Thankful

The early settlers were thankful for a safe arrival, sufficient food, and friendly natives.

Baby never did smile, but at least Daddy had fun.

George Washington was thankful for winning the Revolutionary War, for peace and plenty thenceforth, for the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, and for religious freedom.

Abraham Lincoln was thankful for protection from foreign aggression and for bountiful harvests.

I'm thankful for a loving family gathered together.

For baby smiles.

For health and strength in my limbs to walk and run and smile and talk...which I couldn't well do two and a half years ago.

I'm thankful that I get to live in the most beautiful place on earth.

This happy farmer is thankful too!

I'm thankful for bountiful food.

For peace and safety.

For my blessed marriage.

That I get to stay home with my kids and homeschool them.

For my fun camera.

For my fabulous house, built to meet all our needs, and right next to a splendid park.

I'm thankful for a healthy church, where we are fed on God's word, shepherded with love, and free to worship our God.

I'm thankful for my Father, who doesn't give me everything I want all the time, but, like my earthly parents did, loves me strongly enough to say no in pursuit of my greater good--all the while never diminishing His tender presence and sympathetic ear.

I'm thankful, of course, that God sent His one and only Son into the world, to die for sinners like me, thereby providing a way to even know Him at all.

Beautiful sunset.

Beautiful ladies!

To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God...

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things.  They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God.

-Abraham Lincoln, 1863 

Running feet

I got new running shoes two weeks ago and ever since my feet have been sore.  Every day my arches want a massage and my ankles feel strained.


I went back to the running store yesterday and told them the shoes weren't working out, but maybe I just need to keep running in them and my feet will get stronger.  Running-shoe-store-guy responded, "Yeah, don't do that."


{Points for Jason, who told me the same thing.}


I left the store 20 minutes later with a different pair of new shoes, rejoicing over their 30-day no-questions-asked return policy.  I hope they work better for me.  Shoe Guy was optimistic about them.  He said they'll do well for me because my foot is very "foot-shaped."


Okay then.  Sold.

This morning was perfectly typical in getting ready for church.  Somebody spilled the Claritin all over the counter; somebody got sent back upstairs to change into more appropriate clothes; Saturday night's dishes were all over the place; and when I finally grabbed my plate of breakfast and sailed around the corner, herding the kids ahead of me toward the car, my toasted English muffin shot off the plate and hurtled like a frisbee across the mudroom, scattering crumbs everywhere and landing in a dusty corner.

I wrestled with my stewing heart on the ride to church. [What mercy God planted us 30 minutes away from church!  I'd arrive in an uglier state much of the time otherwise.]  

Besides suspending the laws of physics, so my English muffin wouldn't have fallen prey to centrifugal force, what I really want is for my family to dedicate themselves to serving me every Sunday morning.  And for my long-suffering husband to read my mind and anticipate every possible convenience I require.

Trying to live life hoping the world will dedicate itself to my convenience....is a little like running in shoes that don't fit my feet.  It makes me sore.  And I tend to think, If I just keep going, this will eventually work out.

But the reality is, I need to put on different shoes.  I need to rehearse the truth, again.  

I have sinned against Thy grace

And provoked Thee to Thy face

Yet,

Before the throne of God above

I have a strong and perfect plea,

A great High Priest Whose name is "Love,"

Who ever lives and pleads for me.

I read recently in Jeremiah, "your sins have withheld good from you."

Undoubtedly I need a shoe that fits my foot-shaped foot.  

And undoubtedly I need a universe-orientation that fits my God-shaped soul.  I was created for His glory--not mine--and running on a me-centered foundation makes everything off-kilter.  It withholds good from me.

And makes my feet hurt.

Behold Him there! The risen Lamb,

My perfect, spotless Righteousness,

The great unchangeable I AM,

The King of glory and of grace!

Richard Redhead, "God Be Merciful to Me"

Charitie Lees Bancroft, "Before the Throne"

Jeremiah 5:25

The obesity epidemic, explained in one picture.

photo via Spoil Your Dinner

Sure, Vox, you can take seven pictures to explain scientifically why we're all fat.  Or you can spend $2.55 at Walmart and understand firsthand.  

The same great country that produced atomic weaponry, eradicated polio, put a man on the moon, and led the world in representative self-government has now turned its great resources and genius to inventing a stupidly easy, quick, cheap way to eat warm cake out of a mug pretty much whenever you want.

It doesn't even require anything more than water.

We're all doomed.

I also appreciate the glimpse into the American psyche represented on the front of the box.  Notice what it says on the mug right under "CONFETTI CAKE":  "No artificial preservatives!  No artificial flavors!  Real ingredients!"

Indeed the bits of funfetti are colored with turmeric and paprika (?) rather than red dye #40.  So we value our health here in America, along with personal cake in a mug ready in less than two minutes.

Also notice what it says somewhere below "Perfect Size for 1":  4 individual pouches.  

So let's not kid ourselves.  We value reasonable portion sizes, yes sir.  We value them so much that we'll eat four of them.  How much denial are we in?

So thank you, Duncan Hines, for innovating a new, funtastic, heart-attackstic vice for me.  

You win.

Throwback Tuesday

November is cold, and not very pretty.  Thus I find myself with the itch to write but an empty photo folder.

The following can hardly be considered a rerun, since all these photos predate this blog.

This little burrito angel is Ada.  Right now she's next to me wearing her new glasses, curlers in her hair, reading Harry Potter, very likely to stay up later than I'll make it.

Jeddy at the dentist, age three:

Tomorrow will be his first dentist appointment with braces on.  He has glasses too, and contacts, as well as a middle school Bible study group, an online algebra class, and a larger shoe size than I.

It only took two years for Ada to become fabulous.

This is still one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken, 2011-era cellphone camera notwithstanding:

I still think Sea World should want to pay me big bucks for that.

Below, Ada does pre-kindergarten work while two-year-old Lizzy does her school on a scrap of paper.

Today Ada is in fourth grade, writing reports and doing multi-digit multiplication.  Lizzy is learning to read and filling in sheets of addition and subtraction answers.

And this little wide-eyed cutie is Caleb.  He now brushes his own teeth, gets himself up and dressed in the morning, and maintains an enormous and bustling city on a table in his bedroom, with roads, trucks, buildings and tracks. 


Here's to the next ten years of their life!

Is it November now?

Usually I think of fall as a melancholy time of year, and November in particular as dull and mournful.  Brown leaves falling off their branches, color fading away, blustery wind making the world cold, last vestiges of summer buried under dust and frost.

Maybe it's that my mental health is better treated now, or global warming renders fall weather less biting.... but I think it's more that I just don't have time to notice.

One of the top five best things about having older kids: they fix me breakfast on weekdays.  It's better than "being done with diapers" and not far down from [and related to] "beginning of hope that you didn't completely screw them up."

Jason has these complex theories about time speeding up as we age that have something to do with the universe expanding and the physical nature of time.  I think he was reading Stephen Hawking while I was learning all my physics from Back to the Future.


Others of us have more mundane theories about why time seems to go by so fast. 


[Also, see above re: kids out of diapers and making me breakfast.  Time definitely didn't used to go by fast.]


All I know is that my day job is mentally taxing, my evenings are spent largely in the kitchen, and my favorite place to unwind is cocooned in my room.  The biggest change the weather makes to my routine is that I put on fuzzy socks while I cocoon.

Elsa/unicorn/sparkle princess

This week I need to do school, get a mammogram, buy a new freezer, fix family meals about a dozen times, and vote.

What happens when your friend with a fall birthday has been working on the local Democratic campaign.

I suppose I could reprioritize my time to spend more time mourning the falling brown leaves.  But I'm glad I have other things to fill my life. 

Don't you want to trick-or-treat at our house?? We're so eager to have you!

This is the crew you'll find inside!