Life on Five

I'm alive. I know you all thought I must have passed on sometime last summer, or early autumn, when it had been months since my last post. But tonight, nearly a year to the day since my last post, I assure you that I am alive and well.  Well...I'm alive.  Let me tell you that it has taken some time for me to get used to living back in Illinois, in the country, a good fifteen minutes away from any civilization.  Most days, I love it. Some days, I don't.

Take, for instance, the day when hubby was out-of-country for work travel, and I decided to mow the lawn for him as a surprise.  Never mind that it's been a good three years since I sat on a riding mower; I was determined to do this. After all, my six-year-old drives the mowers at my in-laws' all the time. Surely he could help me figure out the one sitting in the dusty pole barn at the top of the hill. Never mind that I knew-yes, knew- that the shed was full of mice.  I am woman, hear me roar.  I was going to do this.  So, I called my mom and she came over to keep the kids entertained inside while I mowed. I took my Buddy with me up the hill, and we nearly tripped over a snake at the entrance.  Not a big deal. I don't like snakes, but hey, they eat mice.  I got a stick and flung him a little ways away so we could go inside in peace.  I kicked the mower a few times to make sure that there are no little critters hiding inside; after all, when the renters were using it beating it to death, mice made a home under the hood more than one time.  No evil critters scurried out, so I figured we were in the clear.  That was my first mistake.  As I sat down, I noticed a big poof of foam come out from under the seat.  About two seconds later, a mouse ran out-RIGHT UNDER MY SEAT-and, in my son's words, "lunged at" him and ran away to hide wherever it is that those little devils hide until they see me and then they run out and scare me half to death.   I screamed, my son screamed (poor kid, hubby says I'm making him into a wuss), and we ran out of the shed.  Quickly.  I tell you what, I haven't moved that fast in many a year.  Once I got over my initial case of heebie-jeebies, we got up our courage and decided that the coast must be clear, because what stupid mouse would stay in the seat and watch its partner in crime run to safety?  We must have hit the jackpot on stupid mice, because-yes, you guessed it-as soon as I sat down again, ANOTHER mouse ran out.  Repeat earlier scene of running and screaming.  Repeat earlier scene of heebie-jeebies and talking myself into trying a third time.  (After reading this post, one could never say that I'm undetermined.) This time, there was much kicking, seat-checking, and praying, and finally, when I sat down, nothing ran out.  My son (remember, he's six) gave me the instructions on how to start it up, and I followed them to a "T".  Unfortunately, what he didn't know about this particular mower is that there is a very specific combination having to do with the throttle, choke, and how to push and pull which one when.  Confused?  So was I.  Anyway, after about five tries, I gave up.  Instead of roar, I was saying, meow, and running back to my mommy in the house. Which reminds me...I'm in the market for a couple of kittens. 

But, alas, lest you think I hate my life...
The days I love it far outnumber the days I don't.  These are some of the memories that we have made as a family already in the short three months we've been back on our little homestead:

• filling our bird feeder and watching new birds come every morning-gold finches, indigo buntings, cardinals, rose-breasted grosbeaks, sparrows, purple finches, and we've even seen an oriole!
• catching lightening bugs in our pajamas after dark (we didn't have these in western Nebraska-what a treat to see the delight on my kids' faces as we experienced this for the first time together!)
• eating popsicles and ice cream treats out on our deck after swimming in the kiddie pool
• planting and watering eleven new fruit trees in our "pasture"
• washing the van with the hose and sponges out in our driveway
• jumping on the trampoline and spraying each other with the hose
• watching the construction on our new addition take place day by day
• dressing in long sleeves and long pants and picking black raspberries and blackberries out in our woods 
• standing on the deck and looking up at the stars after it's dark-and able to see every single one (okay, this memory is just me and hubby, but it counts)

...and these are just the memories we have made here, in our own home.  There are many, many more that we have made with family and friends.  God has blessed us abundantly, and for that reason, I have changed the name of the blog to "Five Acre Dream."  It really is our dream to live in the country, raise a gaggle of kids (how appropriate; I really do feel like a mama goose some days), grow/raise our own food, daily love Jesus more, and to minister to others along the way.  And this is only the beginning.

Cookie and Me

I know it has been over a month since I last posted...no good excuses.  I'm still learning about "how to blog" and sometimes I just don't really even know what I want to write about.  Other times, I have so many ideas that I can't decide.

And often, I'm just too exhausted at the end of the day to write anything at all.  I am 35 weeks pregnant now (read: huge, uncomfortable, and cranky), and once the kids are in bed all I want to do is watch a movie or catch up on my blogs.  Anyway, that aside, I have decided that for the next few days I am going to write something about each day.  My hubby and two oldest kids are gone for the next week and a half, so I am getting some fabulous one-on-one time with my youngest daughter.  And, because I have no memory/brain cells, I have vowed to record our daily adventures here on the blog.  Just in case anyone else cares.

Yesterday we started our day by going to Bible study at church.  This summer we are doing it every other week for six weeks, and I am so glad.  The past couple of summers we haven't done one at all, and I really miss it.  I find that I need the accountability to stay in the Scriptures on a regular basis.  I have been so crazy lately (yes, blaming it on my baby again) that the only thing that keeps me grounded is Jesus.  Wait, what am I saying?  It doesn't matter if I'm pregnant or not, He is always the only one who can really keep me grounded.  So anyway, that was a really nice time of fellowship and sharing and learning about how to pray God's Word.  (We're doing Beth Moore's study called Living Free.)  One more thing about my Bible study ladies--they are so great!  Just months after we moved here, when I was expecting my third baby, they threw me a baby shower!  And they're doing it again!  For my fourth baby!  I can't believe it.  They are just too wonderful.  But, I digress...

After Bible study, we rushed home and grabbed our swimsuits, towels, swim diapers (only for Cookie) and sunscreen, filled up the gas tank, and headed out of town to a pool about forty minutes away.  Yes, we do have a pool in our little town, but the one we went to yesterday has more attractions.  A couple of waterslides, a giant tower that spews cold water over all the moms, and a baby pool with one of those mushrooms that my kids hate.  About six or seven of us made the trip.  It was a fun afternoon once I figured out that Cookie does NOT like to be in her swim tube.  I have this really neat little floaty thing that has a sunshade and everything, but she hated it.  She just wanted to be able to run around and do her own thing in the water.  Out of all my kids, she loves the pool the most!

Once I figured that I was sufficiently toasted and she was sufficiently worn out, I bribed her out of the pool with the promise of ice cream.  It worked, too.  She might only be 20 months old, but she knows a good thing when it's presented to her.  ("I-keem!")  So we drove to Sonic and enjoyed a milkshake in the backseat of the van.  Next up was Wal-Mart (exciting, I know...) because they have some things there that our store doesn't carry.  Now we were really tired and really ready to come home.

She fell asleep on the way, but that didn't deter me once we got to town.  I still went over and watered plants for a friend who is out of town (and wouldn't you know it, we got rain last night so I didn't even need to bother), attempted to check out some movies at the library (they turned out to be closed early on Friday nights), and finally just decided we needed to crash at home.  By this time, she was screaming-but once we re-hydrated with some Gatorade, life was good.  From there on out, it was pretty much just bath, supper, books, and bed.  She surprised me by staying awake longer in her crib than I thought she would.  I took a shower and watched a good old movie, Father of the Bride.  Of course, because I am crazy and hormonal, I cried through many parts of it.  But I also laughed at many parts.  Steve Martin can almost always make me laugh.

Today we began our day by cuddling in bed, until she asked for a drink so many times that I felt guilty staying there any longer.  ("Gink! Gink!")  During breakfast I checked out the ads for garage sales, and we were off.  We hit our local coffee shop for an iced latte and browsed the book store.  I went to one yard sale, saw absolutely nothing, and decided to message a friend to see if there was anything else good out there (she had been out earlier).  There wasn't anything worth driving around for, so we went to Wal-Mart (don't judge me, I never go two days in a row...it just happened) to get Cookie some sunglasses of her own.  She had major glasses envy before the other two left on their trip and I thought it would be fun to get her some.  Five frozen meals, a gallon of milk, two boxes of cereal, one dress, one box of hair ties ("Bows! Bows!"), one package of 2T/3T undies, several paint chips, and one pair of toddler sunglasses later, we were out the door.  I really wanted to get a good movie to watch tonight, so we hit the library for a few minutes and finally made it back home before lunch.  I even had time to clean the playroom before noon.

One great thing about being pregnant is when the nesting instinct takes hold.  I have just been waiting and waiting for this to happen...and it finally has. :)  I think it is a combination of nesting and only having one child to run around after, but I got a lot done today.  I started at the front of my house and just cleaned room by room.  First I would pick up and put away everything that was laying around.  If it went into another room, I took it into that room and put it away...and went RIGHT BACK to the room I was working on.  It might sound funny, but this is hard for me to do.  I see things in that room that need to be put away, and I have to consciously make myself ignore them and wait until I'm on that room to put them away.  So after everything was put away, I would dust the room (even the doors/trim!), and then vacuum.  I also did some picture hanging in my son's room because we had just put his bed up on a loft and there were a couple of things that had to be re-arranged.  I also hung up new house numbers on the front of our house.  I'm pretty handy with a power drill, if I may say so myself.  I worked all through Cookie's nap and then for about another hour after she was up.  In that time I finished the front porch, the play room, the living room, dining room, bathroom, hallway, and my son's room.  I also got the girls' room all picked up, but haven't done any dusting or vacuuming in there yet.  Monday I will tackle the kitchen and our bedroom.  And down the stairs to the basement bathroom.  Ugh.  The greatest thing about cleaning with only one child here is that my house is still clean at the end of the day!  Although...there might be a few pizza crumbs on my couch now. 

I decided a frozen pizza sounded great for supper (I know, I'm so gourmet), so we had that and watched some Andy Griffith on Netflix.  I bought the kind that comes with frozen cookie dough too, and we enjoyed some fresh cookies after the pizza.  It was a night of very healthy eating around here.

We were just sitting down to read some books before bed when the tornado siren went off.  We spent the next hour or so in the basement (I'm a chicken) listening to the radio, sending texts, and checking facebook to see what was happening "out there."  We got some baseball-sized hail (thankfully no broken windows this time!) but no tornadoes touched down here.  God is so good to protect us.  I was thankful when we were able to come back upstairs.  Little Cookie was just worn out and went to bed without a sound.

Now I've spent a LOOOONG time writing a blog post that is super long and probably boring, but someday, years from now, I will come back and read it and remember what I did on this day with my little girl.  My philosophy for the next few days is to be productive, but to savor the moments.  I am balancing that with not over-doing it.  I don't really want to go into labor yet, especially not with my husband hours away. 

I am looking forward to a good night's sleep tonight, a refreshing morning at church, and a fun afternoon with my sweet Cookie tomorrow.  Maybe we'll go see Cars 2...just because we can.

God's Good Blessings

Today was a beautiful day, in every sense of the word. I got to spend it with the four people I love the most in this world: my husband and three kids.
After a long month away from worshiping at our church, I was finally able to join my brothers and sisters in song this morning. Then, it was off to teach children's church. We were blessed with 23 kids, all excited and incredibly well-behaved, which is a rare blessing.  I met another home-schooling mom who recently moved to the area with their four girls, one of whom was adopted from China. Needless to say, we had a lot to talk about and I am looking forward to (hopefully) spending more time getting to know her.
After church, the kids and I had a simple lunch of PB&J while my hubby was at a youth group sponsors meeting. Finally, we were all together again and decided to go out to enjoy the incredibly beautiful weather.  We took the kids to the park first, then hit DQ, Wal-Mart for new bikes, and then the disc golf park.  They didn't have any the right size for our Buddy, but Munkin Punkin got a new bike just her size, and was so excited about it that she had to ride it even more after supper.  Needless to say, she conked out as soon as her head hit the pillow.
As I was sitting on my couch tonight, enjoying my laptop, snacks, and iced tea, it occurred to me how blessed my life is. I was thinking about the people in Japan, less than one percent of whom know Jesus, and it made my heart ache for them. Not only because I was sitting there enjoying every physical comfort, but because I have the peace of mind that comes from knowing the One who is in control.  As I reflect on my beautiful day, it drives me to ask myself, "Did I do anything to teach my children that life is more than fun times, ice cream, and new toys? Did I in any way communicate that, no matter what happens-earthquakes, tragedies, loss of any sort-that it's all going to be okay?" Because, in the end, "we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)  Even if we can't see the good, or understand how it could possibly be good, it is. Because God said so. I am so thankful for that, and also for the good that I CAN see in my life.