Wherein she attempts to defeat Ecc. 5:3

"A fool's voice is known by many words" Ecc 5:3b

The last twelve months have been such a rich time in our lives. We've started homeschooling, moved into a house, had a baby, visited the NICU while said baby was healing, started unpacking, continued working on the house, continued homeschooling, continued working on the house, continued unpacking, finished homeschool, continued unpacking, continued working on the house, continued unpacking, continued working on the house...

It feels like there has been A LOT to process. And while I'm one who processes "verbally", as it were, it has seemed like a year to be silent here, for the most part, and reveal fool-ishness elsewhere.

But we are all doing well - growing in age and, hopefully, wisdom, too, and I find that I'd like a bit more of a record of who we are and what we are doing than I've had over the last year here. So maybe now is the time for more words. We'll see...

Just in case anyone reads here anymore...

It has been such a busy month or so for our family! We moved into the new house beginning at the first of November, fully intending to take our time and sort through junk/ not move unnecessary things, and instead, as always seems to be the case for me, ended up throwing things in boxes and "just getting it done already!" at the end of the month. One of our pastors let us use his trailer and, rather unsuspectingly, told us he didn't need it "anytime soon". He probably didn't realize that it is a McStew family trait to procrastinate as long as possible, so he MAY be getting back his trailer before Spring. Maybe. And in the midst of last month's craziness, we found out that Peter would be delivered early- a full two weeks earlier than expected. And I got put on "limited activity", which has made me about as helpful as a large walrus with definite opinions on how everything should proceed. I need not mention, I think, how my sainted husband is earning his stars-in-his-crown by the bucketful. :)

What all of this has meant, practically, is that we have a large house full of stuff that is not categorized or sorted, boxes most everywhere, Christmas decorations in our pastor's trailer parked, attractively, next to the house, six inches of snow on the ground, an overworked Daddy, a kindergartner on perpetual fall/ Christmas break, and a baby arriving in 6 days.

BUT- it's all good. We're in the house and I pray we will never, ever have to move again (though if I were God and Miss April let me know that she didn't want to move for another 50 years, I'd think she was just "askin' for it" :) ). Little Peter is doing well so far, and so am I, really. The kids are happy even we still haven't hooked up the tv. My mom has been taking them to her house every day and we wer reminded again of what an amazing fam we have when they all helped w/the move... There are just a lot of gifts in this process.

One of the most lovely, timely gifts is that this whole experience has afforded me yet another opportunity to reflect in this Advent time on how God took on human flesh and came into this messy, disorganized, not-at-all-ready-for-Him world and how He will come again - into the world, into my heart, and into the hearts of my family. I really wish this Christmas He would find the arrangements at the McStew house less like a stable than they will probably be, but I'm taking comfort in the fact that he WILL find a family waiting for Him. And in the end, the dusty, unorganized, chaotic chambers of our hearts will be His dwelling place again.
Even so, Lord Jesus, quickly come!
Hope you are having a blessed Advent. I'll try to post here after Peter is born next Monday!

Late night update

It's after 11 p.m. here and I have a baby boy inside me who has hiccups, I think. Only they are the kind of hiccups that apparently cause his entire body to flail rhythmically against my bladder. I should be asleep. But feeling like I need to pee every 30 seconds is not conducive to sleep, regardless of how tired I happen to be. So, I sit here. Very awake.

I have been working for a bit on trying to begin crocheting a rag rug. I bought a bunch of sheets from the thrift store today for $1.25 and ripped them into strips. I was inspired to do so after looking for rugs for the bedrooms of the new house and realizing how bloody expensive those things are, even second-hand. I am sure I'll be able to make a couple of decent rug for the girls' room and the nursery for less than $10 each. If my wrist holds out, that is. Right now, my largest hook is a K hook. I think I need at least an M. My hand is cramped from pulling the fabric so hard. On the plus side, though, the rug is nice and tight. On the negative side, I may not be able to use my right hand tomorrow.

I'm doing my crochet while listening to Andrew Peterson. I am so, so, so excited to have found a Christian artist, other than Fernando, whom I absolutely adore!! I love Peterson's voice, his melodies, his harmonies, the way his albums are produced, his lyrics... everything. Love it. I think Counting Stars is my favorite album, but that might be just because I've listened to it most. It's just so good!

I really should be asleep. We had a mostly good day which, once again, had a bit of friction in it today. This happens to us most Thursdays and I think it's because we just don't have enough sleep/ rest/ recovery from the night before. We have a great kids' program at our church on Wednesday nights. Annalivia was involved in it last year and really enjoyed it and Dennis ran the sound for the program. But this year, Dennis is working on the house, so Daniel, Emmeliese and I have been taking Annalivia to the church and then helping with the nursery care. We get home late about 8:30 on Wednesday nights and get in bed by 9:30, usually, but I think it's kicking our rears. I'm considering having us take a break until after Christmas. In fact, I think I've mostly decided that we need to take the break. I hate to leave behind such a good thing, but I know we need to choose the better thing, which is peace between us all at a pretty hectic time. I just need to get up the courage to tell the pastor that I'm leaving him without a nursery attendant.

Tomorrow, we are going to go to the apple orchard, I think, with my niece and pick the last of our fall apples. I've been canning applesauce and apple butter and apple/cherry jelly, but I think I need to get some apples and make some applesauce to just freeze and eat in the next few weeks. My children love homemade applesauce so much; they will eat quarts of it at a time if I let them, which I do since I don't add sugar to it and the fiber in it tends to help their little digestive systems. I'd like to have some available over the next weeks without breaking into the canned stuff until later in the winter.

Anyway, I best go to bed. In just a few minutes, it will be the first day of October, which means 4 weeks until we move into our house, 8 weeks until Thanksgiving, 11ish weeks of pregnancy and 12 weeks until Christmas. Goodness, that's a lot to do.

The fruitful year

This year, at the beginning of May, I turn 35. I have decided to make it my "fruitful year" by embracing the gardening gene long latent within me and plant the bejeebers out of the yard of our new house.

Dennis gave me the go-ahead and so, for a pre-birthday gift, I ordered a significant load of fruits, including:

5 apple trees -- Honeycrisp, Goldrush, Pixie Crunch, Sundance, and Pristine.

2 cherry trees -- Montmorency and Sweet Stella

1 peach tree -- Contender

1 pear tree -- Honeysweet

10 raspberries -- Heritage (above)

3 Currants -- Red Lake

3 Cherry Bushes -- Nanking

2 Native Plums

2 Gooseberries -- Pixwell

2 Grape vines - Cayuga

...and a partridge for the pear tree. :)

Our yard is very large, and the trees are all semi-dwarfs, so they won't get too unmanageable. We cut down some inherited trees -- two pears and an apple -- that were unruly, old, and non-productive, so now we can have the fruit we want.

This weekend was spent digging holes. The raspberries, grape, pear and peach are in. Pristine is waiting in a trench against the garage for her sisters to be delivered. I expect to get an email notifying me of impending delivery soon. I'm eager to meet these ladies.

I'm excited. I think it's going to be a fruitful year. :)

What we've been doing lately

Collecting pebbles/ fish from side of the cellar door/ river


Doing Very Important Tasks with Daddy's hand truck

Building castles in the sky...and the sand

Watching the goings-on patiently...

...Or not so patiently

High-fashion digging

Helping Daddy...

... pants optional.

My new BFF

Pruning and being pruned

At our new house, we inherited a very old (30-40 years old), very large, VERY overgrown grape vine.

After watching about a thousand (more or less) YouTube videos on pruning, I attacked the vine today. First, I started by taking out the very obvious dead growth, then I started cutting back on those vines with questionable vitality. I cut until I found live wood, then cut back per my instructional videos.

We ended up with a fairly scraggly vine. I would not be surprised if it does not bear fruit this year, though my mother tells me it is entirely possible that it will. But, hopefully, in a few years, we will have a good crop of grapes.

The entire time I was cutting, I was thinking about the vine illustrations in the New Testament. I know regular gardeners are well aware of this, but pruning is sometimes a fairly drastic action. A whole lot of our vine had to be cut away to reveal life. I find that so often in my spiritual life, I balk at taking the drastic steps that cut away death to reveal a place where new life can occur. But, obviously, that is what is necessary sometimes.

The other thing that occurred to me is that growth is not necessarily a gauge of health. Last summer and early fall, our grape vine was full of green, hard fruit. But the sun couldn't reach much of it, and a lot of the grapes did not develop well because so many vines were pulling energy away from the fruit. Further, the growth on some vines, covered up dead wood and, from a bit of a distance, made everything look quite lush. I thought about the many churches where numerical growth is held up as an indicator of health, while energy-sapping offshoots flourish, death/disease goes unchecked, and individuals are not challenged to grow fully.

I guess I have always known that being pruned is a rather painful process. But until I was cutting away the excess myself, I didn't understand just how much of myself really needs to be pruned.

A place to cook

Dennis and I spent some time discussing the house tonight. Basically, we've run out of money to spend hiring other people to work on it and we still have a whole heck of a lot that needs to be done before whenever it is that we'll move in (hopefully before summer heat next year). It's stuff like running electricity into the main floor, sanding floors, redoing walls, fixing plaster where we can, putting in some bathrooms (because right now there's only half a toilet in the house) and a kitchen, because, um...well, this family's gotta eat. It was a very energizing discussion.

Tonight's discussion was about the kitchen and we figured out some solutions to annoyances. The kitchen is small, but will still be the largest kitchen we've ever used. Because of our cash crunch, and because he's always wanted to do it, Dennis is going to build the cabinetry. Another advantage to him building the cabinets is that whatever he comes up with will actually fit the 10-foot ceilings. And because he's going to build the cabinetry, and because I've always wanted it, he's going to make it very primitive -- but not in the way that involves red paint and star and moon cutouts and prematurely rusted wires. :) (It may involve beadboard and prematurely worn corners. We'll see...)

The door to the dining room had been moved at one time in the house's past. It made sense to leave it, but that meant the other entry door to the room was not symmetrical. I've realized that symmetry is a big thing for me in buildings, rooms, etc. I like a sense of order into which I can bring my messiness, I guess. :)

My brilliant husband's brilliant solution involves moving both doors a bit (and moving a brand new duct which he assures me is not a big deal) to make the doors symmetrical and thereby make room for an entire wall of shelves which will be concealed behind beadboard doors. That means we don't necessarily need upper cabinets, but can instead use open shelves for the dishes and mixing bowls and such which, I think, will make the room look a lot bigger. But the coolest thing about the wall o' doors is that our door to the second back stairs will be concealed giving us a "hidden" staircase. That's just the sort of thing that makes Dennis and I grin.

Now -- the question is just this -- when is he/ when are we going to find time to do all of this?

What if's

Our energy bill last month was about $3 less than our rent. Yeah, you read that right. 3 bucks. This old house has steam heat. And that, apparently, costs a lot. Luckily, my sister lived here for a year and a half before we moved in, so we were prepared, in theory, for a high heating bill. "In theory", because nothing quite prepares one for paying a heating bill equal to rent.

Hence, I have turned down the heat and spent $5 buying myself some slippers. And we're still not in frigid territory yet. Right now, my nose is freezing but the thermometer downstairs is registering at 62 degrees. That's pretty warm, really. Sweater weather, I guess, and conveniently, I'm wearing a sweater right now.

The heating bill coupled with dire forecasts from economists in the news lately coupled with an announcement from Dennis' company that they are unable to contribute to 401k's next quarter coupled with a decision from him to work longer hours voluntarily, so as to demonstrate his necessity to the company has led me to do some big "what if" thinking. What if Dennis lost his job tomorrow? What if we had an emergency of some sort? What if the baby came early? What if, what if, what it?

The problem for me, is that I can get kind of obsessive what-if-ing. So, tonight Dennis and I tackled the what-ifs. What if he lost his job tomorrow? Turns out, we'd be doing fine. We rent a beautiful house and our rent is low, our landlord generous. We have a six-month emergency fund based on Dennis' current gross salary. Which means that it would last longer than six months. Dennis is a hard worker and would do whatever is necessary. I can be resourceful and may be one of God's most stubborn creatures. We'd maybe buy some space heaters. We'd be fine. Same with the other questions. We'd be depending on others more than ourselves, but we'd be smart enough to do that. We'd draw on resources from family and friends. We'd figure out what needs to happen. We'd be fine.

Heating bills and dire predictions and longer hours and less retirement money are no match for Team McStew. We're in whatever together, even if it becomes more than an "if." I feel better.