Here's more why: UNIVERSALLY POPULAR. (See also: Provider of Foods.)
And another convincing reason: STILL FUN.
Here's to all the jolly holidays with Todd (no wonder that it's Todd that we love).
mes'morial day 2020.
goodbye, The Kristy Chrysler.
Our family has lost a member since all of this coronavirus stuff started: our Town and Country, The Kristy Chrysler, is no longer with us. She has moved on to that flat parking space in the sky, where her emergency brake is no longer taxed, and her rear liftgate is no longer dented and rusty.
I mean, she lives somewhere else in mid-Missouri, and trucks around a family with six kids. I bet she likes that.
See? She likes to be playful and park by dinosaurs so that they're like, "Whoa! What is that metal bug?"
It all happened pretty suddenly. She was working fine, and then we received word that she was due for the mandatory state safety check. After looking her over, the mechanic said she would need thousands of dollars in necessary repairs, and we couldn't legally drive her again until we got them done. (It didn't matter that she drove just fine, btw.) We did get a second opinion from a mechanic we trust, who agreed that to pass inspection, we'd have to get those repairs done.
So, while it was sad to see her go, we figured it was worthless to put that much money into a van that isn't even worth the cost of repairs. A friend of ours helped us list her on Facebook, and the next day, we were officially a one-car family. (I mean, a one-Kraken, no-KC family.)
Can I please just tell you how incredibly weird it is to drive a fifteen-passenger van literally EVERYWHERE I GO? Solitary run to the grocery store for some kombucha? Taking the Kraken. Quick drive over to the library to pick up books? Taking the Kraken... and then getting stuck in their PARKING SPACES FOR ANTS.
But, if there's a silver lining to this, it's that the view outside my living room window is no longer just some grass and a minivan obstructing the rest of the view. Now I have a much more panoramic shot of my reclusive neighbors' weedy redneck yard!
There's also the silver lining of not having to ever deal with the Kristy Chrysler again, because though she was convenient in some ways, she was kind of a guerilla. She broke down constantly, she was completely too small for us: the back bench seat was too narrow to fit three car seats across, so the outer two were wedged in and perpetually tilted toward the middle one. Plus, the two captain's chairs in the middle row had been replaced by a bench seat, making getting to the backseat nearly impossible for the "over-30lb" set.
Crammed much?
Also, the hydraulics on the liftgate didn't work, so I could never figure out how to effectively load groceries into the trunk one-handed while I held the door up with my other hand. Without fail, I'd end up getting clobbered on the head at least once per grocery trip, and it was especially miserable in the rain.
But we will miss her DVD player (though I'm glad the kids have detoxed from needing to be entertained in the car), her finnicky electric doors, and her truly well-designed center console. (I still miss that console. Console me.)
However, while the Kristy was more normal-scale, and while I feel more conspicuous driving the Kraken everystinkinwhere I go, I also feel safer driving the massive van. When I recently hit a large animal that ran onto the interstate while I was going 70 mph, it barely dented the side panel on the Kraken, whereas I'm honestly sure we would have been injured - or worse - if we had been in the minivan. So, I suppose it's all for the best in the end.
Goodbye, The Kristy Chrysler. You deserve a slideshow put to I Will Remember You, but I don't know how to do that, so just sing the song in your head (your engine?) while gazing at this picture with a look of far-off wonderment.
my ultimate book recommendations for women! (and my "shelf of moms.")
I'll let you in on a little secret: motherhood doesn't come naturally to me. Despite plenty of experience working in daycares and as a nanny, and having an education degree and experience working in a public school, I am surprisingly not really a 'kid' person. And besides that, I found myself woefully underprepared to have kids. I literally had no idea what I was doing when I had Atticus, and that was surprising and disorienting for me. I thought I'd be more of an expert going into it than I ended up being.
But I think the thing that has been even more surprising and disorienting as I've parented longer is that I am never fully equipped for the job at hand. I am always navigating something new, functioning at maximum capacity, and finding myself in uncomfortably deep water. While certain logistics of mothering have become easier for me with time and practice, other things have become more difficult and confusing. I find that as my kids get older and more numerous, I become more in need of help and support, not less.
I feel like less of an expert now than I did when I only had a few young kids. I have been surprised by this. What no one tells you is that every mom, everywhere, needs help and advice, whether they know it or not. No one has it entirely figured out.
I have always been a reader, but a few years ago I realized I needed to be intentional in seeking out godly older women to look to for parenting examples and advice. Because we were new to our area and our church is very young, I had to start out by choosing a few authors to learn from while I prayed and waited for flesh-and-blood women to come into my daily life.
So when we installed bookshelves in our dining room last year, I dedicated a shelf to The Moms, so I could always have their counsel close at hand.
I chose books on Christian parenting, prayer, housekeeping, homeschooling, and Bible study, as well as autobiographical books about family life by women I admire. This has been an indescribable blessing in the short time I've had it!
The Shelf of Moms.
So today I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite authors, and my favorite works by each. I am working on reading whole 'canons' by these women, to get as round a picture as possible of their lives and advice.
If you're wanting a quick, concise list of my top picks, without all my commentary on each one, scroll to the bottom. And just a heads up, these are affiliate links, but no pressure to purchase through these links!
I cannot begin with anyone but Edith Schaeffer. Her worldview ministry, her dedication to prayer, her passion for homekeeping and family (even in less-than-ideal circumstances) have changed me so much for the better. She constantly comes up in conversation - "Edith says..." is part of near-daily conversation in our house.
FAR from a complete set of her works, but I'm slowly working on accumulating and reading more each year.
I will warn you, her writing style is unique, and the first few chapters of each book take a bit of commitment, but it's worth it in the end. If you want to start reading some Edith, I highly recommend L'Abri, which is autobiographical, or The Hidden Art of Homemaking, which is a philosophical, theological and practical treatise on beauty and the importance and how-to of keeping a home. SOOO GOOD.
Note: I also love reading work by her other family members, which gives an even rounder picture of their home and thought life. Her husband, Francis Schaeffer, was a prolific author and influential theologian. I am beginning to work my way through his books as well. Her daughter, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay wrote a treatise on Charlotte Mason education titled, "For the Children's Sake".
My other favorite go-to author is Sally Clarkson, whom I just love. (Also, she loves Edith, so I love her even more for that.) Sally Clarkson's books are so helpful, encouraging, and challenging for me, since I'm not a super relationally-oriented person. I need help knowing how to love people well, and she is great at teaching that explicitly and by her own example.
If you want to start with some Sally, I recommend The Mission of Motherhood.
Moving on to topics, rather than authors, I have needed help in the areas of housekeeping and organization. Many of the books I've read on the topic have been checked out from the library and returned, but these are the ones I found worth owning.
My favorites in this genre are Sidetracked Home Executives, which walks you through how to set up an index card system for taking care of responsibilities daily, weekly, monthly and seasonally; and Organizing from the Inside Out (not pictured), which helps you figure out how to keep organized based on YOUR personal wiring - what works for someone else might not work for you, and this book addresses that.
If you read this, please ignore the chapter on how one of the authors 'organized' her marriage/life by getting a divorce! Also, lots of cheesy illustrations in this one.
I don't do a ton of reading on homeschooling - I get to maaaaybe one book a year on the topic, though I do think I should add one or two more to that this year. But I find that if I'm educating myself by reading in other areas, I feel less of a need to spend a ton of time reading how-to's. If education is really just learning how to properly order your affections, then reading in areas of top priority (fiction, theology, biography, homemaking, parenting) educates me, which equips me to educate the kids, without needing to spend a ton of time engrossing myself in school-specific reading.
However, if I'm going to recommend you spend time reading one book on homeschooling, it would be this one, hands-down! Teaching from Rest, by Sarah Mackenzie.
In fact, it was in this book that I received the challenge to pick an author-mentor each year to learn from, which has proved to be great advice!
On the topic of general parenting how-to's, I completely recommend these two books IN PARTNERSHIP. (Shepherding a Child's Heart, and Give Them Grace.) They give excellent, very practical help for questions on discipline and grace-based parenting. (Did you know discipline and grace are not opposed to one another?! Well, you do now.)
Babywise is another practical parenting book I do recommend, but not without someone you know and trust (who has themselves used Babywise more than once or twice) walking you through it as you read and have questions. I'd be happy to be that person for you!
In the 'family autobiography' category, I recommend "L'Abri," by Edith Schaeffer (the missionary autobiography of their family of six moving to Switzerland and working together as a family to minister to hundreds - eventually thousands - of people who came to their home); "The Shaping of a Christian Family," by Elisabeth Elliot (the autobiography of growing up as one of six children in a close, solid believing family), and "In My Father's House," by Corrie Ten Boom (the story of how her father shaped her into the woman she eventually became famous for being).
And lastly, on the throne for being the singlemost influential book in my mothering and being a wife, I present you with "A Woman After God's Own Heart," by Elizabeth George. I read this in a book club shortly after getting married, and have read it probably five or six times since then. I think of the advice and examples in this book so often. If you only have time to read one book this year, make this the one!
WHEW! Are you still with me? If not, I understand. If so, you deserve a ribbon and probably some wine.
To recap, here are my favorite books to start with, if you're needing a little inspiration:
Give Them Grace: Dazzling your Kids with the Love of Jesus by Elise Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson
A Woman After God's Own Heart by Elizabeth George (<--This is the one I'd recommend you read if you're only going to read one!)
Annnnnnnnnnd there you have it. My (long) shortlist of books that have meant the most to me in my mothering and homekeeping.
what's up weekly.
Dear, sweet What's Up Weekly! How I've missed you! If I don't chronicle our life each week, did life even happen? (If this last silent stretch over the course of quarantine is any indication, the answer to that question is, "Kind of, but it's definitely weirder than usual.") Hopefully, getting back on the weekly W.U.W. bandwagon will get life back into a normal swing of things. In fact, I bet that's why the library finally opened back up this week - they knew I was back to chronicling.
We're all very excited for life to return to Kind of Normal. Or we're excited for s'mores; one or the other.
Yes, the library is back! I mean, kind of, but weirder than usual. They have a contactless curbside pickup option, in parking spaces that are too small to fit the Kraken. So does it really count that they're open if I can't actually go there? Such a tease. But I will not be thwarted. I actually went twice in the last week! The first time, I parked like a million miles away and used the 'walk up' option, though that seemed to disorient the employees for some undiscernible reason. The second time, I actually attempted to park in one of their designated spaces because it was raining, and then I promptly got boxed in by other cars, so I had to sit and wait until allllll the cars around me drove away before I could leave, and all the employees were again visibly confounded by my behavior.
I know you're jealous of my giant van life, but listen, I'm just an ordinary girl in an extraordinary van. I really can't take credit for my good fortune.
Look at that hottie of a van, basking in the warm autumn sun. That caption is meant to clarify that this is an old picture, in case you were confused.
In other news, I went to Kohls this week, hoping to find a few tshirts, because literally every. last. tshirt. that I own is a maternity shirt. Every stinking one. I wasn't looking for anything fancy - just something simple but flattering: not boxy, not clingy, not drab, not polyester. You know, like a basic, colored, cotton tshirt. I don't feel like I was asking for too much.
But as it turns out, I am not fit for the Kohls lifestyle. I am too matronly to shop the juniors department - first of all, I can't wear crop tops, so that rules out like 80% of anything on the rack right now. Second of all, I lived through the 90's once already, and I'm not enough of an idiot to do it again. (I'm not kidding, I saw an actual dress I actually already owned when I was thirteen.) Juniors just don't have that kind of life experience under their ugly belts yet, so they can be suckered into buying some truly heinous stuff.
But I am also too conceited to shop in the ladies' department. Because, hello. I'm still 29 and holding. And I will NOT wear swingy polyester tops with decorative neckline elastic. Which rules out about 80% of that department.
PLUS. Can I just take a moment to bemoan the state of our color palettes these days? Brace yourselves, because I'm about to get curmudgeonly and perhaps offensive. But I'm fine with my life choices, so here it goes: The only reason beige and dusty pink are considered neutrals is because they look equally bad on everyone. No one ever saw a lady in a skin-colored top and said, "That color is your color." But apparently if they throw enough mint-colored shirts into the primarily skin-toned mix on the sales floor, no one will notice that it looks like they're just selling other people's ill-fitting skin to new people.
PLUS. Apparently in Missouri, we only stock two sizes: Nephilim and Short Nephilim.
PLUS. The dressing rooms are closed, so I had to buy dozens and dozens and dozens of dollars worth of ugly shirts just to take them home and make doubly sure they were ugly before taking them back. Every last one looked terrible on me. (If you know of anywhere that sells bright, clear, deep colors in flattering cuts, I'm all ears. Which is maybe why it's so hard to find shirts that fit. Bah-dum-bum-cha.)
I clearly have not shopped for myself in a really, really, really long time. I don't know how to do it at all anymore, and if Kohls is any indicator of the shopping landscape, I'm in for an unshakeable depression in my near future. Maybe I'll just keep wearing my worn out, pit-stained maternity shirts until I die.
(Aren't you glad I'm back on Blogger? WHO HAS BEEN FILLING THE "GRIPE" HOLE IN YOUR LIFE IN MY ABSENCE?)
Let me move on to some more cheery news.
I've been reading L'Abri this week, which is like going home. I have read that book so many times, through so many different seasons of my life, and it speaks to me differently each time. I just love it and highly recommend you read it - and I have more book recommendations to make next week!
The kids all had dentist appointments yesterday. Because of all the COVID stuff, we waited in the car while each kiddo went in and had their turn in the office. It took about two hours, but honestly it was better than waiting in the waiting room for two hours, and I spent my time detailing the van dashboard. (Again, Van Life is so glam.) None of the kids had a single cavity (thanks, raw milk!) so we celebrated by getting McDonald's for lunch. You know, to deplete them nutritionally so that they get cavities in the future.
Luckily, we didn't have Juni in the car with us during our wait. With Todd working from home, I'm able to leave Juni home on our Amish trips and errands and appointments throughout the week, since she still takes a morning nap and doesn't disturb him while he's working. It makes things so much easier on her and us - long stretches in the carseat are difficult for her. Plus, she hasn't been feeling like herself this week - she's not eating well, not sleeping well, and is just generally under the weather. But go figure, she is still as calm and happy as ever, even though she's felt so crappy. There is no ruffling this girl.
On Monday, we made s'mores for our annual Mes'morial Day celebration. I'll tell you more about it next week, but for now let me just tell you that when you don't let Callista go inside every time she gets a little bit of sticky marshmallow on her hands, she full-on "Wolverine"s at you, bulging neck vein and all. If you know anything about her, you are not at all shocked by this.
And just to prove that she is multifaceted, here's a sweet photo of her on a different day this week, cuddling a ball the neighbors gave us. It's true love.
And that was our week, other than wrapping up our schoolwork. Today marks the last day of read-alouds for the school year, which means I'm on summer break as of 3 p.m.! The kids still have some math and reading to finish up over the next few weeks, but as they do that pretty independently, my teaching responsibilities for the year are basically over. I'll give you more of a rundown soon on how our year went!
Sayonara, Sammy. Have a great weekend!
slugs, bugs, and lullabies that sound like a horror movie soundtrack.
Do you want to know something they don't have in Iowa? Wild cockroaches that sneak into your house and make nests in your mailbox. Do you want to know what they DO have in Missouri? Wild cockroaches that sneak into your house and make nests in your mailbox.
It is becoming a serious problem. Todd can't even get the mail without having to dislodge roaches from between the envelopes. We find them coming in the house from outside, and climbing up the drains. They hide in the folds of the shower curtain and crawl out while you're showering like they're auditioning for Psycho.
So I have roach traps all over my house, which, if you're from Iowa, sounds like a trashy thing to say. In Iowa, something has to have gone seriously wrong in your housekeeping efforts (or in your rental house's shady past) to warrant setting roach traps. But not here. I literally buy them by the dozen now because THIS IS MY LIFE NOW.
And just to up the ante, Rocco has decided he wants a wood roach as a pet, like a real sick-sick-sicko.
IS THIS NOT THE MOST DISGUSTING THING YOU'VE EVER SEEN? (The bug, not the cutie-patootie Van Voorst.) I had no idea this was happening - the kids came inside and said Rocco found an "earwig," and Todd took the pictures, so I was oblivious until I looked through the photos and then barfed in my mouth. Can't you hear it scuttling through the screen?!
And on the topic of monstrous, mutant bugs, here are some slugs. Excuse me, I mean, SLUGS.
WHAT IN THE ACTUAL WORLD. It's like Missouri got covered in radioactive waste at some point.
I would like to say I've developed a stronger stomach as a result of living here, but that would be a bald-faced lie. I might be the odd man out here, but I still don't love being ogled in the shower by dinosaur bugs. But if that's what it takes to be a Missourian (that, and never using a crosswalk with any sense of urgency), then that is what I'll work toward.
It's a weird place to live, but I love it. Usually.
getting out while sheltering in place.
Todd has now been working from home for about two and a half months, and we have really tried to maximize that time together. One of our favorite things to do has been taking family walks. We have three different routes near our house that we choose between, all of which seem to be 2-3 miles in length: one goes by a wading stream and then up a big hill to a local elementary; another one follows a back trail through a wooded area along a creek; and the other is up into a hilly residential neighborhood surrounding a pond. Some days, it's hard to pick.
HOW OLD IS ATTICUS GETTING?!
Idyllic much?
It has been amazing how long Spring has held out this year - it seems like most years down here, spring weather lasts a couple of weeks and then it gets oppressively hot and humid, but it is only now starting to turn the corner. We've been so blessed to be able to use this time.
This sassy sister loves our walks, even though she is strapped down into a seat for an hour. I'm sure it isn't easy for a tornado to wear a seatbelt.
That being said, we did it almost daily for the first two months or so, but have fallen a bit out of routine since we're trying to wind down with schoolwork and fitting it in during the day was becoming difficult. We are currently wrapping up our last week of "intensive" schoolwork, and I was hoping next week we could get back in the swing, but it is finally starting to get hot out. So we may have to lay low for a while.
So proud of herself for standing in the water - and it was COLD.
I'm praying Todd gets the long-term option of working from home once all of this craziness is over, so that we can continue to fit these walks into our routine. They've been so good for us - exercise, fresh air, a change of scenery, and a built-in hour of talk-time with Todd. ("Talk Time with Todd" will be the name of his podcast someday if I have anything to say about it. That, or "ToddCast".)
IT TURNS OUT I'M NOT DEAD!
No, folks. For the last two months I have, in fact, been very alive... which is more than I can say for my laptop; hence, the radio silence. (And yes, I do mean the laptop that contained years of edits made to family photos. Weep with me.)
At first, the problem seemed to rest with the power supply, so I ordered a new cord and a new battery, which took literally one month to arrive in the mail because they were considered nonessential shipment items through Amazon. Clearly Jeff Bezos does not read my blog or he would have realized his mistake. (Actually, his two mistakes: first, not enabling my means of airing my opinions on the internet by not sending them priority mail, and second, not reading my blog in the first place. I think he'd like it. We have a lot in common.)
You will likely be unsurprised to learn that there is still something wrong with the laptop. And of course the Geek Squad is all laid off right now and likely engrossed in video gaming on a level the world has never seen. (That's what the media have been referring to when they keep talking about "unprecedented times", if that was unclear to you.) Whether they will ever rejoin society when this is all over is yet to be seen, so I'm not holding my breath that my computer will be fixed anytime soon. At least, not before the World of Warcraft Warlords head up the New World Order and laptop repair is the only paid profession left on the face of the earth. (So, any day now.)
Some friends of ours caught wind of our plight and gave us a laptop they're no longer using. But in order to get Photoshop Lightroom downloaded onto it, I again had to venture into AmazonLand and order an external disc drive. Luckily, it shipped much faster this time - this time it only took three days! And I only had to offer Jeff Bezos my DNA profile, a few quarts of my blood, and a promise to name my next child after him. (In addition to the actual USD cost of $27.99, obviously, but that's meaningless since the American dollar itself is meaningless! All I had to do was believe hard enough that I had $27.99 and it cyber-materialized!)
But now here we are - with a working laptop, a working version of Lightroom, all my photos uploaded and ready to be of service, and yours truly, dressed like a sack of garbage and slaving away over the keyboard. God is in his heaven, and all's right with the world.
I know that quarantine has slowed some stuff down, and I could not be more appreciative for the gifts we've been given with this time. But to say stuff has slowed down completely is a bit misleading, since we've still lived a lot of life over these last two months, and I'm excited to tell you about it!
Not to be a tease or anything, but here are some of the things I'll be yammering about soon:
1. A move to more natural haircare and skin care routines for me and the girls. (The highs have been high, and the lows have been low.)
Curlz for Dayz
2. Juniper's first birthday!
3. Penelope's tenth birthday!
4. Mother's Day.
5. What is slowly becoming a prettier front yard, once I can get rid of the 'teenager beard' effect of random alternating bald and luscious patches. You guys, I powerwashed the house like a real boss. I'm officially addicted.
6. Finishing up our homeschool year and prepping for next year and ordering All the Books in the Whole World.
7. The time the Kraken faced off against a kamikaze dog. Spoiler alert: my kids are traumatized, and I'm not too thrilled about it either.
8. Weaning Juni.
9. The feast days we're celebrating this time of year.
10. Teaching Atticus to mow the lawn (just one more step toward total luxury-living, in which I die of muscle atrophy from doing nothing for myself).
11. That blessed time of year in Missouri known as The Ride of the Cockroaches.
12. How we've killed, like, a bunch of goldfish lately. Spoiler alert: more childhood trauma.
13. The kids must have heard us joking about quarantine haircuts. A couple of them took it too seriously.
14. Easter!
15. Family walks.
16. Mes'morial Day.
17. Also, I would like to discuss how the quarantine has seemed to age Bon Jovi. Like, a lot.
Subpoint A: I have never taken this song so literally before. I got genuinely melancholy watching this for the first time, as I thought, "You know, Bon Jovi really AIN'T gonna live forever..." And because the song is sooooooo sloooooooow, I had a lot of time to noodle on that thought. Sobering.
Subpoint B: I'm pretty sure the piano player in this video is just Bon Jovi with a curly wig on. That man is truly a chameleon.
WELCOME BACK, INTERNET! We're about to have some fun.
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