Questions Topic: Humor/memes Another idea swiped off of someone’s blog. But this one is so old, I don’t remember where I got it….so I’m sorry to the author! Just a getting to know you better meme from the internet. I’m sure you’ve all seen these. I would love it if you would send me your answers!
1. What is your favorite word? Ooooh, I like words a lot. I can’t possibly pick one. Some of my favorite words to hear are I love you, thank you mom, I’m home and Come to dinner! lol
2. What is your least favorite word? Butt, curse words, especially the name of God as a curse or exclamation.
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? Being outside if it’s pleasant, being cozy inside if it’s not, being the only one awake in the house late at night, a clean house.
4. What turns you off? Bad smells, rude people, waiting….
5. What is your favorite curse word? Well I don’t use curse words, but I have several exclamations I use: Rats!, ‘for Pete’s sake in a handbasket Louise!’ ‘Oiy with the poodles already!’
6. What sound or noise do you love? Wind through trees, water running, babies cooing, puppies howling, a car pulling in the driveway. =)
7. What sound or noise do you hate? My clothesdryer, the squeal on our car’s a/c belt, dogs barking incessantly.
8. What job other than your own would you like to attempt? Producing a Christian music videos or worship videos. Putting photography and music together in other words.
9. What job would you not like to do? Anything tedious or smelly.
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? IF???? For Pete’s sake in a handbasket Louise! What do you mean IF? I want to hear my Lord say Welcome home Child, job well done.
Movies R us Topic: Humor/memes
I am Schindler's List.....well, that's who I was the second time I took the test. I have to admit that the first time I took this personality quiz I came out as Sunset Boulevard. lol It sounded too self-centered and egotistic so I took the test again. ;) I just changed a couple of things and made my answers more middle of the road instead of one extreme or another.
I found the quiz on Shannon's blog, Wind scraps and I really am stretching to find something to blog about this week because all that is happening here is back to homeschooling stuff, cleaning the house and yard work between thunderstorms. So I appreciate the idea! =)
Go take the test! Hit the comments link below and let me know who you really are.....
Home Topic: People/Family stories
I finally found the lyrics to the Michael Card song I tried to refer to the other day! Thanks to KQ for typing them all out for me from her Poeima album!
Home
Home is a comfort And home is a light A place to leave the darkness outside Home is a peaceful and ever-full feeling A place where a soul safely hides And being at home should remind you that still There's a place that's prepared just for you And I think my home is just heaven's reflection As long as my home's here with you
Home is where someone is waiting and loving And happy to see you again That half of your heart That somebody else treasures The one who's your forever friend But it seems that He's told me The life that He's showing me Is a life mostly spent on the road But when the world's empty charm has done all of its harm I know that His love waits for me in your arms
'Cause home is a comfort And home is a light A place to leave the darkness outside Home is a peaceful and ever-full feeling A place where a soul safely hides And being at home should remind you that still There's a place that's prepared just for you And I think my home is just heaven's reflection As long as my home's here with you
And being at home should remind you that still There's a place that's prepared just for you And I think my home is just heaven's reflection As long as my home's here with you
Meatloaf Wellington Topic: Crickl's Recipes I am busy getting my house back in order and organizing my homeschooling materials this week, so I’m going to post a recipe….or two. While in Phoenix, one of my tasks was making dinner. My niece had this recipe and it is worth giving it a try! It tastes great, is really cool looking and is really very easy!
Meatloaf Wellington
2 eggs 1/2 c ketchup 2 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce 1/4 tsp ground mustard 1/8 tsp ground pepper 2 pounds ground meat 1/3 c minced onion (I use 1 tsp onion powder for my kids’ sake) 3/4 c dry, plain bread crumbs
1 17 oz pkg puff pastry 1 egg
Mix eggs, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, pepper and onion. Add in meat, then crumbs. Mix well, but handle as little as possible or meat will turn out tough. Shape meat into 2 loaves.
Roll out each pastry with a rolling pin (there should be 2 pastry sheets) on lightly floured surface until it is big enough to wrap the loaves. Wrap loaves, carefully pressing edges together with slightly damp fingers. You should wrap so the main seam is on the bottom. Cut slits in top of pastry, brush with slightly beaten egg. Place on a cookie sheet. (We were afraid the grease from the meat would make the bottom too soggy, so we put the loaves on a baking rack. This just made the bottom pastry fall off, so next time I’ll just follow instructions and place them directly on the cookie sheet.)
**another recipe for this on the internet suggests these baking instructions (baking meat first, then wrapping in pastry) using crescent rolls instead of puff pastry: Shape meat firmly into loaf. Place in a shallow baking pan. Bake at 375F for 45 minutes. Separate rolls using 5 to 6 crescents. Place crosswise over top and down sides of loaf, overlapping slightly. Bake 15 minutes more.**
Bake in a preheated oven at 350 for 60-70 minutes. Serve with Madeira sauce.
Madeira sauce
1/4 c butter 5 Tblsp flour 2 c beef consomme 1 Tblsp tomato paste 1/4 tsp each: dried thyme, rosemary and browning sauce Dash of cloves or allspice 1/2 c Madeira wine or beef broth 2 c sliced mushrooms 2 Tblsp olive oil
Melt butter and flour, whisking together until smooth and bubbly. Stir in consomme, tomato paste, herbs, browning sauce and cloves. Bring to a boil, cook and stir 2 minutes until thickened. Stir in wine or broth. Makes 2 1/2 cups sauce.
Saute mushrooms in oil to serve alongside meatloaf and sauce.
Serves 5-6 (we had 8 people and had a serving left over)
Coming home Topic: People/Family stories I’m home now! Two days of being home is not enough to let it all soak in again. For a month now we’ve been away….vacation, then me in Phoenix helping my parents and Charles visiting his family in Oklahoma, then youth camp. I felt like I was never going to get back to normal! (no comments from the peanut gallery on the normal thing. I mean normal for me. ) This was also our first Sunday back since Charles went on sabbatical a month ago. So today was really the first ’normal’ day we’ve had back at home for the past month. It’s niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. Traveling is wonderful, I love it, but coming home afterwards is so comforting.
I love being US With U
These are the words on my birthday card from my husband. Very simple words, but they speak deeply to my heart. I was in Phoenix on my birthday this year….last Thursday, August 4. I was sorely missing being home and being with Charles and my kids. The words on the card made me smile and tears well up in my eyes at the same time.
Under the printed words were Charles’ handwritten words….”being with you is being home.” It’s a recurring theme in our relationship. We have a song by Michael Card we have claimed for years called Home…..’with you I’m right at home’….I have been trying to find the lyrics for this song online and in my tape/cd collection, but I give up. At least the tapes and cd’s are organized and the old decrepit ones are thrown out! I kept my old Randy Stonehill, teenaged Amy Grant and White Heart though. (Remember Silverwind? I don’t either! But I have one of their tapes…hmmm.)
Here are the lyrics I do remember from the song…or maybe a slightly paraphrased version of the original…..
“Home is a comfort…home is a light ….a place to leave the darkness outside. Home is a peaceful and ever full feeling. A place where your heart longs to be….etc” Maybe my husband…..a more detail person than me…will send us the lyrics as he remembers them when he reads this….?
Home is a good thing. Everyone needs a home-base, whether it is a place or a person. We’ll never really be at home though until we’re at home with the Lord. There is a longing inside of us that will finally be satisfied…just like we long to be home at the end of a long trip….when we reach Heaven. Jesus has been preparing it for us for over 2,000 years! He only spent 6 days on creating this planet we now call home. Can you just imagine what it will be like? And though it sounds so far off, like a fantasy to us now, when we arrive there, it will be like the feeling we get when we come home after being gone for weeks or months…..something inside us relaxes and feels settled again. Maybe it’s that ever full feeling?
2 Peter 3:13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.
Stuck in the middle with you....and I'm wondrin' what it is I should do.... Topic: Humor/memes A friend tells me I’m part of the sandwich generation…raising young kids while taking care of aging parents. I think I feel like a piece of wilting lettuce in a 3 day old sandwich. I have been going to bed around 10:30 pm and sleep until almost 8am, waking occasionally to listen for my dad in case he is creeping around the quiet house.
But even with adequate sleep, we’re all feeling weary and worn. It’s a feeling anyone knows who has taken care of an aging parent with dementia…..the obsession about certain things, explaining things over and over and over, the need to be constantly aware of where he is, what he’s doing, and painfully, the question pops up now and again from my dad to me, “What’s your name?”
My mom had hip replacement surgery 11 days ago and is in a rehab center recovering and getting lots of physical therapy so she can come home soon. She has been the main care-giver to my dad for the past year, since he’s been in deteriorating mental health, compounded by some physical needs that are constant. So my sisters and I are pitching in and helping while she is recuperating…..and we can’t believe what she’s had to deal with at home, as well as being crippled in her hip. And now with dad’s confusion getting even worse with her gone, we are faced with some hard decisions about his future care and if he is going to be able to even stay in the home or have to go to a full time care facility.
We have had to rely on a good sense of humor to get us through. With your sisters you can make irreverent jokes about the things we’ve had to deal with. Most of it I can’t refer to here, but it helps relieve a lot of tension.
My mom complains about the rehab center she is in, which is understandable….it’s hard to be in a place like that. It’s boring and depressing. But that is not what she complains about! She says it's full of old people with droopy skin and they can't hear each other to have a conversation......this is hilarious to us because she is 78 and is just about deaf!
"Hey, kettle, this is the pot"
She knows we joke about this because the first time she said it, I laughed out loud and thought she was joking. When I realized she wasn’t, I totally cracked up. She thinks I’m goofy, but I’m telling you, it’s a hoot! Now I make it a point to ask her how all the old people are doing today. I’m incorrigible, I tell you…..never give me ammunition if you don’t want me to make fun of you.
The night I went to the dining room at the rehab center with mom for dinner, a lady named Josie got wheeled into position beside mom. She looked the table over and said to my mom,
'So.....what are ya in for? Murder??'
This sent me over the edge! (I was already giggling at a little teensy lady with a cartoon voice *like Minnie Mouse* who talked so loud everyone in the room could hear her....well, except my mom!)
So I was laughing....and my mom just looks at Josie blankly and said,
"What??"
To which Josie replied, "We're all breaking outta here tonight, see?"
.....my mom's like "What?"
I can't stand it....I almost had to dismiss myself and go laugh myself silly! *which I did when I got home after telling the story to my sisters*
So on we go. I am only here until Saturday, the 6th. Then I head 3 hours north to my own family and have to leave these duties to my 3 sisters and to my mom, who will be coming home about then.
Although it is depressing and wearying to see my parents getting older, it is also dear and tender to be with them during this time of life. My dad is as sweet, gentle and innocent as a child most of the time, although nighttime can find him belligerent and argumentative. He can drive you absolutely crazy with his incessant questions about things that don’t actually exist, but when his mind is clear, he tells us how much he appreciates us and says things we’ll remember all our lives. He actually knows how difficult he is getting, but when it is happening, he is so confused that he can't help it.
Tonight he was more himself. We had the carpets cleaned this afternoon and while we sat around the dinner table waiting for the carpets to dry, my sister kept telling everyone who got up from the table, "Don't walk on the carpets!" She must have said it 3 or 12 times. Then my dad got up from the table. We never know if he's going to do something 'unusual' or if he's just going to his room. So my sister said, "Dad, where are you going?" To which he got an exaggerated smirk on his face and said, "To walk on the carpets!"
It's good to see him being himself some days (and I see where I get my sassy sense of humor)....today was good. Thank you, Lord.
Life goes on and on….we think it will be ours forever, only to find out that our life soon becomes a memory and faded pictures in someone’s attic. We only have today here on earth, soon we’ll step over into eternity….and that is not such a bad thing, is it? My parents know the Lord, my dad is just closer to eternity now. It’s sad to see his body shutting down, but it is not the end…it is really the beginning for him.
He’s the lucky one.
Psalm 90:12 Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
James 4:14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
~~John 14:2 In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.~~
Updating and moving on Topic: Holidays/Vacations We are back from vacation. I kept a journal of some sort during our time and you'll find the posts predated, going back to July 9.
None of the pictures are mine, but I hope to add in some of our photos when I've had time to edit them. =)
Glad to be home for a couple of days before going down to Phoenix to help my dad while my mom recuperates from her hip replacement surgery, which was Wednesday. I will update when I can from there.
***I have been finding tons of typos and whole parts of sentences missing as I slowly go back over these posts and edit. I was typing them up at lightning speed on my daughter's laptop. If you've ever typed anything on a laptop, you know that if you run your hand over the track pad while typing, it can highlight sections without your knowledge *if you're looking at your spiral notebook while typing* and then it deletes when you start more typing! It's infuriating and I am used to looking at my words as I type them, so I didn't check the text as often as I should have.....arg!
re: stuff Topic: Holidays/Vacations The laundry is almost done now from the week of camping and we decided to go on a driving tour today of the mines up around Creede. It took about 2 hours and was absolutely a beautiful drive…..and the brochure we had told all about the old settlements that had been up there and about some of the history and people who lived there. We stopped twice to hunt minerals in mine trailings and several times to take pictures of the scenery. The lupines are in full bloom here and are mostly situated under and skirting around the aspen groves. It is charming!
Tonight we’ll cook steak on the grill with baked potatoes (and all the trimmings) and nice green salad. It is very hard to get your veggies and your fiber while camping. Mostly we’ve been eating meat, potatoes, canned things and junk food. I feel better now having the fridge stocked with some whole grain things and fresh produce.
This is reminding me of how God is. He allows us to go through rough, dirty, stinky, uncomfortable times in life, that is true. Everyone does. But then He provides the refreshing, overwhelmingly comforting times too. We’ve had kind of a rough year with depression lurking and some “people issues” that can drain you in ministry. So we are soaking in this refreshing time.
Re-fresh….there’s another “re”…..to get your freshness back. Wish you could refresh produce too…but sadly it is either fresh or not, no going back. How sad it is to open the ‘crisper’ drawer of the fridge and find wilted, moldy stuff….the nice produce that looked so perky and fresh when it was put away, all spoilt. Such a shame.
Perhaps that is how God looks at us when we aren’t used and sit around in our ‘crisper’ drawer too long, which is why you have to go back down after being in a mountaintop retreat time. We are all fresh and perky when we go in, but lack of purpose creeps in and wilts and molds and destroys. I’m glad I’m not a grape or bag of lettuce that cannot be refreshed once it wilts. Thankfully we are renewable…..we can re-fresh in God’s presence and be new again.
Turning the page….we arrived at the cabin today around lunch time. I can’t describe the beauty here, so I am taking lots of pictures to illustrate. We are still quite high at 9,000 feet elevation, close to Creede, Colorado. We are more specifically in a place called Wagon Wheel Gap, a ‘gap’ being a narrow passage through the mountains or in this case through rock walls with a canyon-like feel. The Rio Grande is just a few yards from our front door, so we can hear it, and we can see rafters go by, squealing with laughter around the river bend we are situated in. It’s a glimpse of Heaven I think…..
As I mentioned before, this cabin is owned by some people who make it available for free to full time ministers. May they have blessing upon blessing heaped upon them! Not only is it a ‘nice’ place, it is a luxurious place! We have the lower level of the cabin. The upper level and a separate small cabin are also for ministry families to use. The lower level has three double bedrooms, wonderfully furnished and cozy. It has a ver large L-shaped living area with two sitting areas, desks to work at, a foosball table and a ping pong table. The kitchen is well equipped and looks out onto the river. There are beautiful small gardens, green landscaping and hammocks, picnic table areas, grills and a lawn swing all right at the river’s edge.
There is no one staying upstairs yet, but there is a couple from Jacksonville, Florida in the small cabin. Today is their anniversary so they went to the Creede Repertoire Theater to see the opening of a Neil Simon play, Broadway Bound. When they found out that Hannah was wanting to go see the play but we could afford to take the whole family, tickets being $20 per person in the cheapest seats, they invited her to go with them and then they paid her way! I sure hope that I can practice this kind of blessing others the way they did for Hannah. They enjoyed the evening with her and even invited her to come to Florida and stay with them on Spring Break if she could. I’m sure she’ll be giving that some thought.
Moving up... Topic: Holidays/Vacations One day left until we get the cabin, so we drove down closer to Creede. We are staying in 30 Mile Campground, just downstream from the Rio Grande Reservoir, by a rushing stream, tumbling over rocks in a slightly downhill sort of way. (No listening to nose whistles tonight! Charles said it actually is the Rio Grande River, but the dam upstream controls the flow.
We know this because we stayed here in September of 2002, just two spaces down, right beside the river. We were so excited to get a space beside the river…love to hear it, love to play beside it. We set up our tent, fixed dinner and suddenly we realized it was quiet, very quiet. Looking over at the river, we realized it had slowed to a trickle, puddles of water trapped by rocks with 10 inch trout in them! The girls got to touch the fish, but we didn’t eat him…do you need a fishing license to take a fish out of a puddle with your hands? We asked the campground host why the river had slowed down and he told us they were doing some work this side of the reservoir and shut off the flow. I laughed and laughed about that. Never heard of turning off a river! So we slept without the nice roar of the water and next morning packed up to move. Once we were all packed, we realized they had turned the river on again. Our luck! We ended up leaving since we were all packed and we didn’t want to camp by a river we couldn’t count on.
So we arrived today to try out 30 mile campground again and washed each other’s hair with freezing cold well water. We feel much better though and won’t drive people out of public places now when we walk in! My daughter Emma held up a sock out of her duffle bag today after her scrubbing and asked me to smell it and tell her if it was clean, because she couldn’t tell. I told her no, I won’t sniff an iffy-looking sock and besides everything was starting to smell like dirty socks to me. (Did I mention that the cabin has a washer and dryer???)
This campground is much more preferable than our last. The rushing water, other families. Our first campground was a fishing lake and mainly used by retired couples and groups of men who fish. The campground host looked like the Grandfather on Heidi, right down to the Swiss-looking hat, neatly trimmed beard with no mustache, and overalls. He turns on his generator early in the morning, then again in the evening, and plays Swiss mountain music, including yodeling. It makes me want to use V’s instead of W’s and shout from the mountain top, “RICOLAAAAA!”
It also has a nicer outhouse here. I know….nice…outhouse? I am comparatively speaking. This one doesn’t smell too bad if you breathe shallowly, you can’t see the bottom (little scary here, but worth the wondering) and it has two forest service posters on the wall ….one of wild mushroom’s, one big honkin’ one in the middle with lots of little ones that look like they are dancing around it and other types around the edges….and one of wild birds that says, “Thank you for protecting our home.” Nice little birds…and scope for the imagination while ….well…nevermind. ;)
Along the road Topic: Humor/memes One horrid thing about being in Colorado is the roads. Towns in the mountains usually began as mining settlements, so it was imperative to build roads that went up into the mountains to where the mines were. Some of these roads are still not much more than mule trails, skirting the edges of mountains, 10, 11, 12 thousand feet in elevation, sheer, rocky walls on one side of you, sheer rocky drop offs on the other side. Sheer rocky mountain terror to drive on….for me. Charles has no problem with the roads (if he doesn’t, he is a good faker). He zips along hairpin curves and narrow roads while pointing and telling us about various landmarks or what the name of that “fourteener” is. (for the uninitiated, a 14er is a mountain that is over 14,000 feet in elevation.) Pretty cool to look at, but not when you’re in fear of careening off a cliff as your ‘tour guide’ points them out.
I always say, “Does everyone have their seat belts on?”
Someone is always the wise cracker (don’t know where they get that) and spouts off, “Like that would help if you go over a drop off like that! Hahahahaha”
“Very funny, put your seatbelt on!”
I have terrors about these roads and my kids make fun of me….psychotically sadistic bullies! I have started closing my eyes when it is realloy bad…I used to try to mentally drive and guide the car, which just makes me nuts and weird and a great big target for sadistic children. The first time I felt that way was on our honeymoon. We were driving to an old abandoned mine and ghost town and were WAY up in the air on a narrow dirt road that was tilted toward the abyss when we came upon a boulder in the road. There was no choice but to back up (not a fun thing on a windy mountain single lane mule trail) or inch back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until you had the car turned around. *Terror* I began crying and begging him to abandon the car and walk back with me, but he insisted on bringing the car with us. **men** So I got out of the car and stood there crying and hiding my eyes while he turned it around. Neither of us was in a very amiable mood for a few hours.
Two summers ago we had the privilege of having a 4 wheel drive truck with us on a trip to Colorado. What was I thinking ? Going with my husband to Colorado with a 4 wheel drive vehicle!? I must have been out of my gord. Anyway, my kids got to see me in ‘terror mode’ as we drove over the “4 wheel drive only, not kidding, turn back NOW you wimpy little city cars” road over the 12,000 foot mountain pass between Silverton and Lake City. Yipes! My kids still talk about it to anyone who will listen. And still, after two years, they think it’s hilariously funny that their mother, the one who birthed them, nurtured them and gave them their sense of humor (whoopsy on that one), was hysterical, having terrors and crying on this road trip. NOT one of my favorite stories, but it makes people entertained, so why not write it down in the permanent record? Besides, if my kids were to tell the story first, they would add many more unpleasant details!
On our way into Lake City the first time this week, I was driving the girls in for showers while Charles was content to stay and fish, fish, fish at the campground. I did not remember that road…obviously. Nope, didn’t remember the constant downhill steep grade while going around hairpin curves with NO guardrail! Not that a guardrail if going to really help up on a windy road like that, but it’s just nice to have it there, comforting you as if to say, “Don’t worry, I’ll catch you if you go to far over.” So I put it in first gear and went about 15 miles per hour while making some Texan really miffed behind me. I did pull over ASAP to let him by, but not soon enough to nix the miffedness.
On the second trip into town, me driving, (you see how desperate we were for showers that I would do this again?) I was more confident, but I did make the girls change the music we were listening to. It was Relient K singing “We’re going down down down in flames” (I am not embellishing….it really was the song that was on and it was very unnerving!) They changed it to the next song, which was, “We’re gonna have a breakdown”….on to Superchick and Christian girl power songs. Lol I started feeling empowered and even joked with my girls about how driving roads like these can make you feel this almost uncontrollable urge to drive off the edge. I got them back good…no laughing this time…just bugging out eyes looking at me in the rear view mirror. Oh, that was good…..
Seeing my reflection.... Topic: God things
As I’ve said, amidst all the whining about camping, we love to come to Colorado. Charles grew up spending weeks of summer here and we came here on our honeymoon, although we only camped one night of that trip. There is something about the high mountains that is restful and restores you, relaxes you and makes you reflective. Funny after writing that I realized all those adjectives beginning with re….cool.
To ‘re’ do something is to do it again. You had it once and need to get it again. Re-lax means you lost your ‘lax’ and need it back. (No obvious puns here, I’m being serious.) To re-store means you’ve lost your store of something vital…your store of peace, rest, freshness, spiritual strength. Re-juvenate means to get back that youthful feeling. Renew…to feel new again, reflect (I do not know what flect is a root word for…I will try to remember to ask Hannah, my Latin-taker.)
I certainly have been doing a lot of reflecting this week. I think that’s what rest if for. Your body stops and your mind goes, “Ok, now I’ve been meaning to go over some things with you…..”
I’ve been reading Psalms because I thought it would help me to express my feelings about God’s creation since we’re out in it 24/7 this week. But the Psalms I’ve happened upon, by God’s hand I’m sure, are helping me to deal more with my inadequacy, my acceptance of some things in my life that I should not be accepting, and also dealing with enemies and the unjust. I can’t share anymore about that, but I wanted to share how God’s used this time and how He works.
He is so surprising…sneaky really…always so timely and good…so understanding and patient with us (me).
The long hot day.... Topic: Holidays/Vacations It's hot.....
Bethany, Emma and I are sitting in the pop up trailer, tired of flies dive bombing us and mosquitoes trying to nibble us. Beth brought homework (?) and is trying to finish 10th grade Literature. Emma is writing a story. She has a spiral notebook, it is less than half the size of an 8x10 spiral notebook and she has over half the pages FILLED with her tiny, tiny handwriting. I don’t know if it will continue or if it is only a phase, but she has become a story writer and songwriter this year, always scribbling in notebooks. She used to rewrite stories she already knew, like The Lord of the Rings stories, but she would change a few things to make it suit her, but these are her own original works. She won’t let any of us read them until months later when she feels more confident about them, but the ones I’ve seen are pretty good for a 13 year old.
I am also scribbling in a full sized spiral notebook…and I do mean scribbling. Since I am so used to typing on a computer for everything except grocery lists, my hand writing is sorely, sorely gone downhill. Of course it doesn’t help that my hands are chapped beyond all reason from scrubbing them after outhouse visits and being outside all the time. I am blogging on paper. It’s very strange and feels disorganized, but I’m sure I’ll be able to sort it out back home…or maybe I’ll use Charles’ laptop next week at the cabin to type it up on Word. (I am typing this at the cabin, but using Hannah’s laptop.)
I don’t miss the computer, I’m just used to jotting down ideas now as they come and it’s less convenient on paper….hand cramps, bugs squished on notebook paper, dirt, wind, lack of light at night to write. (my best thinking time)
Hannah and Maggie are outside. Hannah is finishing up Anna Karinnina by Tolstoy. On v acation last year, she read War and Peace, so she felt it was tradition to bring ol’ Leo along on vacation. She is almost done with it and told me this morning that we have to find a bookstore soon. She’s never without a book, but is ravenous about reading while on vacation. I brought some books too. I am not an avid reader, but I like to read if there is nothing else to do. ;) So I brought Katharine Hepburn’s autobiography and am enjoying that. She is so honest and self depreciating…she sees herself honestly. Going over events in her life for the book helped her to evaluate how selfish and stupid she was (quite often) and I feel like it passes on a kind of worldly wisdom. She refers to God and to her mistakes as sins, but I think it is more of taking them in stride and not actually being repentant of anything.
I also brought a book that is being circulated between some of my grown-up-lady friends from church. It is called “Called to be his helpmate” about being a more effective partner as the wife in a Christian marriage. I am waiting until next week to read it though. I have to be honest and say that I would probably find the book irritating while living in primitive conditions that my husband likes to put us in each summer. ;) The friend who read it though think it is a very practical and wise book. I’ll let you know what I think of it in the near future.
I said Maggie is outside, but she is actually going in and out of the trailer, being restless. She needs someone to play binka bonka (badminton) with. I think I’ll go hit a few with her.
The two brothers have gone down to the marshy creeks…no, not to look for moose, they’ve given that up….to fish for trout. They slathered up with sunblock and bugspray, all toxic I’m sure, and will return absolutely disgusting but happy when they return, especially if they caught fish OR had adventures. =)
Da da da dun dun.....DUN DUN! Topic: Holidays/Vacations We have two more nights camping, then it is off to that nice cabin for a week. It will be like Christmas! Flushing toilets, showers, a washer and dryer, indoor cooking, the Rio Grande River right beside us…electricity, water, a refrigerator, electricity, ahhhhhh. You cannot even imagine my anticipation I feel ….like ‘Lisa’ on Green Acres “Dahling, I love you but give me indoor plumbing!”
Poor poor Charles. He is realizing on this trip more than ever that teenaged girls are not the best troopers when in primitive conditions.
He is trying his best to put up with us, but I’m afraid we have all had our moments of extreme irritability. But then there are times when we have all just had showers at the RV park in town and we are sitting in the pleasant park enjoying being with each other and enjoying the outdoors. It didn’t hurt that we had just had a steak dinner in a nice restaurant for Hannah’s 18th birthday and there was a youth group from Texas (i.e. cute boys) playing Frisbee in the park. I am just hoping that they will remember the pleasant things and not the irritating, hard, dirty and smelly things.
Another idea swiped off of someone’s blog. But this one is so old, I don’t remember where I got it….so I’m sorry to the author! Just a getting to know you better meme from the internet. I’m sure you’ve all seen these. I would love it if you would send me your answers! 
Another day and nothing to blah blah blog about. 
and I really am stretching to find something to blog about this week because all that is happening here is back to homeschooling stuff, cleaning the house and yard work between thunderstorms. So I appreciate the idea! =) 
I am busy getting my house back in order and organizing my homeschooling materials this week, so I’m going to post a recipe….or two. While in Phoenix, one of my tasks was making dinner. My niece had this recipe and it is worth giving it a try! It tastes great, is really cool looking and is really very easy!
I’m home now! Two days of being home is not enough to let it all soak in again. For a month now we’ve been away….vacation, then me in Phoenix helping my parents and Charles visiting his family in Oklahoma, then youth camp. I felt like I was never going to get back to normal! (no comments from the peanut gallery on the normal thing. I mean normal for me. ) This was also our first Sunday back since Charles went on sabbatical a month ago. So today was really the first ’normal’ day we’ve had back at home for the past month. It’s niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. Traveling is wonderful, I love it, but coming home afterwards is so comforting.
Home is a good thing. Everyone needs a home-base, whether it is a place or a person. We’ll never really be at home though until we’re at home with the Lord. There is a longing inside of us that will finally be satisfied…just like we long to be home at the end of a long trip….when we reach Heaven. Jesus has been preparing it for us for over 2,000 years! He only spent 6 days on creating this planet we now call home. Can you just imagine what it will be like? And though it sounds so far off, like a fantasy to us now, when we arrive there, it will be like the feeling we get when we come home after being gone for weeks or months…..something inside us relaxes and feels settled again. Maybe it’s that ever full feeling?
We are back from vacation. I kept a journal of some sort during our time and you'll find the posts predated, going back to July 9.
This campground is much more preferable than our last. The rushing water, other families. Our first campground was a fishing lake and mainly used by retired couples and groups of men who fish. The campground host looked like the Grandfather on Heidi, right down to the Swiss-looking hat, neatly trimmed beard with no mustache, and overalls. He turns on his generator early in the morning, then again in the evening, and plays Swiss mountain music, including yodeling. It makes me want to use V’s instead of W’s and shout from the mountain top, “RICOLAAAAA!” 
On the second trip into town, me driving, (you see how desperate we were for showers that I would do this again?) I was more confident, but I did make the girls change the music we were listening to. It was Relient K singing “We’re going down down down in flames” (I am not embellishing….it really was the song that was on and it was very unnerving!) They changed it to the next song, which was, “We’re gonna have a breakdown”….on to Superchick and Christian girl power songs. Lol I started feeling empowered and even joked with my girls about how driving roads like these can make you feel this almost uncontrollable urge to drive off the edge. I got them back good…no laughing this time…just bugging out eyes looking at me in the rear view mirror. Oh, that was good…..
I certainly have been doing a lot of reflecting this week. I think that’s what rest if for. Your body stops and your mind goes, “Ok, now I’ve been meaning to go over some things with you…..” 
It's hot.....
We have two more nights camping, then it is off to that nice cabin for a week. It will be like Christmas! Flushing toilets, showers, a washer and dryer, indoor cooking, the Rio Grande River right beside us…electricity, water, a refrigerator, electricity, ahhhhhh. You cannot even imagine my anticipation I feel ….like ‘Lisa’ on Green Acres “Dahling, I love you but give me indoor plumbing!” 
