Follow our family's journey as we seek to nourish our souls with music and literature, good company, great cooking, time spent in nature, and always, the love of Christ especially through the sacraments of His Church.
What a treat, right outside our back door! We can always use a reminder that God remembers His promises...
We celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary today (even though it was on the 27th). I am so thankful for my amazing husband and the years we've had together. Our "anniversary rainbow" gives me hope that God has wonderful plans for us yet. Love you, honey!!
We are so sad to hear about the great loss of life from all the tornadoes. It's been wild here but nothing has come too close to us. We had family members only 3 miles from the terrible Birmingham tornado - thankfully they are all fine.
Here in Kentucky the flooding is the big story. Yesterday we went to the riverfront to check it out ourselves. Part of River Road was closed and people were kayaking in the middle of the road. I missed getting pictures of that, but did manage to snap these.
Here you go, kids - the flood of 2011! (pictures from the cell phone, sorry!)
This gives new meaning to the term "Water Park". This is the playground (and water park) where we often play.
Sorry for the grumpy kid shot, but see that observation deck? It's usually at the water's edge.
The river is supposed to crest on Friday - with all the additional rain we've received since these pictures were taken, I am sure it will look much higher.
No actual flooding here at home, but there was a pair of Canada geese swimming in our neighbor's front yard this morning!
Happy Easter, everyone! It's been a busy season here as we prepared to celebrate the feast of Resurrection and new life. Like everyone in the Midwest and other parts of the country, we've been dodging the storms and rain. Fortunately, we are far enough from the river that flooding doesn't impact us here in any significant way. We just have a soggy yard and kids with cabin fever!
The garden sure likes all that rain, though.
We have a new bicycle rider again - this year, it's Benjamin! I love witnessing the sense of pride and confidence the kids acquire with this rite of passage. Many hours (when it's not raining) are spent out in the driveway enjoying that new freedom. This means I am out there every minute, too. When the big boys go out, Molly must go out, so Mama must go out, for safety reasons. I have to keep an eye on Benji anyway - he's a daredevil by nature. Just after he finally got his balance he said "Hey Mom! Guess what? I can ride with my eyes closed!" Gah...
Today we had a peek of sunshine, so we got to try out new sunglasses from the Easter Bunny! It's ridiculously hard to get a picture of all 3 kids looking in the right direction. Apparently my most basic directions ("Put your heads together and show me your sunglasses!" 1...2...3...) weren't enough.
Puddle jumping! That rain is good for some fun...
Here are a few random pictures from the last few weeks. I'm working with a different camera and some of my shots are a little fuzzy - I need to get the settings figured out one of these days. Anyway... hope everyone is staying safe and having a good Spring!
It's kind of amusing to think that the first half of my life I pretty much never used a keyboard. Even my senior thesis in college was mostly handwritten, until the final draft. (Yes, I'm that old. I feel sure that we were one of the last classes to be so technology-free, however.)
(well, you get the idea...)
Twenty years later, I am just plain lazy when it comes to handwriting. It's so easy to dash out a keyboarded thought, back up, delete, cut-and-paste, voila! Neat, pretty thought all packaged up in a handsome font.
What's the difference between an ink-traced scrawl and perfectly arranged pixels on a screen? In my mind, permanence is one - it's disturbing to know that one click on "delete" can wipe out my thought process. Eeek. Conversely, it's exhilarating yet disturbing to know my that words are flying around the world, Lord knows where, deconstructed and then reassembled in the air around our heads. Like everything else, the speed and convenience are part of our lives now, and the ease of communicating with large groups at once is heady stuff. But since our thought process has become so rapid, we may not take time to truly work through the subtleties before crafting our thoughts into words. It seems hard to even find the time to sit and write, since our typing fingers are flying busily.
When I think about it, though, I do miss the tangible feeling of connecting brain to paper by way of a smooth blue pen. There was something lovely about seeing curling pages filled with closely-packed words, or even the crumpled drafts on the floor: a visible, material testament to the process. In my mind, it was vastly more creative, and the laborious process did encourage depth and subtlety.
Recently I landed in a part-time job outside of home, due to some really tough challenges our family has been facing. What are the odds... it's at a marketing company that produces millions of "handwritten" pieces of mail for businesses and organizations trying to deliver the personal touch. My job? Programming and babysitting dozens of machines that hold nice blue pens and write envelopes and notes. They look pretty much like this:
You can't even imagine the huge market that exists for this little piece of technology. The overtime is unlimited due to the vast demand. Many of my co-workers are senior citizens who were formerly employed actually writing-by-hand for this company. Now, each one of them supervises an area that produces, in a few hours, many, many times the work she could once accomplish in a day. It's amazing, but it certainly has given me pause. Interesting, how much appreciated something "personal" has become. Something once so common is now a valuable commodity.
Lately, I've noticed more bloggers and other notable consumers of keyboarding technology pondering these issues. This lovely post from Tania captures the concept so well. Many "script-o-philes" have found ways to deliberately include the simple art of handwriting in their daily lives. Some focus on handwritten personal correspondence, simultaneously blessing someone else with an old-fashioned treat in the mailbox. Lauren has decided to write a letter a day in 2011!
Of course, much good has come from the ready use of keyboards. My life wouldn't be the same without one. I'm just going to make sure that I take some time to slow down and write something pretty, simple and heartfelt from time to time, and that my kids learn and practice cursive writing even though they like the speed and ease of the keyboard. For those who are intentionally slowing down, simplifying, and pulling back from the noise of life, what could be better soul food than time with pen and paper?
I recently read this phrase, regarding a certain culture's attitude toward large families. It's unfortunate that we don't often encounter that sentiment in mainstream American life. How many people in our current culture actually think "wealth" when hearing of a family with 4, 6, 8 or even more children? Such a beautiful way to think! I am filing it away in the back of my mind for future reference. It's delightful to be reminded that children are more truly "wealth" than any of our material goods.
This is the journal entry I keep needing to make - the one to remind myself of where we were at this time in our lives, a few years from now... I'm sharing so you can peek into life as we know it right now!
Brendan ~ Eight-and-a-half now, beefing up suddenly and he seems sooo big. He still asks for hugs every day, and I'm seizing these opportunities, while hoping that they won't really go away, even when he is a much bigger boy. I think to myself almost daily that I am not ready to be the mother of big kids!! The Transformer craze is not going away. Some days I wish we could have diversified a little more or steered him in another direction, because I am left wondering if there is any way this interest could contribute to a meaningful future. It made me feel better one day to hear some teenage boys in our homeschool group discussing the parallels between the Transfomer storyline and medieval history. Now that would be a fun way to learn! We are commonly held hostage to long "reviews" about individual Transformers, complete with step-by-step instructions for getting them into different modes (yawn). I have to say, Brendan's vocabulary is immense, and one reason he reads so well is because he's pursued something he's passionate about. I would rather have him reading Transformer packaging than Dick and Jane books, truthfully. He still loves marine life, although it's not as much a part of his daily activities at this point. He is a good helper to his siblings, even if they frequently irritate him. He's a Transformer buddy to Benjamin, and a creative playmate to Molly, easily getting into her schemes and instigating rowdy games of "chase" and hide-and-seek. Of course she adores him and eats it all up.
Benjamin ~ is our kid gifted with wondrous natural abilities of all kinds. He has endless pieces of electronic equipment dissected in his bedroom, boxes of circuit boards, fans, wires and other parts. He's a Lego wizard, and plays with building toys in a really unique way that we haven't seen with other kids. He collects those free apartment guides to study floor plans and exteriors, and "designs" future building projects with a ruler and pencil. I hope he becomes an architect and builds me a pretty house someday :) It's amazing to see how building is in his soul already! He's also naturally athletic, especially loving his pogo stick from St. Nick last Christmas. Sometimes we call him "monkey boy" because he's always perched on the edge of something, holding on with his toes, or twisted up like a pretzel. Ben's a relatively new six-year-old, so he's still super-cuddly and loves his Mama lots. He's the one who first started saying "Mama - all mine!" a few years ago, which now has passed down to Molly. Sometimes they fight about it. Oh, the hardship...
Molly ~ is so precociously two right now. Extremely imaginative, decisive and opinionated, she keeps everyone hopping to keep up with her ideas. I'm daily astounded by her verbal abilities. Of course I never compare (wink) but I am certainly not used to so much conversation with someone barely two-and-a-half. Frequently heard during the day: "Hey, I had a ideee-a!" She insists on endless "role-playing" with her stuffed animals and dolls, and really likes making them cry so she can make them feel better! I have to hold them upright and make them "talk" until she is content, and God help me if I am done before she is! Fortunately, she is pretty distract-able. I just have to mention another idea, ("How about making a picnic for Moosie?") and she's off and running with it. An interesting character named "Monser Beww" (Monster Bear) has emerged in the dramas. He chases everyone and tries to eat them. So, also frequently heard: "I a Monser Beww! I do-nna EAAT you!!! Yesss!" Great fun, running and screaming with big brothers. Thankfully, she also like to play "baby", informing me "You a Mama, I a bee-bee," while snuggling in for hugs and kisses. I wish it would never end!
Do you have a Commonplace Book? A place to write bits and pieces of what you've read and would like to remember? I have long recorded snippets of fiction and non-fiction alike, but I have only recently realized that historically speaking, such journals are called Commonplace Books. For centuries these personal collections have played a significant role in the way scholars read, learn, and remember. They paint a beautiful picture of an individual's growth over time- of his or her personal journey... I'd like to share a bit from my own Commonplace Book - might you allow me a peek into yours?(From Sarah at Amongst Lovely Things)
"The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency.Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home." ~ C.S. Lewis
Married to the hardworking Jeff, mother of focused Brendan (12), inventive Benjamin (10) and sweet Molly (6), plus several in heaven. My passions in life include my family, my faith, birth issues, home learning, and creative arts of all kinds. Welcome to my cozy world - sit down and have a cup of tea while we catch up. So glad you visited!
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