We have a dishwasher again! Those following James and Theresa’s blogs have heard the saga of the dishwasher. While the old and broken dishwasher did make a great drying rack, we will all be excited to once again have one which washes dishes as well. Yay!!!!
I hate ice. I love snow, but ice not so much. Snow you can pack down and make paths. Your boots have something to grip and it’s not actually that slippery. You can move it if you have a strong enough back and a shovel. Snow falls from the sky and is light, fluffy and friendly. But ice…
Ice is a menace. It lays across the ground watching, waiting for you to come to it so it can slide out from under your feet. It waits at the top of hills for your van to try to cross it and then it pushes you back down, cackling as it does. It giggles maniacally when it sees you coming with your arms full of breakables. And then at the worst possible moment it slides out from under your feet and you fall to the ground. But you don’t immediately fall. No, you hang in the air for just a moment, your arms windmilling, desperately trying to keep upright, knowing that you can’t. The ice lives for that moment. And then you fall onto the hard, wet, cold ice. The things you were carrying go flying in every direction. And now you have to go pick them up while the ice watches.
See, that would never happen in the snow. In the snow if you drop something you just have to go get a shovel and dig for a while until you find it. That’s easy.
Isaac is reading! Today Crystal told him to get a book and read it by himself and he did. He needed a few hints here and there, but other than that he was reading all by himself. In true Isaac fashion there hasn’t been an “Aha!” moment and I don’t expect there to be. Give him enough time and a nudge to keep plodding and eventually he’ll get where he wants to go.
Congratulations, Isaac. Hooray! Another reader in the house!
Snowfall. The clouds have been promising snow all day with their gray and their drear. At last night has fallen and with it falls the snow. Uncountable snowflakes drift down from the sky- aimless, weightless, beautiful in their complexity. The streetlights shine on the snow making it glow and sparkle. But the real magic of this snowfall is the quiet it brings. All is peaceful, all is beautiful, all is quiet and still. The snow brings silence into the air as I try to listen for the sound of snowflakes hitting the earth. The swift movement of the falling snow brings stillness as I stand and admire the swirl and drift of the snow. The cold of the snow makes me feel warm as I stand at the window and watch frozen rain falling. The snow is marvelous, a gift sent down from our Father. He covers the world with His magical snow and makes even this fallen creature to marvel at the beauty.
It’s been kinda a tough month. I haven’t written about it because I honestly just couldn’t be bothered. We got home from Erie and found our upstairs furnace broken. Seth had gotten really sick in Erie and was struggling with asthma or bronchitis or something. I was coughing pretty bad, too. It’s just made it kinda trying. And this month that was going to be lean to begin with was now going to be leaner because it’s cold upstairs.
And then Sunday our van wouldn’t start. This was really a blow. The Lansberrys came through for us and we made it to church, but the broken van was hanging over us. We’d need to do something and we already felt tapped out.
Monday morning I was all set and ready to write either a blog post or in my journal thanking God for our broken furnace, our broken bodies and our broken van. But then Crystal went outside to try the van to see if she could get it going enough to get it to the mechanics. It started right up on the first try. She let it warm up and then turned it off and back on. It turned on with no problems. So I didn’t write my post because our van wasn’t broken anymore.
The leanness in the house has been mostly reflected in there not being any easy food in the house. A child will ask for a snack and it’s like “Um, let me drop everything and spent half an hour in the kitchen and then you can have a snack.” That’s really frustrating. Tonight our neighbor stopped by and said someone she knew had just given them a bunch of stuff from a food pantry and it was more than they could use. She dropped a large box of some healthy snacks and some fun snacks right in my arms and then asked if the kids like honey Cheerio type cereal. She left and came back with another large box full of cereal packets.
I don’t think even she knows how well timed this was. I’m not sure she’ll ever know how helpful this was. I was effusive in my thanks, but I don’t think I said what I wanted to. So now I’m sending up my thanks to God Who works out these things and drops snacks on our doorstep. Our van starts and we have two big boxes of snack food. My hands were already full and still He gave me more.
To our most holy, most beautiful Lord,
May my feeble words express a part of the wonder I feel.
You’ve opened up Your hands on more occasions than I can count
And yet a box of snacks is what moves me to praise.
For our snacks and our van I give You thanks and praise.
Amen.
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