Saturday Funnies

Last night during Family Time Mike asked youngest to lead our family in prayer. We all bowed our heads, and the little guy carefully folded his hands and began a sweet prayer of thankfulness.

As usual, he covered a lot of ground and managed to thank the Lord for everything from fish to construction paper. But before the amen, he added one quick request.

"And dear God, please help me to grow up to be a man and have lots of hair like Daddy. Or Esau."

Cleaning Update

The kids' closets have been sorted, organized and cleaned. We took a big load of outgrown clothing to the consignment store and made a nice open space in the girls' closet that can be filled with baby's things. Eldest is over-the-moon excited that she'll be sharing a room with her new little sister. I pray they'll be best of friends.

We also rearranged the living room and hung some bright posters and maps for our new school year. Since our living room is also our school room we have to be creative with the furniture. In addition to the wood stove, we manage to fit a long school table with 4 chairs (where we can all sit and work together) plus a love seat and a couch. The long table doubles as an art table, and it is, without a doubt, used more than any other piece of furniture in this house. These kids can draw and craft and make up math pages and build lego machines and every manner of art on that table! The room is crowded, and the walls are covered in maps and timelines. But it works for our family.

Now, in my quest to get this joint organized before my back-to-school curriculum shopping day, I'm moving on to the linen closet. For some reason, despite my best efforts, I've never trained my crew in how to fold and put away linens properly. So this is the Year of the Linens for Team Rhodes. I'm going to organize that closet, then photograph it and post that photo on the door. No excuses. That way they will know what things should look like when folded, and where every single item lives in that closet. 

I will, however, continue to fold all the fitted sheets myself until my daughter has arms long enough to take over. After 17 years of marriage, I know it's scientific fact that men cannot fold fitted sheets. My dear husband is willing and able to do just about anything else that needs to be done around here~ clean bathrooms, load the dishwasher, cook (as long as it is pancakes.) But he has been beaten one too many times by those dreaded round-cornered beasts. He won't even try anymore. And after watching him wrestle with a sheet for the last time several years ago, I completely understand why. I'm determined to train up my boys into young men who know how to cook, clean, and do every other household task. But after watching their poor father struggle with fitted sheets, I'm giving all the males a pass on that one. 

Sunday Scripture

Pink Lilliput Zinnias

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,

 and a light unto my path.

Psalm 119:105

True Confession

A friend sent me a link to a contest. For a prize, moms can confess something they've done that would make June Cleaver wince. Sounds like fun, but I don't have time to join in any contests right now. So I'll just make my confession here on my little blog.

The whole family was scrambling out the door for church. As the boys ran out the door in front of me, I noticed their hair was sticking up like they'd just dragged out of bed. I searched frantically for a hairbrush. In my purse? Nope. In the basket by the hair ties? Nope. Checking the clock again, I knew what had to be done. I snagged the vegetable brush from beside the sink, grabbed a kid and went to work.

In my defense, we made it to church on time. And this only happened once. Or maybe twice.

Sunshine and Rain

We don't get rain showers too often this time of year, and this summer's been especially dry. So when we heard rain drops thumping on our metal roof we ran outside. We never pass up the opportunity to splash in a cool August shower. To our surprise, rain drops peppered down through brilliant sun shine. My middle son exclaimed, "Hey! It's raining while the sun is still on!"

In contrast, we turned and looked out into the east pasture and found another treat ~ this lovely double rainbow against the backdrop of a roiling gray sky. 

Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it until it receives rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 

James 5:7,8

Hanging Around

When we planted last year's onion crop our mouths watered. We ended up with rows and rows of onions ~ yellow, white and purple. We ate the tops for months while the bulbs filled out underground, just snipping off a bit from each plant and using them like chives and in salads. 

When it was time to harvest we all ate onions every way imaginable, savoring their mild and sweet flavors. When we could no longer keep up with the amount harvested, we started storing them to use later. I filled up wire baskets in my pantry. Then we hung them in bunches all along the pantry wall. The potatoes and garlic and shallots are also stored in there, so it feels like we have a root cellar indoors. We topped off the pantry with onions and hung them in the mudroom. When that was full we moved out to the porch. 

With our Texas summer temps, we weren't sure if the porch idea was a good one, or a rotten one. But this experiment counts as a success so far. It's pretty nice to walk out on the front porch and snag an onion when I'm fixing supper. 

I don't know what others think when they come to our home and see these bunches hanging from the porch eaves where baskets of flowers should be. I'm used to the onions now and feel they add a certain homey charm. But that might just be me. 

No matter. They are storing nicely there, and there they must stay until we finally eat them all up. By then, I'll bet it will be time to plant onions again. Rows and rows of them.

Chores

A family of five can create lots of dirty clothes. I let it get ahead of me sometimes and soon find Mount Laundry waiting to be scaled in my mudroom. And then there are the dishes. We manage to dirty a sinkful, and then some, every day. It's constant work, keeping things clean around here.

Some days I think "Whew. This is hard. Wouldn't it be nice to have a break from my endless chores?" 

Then I tell myself to GET REAL.

Beautiful Bougainvillia

Bougainvillia in my front yard

When we first married we bought a gorgeous bougainvillia and it beautified our yard with stunning hot pink blossoms all through the summer. It lived in a large pot, and I sheltered it through the winters since it is too tender to survive even Texas winters. That plant was a member of our little family.

The summer we moved back to my hometown, we made sure we had a special spot in the truck for our bougainvilla.  On that hot trip, we watched in horror as the Texas heat turned the lush green leaves into wrinkled brown bits right before our eyes. By the time we reached our destination the plant was on its last leg. I was crushed. 

Hubby rushed out and bought me another bougainvillia. It flourished for a few years, and even survived the move from our rent house into the home we built here at Pecan Bluff. I loved that plant.

Then we had children. And in one exhausting winter of toddler-chasing we forgot about the bougainvillia. It went unwatered in the garage for several weeks. When I remembered it, I ran out to check. It was a goner. I held on to hope and cared for it anyway. In the spring I put it back out in the sun and hoped for the best. But it was gone. I mourned again.

Dear hubby got me another. When this lovely pink  plant came home I privately thanked him with hugs and kisses. But when I went outside I tried to appear aloof to the bougainvillia. Apparently if you love a plant too much, it makes the plant die. 

Guess what? My bougainvilla is still alive and blooming beautifully, after all these years. And I still act a bit indifferent to it. I don't brag on it too much within earshot of the plant, and I give it the same amount of attention as my other plants. Nothing special.  And since it doesn't read this blog I can show you how lovely it is. Just as long as it doesn't catch on that it is my favorite, everything will be fine. 

So far, so good.

Adoption Update I-171H

Yesterday it was drizzling when I went to get the afternoon mail. A big fat manilla packet was laying on the bottom of the stack. I saw it was from Homeland Security and had a sudden sinking feeling. It was a BIG heavy packet. What if our entire oprhan petition application was being returned to us, and we had to start again? What if our fingerprints taken for the criminal background checks weren't clear enough and we had to drive back to Fort Worth to redo them? What if the government was asking for even more information about who we are and why we are adopting a child and bringing her home from Ethiopia? As Pooh Bear asks, "Is there any more?"

What if I just take a deep breath, open the packet and see what's really in it? After oxygen reached my brain again I couldn't tear that packet open fast enough.

The first page read "Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application For Advance Processing of Orphan Petition" right at the top. It also says they forwarded it to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Whew. My prayer of thanks went up right then and there, standing in the road with the mailbox hanging open.

So, now we have the coveted I-171H. But what does that mean? It means one more big thing to cross of the official Adoption Process To-Do List. With great ceremony, we crossed it off. The List is important to families who adopt, because there is so little in this process that we actually control. The List is the only part that is truly in our hands. Everything else in this process hangs on the expertise, or schedule, or good humor of people who are usually  perfect strangers to us and the child we are adopting. So we manage our big List with the loving care we would use to manage the rest of our child's journey home, if only we could.

We scrutinize The List and hover over The List and rejoice when The List gets shorter.  And it just got a bit shorter today!

Sunday Scripture

"As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God."

I Peter 4:10

Cherry Tomatoes

Can you believe these stunning little gems straight from the garden tasted even better than they look? 

George Washington Carver wrote that "every teacher should realize that a very large proportion of every true student's work must be outside the classroom." He also said that all children should have some kind of garden, because "even if the child does not become an agriculturalist or a farmer, these things all have a tendency to make the child think, and that is what we are trying to teach him - to think."

I've just finished reading, again, The Book of Heroes by George Roche. What an inspiring book about great Americans like Dr. Carver! I can't wait to use this for a read-aloud with the kids this year. 

Clean

Yesterday the kids and I cleaned out the closet that hubby and I share. Honestly. Where on earth does all that stuff come from? I thought I'd done a pretty good job of keeping it organized, but when we pulled everything out into the room so I could vacuum and dust the shelves, we had three times too much stuff to put back. Of course, to be fair I have to say that most of the extras weren't ours at all. It was lots of stuff that just doesn't really have another home in our house, so it gets shoved into our closet. Ugh. Some of the treasures we found included old baby monitors, rolls of maps and posters for school, catalogs (get real ~ when am I ever going to have time to read those?), an antique electric train in the box, pictures that we took down when we rearranged the living room, and a big wall clock. No wonder it was getting a little stuffy in there. So we sorted and sifted and tossed what we could. Then we put back what actually belongs in there. It looks great. Now I'll find homes outside our closet for the rest of the stuff.  

We cleaned out my daughter's closet a few weeks ago, with the help of her Gram. Next comes the boys' closet, then the linen closet. Then I will move on to our school area.  

To get ready for home school to start back up in the fall I always clean out all the bookshelves and the school closet and the desks. Then I take stock of what we already have for this year and put stuff back where it goes. I'm sure other home school moms never have this problem, but we seem to have a bit of trouble keeping everything in the proper tubs, boxes, and drawers. When everything is back in its place, I can finally tell what we need and what we already have.

Once we are organized I get to make a list of things we need for this year. Then I get to shop!

Now, I am NOT a shopper. I may be the only woman on the planet, but I never have the desire to just shop and browse and walk the malls. When I go into a store I bring a list and a budget. I buy what is on the list, and then I leave. That's just how I am. I do love shopping with my daughter, but we like to see how little we can spend and how fast we can find what we need. Then we like to go get a tall glass of something cold and talk about life and other stuff. That's how we shop.

God knew exactly what he was doing when he gave me my husband and the family that came with him, because my wonderful mother-in-law does my shopping for me! She is a pro. She finds all the best bargains on great kids clothes, cool toys, nifty gadgets, and craft supplies. And she gets us exactly what we need. Yes, I'm thoroughly spoiled.

But, shopping for school stuff is another story. I can spend hours in book stores and teacher supply stores poring over the choices, analyzing how different curriculums or workbooks or methods will work for each of my children. I love thinking of where we were last year, how much we've all learned together, and what lies ahead for us this year. I do take my list and my budget along, but I also browse for new ideas and spend lots of time flipping through all the options. And now eldest comes along and helps choose some of her own materials, so that makes it even more fun.

Wish me luck~ I've still got two closets and our home school area between me and the great Back to School Shopping Trip. I'm pretty motivated, so I'll keep you posted.

 

Summer

Sunday Scripture

"As the hart panteth after the water brooks,

 so panteth my soul after thee, O God."

Psalms 42:1

Friday Funnies

I love singing together as a family each evening, and it always warms my heart to recite memory verses together. But the honest, heartfelt prayers of our children are my absolute favorite part of our evening Family Time.

Tonight, as eldest earnestly prayed for each person in our family, she made me smile with this:

"And God, please be with our little sister, who is coming home to us........ gradually."

Isn't that perfectly stated?

These days, this whole adoption process feels pretty gradual to me, too, sweetheart. And, as always, I'm sure God understands exactly what you mean.