(And All My) Work Be Praise

I just finished re-reading Rachel Jankovic's Loving the Little Years *, and thought you should all hear this quote from her last page: From Ecclesiastes 5:19: Everyone to whom God has given wealth, and possessions, and the power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil--this is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart. "[I]f you accept your lot and rejoice in your toil, God will give you the kind of overwhelming joy that cannot remember the details. Motherhood is hard work. It is repetitive and often times menial. Accept it. Rejoice in it. This is your toil. Right here. Those are their faces. Enjoy them. The days of your life are supposed to be full of things like this. But joy is not giddy. It is not an emotional rush--it is what happens when you accept your lot and rejoice in your toil. So rejoice in your children. Look them in the eyes and give thanks. You will not even r...

I mentioned  quite a while back that I've been thinking about love a lot recently, and one of the "minor epiphanies" continues to stick with me.  I'm almost embarrassed to admit some of my thick-headedness, but, well, this is who I am.  :) For the majority of my first thirty years of life, I have not been able to shake the notion that love is a feeling.  Sure, I know all (some of) the Bible verses about active and sacrificial love.  Yes, I was a part of the group in college that got really into taking the "5 Love Languages" test.  Even in the past five years as I've begun to think in terms of "covenant," I've somehow managed to separate the two (love and covenant) in my mind.  ("Covenant" therefore meaning something like, "I won't leave even if I don't feel like I love you anymore," or something like that. ) Anyway, as such, I've always relegated 1 Corinthians 13 -- you know, the "love chapter" ...

I mentioned two days ago that Levi had a little "school" time on the couch.  This is more about training him to sit quietly with me than it is to learn academic skills (and, about training me to schedule focused activities into our day!).  Here's what we did: I brought to the couch a muffin tin, number magnets 1-6, and a small bowl of colored pompoms (the same ones we've used before to sort by color). I asked Levi to come sit on the couch with me.  He was intrigued enough to obey. We spoke (okay, I spoke, but he counted along with his fingers) the rhyme "1, 2, Buckle My Shoe" two times.  (He likes to show numbers 1-5 with his fingers, so we've been trying to teach him how to do 6-9.  It's tricky, doing different numbers in each hand.) I had him put one number in each muffin tin (well, six of the twelve), in order. Then we tried to put the same number of pompoms in each tin as the number it contained.  This is the hard part for Levi.  He l...

Confession: I am terrified of having a two-year-old. It's not that I'm worried about the "terrible twos" or anything like that.  Levi's a pretty mild kid, and I have not yet felt undone by his occasional tantrums (yet . . . ).  There's a little bit of stomach-churning over the thought of potty training -- a few days ago he told me in vigorous nods/head-shakes that he never wants to sit on the potty like Mommy and Daddy and he wants to wear a diaper forever (not that he knows what "forever" means) -- but I'm even-keeled enough to recognize that someday he will, in fact, use the potty, and there's no reason to panic, or even to hurry.  I have no intention of rushing to a big-boy bed, either, so really there's not too much to be scary in the upcoming year. It just recently hit me, hard, that I am responsible for turning my children into responsible adults.  Now there's  a reason to panic, and maybe to hurry!  All of the self-doubt th...

I feel like I've been absent for a while, though in reality it's only been ten days since I blogged last.  I've started a few posts, but was repeatedly interrupted.  (Of course, that's good and right:  http://pinterest.com/pin/75464553/ .)  Here's what's been going on around here: --As evidenced by the above link, I joined Pinterest .  I haven't gotten into it fully yet, not having had the time or inclination to spend great amounts of time poking around other people's boards.  I'm looking forward to browsing for decorating ideas, though, since . . . --We got a new-to-us couch that required rearranging the living room furniture, and now my one big dark blue wall -- which formally housed the giant wood entertainment center -- is bare from the couch up.  I don't want to just hang a few pictures up; I want to do something really cool.  But I have no idea what. Suggestions? --Levi got a new toy, courtesy of my aunt.  She worked for a church ...

My apologies for the title and address change for the blog.  I know it's not professional to do so.  As I explained to a friend last weekend, I was dissatisfied with my previous title for several reasons: 1. The title didn't match up with the address, so people kept ending up at a blog of which the author was in love with her therapist.  Inasmuch as my husband occasionally functions as my therapist, I suppose that's true, but she isn't me. 2. You can't start writing a blog without titling the blog, and so I felt immense pressure to just choose something already  so that I could get my rapidly-accumulating thoughts down. 3. I have been surprised at the direction(s) my blogging has taken.  I didn't know what to expect, I guess.  I've found that knowing I have the opportunity to work through any given situation/thought process/teachable moment/experiment and present it logically to the public has caused me to be more thoughtful about, well, everything. I...

People are always (always? often? I've seen it twice?) posting ideas on what to do with empty baby food jars.  Garage storage, office storage, craft storage,   homemade water color paint storage  . . . you get the idea.  Well, today I came up with the perfect thing to put in old baby food jars. Are you ready for this? Baby food. Yeah, for real!  I feel so brilliant for having thought of this.  Or maybe so ridiculous, for never having thought of it before.  I'm not sure. I make all of my own vegetable baby food ( Wholesome Baby Food is my #1 resource), which is cheaper (especially since we use all organic produce for as long as possible with the babies) and very easy to store in the freezer.  Fruits, however, are usually not cheaper, and they don't freeze quite as well.  I stock up on jarred fruits whenever I find great sales; otherwise, we just do applesauce and bananas until baby can eat soft-cooked finger foods.   At any rate, I ...

Flipping through radio stations the other day, I heard two songs back-to-back.  Both followed the same basic pattern: 2-3 verses, each a list of life's small annoyances, the choruses describing each artist's response to the annoyances.  The verses could have been interchanged easily (lyrics-wise, at least), a fellow driver's road rage, a stolen parking spot, lost car keys and cell phones.  The choruses, however, ended in very different places.  The first fantasized about life on the beach, pretty girls serving cold drinks, complete relaxation.  (Except for the pretty girls, it doesn't sound half-bad, does it?!)  The second pointed to the simple fact that even though life can indeed be downright annoying, most of us are blessed beyond measure, and anyway God uses rough moments to break our impatience. The juxtaposition of the songs got me thinking.  Frankly, at first it made me laugh, because the very fact that I was analyzing their similarities and...

The other day I heard a song on the radio and my old dream of playing the guitar surfaced.  Senior year of high school, you could catch me rocking an air guitar in just about any public place.  I even own an instrument, but who has time for new hobbies? Recently I accompanied a high school girl I know at her cello competition.  Once upon a time, orchestra [I played the cello] was one of my favorite things to be involved in.  Once upon a more recent time, I entertained thoughts of graduate school in accompaniment work.  I know how my skills have atrophied. A few weeks ago, I glanced down at the cross on my ankle and thought, "I would totally get another tattoo," knowing full well that when I got the first one (for my 25th birthday), I swore up and down that it would be my only one.  Not two days later, all relaxed in our pedicure chairs, my mom randomly remarks, "I think you should get another tattoo."  I don't think we put a line in the budget for ...