Author: joyfuldomesticity

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Sharing My Glory

Today I attained a goal I have been working towards for about 2 1/2 years ~ I had my hair cut for a Locks Of Love donation! I haven’t had my hair really cut (only trimmed) since Gabriel was a newborn, and I haven’t even had a trim for over a year. But today was the day! The braid is about 12 inches long, so unbraided of course the length was longer. It kind of looks like a dead animal, all knotted up and sitting in a plastic bag waiting for me to package & mail it. 🙂
BEFORE, DURING, & AFTER (click on thumbnails to see full photos):

I was so nervous going to get it all cut today, but have been praying over the weekend for whoever would receive my hair ~ that it would bless them in their time of suffering and that by my sharing this bit of my glory with them (in the spirit of 1 Corinthians 11:15) that God would make Himself & His mercies known to this person. I have no idea who will receive my hair… but I pray that it would be a blessing and joy and glory to them, and that it would somehow lighten their suffering.
It was little Cora (see her story here) who inspired me to do this a few years ago, and so it was in Cora’s honor that I did this today. It was also, though, because of my mom-in-law and my best friend’s mom ~ both of whom are beautiful women who have gained the victory over breast cancer! Thanks be to God.

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UPDATE FINALE: on our Precious Baby Nine!

There’s no reason to waste words when pictures contain one thousand each, according to folklore. 😀

 

That’s right, friends, our Baby Nine is another sweet Baby Boy! What a blessing it will be for Gabriel to have a little brother, and for the little brother to have such a wonderful big brother to look up to & emulate. We’re positively overjoyed.

Genesis 48:9

“They are my sons , whom God has given me here.”

My 20-week ultrasound was this morning at 8, and I can’t tell you how amazing the ultrasound experience was. I couldn’t really see the screen very well, but everyone else could and they adored it. I loved watching their faces (to give my craned neck a break, lol). The sonographer was just incredible, talking us through the whole thing and pointing out all kinds of things to us. (He kept remarking on how easy Baby and I were to scan, and how he wished he had students to teach on us! lol) Everything is healthy! Not a single thing wrong with this baby! Such a relief and comfort to my heart. :happytears: Baby is still measuring a week ahead too, so I guess that trend is just going to continue! I don’t know if that means I’ll need to mentally prepare to deliver on the earlier side or not. (?)
And obviously as Gabriel displayed for you, we’re having a Baby Boy!! So “Baby Nine” can now be called “Baby Boy” I guess! :D
So we were able to get some “Big Brother”/”Little Brother” outfits, and Mama spoiled me with a couple more maternity things! :wub: It was surreal to be walking through baby stores without bawling. It was still bittersweet (I don’t think that will ever go away until I’m dead and in heaven!), but it was better. I was even able to buy my niece an outfit and one of my best friends an outfit for the baby girl she delivered this morning. So I bought boy stuff for myself and girl stuff for others, and hardly cried (I did tear up…) when walking through the baby stores. What a red-letter day!! And now I get to tell the world about our healthy, beautiful, medical-miracle Baby Boy! :)

I’m continuing to be so humbled and thankful. It’s just beyond words. The Lord’s faithfulness astounds me. His mercies leave me breathless.

As far as other things with Baby Nine go (and nope, we’re not sharing his name! He’s definitely named… his name has been waiting for him for at least three years!, but I think y’all can endure the suspense for a couple more months…), things have been going swimmingly. He has been healthy and super active the whole pregnancy. He gets hiccups a lot too, which is fun; just like his big brother. Grandpapa, Grandmama, Gabriel, and especially Daddy have all enjoyed feeling our tiny boy’s strong kicks. He’s already even bounced a book and the laptop off my lap! He’s a strong one, that’s for sure.

Medically speaking, things have gotten progressively easier as the weeks have gone on. For the first trimester, I was “a walking pharmacy” as they say. With three injections every day and nearly a dozen pills, it was difficult to keep track of everything, but God gave me the coherence I needed at the time to stay on top of it. Weekly ultrasounds and twice-or-thrice weekly bloodwork kept me on my toes as well. I enjoyed good morning sickness for the first 16+ weeks, too, which was kind of a first for me. It was refreshing, although of course it is always miserable to feel miserable, no matter how thankful I was for feeling miserable. 🙂

Emotionally speaking, this journey is far from normal. I have learned to embrace the woman/mother God has made me, and not regret the fact that I can not be “a normal pregnant woman,” either medically or emotionally. I don’t want to resent the person God made me just from how He spoke me into being and also from the journey He has had me on. So I am learning to be thankful that I am different. Thankful for my somewhat-unique perspective on pregnancy. Thankful for my struggles. Thankful for my worries. Thankful that He has molded me into someone who simply can not take life (or babies or pregnancy or medicine or whatever) for granted. Thankful that He has given me a history that I can continue using for His glory, as my children proclaim God’s faithfulness (through lives and through deaths), and as Steven and I are able to come alongside so many other [hundreds of] couples who grieve over deaths of their children.

So pregnancy continues to be humbling. It even continues to be scary. But because I know the weightier sides of it, I also know how much more glorious the lighter sides are. Because I know the deep darkness, I see the light even more brightly. I know deeper griefs but I truly believe I am also able -therefore-to know deeper joys. I consider that a privilege, even though it has been a hard-earned badge.

While I do not post as frequently as many women do about pregnancy/baby things, I am going to endeavor to do it a little more often now that we are in the second half of Baby Nine’s journey in the womb. We have been astounded by the amount of prayers and encouragement we have received over the last twenty weeks, and praise the Lord for each of you that have upheld us before the Father’s Throne of Grace. Thank you for bending your knees alongside us. Thank you for bearing our burdens with us to lighten our load. Thank you for continuing to do this!

I don’t have any great pictures of our youngest son to share with you, but here’s the best I can offer. It’s a front-on view, with the top of his head to the left and his chin to the right. The Lord be praised, for this boy is frightfully and wonderfully made!!

Psalm 139:13-14

“For You formed my inward parts;
You knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works;
my soul knows it very well.”

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UPDATE on House Building

At two months+ into things with our house building adventure, things are starting to take shape. Of course it always feels slower for the home-owners than for those lending their sweat and muscles to the project, since we’re watching from a distance and only checking in once a week or so. 🙂 But I wanted to share this exciting update with you by way of a photo update! Things are starting to come together!!

The view you can see of our build site (this is zoomed up as far as my camera would go) from my parents’ front porch. So this is the back of our house.

Our front gate, at the front of our 1/4-mile long dirt driveway

Steven, in front of our house! Or rather, what’s framed of it so far. This week the upstairs (a bathroom and couple of bedrooms) will be framed and the trusses will be put up! So this is our main floor (sans garage). And  closeup of our “cobbled” porch floor, which I love.

I love this view of things: so much wood, it’s hard to weed through! 🙂 The one with Steven is sort of the view once you step into our front door; he’s heading into our Dining Room and the Great Room is just beyond him (the stairwell will be at Steven’s back).

Steven and me in our Great Room, enjoying taking a leisurely tour through our home and talking through furniture placement and decorating ideas together. And then two views of the super high, nifty walls in there (we’ll be getting a fabulous peaked ceiling).

My mecca, the kitchen!! Including me standing “at the kitchen sink,” and a view out that window (love the cows in our pasture!), and our family eating area with lots of great views out the windows.

I think that’s about it for the pictures this time. Once things come together more and more, I will try to give more updates. It’s a super-fantastic, somewhat-stressful adventure that we’re on, and we are constantly amazed by God’s provision and kindness to us as we move forward step by step through the whole process. We can’t wait to live in the country and be in the house that we’ve spent so long (over 18 months… more like 2 years, I think…) designing, planning, and preparing for. It’s such a gift to have many godly Christian men working on our home too, many of them from our own church. So God is not only providing for us through this adventure, but for others in the household of faith too! He’s very merciful.

We continue to spend lots of time researching things online and talking to people we know about all kinds of “housey stuff.” We go to our local hardware stores every weekend to check out clearance items (for instance, we’ve been getting our lighting fixtures that way, which is super fun). And we’re starting to try nailing down some more of the big items like kitchen countertops, cabinetry, windows, exterior doors, porch posts, steel siding, appliances, flooring… yep, it goes on and on! I am even already looking at drawer pulls and doorknobs. 😉 Pretty exciting stuff, right down to the sawdust. Love it (and when I don’t love it, I remind myself to breathe, lol).

Hope you enjoyed this update ~ we think it’s a pretty exciting one!!
(but just wait until Monday’s update! that one will probably take the cake…)

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UPDATE on Parenting [Gabriel]

One of my greatest tasks these days is parenting Gabriel. There are so many facets to this calling of mine! It is my greatest joy, privilege, responsibility, time-consumer, and challenge. For instance, click here to read another great article by Rachel Jankovic on the calling of motherhood—it isn’t a leftover activity for someone who is mediocre at everything else, and it isn’t something to pursue because you happen to think kids are cute: it’s a righteous calling, and if God blesses you with it, you ought to rejoice and embrace it because you are forming generations in each child you raise in your home. It’s so huge. But Rachel puts the hugeness into a concise little article you’ve simply got to read. Really. I mean it.

Okay. Plug for that article aside… I am more thankful that I can tell you that God has blessed me with the privilege of being Gabriel’s mother for over three years, and I am humbly excited about continuing on this journey for the rest of my life! Parenting changes over time, but it never goes away. It’s a fluid calling, though, and I am constantly praying for wisdom in how to adapt to the ever-changing aspects that God calls me to incorporate into my parenting skills-set.

 

DISCIPLING

The spiritual aspect of parenthood is, obviously, probably the most important and prevalent. It isn’t just what I teach Gabriel with my words that teaches him about his God or trains him in the ways of the Lord—it is everything about my life. How I interact with him, how I interact with others, how I show respect and love for his father, how we speak about his siblings, how we treat our home and our family and our neighbors, how we prioritize, the things I do and say and am from day to day! I am prayerfully seeking to live out a beautiful gospel to him so that God his Father would be more attractive in his eyes due to the way he is discipled and parented, rather than less so. Gabriel loves to pray and sing, he loves to have us read the Bible to him, he loves communion, he loves church. Really, he just loves to worship his Creator! It is beautiful to see him growing up as a child of God. I am so thankful to know that he belongs to God. It is beautiful and humbling. If you ask him, “Gabriel, who do you belong to?” he will readily tell you, “I belong to God”—nobody can doubt it.

At church, Gabriel has the blessing of sitting with not only his parents but also his grandparents. It is a blessing to have generations worshipping together in a single pew. Gabriel sits, stands, kneels, prays, sings, holds his Bible during Scripture readings (he wants to read along, but of course that’s a work-in-progress…), and sits quietly during sermons (he likes to play with Grandmama’s bracelets, or draw in his notebook, or “read” his Bible, or sometimes eat funfruits…). He loves to put his hands up at the end of the service when we sing the Gloria Patri. I frequently am up on stage playing piano, and sometimes I’ll see him signaling to me “I’m obeying, Mommy” because he loves to obey and please his parents and “make God happy.”

We are continuing to work on catechizing Gabriel, although I’ve been taking it slower than I had originally hoped. It’s my fault, not Gabriel’s. He latches onto things much more quickly than his mother does. I am thinking of starting to have him memorize some little Scripture verses. He has already memorized so many psalms and hymns and liturgical songs, so I know he could do it easily. I just have to pick which ones to start with him.

 

DISCIPLINE

Discipline is an area of parenting that really does change frequently as the child grows, as the sins change, and as we mature together as a family under God’s guidance. We are constantly seeking grace and wisdom from God our Father as Steven and I desire to raise our son, and discipline him, according to the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Gabriel is very receptive to discipline, he knows the beauty of forgiveness (both giving and receiving), and his confessions of sins (especially for ones I don’t see him commit) are humbling and beautiful examples even to his own mother.

I am learning to be more vigilant in some areas and more lax in other areas as Gabriel grows and boundaries change. It is a challenge for me, but I am thankful for the grace God gives me in this.

I am also endeavoring to remember not to “share” my son’s particular sins in public. That is something that I think is really important, and so I am seeking to be diligent in that. I don’t think it’s wrong to say to another mom, “I’ve been there” or “we’ve struggled with that too” for the purpose of mutual edification in godly motherhood. But I am not going to vent to someone about a sin my son committed or go into detail about our struggles in a certain area—I want my son to grow up knowing that his parents have always respected his position in our home and that when we forgive him for a sin, we seek to emulate God by putting it as far from us as the east is from the west. I seek wisdom and diligence in this as well.

 

GABRIEL’S INTERESTS

This boy of ours loves such a variety of things! He loves to cook and clean and shadow Mommy all day; he loves to mow the lawn with Daddy and go to the hardware store with Daddy; he loves lemonade, cherries, ice cream, and root beer; he loves to play computer games (Grandpapa taught him how to play cards on his desktop and he can do Hearts all by himself!) and board games; he loves T-ball and soccer and all sorts of running games; he loves to be tickled and chased and play hide-and-seek; he loves going for drives in the car and he loves being at home; he loves spending the night at my parents’ house and he loves going to our new house to see what our builder (who he admires) has been up to and he always asks to see his room and Baby’s room.

Gabriel enjoys playdough and coloring and painting and stickers and “writing his name.”

He loves to cuddle in bed with us (he adores Saturday mornings just for that reason), watch movies together (we’ve taken to doing family movie nights occasionally, usually streaming Thomas The Tank Engine or some equivalent), read books for as long as we’ll oblige, and he has a fascination with pulling up my shirt and talking to Baby and trying diligently to feel kicks & wiggles.

Our boy can make anything into a toy, which I know isn’t unique to him but it still cracks me up. So often, even an hour after he’s been in bed, we’ll hear him talking to his hands (usually one is Gabriel and one is Grandmama) and taking them on a bulldozer ride. He has a really active imagination and loves to play with invisible things, which of course keeps me guessing as to what he’s doing or who he’s playing with.

Gabriel loves photography—and I have to say, he’s got talent. He has his own little Fisher Price digital camera, but he much prefers Mommy’s or Grandmama’s real digital cameras. He takes great pictures, centers things, and is actually surprisingly artistic with some of his work. We’ve talked about printing them up into a book for him of his own photography.

Gabriel loves learning. He is going to push me hard as a homeschooling mom, I think! He knows lots of colors and shapes, he knows all his uppercase letters and most of his lowercase letters, and we’re just about to start working hard on numbers now. Although I tried doing some sit-down type preschool things with him when he was 2 ½, I learned that it just wasn’t the right time for us. But now at just over 3, he seems more interested and like it would be something he would truly enjoy. So I am thinking of incorporating some more Totally Tots type things into our life over the next couple of months, and seeing how he likes intentional learning time with Mommy. I think he will enjoy it… but we’ll see how it progresses.

 

CURRENT ENDEAVORS

Besides getting ready to start some more intentional, purposed learning (I guess you could call it “preschool” but that term sometimes turns me off, honestly) with him—like recognizing numbers, getting more confident with lowercase letters, beginning math, etc—we are currently working on a few other things as well.

Beginning today, we are doing the hard work of giving up thumb-sucking. Ack! It’s a pretty big deal for this mommy actually. We’ve been gearing him up for it over the last week, telling him that we would soon be instituting a rule of “blankie and thumb are only for in bed” (because he only sucks his thumb when he’s got his blankie)—and then today we instituted it. So far he has been very brave and compliant, for which I am so thankful. He likes being a big boy, so he understands that this is one of those steps in growing up. We have been so thankful that Gabriel has been a thumb-sucker (from about three months old!), so it’s hard for me to be excited about asking him to work on giving it up. I realize it will be a process, and it will likely have its ups and downs… unless, of course, it’s as simple as potty training was last winter! God gives great grace even for these “small” things we work through; what a blessing!

Another thing we are working on is speaking to strangers. Gabriel vacillates between two extremes: talking peoples’ heads off and not wanting to respond at all. I know this is very normal for a three year old, but it’s something we are working on balancing. It is another obvious work in progress, and I am thankful that we’ve got a smart, diligent, obedient boy to be working with. That’s another great blessing.

 

WRAP IT UP

Besides being thankful for Gabriel’s life, curiosity, tenderness, energy, and stamina, we are also thankful for the testimony he is of God’s grace—in our home as well as in public. We prayerfully seek to use this testimony for the furtherance of God’s Kingdom and the glorifying of Him alone. In our home, in our neighborhood, at church, amongst our friends, at the grocery store… in all of these places, we are thankful that God gives us an opportunity to show His faithfulness and kindness simply by having Gabriel’s life present with us. We are thankful that His grace is evidenced in Gabriel’s growth, attitude, vivacity, and demeanor.

As we seek to be good stewards of this tremendous blessing, we are humbled that God has chosen us for this calling. To show God’s covenantal faithfulness to the watching world is humbling to us and glorifying to Him. Thanks be to God!

 

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UPDATE on Gardening

My garden is much smaller than the past few years, but it is still lovely. It is green and fresh. I like to see the brown dirt, and I like to keep it free of weeds. The weather we’ve had this year has made gardening a bit more interesting than past gardens I’ve had. We’re nearly a month behind our usual—which makes me wonder if we’ll even get any tomatoes this year. We’ll see. We’re eating delicious salads from my garden now, which we all love. Gabriel is a huge fan of lettuce; it’s the first thing he eats off his plate, and he always wants seconds. He’ll even eat it straight out of the garden with me, but I’m a bit sheepish about it because we’ve got more bugs this year than usual! So I prefer to wash the lettuce three or four times (I’m doggone meticulous, as I prefer not to get my protein from little green bugs…) before eating it myself. To each his own!
Most of my herbs are looking bushy and abundant. Dill, thyme, rosemary, parsley, and chives are thriving—and since we’re starting to get some actual heat occasionally now my basil might soon catch up (the MiracleGrow I’m adding to it helps too).


We will soon be getting sugar snap peas, and they are happily climbing their fence now. Green beans and zucchini will be ready after that, and tomatoes (if we’re lucky) come in right at the end of gardening season here, just when frosts are beginning to touch us in September. There are a few volunteer potato plants that came up from last year’s Yukon Golds, and I left them because their crops are so buttery and delicious! I had over a dozen volunteer Monet Sunflowers too, so I transplanted them into a neat little row. I also have two little strawberry plants this year (Mother’s Day gifts), but the quail got to the berries before I got them covered with a net. Very sad, but true. I will try again some other year, with more plants and netting as soon as I get them in the ground!

It is funny to have a garden so small, and yet feel like I hardly have the time or energy to get out there and keep it up. My husband was very wise to limit my garden size this year; I admit that I had foolishly thought I could keep up with my normal garden even amongst the craziness of this year. But no, my husband is wise and I am thankful for his protection. Next year we won’t be able to have a garden at all (maybe—hopefully—the following year!), so I am trying to enjoy the upkeep now while I have it at my fingertips (and under my fingernails!) since I think I’ll miss it next year. Especially the fresh produce.

I am constantly reminded of sins and other such spiritual things while I garden in solitude (usually during naptime, as Gabriel so much wants to help… but it isn’t quite exactly helpful yet…). The reminders of being fruitful. The reminders of how quickly sins—like weeds—can overtake us. The reminders of the good soil and the seeds. So many parables brought to mind, actually! As I pluck out little tiny weeds, I am reminded that I need to pluck out little tiny sins instead of letting them take root and overtake me when I’m not looking. I need to be vigilant in the garden of my heart, as well as the garden in my backyard. I am eager to see good fruit produced in myself, my home, and my Gabriel, just as I am eager to see good produce being harvested from the garden.
Reminders that God loves gardens: He had a garden in Eden, and there is a garden in Paradise. It reminds me to love gardens too. It reminds me how He is such a tender gardener, and how I long to emulate His skill.
So yes, I am gardening. It isn’t as big as usual, and doesn’t carry as much variety as usual, and it won’t keep us stocked with veggies through the year this time… but it’s there, and it’s lovely. It is refreshing and tiring and providing and spiritually edifying.
Thanks be to God.

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UPDATE on Domestic Endeavors

This is the first of multiple upcoming updates for you all, so stay tuned over the next few days. I’m planning on having them rise in excitement each day… we’ll see if I can manage to pull that off.

COOKING and BAKING:
This is an area where I have enjoyed thriving lately (although, ironically, I haven’t actually planned tonight’s dinner yet, haha). For a few months this spring, it certainly wasn’t an area in which I could thrive (thankfully my stash of freezer meals and my very loving, kitchen-savvy hubby thrived in my stead), but in recent weeks I have loved getting back in the kitchen. I have replenished my freezer with Chicken Divan, Stroganoff, Meatballs, Muffins, Whole Grain Bread, Cookies, Grilled Pizza Crusts, Taco Meat, and more.
This morning I was able to host my weekly ladies’ group, and made some Brown Sugar Muffins for it. They turned out well enough to share the recipe, which was my combining of a couple.
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a mixing bowl, cream shortening and brown sugar; mix in egg, milk and vanilla. Add flour, soda, and salt, mixing until combined. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups 2/3 full. Mix together 4 Tblsp. butter (room temperature), 1 cup brown sugar, and 1-2 Tblsp. cinnamon in a small dish; sprinkle generously over tops of the muffins. Bake for 16-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. (I got 14 muffins out of this recipe.)

I’m trying to think of recent meals we’ve had or are soon to have (in case you’re ever in a cooking funk and want someone else’s ideas). Here are just a few:
Broiled salmon topped with balsamic vinegar & peach jam, then sprinkled with finely chopped pecans & panko breadcrumbs; served with rice and green beans
Baked salmon topped with crushed garlic, lemon slices, lemon pepper, dill, olive oil, and soy sauce; served with roasted carrots & beets
Fried chicken, buttermilk biscuits, roasted potatoes, and green salad
Taco salad
Grilled chicken caesar salad
Asian chicken salad
Chicken piccata; served with roasted asparagus and quinoa
Stromboli; served with fruit salad
Grilled pizza
Meatball subs
Pasta casserole (farfalle and chicken tossed in marinara; topped with mozzarella, topped with pesto); served with baguette and green salad
Steamed tilapia topped with lemon pepper; served with steamed broccoli and quinoa
Chicken and apple sausages; served with sauerkraut, fruit salad, and a veggie plate
Baked potatoes topped with chicken, broccoli, and a cheddar cheese béchamel sauce
Shrimp & veggie kabobs; served with pasta salad

KEEPING HOUSE and DECORATING:
I have to say that I have been doing a good job of keeping house lately (thanks, Lord!), and I am thankful. My little boy loves to help me clean, which makes it easy to incorporate into time I spend with him. He loves to vacuum with me, he loves to mop my kitchen floor (although his arm strength doesn’t make a big dent, so I do it myself after he’s done), and he really thinks there’s nothing better than washing windows & cleaning bathrooms. Who knew?!  I don’t do a big house-cleaning on a certain day of the week; I do it as things need it. I’d say we vacuum roughly every other day; sometimes more often when we go in and out a lot, which tracks in dirt from outside. I think we do a good solid cleaning of bathrooms once a week, and a second quicker “wipe down” also once a week (and just prior to whenever we’re expecting company: there’s not much worse than being a guest in a stinky, grimy bathroom). Mopping and windows and dusting? I do those on a less frequent, as-needed basis. Washing curtains and light fixtures and the like? Even less frequently, but still on an as-I-deem-it-necessary basis.
I will openly, even gladly, admit that I have not been going out of my way lately to update any decorating. We’ve added a large framed picture of the three of us (thanks to the photo shoot my brother did last month for us), but that’s about it since redecorating Gabriel’s room a few months ago. My decorating schemes & designs are, however, being recorded in a little notebook for room-by-room inspiration for our new house. So I have been clipping things from magazines and catalogues I run across, writing down websites with nifty ideas, and figuring out ways to describe with pen & paper what in the world I’m envisioning for each room in my head. Some of it will involve sewing, crafting, and repurposing; some of it will involve utilizing my father’s woodworking skills; some of it will involve thrifting and garage saleing and searching on Craig’s List for things I really really want.  But while I am not putting energy, time, or money into our current home’s decorations, I am able to hone some of that domestic creativity and start working on the planning and preliminaries for our new home. And that’s a blessing, because it certainly won’t happen overnight.

LAUNDRY and IRONING and MENDING:
I tend to do laundry on Tuesdays and ironing on Wednesdays. Not always, but it’s my general rule of thumb. If only so it reminds me to get it done, as we’re not the type who wait until we’ve run out of underwear or until the hampers are overflowing into our rooms. But we’re also a small enough clan at this point that I am able to easily accomplish the whole week’s laundry in one day (as long as I am home for the majority of the day). I’m so thankful for my servants (i.e. my washing machine and dryer), even though they are admittedly a bit rough, old, and rickety! These servants do make my jobs so much easier. And I love ironing. Is that odd? I like to chat with my mom on the phone or stream something on Netflix (usually something from the BBC) while I do it, and I generally don’t have that much ironing to do each week, so one naptime is enough to get it done. Plus my iron is just splendid and makes ironing a breeze. Having decent domestic tools really is a plus, an aid, a blessing. Mending… well, mending I definitely try to do on an as-needed basis. But, um, I’ll be brutally honest here and tell you that I’ve had a pair of my hubby’s cargo pants folded up downstairs waiting for a button for quite a few months… I think I even have the button somewhere. Typing this out reminds me that I need to get that fixed. Today. Procrastination has no place in my realm of domesticity. I will say that the last time I noticed a hole in one of Steven’s shirts, I patched it within three minutes of locating the hole! But that is not the norm. I need some work there.

CRAFTING and RE-PURPOSING:
This is an area where I have sadly been inactive. I would love to get crafting again, but it seems to be more of a winter pursuit for me, I guess. I would like to think that I could stay on top of sewing, crafting, gift-making, and re-purposing of all sorts all year round. I need to work on this, get inspired, think of projects, and jump in. I have stayed on top of our family photo albums (I try to update them 3-4 times a year to keep them current, and to keep it a manageable project). My stash of homemade baby gifts is dwindling, and will soon need replenished. I have some ideas in my head of what to do next, so within a couple months I may be busily crafting once again! I will not be doing “a homemade Christmas” this year, so that takes a little pressure off the crafting and sewing world and puts it more heavily in my next category!

FRUGALITY and SHOPPING:
I have been thankful this year for my love of penny-pinching. I am far from perfect with it—I do occasionally do impulse buys or end up deciding that I really do need that latte (which makes me thankful for gift cards we’ve been blessed with!) or the larger pack of lightbulbs—but for the most part, I stick with my lists, I use what we’ve got, and we make do with what we can or we simply do without. I am already thinking about Christmas gifts, mostly because I know I need to be as frugal as I can with them this year especially (and because we’ll be busy with some other things during Christmas shopping season, so I need to be done before most people get started), so I want to keep my eyes peeled for good deals, clearance sections, coupons, and overstocks (in stores and online). A new place I am currently learning to balance frugality (and prayerfully seek wisdom) is in the realm of shopping for things for our new home. There are wide ranges of quality (and therefore price) for everything: windows, doors, siding, cement, appliances, paint, light fixtures, drawer pulls, countertops, toilets… everything. We are praying for wisdom with where to cut corners, where to invest a bit more, and how to get the best bang for our buck in every area of our home. It’s a huge responsibility, a bit of stress, and a good challenge that Steven and I are working on meeting straight in the eye.

 

READING and WRITING and MUSIC:

I continue with my weekday typist job for Olive Tree Bible Software, and although I feel like it does eat up hours that I would love to use elsewhere, it’s only for a season, and I am thankful for the opportunity to serve my family, serve this company and its customers, and it also has the added perk of giving me some great resources to read while I am typing! I am also continuing to be actively moderating & fellowshipping at Hannah’s Prayer and actively writing for Grieve Out Loud. These endeavors also occupy a lot of time, but it is a blessing for me to have this opportunity to reach out, bless others, bear burdens together, pray for ministries and individuals, and use my childrens’ lives and legacies to impact the Church and her people.

While I have not done as much reading this year as I have in some others, I am reading through Scripture (currently, Jeremiah and Revelation), Streams In The Desert, Prayers Of An Excellent Wife, and Brave New Family. I have a few other books I’m itching to read, but am determined not to bite off more than I can chew (or more than I can read!) at this point.

With music, alas, it has been on a back burner. It would be wonderful to have half an hour every day to play harp and piano, to sing, to compose. But this isn’t a season of life where it is very practical. I accompany at church (and occasionally sing there), and very rarely will play here at home for my own pleasure or because Gabriel will ask me to. But yes, it is rare. I would like to change that someday, probably in some other season of life. Perhaps once I am teaching (family members) again, I will have more of an excuse to play more myself.

 

So that’s a little bit of an update in my domestic realm (although there’s certainly more areas I could have added)… and just for fun, I’m saving the domestic realm of GARDENING for tomorrow’s update…

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Thoughts from My Heart

This morning over at Held, you can find a post written from my heart. Read it here.

When I was asked to write something for their What Not To Say series, I had a few ideas, but one that pressed more strongly upon my heart of late and stood out among the rest. This is something I continue to struggle with now, as I fight the tendency of people around me to imply that Baby Nine could in any way replace Hosanna, Victory, Mercy, Peace, Promise, or Glory ~ just like Gabriel didn’t replace Covenant when I carried him in my womb. As I say in the short article, death is death, no matter how much life is left in its wake.

May the Lord encourage you today, hold you against His tender Father’s bosom, and sharpen us all as iron against iron.

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Embracing the Moment

This morning, Gabriel begged me to climb back into my bed so he could cuddle with me. How could I say no to that?! So instead of getting up and doing my typing, I embraced the moment of cuddles and lovin’ and chatting with my precious little boy. *happy sigh*

After a minute of quiet snuggling, he looked at me and said, “where are my brothers and sisters?” As my eyes filled with tears that I successfully hid from him in the dim room, I said, “most of them live in heaven; one of them lives in my tummy.” He contemplated that for a moment and then responded, “they live with God.” “Yes, they do.” “I will ask God to bring them back to me, Mommy.” I explained to him that it doesn’t work that way, but that someday God will take Gabriel to live in heaven with Him too, and that’s when he will see those brothers and sisters again.

“I love my brothers and sisters,” he said. I cried silently and said, “so does Mommy. We all love them very much.” “God loves them too,” he told me. “Yes, yes He does.”

Then he wanted to wiggle under the covers, rub my belly, and kiss Baby 9 about half a dozen times. He scooted back up to put his head on the pillow next to mine and said, “I love this baby too. He can come out and play. He’s big now.” I explained that this baby wasn’t big enough yet, and that God would keep this baby in Mommy’s tummy until it was big enough to really come out and play. “God won’t take him to heaven?” he asked. I didn’t really know how to answer that. I can not see the future. I do not know how many days are numbered for this child, any more than I know my own. “We pray that God will not take this baby to heaven for a long time; this baby belongs to Him, but sometimes God shows us His love by allowing a baby to stay on earth. Like He did with you.”

There was some silence. Then the thumb popped out of the mouth again, and my sweet Gabriel said, in very quick succession, “I want to pray for God to keep my baby safe. I want to ask God for brothers and sisters. I like brothers and sisters. I love our baby. I don’t want heaven yet, Mommy. I will pray for God to keep us safe.”

And he did.

And I cried because it was beautiful and pure and honest. :happytears:

So now, much much later than usual, I am finally sitting down to do my typist work. My schedule is off for the day, but oh how thankful I am that I tossed conventionality out the window this morning and embraced the moment to cuddle with my Gabriel, else I would have missed out on that beautiful conversation with that precious saint whose life and words and prayers glorify our Father in heaven.

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Stay Tuned

Stay tuned for something straight from my heart!
I was asked to write a specific short essay from my heart for a website connected to a ministry where I have planted roots.

Four years ago, I became a mom—a few weeks later, we lost our baby to devastating miscarriage. We sought rest in the shadow of the Lord’s wings as we focused on God’s great love for us, regardless of the trials He brought our way (Psalm 36:7).

So tune in on Monday for the link to this little piece of my heart.