family week, day 2

Today started with oatmeal around the campfire (resurrected by Sugar from last night's coals), me marveling over my coffee that I had not once heard the back door during the night.  Best first night ever!

Breakfast completed, we walked over to the neighbor's yard sale to see what treasures we might find.  A tall, elegantly carved bird for me, wind chimes for Spice, a clock and photo frame for Nice, and a collapsible tin cup and two wooden cars for Lil' Snip.

Home again, the children headed off with my Farmer to fish, and I set off grocery shopping.  Unfortunately their outing ended with a self-appointed gamekeeper sharing a long list of rules with them, which ended with them dumping their small catch back into the pond.  Last time fishing at that particular location!

Lunch around the campfire again (just the usual summer sandwiches - tomato, cheese, and lettuce) and an afternoon rest before stirring up the campfire once more for suppertime ambiance, and s'mores.  Songs around the fire, and bedtime.

A plain day, but a satisfying one.

Tomorrow, church.  The building kind, I guess, although some of us would just as soon sing around the campfire again ...

family week, day 1

It's family week at our farm.

The tent has been taken down from the attic and set up under the sweet gum tree, by the hammock.

The brush was burned away and a campfire laid in its place.

Sleeping bags, thrown out of upstairs windows, have been arranged in the tent - four this year.  Lil' Snip is old enough to brave the elements with his sisters, he thinks.  I hold my tongue, and pray.  They bring down pillows, too, warm pajamas, and flashlights.

It was hot dogs over the campfire for supper, and ears of corn, honeydew from the farm stand down the road, and homemade caramel ice cream.

My Farmer cut an "X" in a nice round log to make a Swedish torch - and it worked!

We sat around the fire and sang.

Inside for tooth-brushing, and into the tent to change into pajamas.  We blessed them and tucked them in with reminders to close the back door q u i e t l y  if they need to come during the night to use the bathroom.

And left them to the night.

We'll sit at the campfire ourselves for awhile, my Farmer and me, to keep an ear out for mischief, or tears in the tent, and then we'll go to bed with the windows open.

It's family week at our farm.

why the chicken crossed the road

To the drivers who play chicken with me (and win) on the shoulder-less country road where I walk in the evening:

Your ability to drive precisely down the middle of your own lane is admirable, but misplaced.

Out here in cornfield country, double yellow lines are viewed as a mere suggestion, to be ignored in favor of giving wide berth to walkers, joggers, bikers, buggies, and the random stray dog or cow.  Or when driving a four-mule team on narrow roads.

(Or, in the case of certain pickup-driving young locals, just to demonstrate your independent spirit.)

And don't you think this game is a trifle ill-matched?  When faced with the choice between staring down a Yukon or living to see tomorrow, I will always step into the roadside melange of stinging nettle & poison ivy.

Every.Single.Time.

If it's a real challenge you want, you're better off at a demolition derby picking on someone your own size.

{... leaves blogger to Google "living wills"...}

a troubled peace

I texted a friend this morning about my laundry and my grocery list and my longing for peace.  She responded with a phone call, and we wondered together about peace, and what that's supposed to look like in the thick of it, out from between the covers of the Bible, so to speak.

We knew all the Christian-ese.

Trusting in the Lord, regardless of our circumstances.
Finding peace in Christ, resting in his promises.
Leaning not on our own understanding, but acknowledging Him in all our ways.

And so on.

Not that these things aren't true.  They are, and we believe them!  It's just - how does that LOOK, lived out?  How DO you have peace when the children bicker and hurt each other's feelings, sometimes on purpose?!  When things are wearing out right and left, and not just clothing and appliances, but relationships, too?  When you turn to the Bible for renewed life, but it all feels stale and familiar and lifeless?

What is this peace like, that can come in the midst of the storm that is life?

          ...   ...   ...   ...   ...   ...

I always thought that peace is serenely trusting God without ceasing, brow unwrinkled, heart beating slow and even and certain, sound sleep a given.

But I'm wondering . . .

. . . what if peace is feeling the shallow breathing and the quickened heartbeat, and choosing to trust God's goodness through it?  Despite it.

What if it's seeing destruction and animosity in every direction and somehow hoping for a future held by God, anyway?  Even when you almost can't believe it could be good.


What if peace is not the complete absence of fear and anxious thoughts, but a way through them?

no title

It's after 10 pm and no time like bedtime for writing about why I haven't been writing (and then publishing without an edit).  Quick! before I decide (again) that I have nothing to say!!

I haven't written because I am in that season where words are inadequate.  They are pale next to the vividness of life, simplistic next to the complexity of relationships, absurdly compact next to the voluminous waves of my thought life.

I haven't written because so many other people are writing so well, that I cringe at the thought of littering the internet with my drivel.

I haven't written because I was disappointed that so few of you successfully made the transition from the "buretachi" blog to this one.  I changed it in the first place because I thought "buretachi" was so cumbersome and inexplicable.  Turns out change itself was more insurmountable than partially made-up Japanese nomenclature.  But still, I felt let down.

I haven't written because facebook has stolen all my time.  And Amazon's lovely "Look Inside!" feature, which has lured me into many a self-helpful book (from relationships to essential oils).

And essential oils.  I'm so sorry to be so {insert negative descriptive word that means "doing what everyone else is doing" - pedestrian??  bourgeois??} but there it is.  Essential oils are fascinating little buggers.  The income I have made over the years selling my pottery is fast disappearing into the pockets of those who sell these enticingly aromatic little bottles of essence.  I am reading everything I can get my hands on (literally, via the amazing public library system, and virtually, via the amazing internet!) and I. Do. Love. Learning!!

And I haven't written because I haven't had anything sufficiently profound to tell you.  Just, you know, doing laundry and confronting children about character issues (and then seeing just where they might have inherited the aforementioned character issue....) and cooking suppers and reading stories and checking math and grammar and penmanship and weeding the flowerbeds (sometimes, when I'm not sneezing) and wondering when Jesus will come back and take us all home where we so desperately long to be, whether we realize it or not at any given moment.

[I just love a good run-on sentence, don't you?]

So, that's why I haven't written.

But the thing is, my blog is where I see what my dear friends have been writing on their blogs, and I started missing them, and so I came here to check my list, and felt a little forlorn when I saw the date on my last post .... and so here I am, boringly imperfect and unprofound.

And getting sleepy.  My Farmer has actually preceded me up to bed, so I'd better sign off.  I put yardsale pillow shams {but what do you call them after you put the pillows into the shams....?!!} on our bed for the first time and I'm afraid he'll sleep on them.....