Filed under: gardening
So today we finished up taking the wood out of one side of the front garden, and moved it all to the porch. I told Sam it gives the house a “quaint” look having firewood on the front porch, but it really doesn’t look bad, it just takes some getting used to.
The biggest obstacle we are going to have at the moment is a surprise we found in one of the blue spruce “bushes” that is in the front. It has a family. In fact, it has a tiny nest (seriously, it could have fit in my hand–No, I didn’t touch it!) with 5 tiny eggs. The eggs are about the size of a nickel, and they are speckled. The birds are quite tiny themselves, but I didn’t get a good look, because the mommy got scared and flew off when I got a little close to peek at her.
Don’t worry, I’ll get a picture up of the nest! But outside of that tiny hiccup, we are moving along nicely. That tree will stand until the birds move out, but we got the holly bush and the dead lavender (#2) out and planted a new lavender. We also cut down the other spruce with a lopper, but the stump is still standing. It will probably just get cut down with a saw, so as not to disturb the birdies next door.
Nour enjoyed helping with cleanup on some of the things we cut down today, and the front yard is taking on a really different look. I took pics before and after today, so hopefully I’ll get them up eventually. I’m getting the hang of the mower, except that it still gives me a sore thumb from the friction and the vibration, and I hate feeling sore for the next two days because of that. The yard is looking good, too. The weed’n'feed is really helping, our yard is greener than the two next door, which I know Sam appreciates anyway.
I’ve also had to start putting up supports for some of my vines in the veggie garden. I found bamboo supports tonight, and I’m going to use them for the peas and lighter climbing vines, but I’m going to use some metal supports for the pumpkins, because I fear that they will not hold up on bamboo, since it is rather bendy. The corn is coming along, but I think that the sun is not hitting the farthest one very well, because it’s like a backwards AT&T Wireless commercial! The one on the far left is the smallest, with the succession going larger to the right.
I also had to buy a bigger raspberry shrub today because what I had before just didn’t take off. I’m a little disappointed, because I didn’t want to have to spend more, but I really wanted one berry to work out! The blueberry is trying, but it’s just not getting large enough, but the other two never did anything but sit there and die.
I haven’t had much trouble with pests lately, which is good, but they seem to sneak a taste here and there. I need to protect my strawberries now that they are coming to ripeness, because the birds like to peck at them, too. I can make an easy enough cage for them, though. They taste delicious!
There are a lot of tomatoes coming out, too, which is exciting, because I know I’ll be eating the little ones within the month. The bigger ones, hopefully we’ll get to taste a few before we go away, but if not, we’ll definitely get some when we get home. I need a few good friends (and fam) to help take care of the garden while we’re gone so it doesn’t go to waste. I will trade veggies or fruit for help! It’s really not that hard.
Filed under: remodeling
Sam and I have been discussing a remodeling of our living room/family room/tv room, or whatever you want to call it.
I just finished putting most of the finishing touches on the garage play area, which is very busy, but looks pretty good at the moment. We’ll see the first test of it’s effectiveness on Wednesday! Hopefully I won’t have to make too many changes.
Now that we are working on getting the yard in order, we’ve been in the mood for change, and we’ve both decided that our living room is in need of a major change. We’re not sure when we’ll be able to pull it off, but we have a plan to do a few big things in the room.
- Repaint walls: Full wall: Olive, Other walls: Cappuccino.
- Take out carpet, put in laminate wood flooring. We have found some that we like the price on in particular.
- Add some nice lighting. This will include doing a few minor wall adjustments to suit the needs of the lights, putting in casing for the cords to keep them out of the line of sight. We have the plan to put in 3 accent lights, possibly four, above our photography sets.
- A cushion for the fireplace. I plan on making this one myself, I just need to find a fabric that matches both couches and rug, and that will go okay with the new wall colors.
Overall, the plan is to make the room look completely different without changing the furniture or the electronics! This is a far cry from the “toy room” that we had about a year ago.
I’m pretty excited about getting started, mainly because I hate the carpet in there. It is so dirty, and there’s really nothing I can do to fix this. I’ve tried, believe me, I’ve tried. I’d much rather have the wood because it is easier to clean. Another plus is that it will be faster to clean up spills and dirt, because it will be wood!
Filed under: Bible reading
Alex is still sleeping, so hopefully I can get one more in!
I mentioned before that I have been reading the Pentateuch, sans Genesis, and I’m now in Deuteronomy. I took some time off to finish reading The Purpose-Driven Life, which I just finished, and now I’m back to focused effort on the Old Testament.
I don’t know what made me go back and read these books again, except that I felt that there were things I just didn’t understand about them. Sure, we all have our preconceived notions about the books of the Law, but I was pleasantly surprised to find myself not feeling like they were law books at all. Sure, they have a lot of regulations in them, but the story is really much more than that.
I went into reading this section not thinking that I was going to learn much, I’ve read them before, and always felt the same old feeling of dreariness about it. I just thought, I’ll try to find out more about the purpose behind some of the laws. It was after hearing a sermon on the importance of Sabbath rest and focusing on God that I felt the need to read this section, so I also thought it made sense to read the part of the Bible that taught the regulations on the Sabbath and maybe find out more about why it was so important to God.
What I found was exactly what I was looking for and then, the surprise of all surprises: I found out that the way we think of the “Old Testament God” is not what he’s really like at all! I found that God in the Old Testament is enduringly patient, extremely passionate, and most of all, more holy than we could ever possibly imagine.
It’s the holiness of God that sunk the deepest into my heart. I knew the other two things, but not in the sense that I’m now beginning to understand them. I knew that God was patient with Israel, just as he’s patient with all of us. If he wasn’t patient, we’d all be wiped out already, for sure!
The holiness of God, though, is what broke in and brought me out of a period of seeming emptiness. I’m not saying I was depressed, I just seemed to lack any feeling of God in my life, and it was really hard to live like that as a Christian. I guess I could say I was a river without water, because I had a purpose, I just had nothing in me to help fulfill it. And now I feel like I’ve really come out of that slump.
When I say the holiness of God, I don’t think it’s something that can be explained in a brief entry. It’s something that, honestly, I don’t think can really be explained. It’s not the same as the glory of God, his presence. It’s his perfect nature and his good character, good beyond what we can imagine good to be.
It is this that makes Israel’s disobedience in Sinai so important. It is this contrast, evil, stubborn, stupid, impatient and whiny people, to the good, patient, wise, listening God that helps me see how holy he is. I think that when we talk about this, we rarely give God enough credit. We live in an age where God is mocked, and seen as weak. We do not believe that he is above all, we act as though he is our servant, and we never truly appreciate the fact that he did so much for us of his own free will, and that, if he wanted, he could take it all back. He never had to do it, and we certainly don’t deserve it. It’s really sad to me when I see people with the attitude that they deserve things handed to them on a platter. I don’t remember electing them king! But God is above all of that, he deserves our respect, but he doesn’t demand it. He should be served, but came to serve instead. It’s humbling to know that the God of the Universe is not an angry, vengeful and cruel God. If you take the time to read the Old Testament, really read it, you’ll see that this is really what God is about.
Filed under: gardening
As we’ve been working on the front yard to brighten the landscape, we’ve had to do a lot of major renovation that can’t be done in one hour, or even one day.
We are removing wood stumps that line the current flower beds, and we are going to re-line the beds with a plastic barrier that goes in the ground, to be supplemented with bricks some time later (when we have the dough). The wood is fairly well rotten, and not good for much, so Sam is leaving it on the porch in hopes it will make good firewood when dry. There’s already a sizable stack and we’re only about 1/3rd of the way done with this part.
The other problem I’m facing is weeds. It’s as if they have been given an invitation to move in. They are all over the flower beds, and as soon as I get one out, it seems like another pops up the next second. Sam put some weed killer on the lawn and front bed that is going to be grass, but it hasn’t really helped in the naked part yet. I’m trying to go out when it’s not raining and I have a spare 30 minutes to do a little on this project. The only thing I know that will get rid of them is mulch, but first I have to get the whole garden cleaned out, including the dead leaves from the flowers.
Then there’s this beautiful, blooming magnolia tree (which smells AWESOME, by the way!), and a weird grape-less vine that has been growing with it. I am not liking this, because it’s choking some of the young tree branches, and it doesn’t really have a purpose. It doesn’t flower, and it has no grapes, so I am in the process of getting rid of it. Problem is, the root is precisely next to the tree root, and I cannot seem to dig it out. I’ll get out there with my bypass lopper, and it’ll be gone in a flash, but I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that, because I’m not sure if it will decided to show its ugly face again later when it thinks the danger is gone.
If there’s one thing I can say about gardening, it is that it makes you sweat. And that’s a good thing. I’m really hoping that we’ll both lose a few pounds from this experience and that the projects we’re undertaking will be worthwhile. It truly is a beautiful vision that we have, it’s just a matter of getting it all done before fall! The backyard is looking a lot better, but Sam needs to do some weed-whacking back there as well. I cleared out the rock beds around the deck and they look really great. The one by the house doesn’t, so much, but it’s getting done soon. And finally, we have a large amount of tree branches that need to be cut up and bagged. They are thin branches, so not much for fire wood, but if anyone is interested in helping, come on over and start clipping and bagging! I swear, my yard is definitely not a two-person job!
Filed under: deep thoughts
I wanted to sit down and write my thoughts before they melted away and I forgot about tonight.
Today was my class reunion. It was a year late, but that’s not really a big deal, quite a few people showed up anyway, because they probably wanted to see what everyone else was up to.
In retrospect, I realized that class reunions are much like high school itself, in the sense that you don’t go to see the people you never hung out with, you go to see your old friends. In that sense, I got to see everyone, because I honestly wasn’t enemies with anyone, I just didn’t get all that close to anyone in particular.
As C.S. Lewis has said, it’s hard to be an observer of your thoughts and be the object of your thoughts at the same time, so trying to observe yourself is rather a fruitless and frustrating activity, and so is trying to observe behavior at your own class reunion when you were in fact a part of the class you are reuniting with. But an outsider simply wouldn’t understand what it is like to be a part of that particular group of people, even if they understood what it was like to be a part of some group, somewhere else.
The fact is, I was, and still am, quite the introvert. I am not usually one to initiate conversation without a good reason, and seeing people from high school brings back a lot of the old insecurities that I don’t have with newer friends. Though the old crushes are no longer there, there is still some sense of embarrassment–as in, at some point they knew that I liked them, and they may have that stored somewhere in the back of their minds, too. It’s not like having a crush on a celebrity, because they know nothing of me, and wouldn’t really know me from any other crush. They are people I saw on a regular basis, had classes with, and blushed whenever we had to speak to one another for any reason. I don’t know that they would know or not, but there is still something silent between us that makes it a little weird.
Anyway, because I’m the introvert, I surprise myself at wanting to go to these things, because there’s a good chance I’m going to spend most of the time being a wallflower and not speaking to anyone except my own husband. I spent most of the day following Alex all over the place, which was fun, and a lot of people got to see how cute my kids were (an added plus, of course!), and maybe be a little jealous (okay, maybe just a little wishful thinking–though, I think my mom would agree with me!). I guess I found it easy to use him as an excuse not to get too engaged in conversation, but even then, there’s not a whole lot between old classmates to be shared, considering that most of the conversation is surface level, “so what’cha been up to these last few years?” They don’t want every detail of your life, just the headlines, because there’s lots of other people to catch up with.
Reunions seem a little silly, and probably make little sense to those who’ve never heard of them before, like people from Egypt (Okay, Sam did go to HS here, so he knows something about what it’s like, though he’s never been to his own reunions, just mine). The concept is purely American, and that’s cool with me, but it does sound absurd. You are reuniting with people you may not have seen since high school, or only see every few years, like 5 or 6 in our case, and have only one thing in common with, in reality. It’s not like going to church with lots of different types of people, it’s people who were basically forced to be engaged with you on a daily basis by parents, the law, and the school schedule. You are all the same age, many are in the same life stage, so you have about that much in common. But it is neat to see how different people that were basically “inmates” (in not such an negative sense) have come to grow out of that forced socialization into their own world of freedom and choice in who they are friends with, and yet, they continue to come together only with those from their class that they were friends with to start.
On occasion, a couple people from the same class who weren’t friends will find their way to one another, fall in love and live happily, not because of who they were then, but because they don’t have to be that person anymore. This has only happened once in this class, but within several classes, it’s happened to a few people from my own with others, and this is kind of nice. Most of them became Christians at some point in the process, which changes the way you look at people anyway. But in general, we go our separate ways and find people that we find attractive for some reason other than the fact that they were readily available…
In most classes, there is that one person that spans all groups, whose very presence is one of togetherness, of drawing all people from all groups into a common place. This person is usually the class president, or at least the person who can find a friend anywhere. In our class Amanda definitely fits that bill, as she is so friendly she could really be plopped down anywhere and gather friends around her quickly, provided there were other people around.
But there’s not always a second person like that. And yet, today, I realized there was a second person from our class who had some connection with everyone, who remembered us all from high school, and even though he was only part of our class for one year, he was part of the school a bit longer than that. This person is David. He’s special, and not just because of who he is, but because he graduated with us after several years of struggling to get out of high school. He is always filled with determination, and he is also filled with the biggest heart of anyone I know. He knew all of us, remembered things about everyone, and also had so much news to share about himself, and it was all wonderful. David was on the track team in school, and though he was usually in last place, he never gave up and even though other schools laughed at him, I think even the biggest football player on our team would have stood up to defend him to anyone who might tease him. David has since won many medals and awards for running track, and continues to run, not because he wants to win more medals, but because he LOVES it. I wish more people would do something just because they love it and not for recognition. David is certainly proud of his recognition, but proud like a child, not like an adult. And today, as we took a quick picture, I was proud to be standing next to him, because he was, and will continue to be, a friend to all.
Filed under: reading
It always amazes me how a story can literally take you out of time and you can get sucked into it so easily that you don’t realize that it’s been 3 hours. As disappointing as it is to read an incomplete story and wonder what the author intended to be the ending of the story, some stories draw you in in such a way that you can imagine what might have been without ever knowing the end. I guess that’s the blessing of incompleteness, that speculation and imagination can run wild and free without being constrained by the author’s intentions or some kind of finality that the story’s ending may bring.
Last night, I read the story The Dark Tower, written by C.S. Lewis (though some doubt it), but never finished, or at least lost in part. It’s a story about time-travel, but not in the sense that we think of, when we think of Welles or any other time-travel stories that we hear. It’s about traveling to another dimension of time, or at least seeing that other time through a lens like a telescope. Of course, as usual, one of the characters gets sucked through the lens and trades places with his double in the other “realm.”
What strikes me most about the story is that where it is leading is just as multi-dimensional as the discussions that go on within the book. I get the sense that there is some big finish, some astronomical discovery (however “science-fiction” it may really be), that causes the whole of our dimension to collapse under the weight of it all. But the discussions focus mostly on time and space, and theories about time and how it may not be the linear thing we think it is at all. It may, in fact, be our dreams that are reality, or at least, another reality.
As confusing as this sounds, within the context of the story, it makes perfect sense. Toward the end of the fragment, we were getting somewhere with the “Othertime’s” views on time dimensions, and it seemed like the character involved in the switch was coming to a major realization that is amazing, yet terrifying. I can only speculate, but if I know anything about what C.S. Lewis might have done with his fiction, he had a fantastic, yet predictable, imagination about these sorts of things.
In the story, the people of the Othertime are plagued by war from without, the “White Riders” who seem to be the antagonists of the realm, those who are trying to stop the people from being what they are. The observers from our time are disgusted by the way these people are behaving, and when the switch occurs, the man switched finds himself at odds because he doesn’t like who he has become in the switch. He is something of a god to the people there, and his sole job is to give people a “higher calling” which essentially turns them into drones who do not think for themselves or even speak. It is a hellish existence in the writer’s opinion, and the White Riders might just be doing the people a favor if they ever get rid of the “Stingingman.”
Ultimately, the story goes unfinished, but the message should be clear. Do not meddle in things you do not understand. The same message stands for those in our time and the other time, because the meddling seems to be the cause of the strange evolution and behavior of the people there. Time and space are not to be tampered with, and the results of our uneducated meddling can be catastrophic if we are left unchecked. Certainly no one in our reality has gone so far as the story suggests, but the idea that we could really look into another time and possibly even observe it (an idea Lewis found unreasonable) seems to interest people of many persuasions. There’s nothing to suggest that any of the happenings of the book are based in reality, because Lewis may have dabbled in science, but was no scientist. His ideas are normal speculation.
All in all, the story is fascinating and riveting, and you are definitely left begging for more, which is really the beauty of any good story, even a finished one.
Filed under: knitting
So, the socks were a success, and mom really liked them (I think?). I also made a pair for Sarah (with some other yarn… after she gets them, I’ll share a photo!)
I made a pair of socks for Nour with some wool yarn and they turned out great, but I didn’t wash them before she wore them, and they turned her feet into a pretty purply rainbow! I promptly washed them and they are okay now. She is doing better with knitting, though she gets frustrated easily whenever she can’t figure something out right away, so she gives up, and I have to go back and help her a few times to give her the confidence (I think she gets it from her daddy….).
I have also been working on lots of baby socks, and I’m going to start making many pairs to give to the pro-life ministry at church for the baby baskets that they hand out. This leads me to the next thing I wanted to share, at least a vision I have.
I really think that it’s great when I see people knitting for babies, whether preemies or just to give to friends. But I had this thought of collecting socks, or gathering people together to knit socks to share with children in need. Now, these would be very simple, cotton or polyester socks, but they would be for children and babies whose mothers chose to give them life rather than have an abortion. In general, these moms are in need of financial assistance, and often have to buy things second-hand for their children if they are not given it. I think it would really bless them to receive things as basic as a pair of socks (or more than a pair) that are made with love especially for their child. Blankets are nice, but socks are a lot more practical, and you can get a lot more socks out of a ball of yarn than you can get blankets (making them that much more practical to give away!).
I think I’m going to call this project “Socks for Life.” If you are a knitter and have never knit socks before, check out Ravelry.com, (you have to wait to get signed up, but they say it only takes a day or two) you can find lots of sock patterns for babies and toddlers, and you can get started with some cheap yarn and a set of size 1 double-pointed needles (total start-up cost: less than $10 to make about 4 pairs).
If you aren’t a knitter but interested in the project, get started knitting with the help of a friend who knits, or maybe you could consider buying yarn for someone who wants to do this. This is just at it’s incubation stage right now, but I really want to start something big!
Filed under: gardening
We started a big yard project today, and unfortunately, I forgot to take a “before” photo to show you what we’re doing.
First of all, we took out all of this ground cover that was just kind of taking up space, and we are going to replace it with grass, per Sam’s request.
Next, we’re going to take out these large wooden border things and replace them with a rock border, re-adjusting the border to fit around some plants that we are going to keep.
We are also planting a wild-flower mix in with all the stuff that is already there, to choke out the weeds and add some perennial color to the front yard. I already pulled out one lavender bush because they didn’t fare well through the negative temps over the past winter. Oh, well. They had a good two years!
I also used some of the wildflower seed in the backyard around the rose of Sharon that we have right beside the deck. There are also day-lilies in the front and back that I really like and am going to keep. These should blend nicely with the wildflower mix.
Personally, I think I like the idea of revamping the front yard. It doesn’t exactly say “young family lives here” at the moment. No surprise, the last two couples who lived here were rather older, and the plant choice kind of reflects that. It’s not that we’re even thinking about selling, we just want to change it to look nice and be a little easier to care for. Considering that I have way too much weeding to do every year, I think that having less area for weeds to grow freely will be a very good thing.
As far as the garden goes, I think the blood meal effectively scared off our furry friends. They haven’t chewed up anything that is uncovered since a day or two after I put the stuff on. And I don’t blame them. Now it really smells back there. But I can handle it. After all, I put it there knowing that it would smell bad!
The potatoes are already beginning to sprout some serious leafage, and the green onions are long enough to harvest. We’ll be using them a lot now! Most everything I planted has sprouted at least something, and some things are growing really fast, which I’m very excited about. One of my containers of tomatoes already has about 4 tiny toms on it and is already growing more flowers. They shouldn’t take long to get to their small size, and be ready to eat. How I love cherry tomatoes–and straight off the vine they are so much sweeter!
Filed under: gardening
So I have a couple of uninvited guests who think that my garden is munch-tastic. There is a gopher that likes to eat the weeds, and I’m certain I’ve seen a rabbit or two hopping around the backyard. Unfortunately for my garden, this spells disaster. At the moment, only a few plants have escaped being munched on, namely the strawberry leaves and the onion shoots (go figure!). Even my tomatoes have not been spared. Fortunately, I have been working on some garden covers, which take about 2 hours to complete the way I’m doing them (I’m working on a better way, hopefully!), and I found a spray remedy that should keep them at bay, otherwise. I’m highly irritated, and I was so angry when I first saw that they were eating the plants that I wanted to find them and beat them up (please don’t report me to PETA. These are pests, for crying out loud!). Anyway, tomorrow is another day, and hopefully I’ll have something left in my uncovered beds (4 of them…) to show for it.
Filed under: deep thoughts
This is probably going to be a short post, but I wanted to air out some annoyance I have with people sometimes.
The people I’m talking about are Christians who feel that they have figured out all of Christianity and the Bible and anyone who disagrees with them on a few minor issues is either a heretic or a false teacher. This, unfortunately, goes beyond the lines of conservative or liberal, Baptist or Catholic. It is something that so many Christians in so many places seem to think is okay to do, and that nitpicking is tearing apart the body of Christ.
I’m actually quite tired of it. I have heard people who criticize Rick Warren, for example, because they think he’s too liberal, (HA!) or John Piper because he’s too conservative. What I find annoying about this is that these men are genuine Christians, living out their Christianity truthfully and faithfully. There will be no dividing lines when Jesus returns. He will only separate the sheep from the goats, not the Presbyterians from the Lutherans or the 5-point Calvinists from the Freewill Baptists. Theological studies are valid, even interesting, but when they become our focus instead of becoming more like Jesus, then we, unfortunately, have taken our place among the goats.
What did Jesus do? He healed the sick, fed the poor, freed the prisoners (metaphorically). He PREACHED the good news of God, he LIVED the good news, he IS the good news! If we focus on whether someone’s theology lines up with ours, then we are pharisees. This is really a pretty broad stroke, and a pretty easy line to draw, yet many of us aren’t willing to admit that we fall in the wrong line. And frankly, I’m so sick of it.
