Life under the Lintel

Monday, February 2, 2026

Weather 2026

The snowstorm that turned into an ice storm a week ago is still the major news around here. Roads are clear except for the rock-hard snowbanks encroaching on them. It took a few days but we finally cleared our driveway and a path from our door to the mailbox. And bless our neighbor who plowed out in front of our mailbox with a farm tractor.

wine and Qwirkle date night

I got so behind on laundry that Jason felt like he was living in It’s a Wonderful Life, a world where Mindy never even existed.

Winter storm Day 1, in which regular snow falls

Caleb nearly brought me to tears the other day during his spelling lesson. I arranged the magnet tiles into multisyllabic words and instructed him to remove the prefix and suffix and tell me what root word we’re left with. As per usual, instead of sliding the tiles aside with a single finger, he created a vehicle of war out of several other tiles, started them at the far side of the whiteboard, and then zoomed them in with explosive sound effects and marker-drawn chaos, blasting the word apart and then searching among the wreckage for the root word tile while I closed my eyes and took deep cleansing breaths.

That wasn’t the part that brought me to tears. I’m used to that. What brought me to tears was when the lesson was finished and I turned around to put the magnetic alphabet back together, I couldn’t find the tiles we used. I was momentarily confused when I saw them neatly back in place and asked what happened to them. He matter-of-factly told me that he had put them back where they go.

He had put them back where they go!!

He took apart his letter-tile war engines and replaced them neatly as a normal person would expect to find the alphabet. This has never happened in the history of Caleb’s education. Be. Still. My heart.

Winter storm Day 2, on which we wake up to find the snow has turned to a single worldwide block of ice.

As it hasn’t been particularly enticing to go outside, and everything we might consider doing has been cancelled, I had the pleasure of realphabetizing my spice drawer this week. Happy thought indeed!

My homeschooled kids are the only people they know who’ve had any school this week. Even Ada has been home every day since community classes were cancelled. And since nothing has changed and everything is still frozen in place, I don’t see why she or any of their public-schooled friends would go back on Monday or Tuesday.

Lucky us! No school interruptions necessary for the homeschooled. Except when we’re chipping ourselves out to retrieve groceries or meet friends for icy sledding adventures.

Caleb sitting on top of the snow running his r/c car over the ice

What’s saving my life 2026

On the theory that’s it’s much easier to say what’s killing me these days, Modern Mrs. Darcy posts her annual “What’s saving my life” declaration on Groundhog Day, the midpoint of winter.

Photo by Christian Grab on Unsplash

It’s tempting to enumerate what’s killing me. Oh, I could tell you what’s driving me crazy, what frustrates me, disheartens me, and angers me to no end.

But it’s a more helpful exercise to reflect on what’s saving me.

Photo by Donnie Rosie on Unsplash

We have a relatively new practice that was born, in fact, of some of those very things that are killing us—those which must not be named here.

As a way of deepening relationship, a counselor recommended to Jason taking a few minutes in the morning and evening for the two of us to share how we’re doing using “soul words” (ie, you’re not allowed to say merely “good,” “fine,” or “ok”) and then pray together. So whether we feel anxious, antsy, resigned, content, distressed, ignored, or whatever else, we connect on a soul level. We each know how the other is feeling and what’s driving us to feel that way. And we each hear the other pray for us, about our own uppermost concerns.

Photo by Jonas Eriksson on Unsplash

The counselor was right, it has deepened our relationship. It has encouraged me and kept loneliness at bay. I know I’m so fortunate to have such a marriage.

As winter wears on into Febru-March, I will probably tell Jason at various times that I feel depressed, weary, and sun-starved. And then he will tell me however he feels, and we will pray.

And that simple and profound practice will be saving my life.

Photo by Alexandra on Unsplash

what’s saving my life in 2025

what’s saving my life in 2024

what’s saving my life in 2023

what’s saving my life in 2022 (posted on 2-2-22!)

what’s saving my life in 2021

what’s saving my life in 2020

what’s saving my life in 2019

what’s saving my life in 2018

Thursday, January 22, 2026

Halfway Day

What does one learn in the smack-middle of the year in eighth and ninth grade in the Miller homeschool, you wonder?

And it is the smack-middle; Friday last was Halfway Day—which we did not celebrate for the first time in ten years! Partially because we really couldn’t; I had a hair appointment that afternoon (with a new hairdresser—a moderately long story*) and we had a youth culture conference at church that evening; and partially because, well, Halfway Day showing off is a lot more boring than it used to be. It was adorable to show off their preschool projects—algebra test scores, not so exciting.

Liz and Caleb managed to track and actually spot Jed and Maddie’s plane overhead when they flew to Arizona last week

So what are we learning?

Caleb is learning a list of Latin verbs in the fourth conjugation.

In grammar today we talked about the difference between council and counsel, purpose and propose, and affect and effect.

I corrected his report on Pride and Prejudice. He did a pretty good job on the plot points, except that Mr. Collins did not propose to Mary Bennet!

In logic he’s learning about the relationships of equivalence; meaning that “he proposed” is equivalent to “he did not not propose.”

Caleb is memorizing Luke 24:1 for eventual recitation, a passage much shorter than I usually have him memorize and perform, because this time I’m making him painstakingly write out each phrase in PERFECT HANDWRITING until it’s PERFECTLY LEGIBLE. (I’m tired of struggling to decipher his atrocious handwriting, thus the extra penmanship practice.)

In history, he just read about the early settlements of Delaware.

For free reading, he’s been reading The Three Musketeers.

And his current spelling lesson, which we did not get to today, is covering when ss says sh as in tissue and session.

Lizzy learned about alcohol poisoning for health class.

She’s doing a similar thing to Caleb in grammar—the difference between lay and lie, its and it’s, ingenious and ingenuous.

In economics she’s learning about monopolies.

In our Bible time we’re reading through Acts. Yesterday we read about how the Lord “added” to the church’s number until they established deacons, and then the Lord “multiplied” their number.

I don’t care, because I don’t need to care, what they’re learning in their online math and science classes or Lizzy’s online Spanish. And I can barely remember what community college classes Ada is even taking (biology, art, and history).

extra-special date night on our 22nd anniversary

I’ve finished a couple of thrillers lately in my free time, in between painting endless sets of nails with my new nail art supplies I got for Christmas; and after the last novel left me breathless, I’m thinking maybe I need to read a nice book next where fewer people die. I started reading The Mysterious Affair at Styles—Agatha Christie’s first book—to Jason after we watched Death on the Nile one date night and both enjoyed it. We’re both enjoying it so far and there are seventy-nine more Agatha Christie books when we’re done with this one. And although it is about murder, it’s much lighter than what I just finished. A nice light murder.

I don’t for a second regret getting Ada an espresso machine for Christmas. I volunteer quite often to be her guinea pig as she practices. She’s really mastered espresso shots and lattes and now is working on latte art.

* I’ve been going to the same hairdresser for years because she’s nearby and she does a very good perm. But she’s quite…of a certain age, and I thought I really ought to start looking for a backup for when she inevitably retires or can’t work as much. So then my neighbor across the street mentioned that her daughter does hair also just down the street, and when I asked if she does perms, she said, “Very well.” Despite the biased maternal opinion I thought I’d give her a try as a start for my search. So I made an appointment. While she was doing my perm (which she actually did very well) she asked where I went before and when I told her, she said, “Oh, yeah, but she’s gone now.” And I said what? And lo and behold, sometime since my last hair appointment, my longtime hairdresser apparently packed up shop, put it for sale, and disappeared.

So I have a new hairdresser. And I really liked her. And she charged half what I was paying before, so I already made another appointment to get highlights. With prices that low, what if she goes out of business? Then again, maybe prices that low are how she drove the other hairdresser out of town.

Monday, January 12, 2026

Bleak midwinter

We’ve completed one week back from Christmas break and it feels like four.

Is waking up and making meals and doing school and chores and having practices and meetings really what normal life is like?

It feels hard.

And tiring.

Caleb is reading Pride and Prejudice now for his literature assignment. Lizzy and I are far more excited about this than he is.

We’ve been behind in school since Williamsburg; maybe that’s why it feels like I’m dragging along. That, and I guess it’s the muddlesome post-holiday middle of the school year.

We have a conference on youth culture coming up at church this weekend, which I’m vaguely looking forward to. There’s also a women’s retreat coming up, which I am steadfastly refusing to go to. The newly scheduled children’s ministry team retreat makes a tidy excuse (two retreats in one spring is too many!), but really I just found the last multi-church retreat too socially overwhelming to be worth missing two nights of sleeping with my husband and a day of school.

Ada, being on a college schedule, doesn’t go back til next week, and is currently off having an exciting weekend in New Year City with her aunt Jo.

Not that I’m jealous. I’m vicariously enjoying the pictures from beneath my heap of fuzzy blankets. Those animals that hibernate all winter know where it’s at.

Monday, January 5, 2026

Back

The day of reality reentry has arrived.

No more heaps of sticky sugaryness for breakfast or [too many] hours of sipping coffee over a puzzle.

Now I am Responsible.

I’m also all scratched to pieces from the elbows down from taking down the Christmas decorations, which are neatly packed away in the garage. Maybe we won’t get another judgy note from the electric company telling us we use 91% more electricity than the average household, now that our Christmas lights are down.

The first day back in school wasn’t so bad, considering. We all ate protein for breakfast and lunch. Loads of laundry are going.

It’s good to return to regular life.