, we are out of the house!

One of the most obvious ways I can feel that it is January is in my cravings for bright flavors. Living so close to a lovely produce section or two, I am buying a lot of fresh herbs and lettuces and citrus. We are having broth-based soups, or tacos and purple cabbage slaw sprinkled with lime juice, or cucumber sandwiches and ginger tea. It’s weird strange that the general malaise of wintertime energizes my cooking, but I consider it a good antidote to all the holiday feasting. Every year I wake up on January the first and just want to eat pink grapefruit for a month. If you have a recipe for some exciting dish you love in wintertime, please do share. Bonus points if it doesn’t include flour, but I’m open to anything you have.

Also, I would like to share an inspiring view with you, a frontier yet unconquered here on our property. The contractor who was going to put in a natural gas line from our house meter to the shop had a window of time to bring an excavator two days before Christmas. This is now what we have off our porch. Be jealous.

I have a quick concluding story of the week before Christmas. Our elderly neighbor brought a plate of cookies to our door and in tentative 2020 fashion I invited her inside if she felt comfortable with that. She was happy to step in and chat while I brewed tea and showed her around. She told me about her family and how she has decided not to have any medical intervention if she gets sick, because she is ready to go. “There are things that are worse than dying,” she declared. And she is right. So that’s my final aspiration for this year: to live all in, with my home open to anyone who cares to walk the blue carpet to the door.

Please bear with me as I enlarge just a little more on the “struggle bus” as my children call it. I won’t do it again for awhile, and I actually am doing all right. The past year was good in a cathartic way. Lots of weird and yucky stuff came up and I dealt with them as they came to light, so that is always good.

If I may point out some generalizations first:

• There is nothing to be afraid of, and there are things that terrify me.
• Hard times are a catalyst for growth, but I cringe when they come.
• Tender-hearted people are usually those who have been flayed by difficult situation.
• Reaching for the next thing is the best way to live, but forgetting the things that are behind is not so easy.
• Believing lies stunts growth, and stress is fertilizer for lies.
• Knowing who is right and who is wrong may not be as important as we think it is.
• Worrying is the quickest way to waste an opportunity to run to Jesus.

That’s just a quick list that comes to mind. I would guess that some of you can relate. Repeatedly in the year past I have asked myself, “What is real? What do I actually know, without a shadow of a doubt? What matters for my assignments today?”

I have been reading Psalm 145 on repeat.

[The LORD is faithful in all his words
and kind in all his works.]^c
14The LORD upholds all who are falling
and raises up all who are bowed down.
15The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food in due season.
16You open your hand;
you satisfy the desire of every living thing.
17The LORD is righteous in all his ways
and kind in all his works.
18The LORD is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
19He fulfills the desire of those who fear him;
he also hears their cry and saves them.
20The LORD preserves all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.

I’m staking everything on that. This is what is real. This I know. This is my place to stand for the next year, squarely in the kindness of God.

I am not afraid (when I stay there, in that spot).

of things for which I am thankful. I remembered this loosely held tradition today and thought I could skillfully weave a few things into our current life experiences so that you get an ever so subtle update as well as a list. Let me see how far I can get without mentioning the C—–.

1. Assurance of a time coming when the bulbs we planted will bloom and inflatable lawn ornaments will not be a thing anymore.
2. The ability to gasp, especially now that there is a second son driving on a permit. If it hasn’t saved our lives, it has likely saved some mailboxes that were installed too close to the edge of the road, and also possibly some hubcaps on cars parked along the street.
3. Knowing how to turn an ornamental white pumpkin into puree, having had the foresight to ask if these pumpkins can be used for cooking after they are finished decorating. Since I learned to simply cut the tough guys in half, turn them upside down on a baking sheet, and roast them in the oven until they are soft enough to scoop into the blender, I no longer fear pumpkins. There is no need to endanger fingers while whacking away at a fruit? vegetable? that defies peeling.
4. Making a new friend who texts me something about C*&%# and how weary she is of trying to navigate the social situations of 2020. This blessed me more than any text that day, because no matter what anybody says, this is what we all think about it.
5. Owning boots. Even more than Bedford County, this northwest Crawford County is going to require of us lots of boots. Outfitting a five-child family with all the necessary gear can break even a healthy budget. One mile from my house is a Salvation Army, a large repository of donations and cast-offs. We have found leather boots for Gregory that he wore wet for a day to mold them to his feet, then waxed and waterproofed. Also we have gotten fur-trimmed dressy ones, a number of pairs of snow boots, and some pink rubber ones that are knee high for when the girls desire to cross the creek in the wintertime. Basically we are flush with boots around here. And still when I go to get my pair, someone seems to be wearing them.
6. Pets that only make miniscule messes. The girls brought a pair of budgies home from the cousins in North Carolina, and they are greatly beloved. Every day there are minor tiffs as to who gets the birds while they are doing school. Gregory has an antler perch for them beside his desk, and Rita let them sit on her assignment book until I objected to the little smears that appeared on the pages. Ever the problem solver, she now has a scrap paper system for their potty needs at her desk. Addy simply lets them sit on her head and brushes the tiny droppings into the trash can if they occur. Compared to the drama of cats and dogs in the house, this is so minor it hardly counts.
7. A misguided purchase at the overstock warehouse, where the box with the fancy espresso machine turned out to contain a much less impressive machine. Apparently somebody with evil intent had returned the box with their inferior espresso maker inside. So we decided to spring for a cute stovetop model like our grandmas may have used if they drank espresso. Then we bought a milk frother and the entire set-up cost us 90% less than the fancy machine, so we felt smart about that and happy that our counter space is not entirely used up yet.
8. An opportunity to forage. I was wanting to lay some pine boughs on the mantel, maybe make a wreath for the door, etc. On five acres, we do not have one evergreen tree, so my mind leaped at the possibilities when I saw an enormous pine across the hiking trail, downed by high winds. Addy and I went back with pruning shears and got all the pine we could carry. It smells wonderful and we were so green and helped clean up the trail to boot.
9. Children who are expert scroungers. It’s the term we use when I am too involved in clay to cook. This doesn’t happen unless Gabriel is working, I might hasten to add. “Shall we scrounge?” they ask hopefully, and that means any leftovers in the fridge are fair game. One likes to make pancakes or Ramen. The little girls peel entire cucumbers to dip in Ranch, followed by cold cereal. The best part of scrounging is reading a book while eating. I am hopeful that they will look back at those times with fondness for a mother who indulged them rather than wondering why they didn’t get the proper nourishment they craved every day.
10. Leftovers. See number 9. We love them! When I cook, I make large amounts, either to freeze the extras, or to store in the basement refrigerator for later in the week. Right now there are a lot of Thanksgiving leftovers, which I did deliberately. I got an enormous turkey, so that at least 3/4 of it was left for the freezer. Then I cooked the bones with vegetables for broth and got eight quarts of that. Gabriel had to work on Thanksgiving Day, so we had our feast on Sunday, complete with cranberry salad, which only the adults eat, and my personal favorite, stuffing, which the children eat reluctantly. I feel quite thankful.
11. Being able to laugh through tears. “I am so tired of everything being hard,” she said, even as she finished unloading the trunk full of groceries from a wonderful Aldis that is only two miles from her house. And while the tears had nothing to do with the grocery run, juxtaposed, the circumstances seemed too funny not to laugh because what could be easier than Aldi two miles away? I will not say that I am glad to be able to cry, because there have been more tears than strictly necessary and when they can’t be turned off, it becomes a matter of alarm. It is handy to have comic relief always close at hand in one’s own domain.
12. The freedom to ignore all the shouting in the world and get on with the simple business of the day, what is right in front of me. Last week I had a conversation where I revealed my ignorance of the current news in our country and was informed that I have been living under a rock. I admit that I like it there. It is peaceful. It is impossible to get away from the groaning of the whole creation as it desires to be liberated from bondage to freedom. This has been going on for a very long time, however, and the distresses of our present time are not a surprise to God.
13. The yearning hunger that accompanies hope, because who hopes for what they already have? Again I refer to Romans 8 for context, with my paraphrase of verses 38, 39. “For I am convinced that neither Covid19 nor vaccines, neither tolerance nor racism, neither mandatory masks nor the future of lost freedoms, nor any government, fraudulently appointed or otherwise, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

10/21/20 My absent-minded middle daughter hung a sign above her desk this fall. On pretty grey paper with silver accents it says, “Focus.” This morning dawned so warm and sunny that she was struggling to stick with her lessons and after I had pulled her back from lala-land for the third time while we were learning to check by casting out nines, I reminded her of the sign that exhorts her to focus. “Oh, but Mom, there’s also a sign that says ‘Not all who wander are lost.'” She had me there.

Much of my own life has been consumed with trying to focus on the big issues in the last month. We did a fair amount of wandering too. It has been a gloriously colorful fall and while we waited a little anxiously for our heating guy to show up, the weather continued balmy until the middle of October. Occasionally we built a fire in the fireplace and ran electric heaters. The day after the ductwork was finally completed, we awoke to a heavy frost and a chill in the air that meant business. We touched the button on the thermostat with gratefulness.

Our family traveled to North Carolina in the first week of October, both to visit family and for an anniversary getaway for Gabriel and me. We left our offspring divided out among my two brothers’ and Gabriel’s brother’s families and had three days for ourselves. After this crazy, busy summer, we found ourselves with barely enough time to catch up on the things that had not been discussed for too long. It is highly preferable to stay up to date with our issues, but sometimes life conspires to pile up a backlog. I think perhaps the security of lifelong commitment causes us to get sloppy with our accounts, kind of like not balancing the checkbook for too long and just figuring there is enough in there to carry us through until we make time. Marriage is sanctifying , and when you mire around trying to find your way through mud for awhile, it is a great relief to come out still liking each other, still sharing the grace of life.

We were a little surprised to find ourselves traveling homeward with two extra tiny passengers, offspring of my niece’s very prolific parakeets. My brother convinced us that we needed them, and the girls were quick to remind me that I promised them birds when we get settled in our house. The budgies are quite happily at home here. We got them a spacious cage, but most of the day they spend perched on someone’s shoulder. Pepper had a traumatic experience one day when she took a spontaneous flight on her clipped wings and landed smack in Olivia’s hot chocolate. Needless to say, we do not cook with parakeets on our shoulders.

We were delighted to host my brother Nate and his family here the week after we got back from North Carolina. They had plans to come north this fall before we made plans to go south, so we had us a little feast of time spent together. Our children are now old enough to entertain themselves for hours, and we can take off to a fancy restaurant without worrying about a babysitter. The high point of Nate’s visit may have been the night I served him decaf coffee that inexplicably contained lavender and chamomile. I have no idea how I managed to pick up a package of decaf Eight o’clock coffee labeled “Relax” and didn’t notice the odd ingredients. I didn’t remember until I had made it that Nate has a strong aversion to chamomile, but it is terribly funny to tease him so I served it anyway to see if he would notice. He politely declined to drink it.

This week we’re celebrating Gregory turning 16. He said that the only thing he wanted from his sisters for his birthday was for them to stop talking in British accents. Haha. It’s a deeply entrenched habit they have picked up from listening to audio with British narrators and they are pretty good at it. They love to tease him by adding in an Aussie “mate” when they address him. In the end it was easier for them to go to Walmart and spend some of their money on gifts.

Gregory and Gabriel are having a fishing day in a canoe today. There are a number of lakes around here that we haven’t explored yet, so they packed a lunch and headed out early. Right now fishing is pretty much the pinnacle of his life. I’m guessing Gabe is doing some napping in the canoe, since he didn’t get home from work until 1AM.

10/27/20 I spent a few hours outside this morning, raking and planting bulbs. We got a handy dandy drill bit that made the bulb planting much faster, especially the ones in the lawn. (I did not know these devices exist until this year. Thank you, Kristen, for sharing your bulb planting tip.) FYI, I first bought one at Home Depot, but it stripped out on the very first hole we dug. The resident blacksmith told me it wasn’t hardened tool steel and a terrible design to boot. So… after much research, I mean I read Amazon reviews, I got the one I linked, and it is fabulous. You have to have a pretty strong arm if the bit digs into a tree root or a rock. It is not a job for a child, for sure, but children are great at dropping bulbs into the holes you dig. If you have a gimpy knee, you too will be amazed at the easy bulb planting ways of the middle-aged.

Most of the daffodils I ordered were for shade and are supposed to naturalize very well in the lawn, so that’s where we planted them. The tulips and allium are going in the front of the house where I can see them easily through the big windows. I’m a little nervous about all the squirrels around here eating my tulip bulbs, but this way we can open the window a crack and dispatch the squirrels if we need to. I probably don’t need to tell you that I can hardly wait until spring.

I used to think leaf blowers are for sissies, but guess who is a sissy? We accidentally left our rakes in a barn at our old place, so looking at the situation realistically with these humongous trees in our yard, we bought 3 rakes. And a leaf blower. It took this mother and four children hours to clear the lawn of leaves, and this was the third time we worked at it. I just read in a gardening book that a large oak tree can have 20 acres of surface area to catch water on its leaves. Is that the same as 20 acres of leaves?

The dingy room in the basement that is my new pottery studio is now cleaned and painted with larger windows in the walls. It is warm and easy to wash down with a sink in the corner. When I first thought about trying to throw pots in that dungeon, my heart sank. It was a very uninspiring room, but it is surprising what a little paint will do. I have been throwing pots this week and finding it deeply satisfying.

Let us conclude this straggling post with a few pictures of sunset over Erie and how Addy feels about life.

This evening we all sat around the table for supper for the first time in over a month. That’s because we moved the workbench out of the dining area and replaced it with our table that was in storage. Friends, this indicates how close we are to finished in the main living area. Our dining chairs were literally falling apart, so we decided there was no reason to give them space in the moving trailer. We are using various stools and benches that work okay, as long as no one objects to vast differences in the diners’ heights at the table.  Eventually we will find replacements, but for now we are making do. 

Olivia was longing for tater tot casserole, another challenge for us, since we removed the wall oven and are cooking only on the flat top that was installed in the counter. We have a tiny toaster oven, but that wasn’t going to work for a family sized casserole. In the end we made our hamburger/green bean/ chicken soup mixture in a wide kettle, fried tater tots in a griddle, than when they were hot and crispy we dumped them on top of a layer of melted cheese on the casserole. It was quite passable. If nothing else, I hope this summer teaches our children resilience and resourcefulness. 

I have my double burner propane camp stove set up on the porch for the few canning occasions that have arisen. This works great, and has been the best investment for my food preserving since I got my first large stockpot. This year with the shortage of canning lids, I am considering carefully what I will bother to preserve or not. I have grown all the herbs and tomatoes for sauce, so that is what I have been making. Today our neighbor stopped in and offered 2 bushels of tomatoes ripening next week. I accepted gladly, then I remembered that if I cannot source the lids, I will have to freeze my tomato products.

A few years ago my friend Caroline gave me some garlic bulbs to plant, along with instructions. I had no idea it was so easy, but I have been growing it ever since. I plant the cloves in the fall, mulch them heavily, and that is it. In the spring I cut off the scapes as they unfurl so that the plant doesn’t put energy into seeds, only into the bulbs. I had about 100 bulbs to harvest this past July. After the garlic was dry, I cut off the stems, cleaned up the bulbs, and stored them in mesh citrus bags that I saved. Hung in a cool, dry spot, this keeps garlic for months. 

When we were making pasta sauce, the girls pulled the bulbs apart, then we laid the unpeeled cloves in a pie plate, drizzled them with a little olive oil, and roasted them in our toaster oven. Normally I would do this step in the oven, roasting the onions with the garlic, but since I don’t have an oven yet, we just did the garlic. It took about a half hour at 350 for the bulbs to get soft and deliciously roasted. After they cooled a while, we used a kitchen scissors to snip off the bottom end where the roots attach to a hard little core, then simply squeezed out the garlic paste from the top pointed part downward. I gave it a whirl in the blender with some tomato juice before dumping it into the sauce. It was so incredibly much easier than peeling and chopping 50 cloves! I will never go back to that method. 

The girls had pulled apart too many bulbs for the sauce, but we roasted the extra ones anyway and put them in the freezer. Maybe I am the only one who dislikes fiddling with garlic every time I need some, but I look forward to pulling out a clove or two ready-to-go when I make soups this winter.

Tonight the electricity cut out right after supper, so all of our projects stopped. We couldn’t replace the pressure tank in the basement, clean the bathrooms, do our online banking, or even wash the dishes. It was not a problem. We were in the garden, just breathing, when we noticed Lady picking a tomato and eating it. We thought surely we didn’t see right, but when Gabriel threw a tomato for her, she caught it and ate it with relish. We did it a few more times so that we could get a video clip of our dog who is more like a tomato-loving Peight than our children are. Then we sternly forbade her to pick any more tomatoes in a charming about-face that she seemed to understand. 

It’s 8:30 now, pitch dark, and we still don’t have electricity. There are a number of scented candles lit about the house, and the younger children took themselves to bed. If you can’t even read, what else would you do? My laptop has a good charge yet, which is why I am writing, but it is hard telling when I’ll actually get this posted. (4 days later, apparently..) I know one thing that needs to go on my list: flashlights. I bought a multi-pack of nightlights a few weeks ago because it is disconcerting to pick your way through an unfamiliar house when you need a drink after dark. A few of my children have inherited my tendency for violent toe-stubbing, but nightlights are only good for the modern life. 

This past week Gabriel made significant progress on house projects. First he laid the tile on our bathroom walls and on the fireplace hearth. Then he installed our up-cycled dresser/vanity in the master bathroom, and now we have a tub, toilet, and sink all in one room. It’s pretty wonderful! Addy loves baths, and after her first long soak in a month, she fairly sparkled with cleanliness. 

My projects of touch-up painting and sorting through the stuff have stalled in a major case of “Now I am tired of it and if we haven’t needed it yet, we might as well donate it.” We started school, which required focus that left no energy for finding scratched places needing paint. There are a lot of these places! It is beyond trying to leave a room pristine with fresh paint, then have odd construction projects like closet doors whacking into the walls. I have to swallow my “SERIOUSLY GUYS?” because I certainly can’t hang closet doors without making scrapes in walls. 

Four days later:

Our electricity was cut off until Saturday morning, when I packed up the girls and went to my sister’s house in Ohio for the weekend. I am 1 ¹/2 hours closer to her, and it seems much more doable to take a quick trip. My parents were there, too, so we had a mini reunion.

I was truly blessed to have a sister who contacted a cousin with connections to her sister in law who had a lot of extra green beans, which we picked up and snapped on Rachel’s porch. I feel much better about the state of my vegetable freezer now. It even contains bags of shredded zucchini so that when I do get an oven, I can make zucchini bread and cake. I don’t know if I’ve ever skipped that summertime rite of passage before.

About that oven: no doubt it’s a trick of human nature to crave what we cannot have. Why do I crave roasted vegetables so much? And cookies? I even find myself wishing to bake a pie, an unfamiliar yearning for me, indeed.

I wonder if anyone else out there feels a bit jaded like I do about the constant RAHRAHRAH that is the state of the world these days. I’m desperately parched for truth, absolutes, and peace that passes understanding. The other stuff has yelled so earsplitting nasty all year, and I’m just here with my ear open for a still small voice who speaks Life and Verity. It’s astonishing, but when I listen, I can hear it right through the din, and I am grateful.

Before this summer, I wasn’t aware of how how much it means to me to be able to walk to a specific spot and find the very thing I am needing. Of course, I always knew it pushed unhappy buttons when the paper scissors was missing from its hook or when the birthday card I just bought at Hallmark for a special person went inexplicably AWOL. Having just done the biggest switcharoo of my life to date, I find myself constantly fighting the temptation to be super-annoyed by the things I cannot find. That school laptop charger cord, for instance- where could it possibly be? The cheese grater- who needs cheese anyway? (Me! Us!) That grey shirt I bought 2 weeks before we moved- I have no idea. I can’t even remember if I bought it here or there.

Years ago I often read a book to the children titled Letting Swift River Go. It is the story of a little girl whose home was in a spot where a reservoir was being constructed to supply the thirst in the big city nearby. All the familiar things in her life were removed, one by one, as a dam was constructed at the end of her valley. At one point she was catching fireflies in a jar, and after a few hours of enjoyment, her parents explained to her about fireflies. “You have to let them go, Sally Jane.” The end of the book is her grown-up self, riding in a boat over the drowned village where the fishes now swim, with fireflies winking on and off all around her. “You have to let them go, Sally Jane.”

I quote that to myself often this summer. Nothing on this earth is meant to be always accessible, always static. Well, maybe charger cords are meant to be there, but apparently they haven’t gotten the memo. It’s a happier life when you can let things go.

Doubtless my cheese grater is in one of the kitchen boxes that hasn’t been unpacked, but it was coming apart anyway, and a new one is in order. That’s another thing- as I sort out on this side of the move, I keep wondering, “Why did we bring this along?” There is a clarity that comes with having done without for a few months; one discovers what would truly be missed.

I was unpacking books and realized that the box with my favorites was not among the crowd. This was serious. I distinctly remembered packing them all together- the Michael O’Brien and Elizabeth Goudge ones- from their favored shelf. When I went out to the stack of boxes in the shop and shifted through things, I found not one, but five boxes of books. Oh dear. We’re shy a few shelves, and that’s saying it nicely. The hopeful plan is to have an office with floor to ceiling shelves, but currently that is Gregory’s bedroom. I could definitely live well with only a few woodworking books. I did pitch one that was completely in pieces, but Gregory fished it out of the trash and tenderly put it back together with tape. “Mom! How could you? This is a Drew Langsnor book!” Never mind that it was written in 1978 and has boring black and white photos.

I’ve lost my inhibitions in this move, too. Just kidding. I still have plenty. I know you don’t really believe me unless you know me, because how can you be a blogger and have a private life? Let me tell you about meeting the lovely Shari from “Confessions of a Woman Learning to Live.” When I told her that I love her blog, she said she reads mine. So we were already acquainted with each other, but both of us knew that we don’t really know each other, because we don’t actually tell all. We just explore in depth what we do tell. Haha. Moving from an area you have lived in for 34 years does require more courage than I previously suspected. I have found lots of nice people in northwestern PA, kind and welcoming people who are happy to make space for us here. Even the mailman is thoughtful, and the neighbor brought us fresh corn from his garden.

We are making steady progress on the house. You might say “slow and steady”, but it is progress. Alex did all the trim work while Gabriel was at work. When the little Kia he was driving this past year clunked, he and Gabe spent hours looking for a replacement online. They found one at a dealership nearby and Alex immediately started doing the normal teen-aged-boy routine of upgrades and tint for the windows, etc. I named his car “Squirrel” because it was such a distraction while he was supposed to be doing trim. It is in the shop for inspection and some maintenance currently, and the trim got finished.

Our master bathroom is the big project in the works right now. Gabriel is doing the tile, and then all we need is the vanity. Last night he was sitting at the table with his head in his hands, feeling depressed about all the stuff that should be done before winter. I told him it’s the problem of the DIYer who can do anything. He ends up doing everything, whether it’s practical or not. Then I told him I don’t care about closet doors very much and maybe he should go to bed. It’s what he does when I sit with my head in my hands. We help each other like that.

We’re back to school now. Last week I took the children to get their annual supplies. Experience has taught me that taking the whole tribe at once is overwhelming, so we went 2 at a time. They are freshly supplied with mechanical pencils and pretty notebooks and stickers. We don’t have to do the new wardrobe/shoes thing, but they love this tradition of being turned loose in the back-to-school section. Addy has already done 12 lessons in arithmetic because she was too excited to wait for the official start. The other children laughed at her, but she stoutly held her ground. Yesterday I sorted through the stuff, organized the books one final time, negotiated the spot for the communal pencil sharpener, and set up each child’s desk. School is mostly upstairs, with Olivia in the sunny dormer area of the girls’ room. Gregory will study in his bedroom, and the two younger ones will be under my eye in the actual schoolroom. This routine will be good for us all after the chaotic summer.

Here are a few pictures of finished spots in our home. While tools and supplies swirl around us, and boxes trip us underfoot, we work at making places that feel peaceful.

Admittedly, it’s only a few spaces, but they help us feel home.