home fires and creating warmth

 

my husband often calls me during the day to see what we are up to.

i say i am keeping the home fires burning.

creating warmth with the resources we have been given.

and that does include sewing sweet things. forcing bulbs in the kitchen. and making peanut butter and banana sandwiches on WHO bread.

i feel so blessed.

God is so good.

to me. to us. and to you too, i am sure!

as a side note: my washer has been going almost non-stop since saturday. so there is real work being done around here too.

during break time we sat outside and ate lunch on the back porch today. soaking up sun. sweet. warm sunshine. and watching birds stealing chicken feathers from our yard for their nests. i don’t know if you’ve ever seen a little chickadee with a big fluffy feather in its’ beak, but it is rather comical.

so what are you up to? especially those of you who live in the really cold parts of this great big world. i don’t know how you do it. i am a weakling when it comes to truly being cold.

around here

i know i’ve been kinda quiet. sometimes a retreat from blogosphere does me good because i actually accomplish the things on my “to do” lists. i say lists because i usually have 4 or 5 running lists. which is the reason i needed to back away from blogging and insert every area of my life into a NOTEBOOK. crafts. bills. household. school. etc. i have to admit that actually seeing my life in black and white-and even a little bit of color-scares me. but avoiding it any longer was scaring me even more. so i worked on lists friday nite. master housecleaning/chores lists. lesson lists for each child. and a daily/weekly household list. it will probably take me a while to iron out the kinks. things change with every move. we gain and lose pets. some people get older and can handle a more responsibilities. and so on and so forth.

this weekend we stayed close to home. i battled ants in my kitchen most of saturday. i hate ’em. i don’t like to say that about any of God’s creatures. but when such creatures enter the realm where i prepare and store OUR food i immediately begin to dislike them.

anyway, whilst perusing the blogosphere on saturday i noticed a trend in “bad days”. that darn devil is having a back-to-homeschool blast. shame on him. my prayers are really going to focus on the homeschooling mamas that give their lifes’ blood to do the right thing. i don’t know why it has to be so hard. correction. i do know why. because it is just the way of the cross. the path of the christian. the agony and the ecstasy.

i am finally reading the screwtape letters by c.s. lewis. GREAT READING it is. and i really could not have stumbled upon it at a better time. it was as if the hand of God dropped that book in my lap and said, “read”. so much has been revealed to me in those conversations between wormwood and screwtape about how the devil works. he is not really so clever. he just takes our own fears, vices, annoyances and weaknesses and uses them against us. he doesn’t really use his own material. so the less we pray and arm ourselves, the easier it is for us to fall. hmph!

i am also reading the mysterious stranger by mark twain. which is an awfully good read too. between these two books, the confessions and all of the things i am reading with the kids, i am really feeling like we are a literary family.

that saying is funny to me in an inside-family-joke sort of way because my great-aunt-God rest her non-catholic soul-used to tell my grandma, her sister, that she really wished she’d come from a literary family….

what does that mean i wonder? it sounds so silly because i would think any family that enjoys books and reading the way we do could be considered a literary family. 

what about stalking amazon. com to track my order? watching it leave the warehouse. palms sweaty. thinking to myself hat nevada isn’t thatfar away. the books will be here soon. phew! the first of the month never looked so good. even though they aren’t story books, just the THOUGHT of crisp. brand-new books makes my heart skip a beat.

speaking of heart beats i am really going to have to lay off of the caffeine. it is doing funny things to my body and i don’t like the way i felt today. i decided, after discussing it with my husband, that it is a drug. and i think i first knew that i was addicted when even the smell did something to my brain. it was like…”hello wonderful! where have youbeen all day?” i get so nervous and fidgety. scattered and flighty. and i am all those things anyway, so it’s back to green tea for me. so watch out for mrs. hyde…she might be back again sooner than later.

i guess i should get off this thing. i have to finish the rosary.dishes. read bedtime stories and plan some meals. oh, and ponder what happened to my black chicken….something fishy went on in the yard the other night. one chicken was dead on the porch and my black pearl is gone without a trace. i get so tired of this animal roller coaster that we seem to be on.

well, that’s it for around here. my word count is at 756 (just for you shelly!). that’s alot for a monday, eh?

ps. i spell-checked and i’d spelled warehouse wrong. guess what the first replacement word was? whorehouse……..what is this world coming to? 772. g’nite. or good morning. depending on when you read this! 791.

the cats’ meow

that’s what all you gals really are.

i didn’t really want you to ignore the important things i had to say.

and i apologize that the start of school brings this sort of stuff out. those dr. jekyll/mrs. hyde posts.

but God is so good that He turned something bad for me into something really beautiful. your comments had me bawling my eyes out, in a good way. (i don’t know why i am so weepy lately. hormones probably.) each one was so thoughtful. sweet. and tender.

and i guess we are all going to have our days… because what we are trying to accomplish, raising saints and trying to become saints ourselves, is serious work. important work with eternal rewards and consequences. and when you’re doing something so special and wonderful expect bumps in the road. expect to stumble and fall. let’s face it, we’ve inherited a fallen nature.

but the great thing is, He does hear. He does lift us up. even though i tend to be so heavy when i wallow in my sorrows. silly sorrows that when looked at with hindsight are hardly sorrowful in the truest sense of the word.

so while mrs. hyde takes a writing break i will stick to light posting. but for now i must go because i am having a tooth pulled. by a dr. with a plastic medical kit. i hope it doesn’t hurt too bad. i am beginning to think he is a bit of a quack. because he wants to use tweezers and no anesthesia. i think i might try to distract him with some breakfast and a little science experiment. i’d really like to keep my tooth….