Wordy Wednesday

I like to think of myself as a reasonably good cook but lately, maybe because it's February, there are always at least two kids walking right up to the Complaining Line, if not actually crossing over it. 

Our kids aren't allowed to say anything negative at meal times about the food. They can express preferences at other times. Like in the parish hall of the church to their friends they can say insane things like "I don't like bacon". Hey, your dislike of bacon is objectively wrong but you're welcome to be stupid. When you come to the table, however, you get to leave your negativity over there, far away from me the cook. If you have bacon on your plate and you don't like bacon, you have to eat it with a smile on your face. You don't have to say you like it, but you can't complain. If you work yourself into a froth and and actually throw up, you're in a world of hurt. And I don't mean that metaphorically. 

So they've gotten creative in their effort to let us know how they feel about the food.

"I really love this," someone will say, "I'd really like to save it and eat it on another day."

"My favorite food is just like pasta only it looks more like rice."

Stuff like that.

Of course, with your sixth child you have had your will beaten out do you and so that child will say "I don't Wanna eat this!" and run away fast while you pour yourself another glass of wine and decide you don't care anymore.

So I was really surprised when all the dinner was eaten by everyone last night without any veiled complaining and no one pushing the food around into little piles and getting thirty cups of water. I mushed some ground beef in a pan with onion, garlic, green pepper and carrot and then Matt did something to it to make it taste like tacos. Then we shoved it in 56 cent Aldi taco shells with cheese and lettuce and it was all gone. Too bad when I sweat and slave and fuss it's apparently "just as delicious as all your other food, I just love all that other food better". 

happy valentine's day mummy (and everyone)

Another great celebration of a Christian Martyr turned into a secular moment to eat chocolate and spend money you don't have. And hold the one you love up to an impossible standard. Will he fulfill all my longings? Will he meet my expectations? Does he love me as much as I deserve to be loved? It is a perfect American Expression of the average dysfunctional, wrong headed, regular relationship that most everyone seems to be either in or looking for these days. Except me, of course. I love Matt with an agape, life giving, self sacrificial, Jesus like love. That's why I calmly and rationally told him that if he didn't take me out to dinner he would be miserable for at least three weeks. Twelve years ago I would have waited for him to figure it out. See? Just like Jesus.

Anyway, the great thing about Valentine's Day with children is that it's about having a party and going ice skating, which is what we're to do because we finished our third quarter yesterday. The list of things that we've finished for the year? History, Geography, Science. But not spelling and math and writing. I have a small glimmer of hope. And! Elphine has been sewing.

Here is the purse she made herself, completely unaided by me or anyone.

And a bible cover.

She wanted it to be red because I have so much red around. Now I have to glue the poor bible. It's so mushed and beat about.

Oh! And speaking of joy and wonder, Mom! Look what came back into my life!

It had been filled with hydrangeas and was being safely kept by a nice person who loves us both and who handed it back to me on Sunday. And! I didn't fall and break it as I was walking home in the snow. It's just as beautiful as ever.

So I'll be making a big gorgeous salad this weekend in honor of you whom I love. 

So many people to love, so little time. Six of them require breakfast and me not sitting here thoughtfully considering the nature of love. So, I'll leave you with a true expression of love, from the 

Holy Scriptures, a little verse from my readings this morning, "And the donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey, on which you have ridden all your life long to this day? Is it my habit to treat you this way?” And he said, “No.”

Happy Valentine's Day! Hope you all have a beautiful weekend!

february brings more snow

Gladys was copying out that ridiculous poem yesterday 'January brings the snow, makes my feet and fingers glow (what does that even mean?). February brings the rain thaws the frozen lakes again (rain and again are supposed to rhyme presumably).'

Gladys read it out and then looked up in confusion and wonder. "What month are we in?"

"February," I said, making some kind of small effort to surpress some bad words. "I don't remember who wrote this poem," I said, "but February never brings the rain and March doesn't bring the flowers." We were all seven of us huddled around the heater in the school room, sniffling and warming our cold fingers like something medieval. There were constant fights and jostlings as each tried to be as near the heater as possible without touching it and being burned. And now the snow is dumping out of the sky again. It's a valentines day miracle. But Binghamton hasn't canceled school. Heh heh heh. Suckers.

So I bought myself some flowers. It seemed the only thing to do.

And I carry them to whichever room I'm in as a coping mechanism.

Matt tried to say that because he had said I should sometimes buy flowers that somehow this counted as him buying them for me. 

"No," I explained calmly and slowly, "If you want credit for buying flowers you have to go outside in the muck and put gas in the car and actually buy them." 

He looked up from his computer vaguely as if he had heard some kind of sound but couldn't locate if. "Hmm?" he said.

Later I took Elphine to her second time of fencing. Ohmyword she is so cute and short with the helmet and sword and glove and everything.

And her unmatched socks. Her commitment to the truth led her correct me that she "did it on purpose". 

"I couldn't find matching socks," she told everyone reproachfully. 

"Well," I said to the assembly, "I have six children and my husband does all the laundry." Everyone nodded understandingly. 

So now I guess I'll go make pancakes. 

Happy Tuesday!

jumbles

Baby turned three on Sunday. I'm thinking of calling her Elsbeth. I really like Ermintrude but 

Matt hates it. He really likes Euodia but I don't. Clearly she needs a name because a Baby she isn't, nor Fat. Woe is me. Her little baby shape has changed into a little girl. She uses words and has fine motor skills. Sob.

She got a Pair of Shoes and a sparkly butterfly skirt and wings and a wand.

When I mentioned that her birthday was coming up she said very clearly and pointedly, "Marigold broke my crown." So I bought five crowns and we're all still wearing them.

I'm not much of a believer in every little girl being a little princess bit, but I found it surprisingly pleasant to spend the whole afternoon in a crown myself. It gave me that extra push to just keep going.

She looks sweet but she's pretty bossy and loud. After posing with her new Bunkey she turned and smacked Marigold for trying to touch her Tiny Special Owl. What a beautiful moment.

Elphine has been sewing all the time as if her life depended on it. I haven't had the will or ability to teach her anything so she's been figuring it out herself--threading needles, stiching, everything. She made a dress for Elsbeth's (see, that sounds pretty nice doesn't it?) Unicorn.

Was so so worried that The Bully Elsbeth wouldn't express true gratitude but she was really delighted and Elphine was extremely proud. Elsbeth even hauled it up to bed and slept with it. 

Elphine has also made me a cover for my basically destroyed bible and a tiny purse for Marigold and a purse for herself. It's so amazing. She figured out that if you sew something and then turn it inside out you can't see the seam. Felt guilty for not telling her but she was so thrilled to have discovered it herself. So Binghamton, who amongst you can devote some summer moments to Emma? I even have a sewing machine. And I'll give you a pie for every hour you spend with her.

So now we have a break from birthdays until April, just around Palm Sunday if my calculations are correct. My third quarter for school ends this week and then, if God is nice to us, I think we'll be able to push through and finish all our curriculum before Holy Week. I keep saying that and not believing it, but every time I look through everything it looks like it might really be possible. Of course, Matt is sick, and I  feel terribly unwell, and the kids are all pale and pokey, but that's no excuse to not get into a little extra spelling....and math....and maybe just a little more history.....and some handwriting.....nobody is sick enough to skip handwriting.

Onwards and Upwards!

seven quick takes: why am I in this hand basket edition

one

I shouldn't have been blogging so psychotically and consistently the last two weeks. If you've been wondering why I've become your morning cup of coffee it's because I've been supposed to be writing a talk for Intervarsity for this evening. Being the kind of person that I am, I've been doing everything I possibly can to distract myself from this morbid and terrifying reality. Don't worry, my talk is written but only by the grace of God. I did everything I could to sabotage myself, working all the time to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Although there's still time. I have all of today to get through.

two

So I guess I'll go get a hair cut. What could be less sensible than going in the middle of the day when I should still be writing and editing or schooling my children to get a hair cut from a total stranger who wields immense power to completely disappoint me.

three

When we moved to Binghamton I drove to Ithaca every time I needed a hair cut. That lasted about a year. Then I got tired and just cut it myself. That was stupid. Really stupid. And stressful. Then I had one brilliant haircut from someone who I could never find again. And now I'm on my third try of just clicking around the internet and praying for The Lord to guide me.

four

Isn't it irritating how silent God is on matters that are really the most important? On the subject of hair for instance. On a day like today I would really like God to stop worrying about my holiness for just a few minutes and spend time working it out so that I will look awesome. Of course, as I stand there tonight, my soul virtually naked before a room full of people who I'm sure are all much much more awesome than I, certainly because they're all much younger and read books and stuff, I want them all to be drawn closer to Jesus and not think of me at all. But I don't want to look stupid. I'd really like my hair to be amazing.

five

If you've been waffling between being for or against the ordination of the ladies, I guess I've just given you a really great reason to be against up there in take number four.

six

Sorry Ladies. Didn't mean to betray our gentle sex. 

seven

So I guess now I should just beg you to pray that it will all be ok. O Lord Just Make It All Ok! There, you don't have to think of an actual prayer, I put it down for you. Now, if everyone who reads this will pray that ten times over the course of the day, maybe it will be ok. 

Have a great weekend! And go check out Jen!

wordy wednesday: peanut sauce

It's snowing. To put it mildly.

All the children are stuffed up and whiny and suffering from deep unhappiness of various kinds. I've read thirty five blog posts on how to avoid February burnout but I think it's already too little too late. Let the children paint in the middle of the day yesterday because I'd lost my will to live. Can't tell you how much I loath a room full of children painting. The water everywhere. The paint smeared on everything. The bickering. The torn paper. The enormous stack of pictures at the end of the day that aren't really nice enough to keep that you have to smuggle out because each child is convinced their seven paintings were glorious dreams. So I made peanut sauce. Too bad I haven't made it in so long the little girls didn't know what it was and were not apprised of the fact that it's supposed to be everybody's favorite food in this house. That's the baseline expectation for membership in the family. Know I posted the recipe years ago but I can't be troubled to go find it and you'll probably be wanted to make it when you can get past the snow to a jar of peanut butter.

Peanut Sauce

One chopped onion, a couple of minced garlics, an inch of grated ginger, sweated in a deep pot. I added five little sweet peppers, diced, a couple of diced carrots, and half a chopped cabbage at this point but none of that is necessary. Then, when the onions are translucent, add a jar of smooth peanut butter (no sugar, obviously, because that would taste really strange), two tablespoons of tomato paste and probably four or five cups of stock, assuming you want to feed ten people. If you want less sauce (and I can't understand why you would want to do that because this freezes brilliantly in little cups and gets better with time) you could do half a jar of peanut butter and half the stock. Once it's going along nicely you can add chicken--thighs are best but if you have an aversion to those you could do something else. If you want to be authentic you will go kill a chicken and dismember it and add it piece by piece to your pot, but I can see the snow making that route difficult. Plus, I've discovered that modern stores provide already dismembered chicken for you, so that's probably a sensible option. There you are, when the chicken is cooked through and the rice is done (unless you're carb free and then you'll want a big bowl and a spoon) you can eat it. Actually, it's fine to just stand in the kitchen and devour it with a big ladle and not tell everyone it's supper time. Oh! It's really delicious with red pepper and lately I've been squeezing a big lime into it, just at the last moment.

a super day

We baptized a new Christian yesterday, in church--young man who has had a rough go it up till two or three months ago, made a lot of bad choices and had things turn out unhappily. If I'd wanted to engage in some nefarious and shadowy activity, he could have been my guide. In the gray light of day, on the feast of presentation of Jesus in the temple, he stood on the step facing the congregation renouncing Satan and all his works and turning to Jesus and embracing him as Lord. Then he turned around to face the altar and Matt called the congregation forward to lay hands on and pray for him. There was a sort of rush out of the pews and nearly everyone who could stand and walk seemed propelled towards him. Elphine, standing next to me in her bright red acolyte robe, turned red in the face and her eyes got teary and she looked like she was going to cry. Then he went up to the font and was baptized and handed and candle and anointed with oil and then Matt said, as he always does because it is written in the bulletin, "Let us welcome the newly baptized". There was a great corporate shout and whistling and applause and I think someone banged on a pew. And then the peace took forever because everyone. Everyone. came out to greet him. Later he stood around in the parish hall holding an enormous cake and being photographed with lots of people who were meeting him for the first time. 

The picture of him standing on the step, holding a candle and grinning broadly, came back to me as I watched what seemed like endless footage of poor Peyton Manning and his woebegone team in the third and fourth quarters of yesterday's game. It was no contest, really. The Broncos ran out onto the field and were suddenly and completely defeated. They stood no chance. But nobody knew before the game. People made predictions on both sides. It seemed like any outcome was possible. The complete routing, as I got more and more foggy because these games are so so long, worked itself into an icon in my mind of this young man's new life in Jesus. Evil, crowding in on him, has no chance. He looks vulnerable, holding his thin small flame, his grin and the expression of life in his eyes the only mark that a new great force dwells within, that he cannot be defeated, that evil has been vanquished. There will be attacks on all sides. But there won't really be any contest. 

And then the total and overwhelming rejoicing. I think those laboring on in the kingdom of heaven, like me, get so discouraged. It seems like we just work and work and pray and evil is so big and God doesn't choose to do what we want him to. He could solve the Syrian crisis in a moment. He could break Pastor Saeed out of prison. He could get that house sold or heal that person. To the world, and sometimes to me on the inside, it seems like it could go either way. Maybe evil will prevail after all. Predictions are made on both sides. The eyes full of life, the grin, the thin vanquishing light, the cake, the church full of rejoicing came at the right moment. A super day, a day of presentation and joy, a clear picture of how the battle will ultimately play out.

{phfr}:tired and busy edition, and it's still too cold

Today is my Shepherd's Bowl day and it's not a good moment for me to miss any school At All so it's going to be a long possibly tiresome day involving a trip to the store in this hideous cold and pushing the children solidly through the morning so that we have enough time to cook. And because I'm really tired and don't want to deal, it will be Regular Soup with ground beef, chickpeas, tomatoe, curry powder and whatever else.

{pretty}

I don't know if this should fall under 'pretty' per-say, with the hard expression in the eyes. But as usual I think it's really interesting. Especially as Gladys, who drew it, cried no matter what I did yesterday, even when I was trying to be nice. I cannot fathom the depths of her. 

Also, as a nod to Portlandia, observe that she Put a Bird On It.

{happy}

Had a frenzied attack last Friday and coped with the huge pile of clutter in the Shepherd's Bowl Cupboard at church. This whole area was piled up with just stuff. Put it all away or got rid of it. Feel deeply happy to walk in there now.

{funny}

I feel better when I actually to make my bed every day but Ashy and Frances figure out when I'm going to do it and then plant themselves down and glare, daring me to chase them out. I blame it on the horrendous weather. 

{real}

Suppertime

What more is there to say? Eat your food! Maybe, or, Sit Down! or Don't stab the table with your fork! I also think I said things like, "don't expect to move back home when you grow up! You better work hard and be respectful or you won't have any friends or any job!" I probably went on longer than that.

Happy Thursday! Go read Like Mother Like Daughter!

Wordy Wednesday: a scene of domesticity and comfort

Finally cleaned out the fridge on Monday, after needing to do it for like a couple of years or something, while Matt baked a pizza for the kids and devised a divine chorizo, steak and egg concoction for me (and him). I took everything out of the fridge and piled it on top of the week's groceries which hadn't been put away and then poured myself a glass of wine and started scrubbing and slinging soap around while children ran up and down and smacked into my tippy piles of rotting sour cream and vegetables. Matt had on a debate between James White and some godless Arminean (just kidding, sounded actually pretty devoted to Jesus) where English people could call in and complain about godless Calvinists. Maybe I was on my second glass by that point. After I'd put everything back in the fridge I wanted there--essentially a quarter of the original putrid mess--instead of coping with throwing everything else away or flinging it down the sink, I opened the freezer and pulled out no less than twenty dead chicken carcasses and piled them on the floor. Launched into a heated marital argument about how many we actually needed to make stock. Couldn't find my big stock pot. Fussed and drank more wine. Discovered it in the garage with a frozen mound of milk curds left over from a failed attempt to make cheese with pasteurized milk. Dug out two inadequate pots and tried to stuff the goose carcass and smaller chickens in. Did locate pepper corns, finally. Collapsed in a chair with my glass and the gorgeous chorizo to freak out about the children smearing their pizza all over the couch and pouring their water on the floor. Watched three episodes of Good Eats and argued with the children about whether we should suspend all regular activities for the next month and just make everything Mr. Brown was making in exactly the same way with all the people dressed up and funny dialogue. Finally gathered all the dead birds off the kitchen floor and consigned them to the Binghamton 5$ blue bag and climbed into bed rather over come from all the activity.

What day was that? Monday. The Day Off.

phase two

The first many years of parenting are an anxious and fraught time. The main worry is keeping the child alive for the next 24 hours and praying they won't fall out of the tree they're climbing, or off of the back of the couch which they are using as some sort of gymnastic device. And, of course, you want them to eat every kind of food and become literate and it's so perilous. There's so many possibilities for anxiety and despair.

But then you look around and see that they lived. You didn't somehow do something terrible that caused death. You didn't totally fail. They're actually quite good at balancing.

And then the next wave of trauma descends on you like a cloud, as it did to me last night.

Will They Be Marriageable?!

And Will They Ever Be Employable?!

And you see them sweeping the kitchen, or lying on the floor complaining, or shoveling food down their gullets, or narrowing their eyes at you and you realize I Still Have So Much To Do! I Can Definitely Still Fail. Keeping them alive was the least of it. 

So, excuse me, I have a big pile of socializing and correcting ahead of me today.

in which I confine my remarks to the weather

The snow is swirling wildly outside my window and the temperature apparently is falling another degree each hour. Matt has decided not to walk after all. Discovered, as I rushed along to church yesterday in my stupidly thin coat, that whenever I look out of the window or scuttle through the snow covered landscape, that I am always thinking only of summer. And more even, my mind has been playing tricks. When I open the door of the church and look at the cement slab, I see myself sitting with a cool drink and a friend and children capering around. When I go the other way, out towards the parking lot, I look up at the hills and see green everywhere. When I gaze dull-y out the front window at the big tree I see leaves unfurling.

And then I blink and see that it is really white and gray, not green, and feel the piercing cold, not the soothing balm of heat, and wonder if I am going mad. Maybe I am becoming a person who hallucinates. Maybe I am losing my mind. Maybe I'm developing some weird coping mechanism. 

So the weather is supposed to continue cold, to use an understated and inadequate word, all week. And I, I will continue to fuss and ask God why he doesn't love me. Why, I will ask, must I suffer? And God will tell me to stop complaining. And everyone else will walk around like nothing unusual or bad is blowing itself over the hills and frozen river.

frenzied friday

It will not surprise anyone that I have many opportunities to rush around and be insane during the week. There are only two uninterrupted nights for dinner altogether (don't feel bad for me, two is more than adequate to bear with children who can't eat anything without flinging half of it to the floor) and there's always something to interrupt a regular school day if we wanted. I know, in terms of the rest of America, we live a very calm and peaceful life but reality never has that much influence on my feelings. By any subjective measure, I'm petty sure I could use more time to do everything. The busyness of the week, however, can't hold a new florescent lightbulb to the weekend. The weekend makes the 'insanity' of the week look like having a picnic in a warm, calm, blue skied, bug less meadow.

From Friday, even with various restful moments, like date night and afternoon play, built in, we summit sharply and steeply up through all of Saturday's Sunday Preparations, through ghastly Family Movie Night, to the pinnacle of Sunday morning. And even then, the peak is really only reached midway through the 10:30 service, that moment in which, as I sit with bible open and pen poised, I draw a full breath of relief knowing that all of Matt's intense preparation has carried him through and he is Preaching Well. I am the premier sermon listener. I have read his text twice. I have said what I really thought, sometimes to the woe of us both when he has to go back and rework whole sections. I have implored him to leave the text and, for the sweet love of Jesus, Get Dressed because it's 7:55 and the first service starts at 8. And yet, as I sit in my pew, I am totally and completely helpless as the one whom I love stands exposed to stand or fall on the Word of God and how deftly he handles its vast depths. The moment I can zip my fancy pens into my tea stained pencil case knowing that when I walk up onto the altar and he looks in my eyes I can smile with true approbriel joy is the most spiritual rest I ever endure.

From thence we slowly climb down all the way into Monday where, at the bottom of the mountain, we lie down and are mentally blank. Then we rise up and pull ourselves together and start again. I always arrive at Friday both relieved and dread-full. We survived the week. Will we survive the weekend? Will we toil our way down from the mountain relieved and happy or piled high with anxious worry and work? Only God knows, but either way, the climb starts now.

{phfr}: ordinary time

{pretty}

Gladys draws so well and so interestingly. So much of her stuff looks like it is right out of Millions of Cats, very detailed, dark. She barely ever colors anything in. And lately, her houses look like they have eyes for windows, which she told me was on purpose.

Also, I'm so glad we painted this room yellow. It's so cold and gray out but the room provides it's own light.

{happy}

Fatty Lumpkin, Ermintrude (?), what am I calling her? She is so pleased with her new hat and coat. She smiled especially for this picture, wide mouthed, still for half a second so she could be photographed.

{funny}

We own a treadmill, lying there in disuse down in the basement, and Matt insists on having a forty five minute walk five days out of seven, besides his hour long work out, but he won't use the treadmilll even though it's something like 20 below outside. He wraps himself up in all kinds of layers and goes out in it anyway.

Why does this fall under Funny? you ask. Shouldn't it be in a new category called Insane or Very Very Stupid? Yes, but I do derive so much pleasure from the the extraordinary personality of my husband. And Fatty Lumpkin, curled up in bed with me just now, pointed at him as he put on his mask, and gave a hearty belly laugh. A just and true reaction to someone who won't ever take any excuse to vary his routine for any reason ever.

{real}

Since we haven't fixed on any kind of systematic evening devotional I asked Matt if we could work on the catechism because it's becoming unruly and cumbersome during the school day. There are so many things we're trying to memorize I don't want to neglect the weighty matters of spelling rules and the multiplication tables just so all the children can perfectly rattle off all 146 questions of the shorter catechism from young children. I mean, of course the Jesus part is super important but the day is so short. Choices have to be made, I'm sure I frequently make the wrong choice.

So we talked about points one and two over dinner: Who made you, and What else did God make? Who made you was a nice reason to talk about the March for Life. What else did God make was too tempting to not talk about how terribly they treat their stuff. But then somehow we got to Adam representing all his posterity and why God would create the devil. And here is where childhood development is so interesting, because a fourteen or a sixteen year old child is very likely to have real existential angst about the idea of God being glorified by pouring out his just anger on those who have been prepared before hand as vessels of wrath. Whereas the six year old child thinks God beating down Satan is super cool and is prepared to spin around the dining room table making light saber noises. 

Go check out Like Mother Like Daughter's lovely new site!

7 quick take: first real week back in reality

one

Last week I blithely went about doing school as if it was the normal and right thing to do when on day two Matt found me wandering around in a glassy eyed stupor trying to coordinate between my right and left hand not to drop a massive vat of coffee on the kitchen floor believing, wrongly, that if a little bit of caffeine is helpful, a great deal more must be of The Lord.

 "What are you doing?" He asked me, since I guess an ordinary person couldn't immediately divine what I was attempting to achieve.

"I'm doing school," I slurred.

"Why?"

"Well, the main reason is that the children seem exceptionally stupid. But also, it says I should on the calendar. If you look at the calendar, it says it's January, and we're supposed to do school in January."

"Why don't you start next week and just go out for the afternoon?" He said. Like it was an obvious choice that I had considered but decided against when actually it was something that had never occurred to me in the whole course of my existence.

So I did. And it was marvelous.

two

So we started in earnest this week. And would you believe, a few days down made such a difference. Feel stupid for having to say it out loud. But there you are. You go along thinking that you're all that, that you can do whatever you want, and do all the work in the world, and then one tiny little holiday brings you to your knees in realization that you're a weak pathetic person who also must sleep and eat food. 

Also, miraculously, I carefully examined my plan and we should be able to finish just on time, if we really work hard. So you can see the fatal flaw almost immediately because who in their right mind wants to work hard. No one that I have given birth to. I feel like St. Paul, threatening, admonishing, berating even with tears to snatch them out of the jaws of judgement.

three

The only people who want to work hard are those who need constant help to do anything. Gladys and Marigold just want to Learn Something! Anything! Whereas those that can do quite a lot on their own just want to lie on the floor and whine and play with Legos. That was the first day. The second day was slightly better and then yesterday was almost sane. Someone even asked a question to obtain knowledge about something they didn't already know. 

four

Foolishly, I decided that Elphine and Alouicious are old enough to make lunch. Elphine for a week and the Alouicious. I don't know what I was thinking. Alouicious made soup from a packet yesterday (we'll start small, I thought) and besides coming in to ask me every tiny question because even though he was able to read the instructions he couldn't believe that they were true, he strewed soup all up and down the kitchen as if he was some sort of barbarian Hun cook coming to destroy civilization with noodles and synthetic seasoning. And then he was exhausted from the effort and couldn't cope with the idea of cleaning up so he just didn't and Matt walked in at the end of his long day and had  to crunch his way across the floor seeking out a broom. 

five

I make it sound like it's all a chore. There are myriad irritations as with everything in life. But they are basically small. I nurtured a glimmer of hope as I sat curled up next to heater toiling with each child through the most basic elements of language and numbers. It may be that they will learn and grow into reasonable people. I fail so much but I may not completely fail. It's the tiny seed of hope and the thin rays of sunshine into the school room that kept me sitting there until my voice was gone each day.

six 

Nevertheless, when I woke this morning to the sound of Alouicious fussing and fussing and fussing and fussing about not being able to find his iPod even though he had carefully plugged it in last night as part of his preparation for Men's Bible Study and so someone must have come during the night and stollen it and how could he possibly be expected to read the bible from something like a book!..I prayed earnestly that he would get himself out the door and leave me with two hours of peace. Well, one hour because the little girls wake up at seven now (not 6:30 anymore!) and they always come in shouting.

seven 

But it's Friday, and so we only have to finish a little list of things we didn't get to and then go play at church for the afternoon. This is our ordinary and life giving rhythm. May it carry me all the way through February and March, those two worst months of the homeschool year. May we emerge on the other side smarter and holier than we are today.

the domino effect or the twirling cupboard, you choose

Matt took Elphine out to lunch yesterday which could have caused a spiraling disaster of jealousy and woe, had anyone else discovered their whereabouts. I stood around in the kitchen lying. " I don't know where they are. Did you look downstairs? Hmmm. Oh well." Then the boys decided they wanted to play something complicated and difficult that would only be messed up by little girls. So the little girls sat on the kitchen floor just whining and whining. So finally I gave them a plate of cookies and a jug of milk and a little metal Malian pot of warm water with a tea bag in it and they sat around for like three hours eating and drinking and pouring tea everywhere. They kept coming back for more sugar even though they started out with a half a cup. But then there wasn't any sugar on the floor when they were done so I suppose I may draw an obvious conclusion. All the while I took everything out of the Twirling Cupboard (the pantry that has shelves that twirl which seems like a remarkably efficient idea but is really more dark and easy to loose anything you're looking for in the midst thereof) and tried to make sense of to all because every time Matt has gone in to cook anything he hasn't been able to find his cinnamon sticks and has blamed me. Every Time. So I found them. And cleaned out all the dirt. Even though I'd said I would spend the time folding laundry. I didn't do that so I will have to do it today. Which means something else that I was probably going to do will have to be put off for another time. And yet being able to navigate through the Twirling Cupboard will make other parts of the day easier. And that is the way it is. If you do one thing that you know you ought to do, you haven't done something else also important. But that's ok. If nobody whines or blames me, I will battle back the incessant feeling that I'm forgetting to do something important and just twirl in my own dark inefficient way.

whacking at the cobwebs

Last week it occurred to me that the internet, upon which I am now posting, is a narrow and confining place, just like lots of other areas of life in January. Everybody gets so excited about the new year and all the weight they're going to lose and all the changes they're going to make. The glow of Christmas is all warm and life giving. Volumes are spilled about how a new year will bring a new dawn of peace and good will. Everyone wants peace, after all, and it will be easier to go to the gym this year than it was last year. It just will. 

And then the first day back to work after all the debauchery and partying and those most ordinary and average amongst us (me) conclude that it was all a bad idea--the world peace, the thinner waste line, the super duper awesome new school schedule. No, life will go on as it did before. We will just spin in our own stupidity and quietness because nobody cares anyway. And the internet is the perfect way to live out this boring and life sapping dream.

After having read everything there was to read about Chis Chirstie and Obamacare and the new Gates book (not that I read the book, oh no no, the internet addict only reads accounts of other people reading books), I went ahead and read about how the Obama's marriage is falling apart and that poor ship full of scientists stuck in the Antarctic in the summer time in the ice (hee hee hee). 

But then it appeared that I had come to the end. There didn't appear to be anything else to read.

Six or seven more scrolls through Facebook and I was filled with deep rebellion. I have already twice digested the 26 things strong minded people don't do. I have looked at all the memes there are to look at and even laughed at them. I have read all the advice and looked at all the recipes and been warned against the massive and horrific evils of vaccinating and not vaccinating, Islamic terrorism, children leaving church, and been twice through the 50 things you can do to make your kitchen more efficient.

And I feel very mentally squeezed into a small depressing box. I've tasted all the fruits the vast interwebs have to offer (well...not all of them...I'm not totally stupid) and at the end of my long search I am bored and not a tenth as smart as Solomon and every other single person in history and the world who doesn't even have a tiny number of the books or written material I have in my own bedroom.

So then I reread Coctail Time (PG Wodehouse as I'm sure you already know) and I feel the life returning to my heart and mind. Vigor and hope are slowly coming into my limbs. I will go clean the girls room. I will write something else in a place where not everyone will immediately read it. I will sweep the floor. Maybe the Obama's marriage is really on the rocks. How should I know? Why should I know? It's not important or interesting. More interesting and important is my own stupefied soul and the ennui that is so constantly pressing in from the gray weather and the church's brick wall. I don't need to constantly be making it worse by looking at pictures of sunsets and duck ponds with words scrolled across the front. I say constantly, for that is how much my wretched phone feels like it is in my hand. And the words are always so bossy--Live one day at a time! Treasure each moment! Don't be anxious! Pray for the children! Care for others!

Give me a break. For real. A real unbossed, unpious, disurgent, slightly more intelligent break. 

Not from blogging, of course. Please don't you take a break from reading me. That wouldn't do at all. Just please don't make me, or even let me, read any more drivel. 

baby it's cold out there

In spite of me owning awesome new long underwear, the dog will not go outside for more than 37 seconds, which means I haven't worn it outside for more than five minutes. In fact, he won't even join us for school in the sunroom unless he can be held by someone. Likewise the cat, who normally arranges herself all over the school books, stalked up to me as I sat shouting at Elphine that 'took' is NOT spelled t o e k e or whatever she was writing on her paper as if the English Language can be subject to her every lazy whim or fancy, "English," I thundered, "is difficult and beautiful and you! will rise to meet its standards!"...where was I?...oh yes, the cat jumped on my book and hit me with her vicious claw and then stalked away and I realized that I had done something wrong.

What was it? you ask. 

I had left the curtain in my bedroom closed during the five minutes of sunshine that graced our polar vortexed tundra yesterday. She stared at me with deep deep rage and meowed threateningly as I tied it back lest she smack me again.

Someone posted on Facebook yesterday a list of old words that describe very particular things--like, there's a word for the moment of sun in the middle of winter that provides momentary mental health and physical warmth. I didn't save the post so for three days have been troubled by knowing that there is such a word out there but I don't remember what it is. It's the knowing that's so painful. If I had never seen that there was this word, I would be perfectly comfortable.

Actually I'd just be irritated by something else.

These pictures were all taken by me last night. After sleeping for an entire day, they rearranged themselves and went back to sleep here.

In the morning I had to make the bed with the dog in it.

He would not budge. He bared his ridiculous underbite at me and growled. 

I should have just chucked him out. But I controlled myself as best I could. 

I am not a brute beast. I can rise above the weather and my circumstances to live in beauty and self control. I don't have to stay in bed all day just because it's really cold.

Do I want to? Yes of course. It seems the best and most natural thing to do. But I can cope. I can get up. I can do something useful. Anyway, tomorrow it's supposed to be like 29 degrees so that should better. With snow. More snow. And then rain. And then snow. And then rain. Until baseball starts in April and then it will just be very very very cold rain. So much to look forward to in the days ahead. Maybe I will just stay here and see if I can find that list on Facebook. 

we're not going out today

So we're in Epiphany now. The tree was undecorated and hauled out last night amidst squabbling  and crying and general mayhem. Matt roasted a piece of lamb and we distributed the last of the Christmas cookies. 

I had set the table in the usual way as if it was no big deal but Matt was so crestfallen that I put everything away and started again with a cloth and a nativity in the middle of the table.

And some Christmas Baubles. Since we had no frankincense or gold or myrrh.

I'm the only person in the house who is delightedly thrilled that Christmas is over. It was fun and sparkly, but the pine needles everywhere were grating on my nerves and I'm ready to get everyone into their school work.

I prefer the children when they are working on something. They have become dull and entitled and crying whenever they don't have a candy in their grubby fists. It's a pity lent is so late this year because they could really benefit from it now. 

Read in a variety of places that yesterday, Monday, is the unhappiest day of the year as everyone goes back to work and realizes that they have already failed at their resolutions. I think the children would probably agree today. But I'm so happy. First, as Alouicious would so helpfully enumerate, I don't have to go out in the weather. Second, Matt cleaned out the fridge last night so I don't have to.

Third, we're starting out the new year not behind in school. Fourth, I've worked out a comprehensive chore list so that everything is equal again. Fifth, I don't have to go outside. 

Alouicious is much devoted to numbering everything. It's so careful and orderly. We've all gotten into the habit. And now, I must arise and make some kind of gruel so that the children might discover more reasons to be dissatisfied with their poor wretched miserable existences.

Stay Warm!

{phfr:pushing back the panic edition}

Every year I resolve to do more ahead of time and not freak out in these Last Days before Christmas. It's like the sun coming up. I make the resolution with monotonous regularity and then every year chuck it out in a wail of hysterical panic involving tears and recriminations against God, myself, Matt and reality. And then the next day I discover it's not so bad, carry on in a more measured way and then commit the same freak out on Christmas Eve. It is, as everyone knows, The Reason For The Season.

{pretty}

Some day, when I'm old and lonely and have a clean house and too much time on my hands (does that ever happen?) I want to live in this house with this tree and this beautiful Christmas Star and the snow coming down, exactly the way they've done it here. It's felicitous, serendipitous, beautiful, lovely. It almost makes me want to take the dog outside for a walk sometimes so I can see it. But not enough to actually go into the cold. Fortunately I took this picture so I can just look at it and mourn the loss past when it used to be warm enough to walk the dog (last week) and anticipate a glorious future of being able to do it again (maybe the weekend because it's getting up to 50 and all the snow is going to melt.)

{happy}

Because of the basement flooding the day before Thanksgiving, a moment Matt keeps describing as "a real blessing", his words, not mine, we had to throw tons and tons of stuff away and we managed to move all the toys up into the school room and the children's bedrooms, which started off a long domino effect of cleaning out the bedrooms and throwing almost everything away there also. And then, because it was so clean and uncluttered I turned my guilty gaze once more upon these hideous flowers I fitfully and distractedly painted on the girls wall last Good Friday after having a root canal.

As I painted I realized what a horrific thing I was doing but I couldn't stop and couldn't go back. Many of you who have visited me know that I don't normally do this. My living room is pretty well put together, I don't have perfectly foul taste, I'm not terrible at all I put my hands to. What Happened?

No one knows. Well, maybe God does. It's the result of sin in the world and in my life. But God is gracious and merciful and so last Satruday I tore apart a pile of old calendars and affixed them to the wall, covering the great offense.

And then I plunked some stuff on the boys wall so it looks less like a mental institution.

Someday this year we'll repaint the girls room totally. I hope. Maybe. May God give us a spare minute and a good color of paint.

{funny}

All these bins used to be filled with toys. Can you imagine? Wet toys. And now they're empty everything is washed and either put away or given away. What else is there to do but climb up into the bin?

"Get out!" I shouted as I snapped pictures.

And then, "No No! Don't get in!" as I snapped some more.

"Agh!! That's so dangerous!" I cried, snapping away.

"Ok! Now don't stand up!"

I had Elphine haul them out. And then I told them to never do that again. Ever. Ever. Ever. 

{real}

Nonnie (my mom) is flying home to Kenya on Sunday. 

As I was writing in wonderment my long post about what a calm and reasonable advent we've been having and how orderly and clean everything is it dawned on me that I owe it all to my mother. Not least for deciding to have me in the first place, but also for coming back to America for baby after baby and then for having to have new teeth and then for working so hard even while she's been in pain and woe. I will say. I am a bad person and I've enjoyed very much how cute and funny she is without front teeth. But apart from all the hard work keeping this place going along smoothly, we've had a really good time. I'm going to miss her and so will all the kids for different reasons. May we all gather in a lot of money and go visit her and my dad in Kenya sometime soon.

Until, have a Happy Christmas if I don't get back here before then!

st. nicholas and other matters

As I lie here, nursing a foul headache and a throbbing thumb, I can hear Elphine squishing the packages in her shoes by the front door. She has been up since 4:30, blast her. Indeed, she nearly caught me fussing over the shoes. I heard someone rumbling round upstairs (her) and shoved my bag of candy into a bookshelf and went back to bed and a minute and a half later I heard her crinkling the paper. I thought she was a baby come down to eat the chocolate and got up to yell and found her there, worshipfully kneeling before all that The Lord has done for her.

I managed to snap a picture on my way out, but it wasn't the arrangement I really long for. 

Last night they all wrote notes and discussed the existence of St. Nicholas and his relationship to Santa.

"There is no relationship," I said. "Santa is some kind of fairy or elf and St. Nicholas is a bishop."

"Is he too old to come?" Gladys wanted to know.

"Maybe he died and God lets him out of heaven to come here once a year," postulated Romulus.

"Go to bed," I said, "or nothing good will come to you."

You can see the light in her eye here--Elphine. She looks determined and, if you don't mind me saying, slightly crazed.

Anyway, back to the headache and the throbbing thumb.

The headache is from waking up at 3:30 to do the shoes because of none of the children going to sleep right away and so not being able to do it at a reasonable time like 11pm.

The thumb is from trying to beat my way into a can of tomato whilest cooking for Shepherd's Bowl.

Here I am trying to be tell enough for the pot and the stove, adjusting the flame from atop my ridiculous stool.

The soup

compared to the ghastly flesh colored satanic brew of last time turned out pretty well. Onion, garlic, carrot, green pepper, broccoli, cabbage, chickpea, lentil, ground beef, tomato, peas and curry powder are a better way to go than revolting ground turkey, kale and potato. God had mercy on me. The soup was delicious. Not delicious like any of the soup that Matt makes, but hearty and edible.

And so we come to the end of a long week. 

What with the basement slowly being emptied out, and that moment in every Homeschool Person's Life when you have to clean out the school room or you will die, and the beginning of Advent, 

[All the Prayer Cards required for three levels of Cstechesis--all the old ones mended and freshened and new ones made.]

and the sudden pressing need to eat lots and lots of salad as a way of recovering from all the pie and turkey and bread and pie.

Today I think we're going to make ugali and sauce in the afternoon and in the evening Matt is speaking at Intervarsity on the relationship between the old and new covenants. And tomorrow more basement. And a birthday party. Thus and so is December. You think you're going to sit around drinking eggnog and decorating cookies but really you hurtle through the month from one event to another eating other people's cookies and telling yourself you'll get back on your diet tomorrow. Oh...and I need to aquire unto myself a donkey costume for the pageant.

Have a great weekend!