Little man... 3 months

So our littlest man is growing and soooo sweet...  I have been bad about taking pictures, but did get a few this week!  This one is my favorite :)
Life stays super busy over here with many, many things in progress or finishing up or just beginning - and true to that theme, I have to run!  Have a great week!

oh deer!

So here is the promised picture of the deer...  this is after it was skinned and gutted (by our friends, not me, lol) and before I did the butchering and freezing the meat...  we have since had several meals from the meat gotten from this deer and it is sooooo good!! :)

I'm thinking this may be the "push" that gets us out hunting in the next year or two! (residemcy and hunting license rules depending of course!)

Yummmm....  doesn't look tasy in the picture, haha, but all finished up it sure was!

Running, running!

There is a song by Point of Grace that talks about if there were only more than 24 hours in a day...  whoooo boy, can I relate!  It's busy here, but a good kind of busy... 

Little man is 10 weeks old now (how did that go so fast??), nursing like a champ, and is just so sweet and cuddly  and snuggly...  *happy sighs*  he is just awesome!  The next youngest is doing great with adjusting to not being the family baby, though she's still rather little (all of our others are high on the height charts and almost as high on the weight charts - she is much more of a petite little thing, but boy is she active!!  Thankfully, she also loves her sleep, so she naps in the afternoon and goes down easily at night, so I sure can't complain about her busy little self during waking hours (plus she's just so darn cute!!)  Yeah, this mama is biased...  but she's also right, haha!  All the kids are doing well, have been keeping busy as ever with school, and ready (more than ready!) for a break!

Well, our second oldest had foot surgery (corrective, not due to an injury) earlier this week, after lots of doctor appointments and trips to town in preparation for surgery...  she is in a cast and mastering the use of crutches - which is good because after this foot heals and has regained strength, she is set to have surgery on her other foot to correct her pronation  and flat foot issues...  hopefully that will alleviate the pain she's dealt with over the past few years...

So, between surgery on Tuesday and Thanksgiving on Thursday, we took the whole week off of school...  and since my husband had to be away over Thanksgiving and the weekend for work, we're having our family Thanksgiving on Monday, and since he has a few week days off next week, we're extending our break for an additional week!  That's ok though, since we are about a month ahead in school, having started late summer and having taken less of a "baby break" than planned... 

What have we been up to then?  Ha - you had to ask!  ;)

It's that time again...  over the course of TJ's military career, we have moved right about every other year...  maybe not to a different base each time, but for varying reasons (a bigger house, housing renovations, moving to a different base, etc...) we have moved every other year.  Well, we've been here just over two years and WE ARE NOT MOVING!!!!!  (yeah!!!)  but that moving things around and fixing things up bug has hit and with a crazy vengeance (if only it came with an extra dose of energy, ha!  I'm feeling every one of my fourty years tonight!!!)  So, I painted the kitchen...  we've had sterile military white for so long...  don't get me wrong, I like white...  but it was time for something DIFFERENT...  but I very much prefer earth tones, so I didn't go wild! *grin*  The kitchen walls were painted on Thanksgiving day :)  I'm very thankful that I had the whole day to get it done, too, because I'm seriously out of practice!  It took almost as long to prep for painting as it did to actually paint the room!  but it's done...

Black Friday...  I have a wonderful Black Friday tradition that I've held dear for many years now...  STAYING HOME!!  Well, this year I broke with tradition - made a trip to town for another can of paint!  Then scooted back home just as fast as is legal to avoid crazy shopper people!  One wall in the living room accomplished and little man decided he had enough and it was time for a super-long "nursey", so I settled in with the kiddos for an evening of popcorn and movie and snuggles with little ones.  *happy sigh*

Saturday...  that can of paint was just calling to me...   and the unpainted walls in the living room beckoned for attention...  so since the kids were all  actively busy with various play activities or crafts, I undertook the project - I am so loving this new color of paint!!  It's kind of a sand color, but a little darker...  very earth tone-ish, and very not white!  Now I just need to find some nice, simple, coordinating border wallpaper to finish the touch! 

Then, when I'm thinking of rest and Sunday and taking a day off of projects we were offered a deer!  Some friends who are all avid hunters had a great year hunting this year, and my friend has been butchering left and right - her huuuuuge freezer is so packed full that she had to pressure can the rest of the meat she had because it wouldn't all fit in her freezer...  and then her husband came home...  with another deer!  She asked if we could use it - they would hang and skin it if I wanted to butcher it, so cool!  I've never butchered a deer before, so had to google some instructions...  she told me it's much like butchering a pig, no problem!

Whew...  picked up the deer late this afternoon, got it laid out on my butchering sheet on the table (used to be a bed sheet, then became a drop cloth for painting, and now is my butchering sheet) and got the deer up there (man was that a good weight!  too bad I couldn't carry it by myself, haha!  Thankfully my oldest stepped in and helped me get it from the van to the table) - got the meat grinder set up and ready, my butchering tools out, then sat to nurse little man so he would be happy while I worked :)  then, got to it!  Took a couple of hours, but we have some good sized roasts, tender backstraps, strips to make into jerky, and a huge bowl of meat waiting to grind up...  but little man had waited long enough and was getting rather upset - so I put away in the freezer all that was done and refrigerated the rest...  nursey-man is a happy, sleepy camper :)  when he's done (typing while nursing, lol) then I'll get back to it...

Did I say back?  Oh yeah, it's screamin'!  but hey, it's been a productive week!  and I'm really earning my Sunday day-of-rest! :) 

I'll put up some pictures later...  deer and paint :) 

Picture time!

The hospital "Daddy scrubs" - Daddy's feet in shoes were too big even for the extra large size "booties", so he had to sock it and leave the shoes behind!  And who figured out the sizing for the jumpsuit??  Certainly not a tall American man, haha!  These just barely fit...  but they fit enough that he was able to be in the operating room with doctor approval! :)

And finally...  after weeks of contractions, an unstable-lie "transverse-breech" baby, and a month of pre-eclampsia frustrations, this Mama was READY to have her sweet baby OUT and in her arms!!!  Cesarean birth by necessity for the safety of both baby Caleb and me - but our OB did a wonderful job, and we pulled through with probably one of the easiest c-sections possible!

Caleb, just a few hours old...  sweet little sleeper...

Fast forward two weeks to pictures taken yesterday and today!

Shhhh...  baby sleeping... 

and of course...  baby feet!!!! 

did I mention how much I **love** baby feet???



Happy, very contented Mama sighs...  and lots of sweet nursey baby snuggles...  what could be better??

He is here!

Well, he was here two weeks ago, haha, but as you can imagine it's been a busy couple of weeks with baby snuggles and healing from the pre-eclampsia and the subsequent cesarean section that brought our little man *out* to join our family!

Caleb Alexander was born September 4th at 3:44 pm, weighing 7 pounds 1 ounce and measuring 20 1/2 inches long.  He's strong and healthy, though a bit jaundiced, which will go away over the next few weeks with lots of nursing snuggles and sunbaths! :) 

Our doctor did an awesome and amazing job on the c-section, with very little blood-loss for me, which is an accomplishment for that type of surgery!  I'm sore but recovering well from the incision, up and about again and happy to have a large majority of my usual energy back!  That last month of bedrest about drove me batty, haha - I don't stay still well, so that was a real test!

Anyway, thank you for your prayers - we are so thankful that the Lord saw fit to answer them in such a way!

I'll post pictures later. :) 

Growing, growing, growing...

It seems that the garden isn't the only thing growing these days...

My belly continues to grow and swell with the babe within, as well as my patience growing (or should I say, being stretched??)

It's hard to believe that we are still pregnant...  our last five children have all been born before this point, and yet this little guy has still not made an appearance.  Our check up with the OB yesterday had us tenatively scheduled for a c-section this morning, however, the amniocentesis came back unfavorable.  It appears that his lungs are simply not ready for birth yet.  I'm not sure who was more surprised, the doctor, Daddy, or me!  So, we wait...  and continue to wait...

I've never been accused of having patience be one of my best virtues, and it seems the Lord has seen fit to use this as yet another means of stretching me and growing me in that area.

That and putting stretch marks on my stretch marks!  Wow, my belly is huge...  my baby is huge - by ultrasound, he is measuring weeks ahead of dates, and at this rate, he's easily going to be our biggest baby yet by the time that he finally, FINALLY makes his appearance.  Whenever that may finally be.

This year's canning projects...

Well, it's been a busy couple of months, taking advantage of produce sales and the local Saturday farmer's market, putting up for winter; and since I had to re-plant this year's garden two or three times (depending on the veggie) with our crazy start to the growing season, I didn't want to take chances by waiting for the garden to be ready for harvest for most of my kitchen projects (though we should still have a good bit to put up in the freezers when it's all done growing for the year).  Anyway, I made good use of the canner this year - and just because I love to be able to look back each year and see my "canning harvest", I took a picture!

We have sweet pickles, dill pickles, marinara sauce, salsa, cranberry sauce, raspberry cranberry sauce, apple-walnut cranberry sauce, apricot jam, raspberry jam, blackberry jam, strawberry jam, gooseberry  jam, rhubarb jelly, spiced apple butter, apple sauce, pear butter, peaches, cherries, pearsauce, and 200 pounds of canned pears! 

For lack of an actual canning closet or kitchen cabinets, we have improvised and use these panty cabinets that we bought a few years ago at Target - it works :)  though some day I dream of having floor to ceiling cupboards along the window wall (leaving the windows uncovered of course!) - for right now, these work just fine, though, and if we did have the floor to ceiling cupboards, I doubtless would not be able to get those lower shelves at this point anyway, being so huge with our not-so-little baby growing within! :)

So the goal was to complete my canning to-do-list before baby-time - which usually falls around week 36.  We're at week 32 and I just finished the pickles this weekend, completing my list (and filling all of my available space!) which means I'm done...  at least for now ;)  After baby is here, and the garden is finally ready to harvest, there will be more freezing to be done - in the meanwhile, I'm thankful for a few weeks off! :)

What to do with those weeks, you ask?  Ha - never fear...  with 8 (soon to be 9) children, we are NEVER lacking for things to do!  This week my three oldest are finishing up everything needed for their 4-H submissions for the state fair.  Interview judging is in a few days, so they are down to the final project-scramble.  Once that is allllll done, we're all taking a week off of projects and just enjoying a few days of NO PROJECTS (**gasp**) - then I'm sure we'll find more to occupy ourselves!  That and finishing up our summer school term (7 weeks total so that we have a head start - and so that after our newest little guy joins the family, we can take a month off and still be a little bit ahead of the game!) 

Now, to stick to that "few days of no projects" idea...  is that really and truly possible?  We shall see...

Preparing ahead...

As summer is here, gardens are blooming and growing, farmer's market is teeming with activity and fresh produce, and my belly is quickly expanding (oh my!!!) I'm working to get much of my canning done and get the freezer fully stocked so that it is ready for those initial days/weeks after our newest little one is born.  It's a good feeling to see the canning cupboards fill with home canned foods for my family, and to see the freezer filling...  of course, we are also still using some of the things going in to the freezer, so it's a process of making, using, and making again, haha - but I'm really looking forward to having it *filled* and ready for those few weeks that I'm not as active as normal and to have the ability to pull a homemade meal from the freezer in the morning to thaw and cook/ serve in the evening!

For canning, I'm still working on it...  waiting for some things to come in to season...  I cheated and used store-bought tomatos for my marinara sauce, though - so I have four large batches of marinara canned and ready...  not making salsa this year since we still have a good amount left from last year...  pickling cucmbers should be ready in a couple more weeks, and then I can get dill pickles (last year was my trial run on that one - it was a success, so I'm repeating it this year!) and sweet pickles (my "new thing" to try for this year) canned and done...  jams and jellies galore, cranberry sauce (again, I cheated and used some that I had frozen last year when they were on a good sale, so I don't need to buy or make more this year, which is nice! We have just over 200 pounds of pears canned - most are just peeled and sliced and canned, some I made into pear sauce and pear butter, though, too.  Still waiting for peaches and cherries to come into season - cherries are doing better - of course, I buy these at the store since we don't have cherry trees out here, and apples for making more apple butter and apple sauce for my sweet-toothed husband. :)  The kids are all allergic to apples and peaches, so I only can those for my husband and myself, so those are not done in the large quantities that I do most everything else, which makes those batches faster and fairly easy to accomplish.

Freezing: I made a batch of 5 coffee cakes this morning - one is in the oven now for today's breakfast, the other four are in the freezer for later...  I made a batch of scones the other day - I need to make another so that we have 4 or 5 breakfast meals of those...  we have several pans of muffins in, but again, I need to make another big batch so that we have more than just two kinds in the freezer for more variety :)  Of course banana bread, zuchinni bread (working on that one later today), pumpkin bread, pizza crust, pie crust, and some casseroles still need doing...  I have 3 pans of lasagne and 4 pans of chicken-broccoli casserole frozen from last week's cook-ahead sessions...  perhaps I'll put together more enchiladas as well...  Of course we have our stockpile of pork from the pigs we butchered this year, and I've prepared and frozen in baggies papaya and strawberries for smoothies - adding blueberries in some bags for a little variety.  We have between 70 and 80 bags of that put in the freezer (I lose count when we use some and freeze more - those fresh, 100% fruit smoothies are such a refreshing treat on these hot summer days!!!), and as they come into season (and better prices!) I hope to freeze more blueberries and strawberries for pies and what not, and am watching my rhubarb plants in the garden, waiting for a good harvest to add to our collection of frozen produce! :)

With our children's wide variety of food allergies and sensitivities it makes life soooo much easier to plan and prepare ahead - not to mention less expensive!

I'm thinking I need to go through recipe books and get some new ideas for freezer meals - main courses anyway, side dishes are usually freshly prepared rice a fruit and/ or veggie dish, and sometimes a dessert.  Hmmm...  chocolate cake freezes well...  ;)  at least, if you freeze it as dough and don't bake it first - makes for a funny texture if you bake *then* freeze it.  Cookie dough is also an easy favorite - so when we make a batch of cookies, I'll usually triple the recipe and bake a quarter or a third of it and freeze the rest into little cookie balls for later use and convenience.

Hmmm...  time to get back to work! :)

27 weeks and growing...

My husband took this today at the rodeo...  we are 27 weeks and 2 days now!  And my little sweetie standing there with me is 18 months already!

Butchering time... and a picture!

So it's butchering time again...

This year we are selling 2 1/2 pigs and keeping 1 1/2 - they got sooo big this year, too, so we have a good amount of meat from even just one pig!

Now, I don't know if it is nationwide or if it's a state law or what, but it is against USDA regulations for individuals to raise and butcher animals and then sell it...  but we *can* raise and sell animals and have an approved butcher (one with a butchering license and passing health department inspections and what not) do the butchering.  It is legal to butcher our own meat provided we don't sell it...  all of this makes sense, because it protects the buyer/ consumer from getting meat butchered in a dirty environment and getting sick.  Honestly, as big as I'm getting with this pregnancy, I'm thankful that I only needed to butcher ONE of them anyway! haha!

Here is a picture of the killed pig hanging, with me skinning it (though my husband also helped me skin - and was a tremendous help when it came time to take the head and feet off!!!  I could not have done that part on my own - and was very thankful for his strength - and his reciprocating saw! - in getting that part of the job done!!!!

He was a big pig!! 



Anyway, he's skinned, all cut up and everything but the hams (which I wet cured and have the last of them in the smoker now, with others baked so they are fully cooked before freezing) and bacon (which is still in the wet cure, to be smoked early next week) is done!  Hams will be finished by the end of today - yeah!!!  and bacon will be finished by the middle of next week.

The other three pigs go to the butcher Monday morning - and I'm ready to see them go for the year!  (though we'll also be looking forward to raising them again next year) and then I'll have a week or so before we get the meat from the half pig that we are keeping from one of them where I'll start the curing and smoking process all over again - but half of a pig's hams and bacon only take up half of the space that the full pig does...  and whew! a full pig has a lot of meat!!!  I'm happy to have my refrigerator back for normal use for at least another week!! :)

Anyway, it's been a great experience getting to raise our own animals for meat - and learning to do the butchering for ourselves!  Next year we'll do pigs again - and next fall we'll butcher our first cow, though I'm not sure we'll do the cow butchering ourselves...  I"m not sure the rafters of the garage are strong enough for that added weight! (nor do I think I have the refrigerator space to keep the meat while I work on it section by section!) 

This year's butchering was tremendously helped by the teens of my friend who taught me how to do the butchering last year - this year they came out again and killed and gutted Hamlet for me, and got him hung up on the gamber so that I could do the rest of it...  this was my first year going it solo, and my husband's first year helping with the skinning!  Perhaps next year we'll be brave enough to try the kill and gutting ourselves - but I wasn't about to try it being very pregnant this year! :)

Contemplation...

In recent weeks life has been so busy...  indeed, it seems some days are spent running literally from one thing to another!
This past week has been no exception to that!  It's been busy, but productive...  good, but crazy at the same time! 

In all of this activity, again the thought comes back about the Biblical command to rest...  to have a day of rest in which we honor the Lord and spend the whole day in worship and praise of our Lord, and in fellowship with other believers.

As a large family, I look at the praciticality of this and how to make it all work (no pun intended) - the logstics, if you will...  such as "is it ok to wash dishes" - we know we need to feed our families, but we can cook ahead so that we're not *working* on meal prep on the Sabbath...  we eat off of plates, though - and I don't know about other large families, but we don't have enough dishes to go through an entire day without washing a single dish...  of course, we could use paper plates...  it's not so much a question of legalism, it's a question of obedience...  and this is just one small example that leaves me wondering at times - what's ok and what's not ok in trying to honor the Sabbath as the Lord commands? 

How do we, as wives and mamas, prepare ahead to honor the Lord's day while also still caring for our families?

This has been a subject of thought many times over - and sometimes I wonder if I'm really any closer to answering the question with an answer that would please our Lord...  It's something to contemplate, to be sure...  we want to live in obedience - and it's easy to live in DISobedience without even realizing or giving conscious thought to it, isn't it?  So, in an effort toward wanting to PURPOSE to live in obediece, I contemplate this (and other issues) and look for the Lord's guidance...

Psalm of praise

I love these verses...

Psalm 30: 11-12
"Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;
"To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent.  O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever."

Indeed, our mourning has many times over been turned into praise, dancing and thankfullness to the Lord for His great grace and mercy.  Underserved as it is.  I thank and praise Him!

Coming up for air...

The last month and a half have been a swarm of activity, so I apologize for neglecting you...

First, please be in prayer for my friend Sarah and her family...  their 7 month old infant died recently, the youngest of nine precious children in a wonderfully close-knit family...  needless to say, this has left a tremendous hole and immeasurable hurt in their lives. 

Next, my OB, who is a wonderful, exceptional high risk pregnancy specialist also very recently lost his wife to a battle with cancer...  She was diagnosed one week after our Hannah was born, given months to live, and yet surpassed that timeframe given by her doctors, which was a gift and an answer to prayer.  Her final month was very difficult for her and her husband as the cancer became painful and she really struggled with pain in her final weeks.  I can only imagine how difficult that must have been for her husband, our wonderful doctor, to sit by and not be able to really DO anything to make things better for her...  She has been gone for almost a month now, but after 40+ years together, he is missing her tremendously and learning to adjust to a "new normal".   Please be remembering him in your prayers as well as their two children and grandchildren...

On a similar note, in speaking of my OB, we had another ultrasound this past week, and our little guy is growing well and everything looks good so far!  We praise the Lord for this answer to prayer, especially after our very painful loss back in October.  It appears that we have our third boy on the way, due in September, which means, with our labor history, we'll most likely have an August birth - which is extra fun, as we do not yet have any August babies!

Life has been swimmingly busy in recent weeks, as we finish up the school year, prepare for summer projects for 4-H, gardening, animals, and projects around the house and property...  I'm told we "officially" have a farm now, haha, though with it's small size I suspect "Hobby Farm" might be a more accurate description.  Either way, we are greatly enjoying the animals!  George (the calf) is now weaned from the bottle...  another learning experience for me, as I thought he had been dehorned, is that his bull horns are growing in!  We have a trip planned for this coming week to haul him back to the dairy we bought him from, as the dairy manager said he would take care of that for us, if we wanted to make the trip - that was an easy decision!! :)  The pigs are getting quite large, and will most likely be ready to butcher in late June or in July, and it appears we already have a couple of buyers for at least one of the pigs through my husband's co-workers!  We've gone back to store-bought ham and bacon, as we used up the last of last year's meat a couple of months ago, so we are very much looking forward to filling the freezer with our home-grown pork once again!  Next year will be even more interesting, when it's time to butcher pigs *and* our cow!  I'm not sure how we'll fit all the meat into the freezers, but I'm thinking we'll probably figure something out! 

Plans for livestock - we are tossing around the idea of getting another calf after butchering the pigs, so that we have another ready to butcher 6 months or so after butchering George next year in the autumn/ early winter, and there is the thought that we might sell half of George's meat and keep half for ourselves if we do go that route...  that would certainly make the freezer issue less of a problem! :)  Besides, I have NO idea where we would put another freezer!! Anyway, we'll see how it all goes, but raising a calf has been a considerable bit easier than I had anticipated!  We shall see...

Our chicks are growing so well, they are nearly the size of the adult chickens, and another homeschooling family asked me if they could give us their chicks once they were done hatching and watching them grow the first few weeks...  since we already had some, it was an easy question for them!  Anyway, we now have 3 additional *little* chicks, in a brooder box back in the kitchen, haha ~  I'm looking forward to in a week or so, trying to combine our adult chickens with the big chicks, to see if they are ready to mix and get along well...  if that works, then we can move the newest three chickies into the separate partition inside of the chicken shed, and I can get my kitchen counter back...  again! :)  Still, it's been fun having the baby chicks again, and in another few months, I suspect we're going to have more eggs than we know what to do with!! (that's easy, actually - we can sell the extras through our homeschooling group and put the money towards chicken feed!)

The weather has been interesting...  we keep hoping that spring is here, and then we get another wintery storm...  no snow in the last two weeks, though, so I'm hopeful!  The garden has been a complete flop the last two years I've attempted it, so I'm listening to the wisdom of others and hoping to see good results this time around!  So far, tomatos and a variety of squash are doing very well, protected by wall-o-waters - something I haven't used before, but seem to make a world of difference!  *and* I learned a new trick this week, talking to the gal at our local extension office...  she wraps plastic wrap around her tomato cages to put over the young tomato plants, so they have the protection from wind and weather, as well as the support of the cages!  I'm thinking about trying that when we put more of our plant starts out in the garden (then we can move the wall-o-waters to those plants and the tomatos will still be protected!)  Anyway, I thought that was a neat idea!

I guess most of this is mundane rambling...  my brain feels like mush today!  There are so many activities and things going on lately that it's hard to separate them out into a logical sequence and share in a blog post!  Perhaps later, when things quiet down, I can share more of the interesting things and events, with my brain functional and sensible! hah!

For now, have a great week!  When my husband can take a moment and scan the ultrasound pics, I'll post them here - we got a frontal face shot, a foot (I loooove baby feet!!!) and two profile pictures with our latest ultrasound - hopefully we can scan and post two or three of them :)

Growing the barnyard...

So, it's nearly spring...  this brings warmer weather (which is nice, since we didn't get much snow this year...  if it's not going to snow, it may as well warm up, right??!).  Warmer weather brings new life...  and our place is abounding with new life these days!

Aside from the animals we already had (1 rooster, 8 laying hens, and 2 horses) we have just added (in the last week) 11 new babies (not counting the babe growing within me... more on that in another post!  I need to have my husband scan the ultrasound picture so I can post it here...  we got a great profile pic, but I don't know how to put it on the computer...  but I'm rabbit trailing...)

No, rabbit trailing wasn't a play on words...  the only rabbits here are the wild ones ;)

We've added:

6 baby chicks...  we bought black star and red star chicks this year, since they are "sex linked" (meaning you can tell their gender based upon their coloring) and we are assured that we won't get another surprise rooster (one is fun and I enjoy his crowing, but more than one would just be too much...) and we know from the chickens we already have that these two breeds are great egg layers of very large brown eggs!  Right now, these chicks don't have names...  but we're watching them to see how they distinguish themselves, so we can name them (and tell them apart!)

 

4 piglets...  right now they weigh about 50 pounds each - by slaughtering time, they should weigh around 200 pounds or more - when they are a bit bigger, they are GREAT composters!!  We can feed them kitchen scraps and garden scraps, which helps minimize our trash going to the dump and helps with our feed bill!  We'll keep two for our own freezer, and sell the other two at butchering time.  We have one barrow (female) whom we have named Petunia and three gilts (males) named Porky, Hamlet, and Sausage.

 

1 calf... he's 2 weeks old and weighs about 200 pounds.  Next fall, when it will be slaughtering time, he should weigh between 800 and 1,000 pounds - and he's a smaller breed!  We bought him from a dairy farm, since they sell their steers but keep their heifers for future breeders and milk producers.  His name is George, and we had intended to bottle feed him, but he simply will not take to the bottle, so I'm feeding him milk replacer from a bucket, which works just fine, too!  Actually, it might even be a tad bit easier, because I can mix the milk right in the bucket, which I could not do in a bottle. 

They have been such fun to have on our little "hobby farm"!

Mary, Mary, how does your garden grow?

Well, mine won't be cockelshells and all the other stuff in Mary Quite Contrary's garden - but it's about that time to be thinking ahead, isn't it?

So, the last two years my garden has been a complete and utter failure...  a flop...  a waste of water and time...  frustrating and often beyond pointless!  Our soil is mostly clay and/ or gumbo, our winds can rip through just about anything, including blowing plants over, pushing tomato cages sideways, and well, you get the idea.

This year I'm hoping things are different.  For starters I heard about a couple of things I can do to improve my growing area - I could spend thousands of dollars (that I don't even come close to having) to improve our soil quality, OR I can make raised garden beds...  gee, guess what we're doing??  Then, talking with a friend who is an absolute genius with plants and gardens, I got the tip to put my planter boxes (just the 4 walls/ frames) down in their designated places and then to layer the bottom with cardboard (cool - saves us a trip to the recycling place!!!) and then pile with manure (no problem there, our horses have been obliging us with LOTS of that...) and let it compost...  top with soil and plants!

Then I heard about another method...  the hugelkulture - interesting stuff...  you can read more about it on a guy's blog who has cool equipment and way more knowledge than me here:  http://www.pierresoleil.com/ourblog/?ny0wOYCy

So, the guy we bought our house from had this huge pile of firewood (and yet, the house has no fireplace... yet...)  so we gave a lot of it away last fall to people in our homeschool group who actually do have fireplaces!  Well, we had a lot of little chunks of wood and scraps and chips and...  all still piled up behind the barn, and I've been wanting to get it all cleaned up and hauled away - well, no problem - send the kids out with the wagon and wheelbarrow and have them pick up all of those little pieces of wood to haul to the garden for me, where I dump them into the garden boxes and pile over the top with manure... 

It's not exactly the hugelkulture method, but combined methods of two tried and true methods...  I'm hoping for good results!

Now to find a way to combat the wind...  I've thought about putting boards up around the lower half of our garden's fence (used to be a large dog run - I use it as a fenced garden to keep children and critters from playing in it!) but that would block some of the sun...  so I"m not really sure if that will work or not...  or what I'll end up doing for that respect - but there's time to figure it out yet :)

Praying this proves to be a far-less-expensive way to produce a good garden with decent soil/ growing medium!

Ultrasound update

We had an ultrasound for this pregnancy on Friday - things look good so far, with a strong heartbeat of 180 beats per minute, and I could see our little peanut wiggling around in there - and was relieved to see that there is only one little peanut in there! lol - people often ask me "how do you do it?" in regards to a large family and my standard response is ONE AT A TIME! haha - well, I'm "advanced maternal age" these days (oh, don't I feel old??  lol - well, when I look in the mirror and see all the white hair that was once brownish auburnish colored...  and the wrinkles around the eyes and...  yeah, I feel kinda old these days, but not too old to have babies!) anyway, being "advanced maternal age" increases our chances of several things, including twins...  and down's syndrome and other health issues...  that's ok, though - none of it takes God by surprise - He has a plan, and however our babies come out, they are perfect within His great design!

Anyway, it was such a relief to see our little one moving around, and that strong, steady heartbeat...  it is our hope and prayer that this pregnancy carries, and in August or September we are holding a sweet newborn again. :)

For the time being, my belly looks like a very bad archery target!  With the twice daily needles/ injections that make sure my blood doesn't clot and cut off baby's blood and oxygen supply, and they always seem to bruise, it looks like someone is either a really bad archer or a horrible boxer, haha - thankfully it's nothing so violent as all that, and the injections increase our baby's chances of survival and health!  I'll play pincushion for those odds to be sure!

Thank you for praying for our little wee one!  Your prayers are more appreciated than I know how to express with words!

My new sign...

We picked this up at Hobby Lobby last month -  I haven't figured out where to hang it just yet, so for the time being, it's propped up on my dresser :)

It says:
~~~~~~~~~~~~

In Our House

We do second chances
We say prayers
We do I'm sorry's
We do loud really well
We give hugs
We do love
We Are Family

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I so love this message - and boy howdy, do we do loud well!

Where DOES the time go?

So I tried to post something last week, and somehow managed to disable the internet access from my computer (ha - go ahead and laugh - I can be such a dunce...)  took the majority of the day (and my husband coming home at the end of his workday to point out a fairly simple solution to my problem...  yeah, I was feeling pretty dumb when he showed me the problem - but if I can't laugh at my mistakes, we have problems, because I tend to make at least my fair share, if not a bit in excess!!!!)

So I look back over the past couple of weeks and wonder where the time has gone?  We've been sooo busy with day to day stuff...  the stuff that you can't really *see* at the end of the day or week...  and yet if it wasn't done, it would be painfully obvious, right?  So we've been working on school (6 grades takes a good bit of the day to accomplish everything that everyone needs to get done - at least according to my lesson book...  and I made the lesson book and filled in all the pages myself, so it's not a curriculum specific thing, lol - we just go through a lot of school stuff, but it's all good - the kids are learning, and for the most part they enjoy their studies (though there are a couple of the kids who really dislike math...  or science - actually the science is fun, it's writing up the experiments and what not, and writing out the answers to all of the end of chapter questions...  it's not *required*, per se, but I require it anyway, because I think it's good for them to do! *wink*  As mom and teacher, I get to make those calls, and like it or not, it has to get done for them to get credit for the day's work!

So we needed some incentive...  a few of the kids do great about focusing on school, getting in there and doing it, having fun, and ready to run off and play when their work is completed...  that's so fun!  However, there are a few who make me feel like a dentist at times, doing deep root surgery or even just pulling teeth to get it accomplished...  so I put together an incentive chart - each day, each of my 6 school age kiddos (and the toddler little dude who likes to color "for school") can earn a star for good behavior and doing well with their work.  If they don't earn their star, they get a line through that day instead.  At the end of the week, those with 5 stars get a treat or a reward for a job well done!  This has made it fun and extra rewarding for my extra cooperative kiddos, and has given some incentive for those less enthusiastic about schooling...  the treats are simple - a sheet of stickers, a small baggie of jelly beans or gummy bears (I get the Surf Sweets brand or the Yummy Earth brand from amazon - no corn syrup, artificial dyes or flavors...  no food reactions - yeah! and everybody likes them, so it's a win-win!  Well, they are a little bit spendy, but it's a reward for once a week, so one box of treats will last us at least a month... so it's all good :)

Anyway, we've been keeping busy with school, cleaning house - I tackled the upstairs closet, the laundry room, kitchen cupboards, and the schoolroom...  the school closet (with all of our curriculum and educational extras) took a full day...  but I love how it's organized now!!!

The barn is clean, the chicken coop is clean, the garden has a very thick new layer of animal "organic material" added to it from the barn and chicken coop... 

and that's about it.

We really haven't accomplished much that you can really *see* - and yet we've been sooooo busy!  What's up with that???  Well, I guess that's just life...  and I'm ok with that!  One of the great things about being mom is that we don't have to have the recognition for daily tasks that seemed so important working outside of the home...  Don't get me wrong, my husband notices and comments - which is very nice and encouraging!  However, it doesn't go further than that.  and I don't need it to!  It's just nice knowing we're on top of school, doing well, kids learning and progressing well with their studies, and the house is, for the most part, clean.  We have daily messes, and they have to be cleaned daily or it looks like it hasn't been done in months...  but then there are ten bodies in our home making those messes, so I guess that's to be expected, right?  So long as we start the day with a clean house and end the day with a clean house, I'm happy!  (though I admit to having interrupted the school day about half way through for a quick clean up - if the mess is enough to drive me batty or to distraction...  and that may or may not be the rule or the exception...  but if you ask my kids, they will say that our vaccum cleaner does work overtime most days!

We're also working on some character training...  it's amazing, isn't it, how feeling cabin feverish can bring out the ugly in us, isn't it?  We had a couple of weeks with sub-zero temps, and very very cold, but above zero temps (10 to 18 degrees for a couple of weeks, with strong winds which made it feel even colder!) so we haven't had a lot of outside time...  and patience has been running short amongst the kids (and yeah, sometimes me).  We are looking forward to warmer temperatures that make outside time more of a frequent reality!

Abraham and Isaac... or Sarah and Rebekah...

Isn't it amazing how sometimes history repeats itself?  Sometimes where it seems identical, but for the names of those involved...

Reading earlier in Genesis, Abraham recognizes that his wife Sarah is very beautiful, and as they are coming to a place where he fears that the men in power will kill him and take Sarah for themselves, he entreats her to tell the people that they are brother and sister.  OK, well, they do share one parent in common, so they are half-siblings...  but she is also his *wife*.  She obeys her husband's words and is taken into the household of another man...  his women's wombs are closed and he sees that he has been taken in by this deception and releases Sarah back to Abraham and tells them to leave (summarizing here...)

Fast forward...  Isaac and Rebekah...  there is a famine and God tells Isaac to sojourn in Gerar.  In this place, there are men who ask Isaac about Rebekah, and he tells them that she is his sister.  In order to save his own life, he allows her to be taken into another man's household. (!!!!)  When confronted with this lie, he admits that he was afraid for his own life, hence the lie...  (in his case, however, Rebekah is the daughter of his uncle - his mother's brother's daughter - NOT his sister, but a cousin)

What strikes me about this is that both men were so blessed by God...  and yet they have essentially given their wives to other men, as if they were posessions and not a helpmeet given to them by the Lord...  This I do not understand.  How can a man willingly give his wife to be "taken" by another man in the manner of a husband?  Would he not defend his wife?  Protect that which is his to own?  Should not her affections and physical attentions be reserved totally and completely for her husband?  (I think yes...) so why would these two men so willingly give that up to another man?  There has been no threat - at least not that is mentioned in my KJV - it's the worry of a threat... I don't understand this reasoning... 

My husband pointed something else out in regards to this, after I shared with him my confusion...  he said that on top of that, Abraham and Isaac showed a distinct lack of faith or trust.  As he said, they did not immediately turn to the Lord in prayer, seeking wisdom, seeking protection - they took their own way and had their wives lie, and they lied, and they compromised the purity of their relationships with their wives.

And then I also wonder, how in the world must Sarah and Rebekah have felt through all of this?

"Well honey, these people who live here can be kind of scary, and I'm afraid for my life, so I want you to lie for me and allow these men the rights of a husband so that they won't hurt me..."  OK, I know that's not quite how it was said, but that's the message I'm hearing between the lines...  How is that right?

On top of that, how does God bless these men who would do such things?

I'm not questioning God, per se - I'm just looking for reason or understanding...  His ways are higher than my ways or my comprehension, and He is GOD (and I most clearly am *not*!)  Yet this puzzles me... 

Abraham had faith, when God told him to offer Isaac on the altar as a sacrifice to the Lord, and Abraham was prepared - to the point of having bound his child and placed him on the alter (can you imagine how Isaac must have felt at that moment?? I doubt that he laid complacently, waiting to be killed and burned on the altar...  but I could be wrong...) - he trusted God to provide a sacrifice, as he told Isaac while they were on their way to to place of sacrifice and worship - and God provided the ram, which became the sacrifice instead of Isaac...   If Abraham had that kind of faith, that level of obedience to the Lord, why did he not have that faith when it came to his wife?  And what of Isaac when he was a man and married...  where did their faith go that they felt it acceptable to put their wives on the figurative altar?  Was that before the time when good men sought to protect their wives and children?

I don't really know...  but I do know that this issue baffles and troubles me...  and I am so thankful to know that I have a husband who would not ask such a thing of me, but would rather seek to defend his wife and children...

Pitter Patter

I love baby feet...  These are Hannah's at 13 months.
Looks like, if all goes well, she is going to be a big sister in August or September...
Praying all goes well this time.

Back to the barnyard!

So as promised, here's the bit on pigs...
Now, to start off, a few things I learned:
*  Pigs are HAIRY!!!  (who knew?  I sure didn't!!)
*  Pigs *smell*...  but if you keep their area fairly clean, it's not too bad...  and when you have pigs, you'll be really thankful for high wind days that blows away most of the smell ;)  overall, it's not too bad, though! (I thought it might be worse)
*  Pigs have unique personalities, just like kids do!  Our pigs this past year liked to be rubbed behind their ears! (think of a dog with a snout and short legs...  well, maybe not quite...)
*  Pigs can be MEAN if you don't make a point of befriending them.  I've heard horror stories from people before we got our two pigs this past spring, and honestly, I was kind of afraid of them at first...  the guy we bought our little 50 pound piglets could see my fear and was very kind in trying to hide his laughter (he got several good laughs thanks to my ignorance - but I also learned  a lot from the few conversations we had, so it's all good - and I can laugh at those things too!  If you can't laugh at yourself, you have problems...  ;)

So, our start up, two little 50 pound piglets:

And a little bigger...

                                           And a little bigger...

And a little bigger...  finally able to maneuver over the step to get outside!

And a whole lot bigger!!

Just after being killed and hosed off...

This is a friend's son, cutting and gutting - it is amazing how similar a pigs insides are similar to human insides!  The first pig, I didn't touch the innards - the second time around, I did hold the heart - amazing creation! and the liver (which we gave to the neighbors for their dogs)

I don't have pictures of the butchering process, since my hands were fully in it all, and the kids weren't at all wanting to watch the learning process, haha - to be honest, it wasn't anywhere near the level of disgusting that I thought it would be- which was a huge relief!  It was a neat learning experience, though!  (and good eating after it was all said and done!)

This is what SUB-zero looks like:

Right now we are at 8 degrees below zero...  now, I don't remember if it got this cold where I lived as a kid, though I have lots of great memories of playing in the snow, skiing, and building ice forts...  Now, as an adult, after living in the south for 12+ years, it's kind of a shocker!  However, we do enjoy it, and love the beauty of REAL WINTER!!!

 These first two were taken today, of the waterfall/ dam about 10 minutes from the base here...  if you look close, you can see how the water has frozen mid-fall...  now *that* is COLD!

Below, you can see the chunked up ice where the water of the river has frozen...  don't ask me why it does that, I don't know - but the effect is amazing!!

Becoming the barn yard...

No, the house isn't a barn yard...  though sometimes the kids' rooms look like pigstyes!  (they have, for the record, just recently given their rooms a very thorough cleaning and organizing...  *ahhhh* much better...  now we'll see how long it lasts before I need to remind them again!)

So, we started with chickens...  I've never had chickens before, but was told they are easy, and in my homesteady desires to try my hand at raising our own food as much as possible, I thought I'd start with these!

We got a brooder tub, the heat lamp, pine straw, baby chick food and nutrient bar, the water and feed containers...  and then we set it up in the master bathroom where the chicks would be safe from little overzealous hands...  we bought ten little chickies from the local farm supply store, assured that we would have ten layers... 

                                              (picture taken March 2010)

One of the chickies got trampled by the others around the nutrient treat :(  the other nine have thrived and flourished.

One of the chickies we named Duchess - we later realized Duchess would be more aptly named Duke ;)

Well, the chickens in the bathroom idea proved to protect the chickies from little anxious to hold those fuzzy little babies hands - but it also proved to make more dust in any given week than I think I have ever seen in my home in years and years - oh my!!!

So my wonderful husband took on the task of renovating the shed on our property...  the flood had dry-rotted boards and unfinished walls.  When we bought this house the shed was already here, as was the barn, the fenced in dog run (which has become my primary garden area), and the garage.  We've never had a two car garage before, or a detached shed, so you can imagine that we simply did not have *stuff* to put in them, and even played with the idea of tearing down the shed.  Well, my brilliant husband had the awesome idea of turning that otherwise un-needed shed into a chicken shed!  Yeah!  So, he ripped out all of the floor boards (I helped a little, but he did the large majority of it himself) and replaced them, cut, tongue and groove, nailed in, walls covered (more cutting and placing tongue in groove) and then he created a divider wall of wood and mesh screen doors, covering the lower portion with chicken wire.  The finished result was FANTASTIC!  (and if you consider that this was his first ever renovating project, it is all the more amazing - I really do not think a professional could have done better!!!)

                                         The inside.  Growing baby chicks love the new space!

                                         From the outside of the chicken area, but still inside the shed.


The chicks just grow and grow and grow...  we added some more nesting boxes and continue to watch them grow!

Fast forward almost a year!  They are full grown and great layers!
(I don't have a picture right now, but will come back and add one!)

Chickens are fun, easy to keep, and contrary to all that I've heard about how they peck you when you gather eggs, and all of that, I haven't experienced anything like that...  (just wait until they aren't on a nest to gather the eggs in the nests!)

Interesting notes - it seems with our chicks, there are two or three favorite nesting spots...  never mind that there are enough boxes for them to each have their very own - and by putting an energy saver light bulb in one of the brooder lamps/ heat lamps, we can keep light on for them even on the darker days without running up an astronomical electric bill!

Home raised chickens' eggs are darker in color, richer in flavor, and fun to gather ;)  it's exciting to see how many eggs we get each day!

This coming spring, when it's chick season again, we're thinking about getting another batch of baby chicks - doubling our little flock!  We couldn't possibly use that many eggs, but I learned from a friend of mine that by having the extra eggs to sell, it basically makes the chickens pay for themselves! 

Coming up next, our pig adventure!

Second generation Scouting!

My husband joined the Boy Scouts of America when he was in high school, and worked his way up to Eagle Scout.  He has been a member of the Eagle Scout Association for some time now.

And now...  that legacy continues!  Our oldest son joined scouts this month, and he absolutely loves it!  It's so great to have this organization with strong, Christian male leaders for our sons...  this father-son activity...  this time for a boy to join with other boys for good, clean, old fashioned fun!  (especially if he has lots of older sisters!! ha!)

So, my scouting men continue to take the challenge - to be the men that God created them to be, and to do their part to make this world a better place. *happy sigh*

Little Dude is thrilled for the opportunity to go with Big Dude for father-son activities, and this month they are building a Derby race car together for the upcoming race.  How fun! 

Oh, and when he heard about the upcoming Father-Son camp out coming up, he was absolutely beside himself with excitement!  Me thinks the family tent will be put to use long before the *family* goes camping this year - maybe they can scout out some good camping spots that are large family friendly while they are at it! :)

Sooooo proud of my men!!  (the big and the littles)

Signing praises...

No, that's not a typo...  I didn't mean Singing Praises, though that is part of it...  but Signing, ASL, hymns and praises to the Lord...

When I was in the 8th grade, I had this amazing music teacher...  Miss Friesen.  She had an awesome gift with music, instruments, singing, you  name it!  She was also the daughter of two deaf parents.  I learned a lot from her, both during class times and during my lunch times that were sometimes spent in her classroom just having conversations...  she made me feel important, but she also stressed how very much more GOD is important than any human or any thing...

One of the things that she taught my class was to sing and SIGN the song "Take My Life and Let It Be" - it's been many, many years, and I only remember part of the signs now...  but in the last week or so, I have decided that I would really like to teach my children how to sign so many of these hymns that we love to sing...  and even learn new ones...  what a neat way to worship the Lord, and to really focus our singing on what is being said, instead of being distracted by what is around us during worship times...

So, I looked on amazon, I looked at CBD, I looked other places online...  and then (duh!) I looked on Google!  There are free resources online that have people signing to hymns and we can watch them for free and learn them that way!  Cool! 

Well, I thought I'd share one of the links...  it's late and I need to browse through more of them later, but this one has my absolute favorite hymn...  actually, I think Amazing Grace is a favorite for many, many people! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this :)

Here's the link:
http://www.indyhazmat.com/creative/Video/MainSongs.asp

What would you do if you were given a second chance at something important to you?

What would you do if you heard from a "long lost" relative whom you had parted badly with and they reappeared in your life?

What if that person were one of your parents?

This Christmas, I sent both of my parents Christmas cards...   their notes were similar, very brief "You are in my thoughts and prayers.  I love you." My father's included my email address in case he ever wanted to get in touch.  I admit that it was nerve wracking, and I didn't dare to hope to ever hear from my father again...  it's been so many years...

This morning I received an email from my father - the email itself had less than a handful of words, but there was an attachment...  I had to deep breathe and just...  pause...  before opening it.  I didn't know quite what I would find inside...  what I did find was a 4 page typed letter to me from my father.  It was difficult to read, to be honest.  Now I have written him back, my response similar in length, my heart made as vulnerable as I suspect is humanly possible without actually removing my beating heart from my chest and putting it on the table before him.  No, that would be disgusting and I am certain that he would reject that offering...  Instead, I offered him my completely open, totally transparent self

 - and I haven't sent it. 

No, I need the wisdom and guidance of my husband, my head - to read my letter in response to my father's letter (and his letter to me).  I need his blessing to send it, his suggestions in editing if it needs editing...  I need his support.  More than anything I need his support.

I feel undone, almost.  A long letter, though a painful one, is the last thing I expected...  My father has a gruff personality...  at least that's how I remember him...  but I almost wonder if, in his long letter, he isn't opening a crack in the window...  if this might possibly be the start to healing our long damaged relationship...  We have both been at fault, and it takes two to reconcile...

What if this is that chance?

Of course there is also the chance that he will reject my heart and I will be left picking up the pieces...  I guess that's always a risk, isn't it?

Well, if you think of it, I would sure appreciate your prayers - for both of us - as we begin these communications...  perhaps as we begin healing...  perhaps it will be closure instead, a book shut for eternity.  I hope that is not the case, but it is not my decision, ultimately...  it is his.

And, while you're at it, I could use an extra dose of courage, while you are praying. 

Thank you.

Reading on...

My husband and I are working through the chronological "read through the Bible in a year" plan...  it's extra neat because on the days/ nights when he is home, we sit and read aloud together...  He reads from his NIV Study Bible and I follow along in my large print KJV Bible (yeah, I'm getting old - the letters in the other Bibles are just too small for my eyes these days, even with my glasses on!)  We have noted several areas of interest thus far, and we're only on Genesis chapter 7!  The difference in wording between the two versions is interesting, and has brought up some interesting questions and conversations.  I love that I can ask my husband, my spiritual head, when something puzzles me, and learn from his understanding and wisdom!  What a tremendous blessing to have a spiritual head who cares that I am in God's word and learning!
(for the record, he has always cared about that, but this is the first time we have purposed to study through God's word TOGETHER)

Some notes of interest...

In the creation account, it states that God told Adam not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil...  but when Eve is speaking to the serpent, she says that they were instructed to neither each OR touch...  I find this interesting - from all appearances, it seems that she is adding to God's word...  Hmmm...  that makes one think, doesn't it?  Is she indeed adding to God's word? That's something to ponder, isn't it?  Then she eats and gives to Adam to eat, and then they play the blame game "the woman that you gave me, Lord, she made me do it!" (yeah, I'm paraphrasing a bit) and then "but Lord, I was beguiled by the serpent" (that's an interesting word, isn't it?  beguiled...)  She knew what the Lord said, and she knew that she should obey the Lord... you can just imagine that she must have been fighting her conscience as she touched that fruit and prepared to take that first sinful taste...  I wonder if it left a bitter taste in her mouth?  (I mean, after she gave to Adam, and they both realized that they were naked and had knowledge of good and evil)

Another thought - each day, as the Lord creates, at the end of the day he looks at His work and says "it is good" - but after he has created man and man has named all of the animals, God does not say "it is good", He says "it is not good" that man should be alone, and so He created woman.  Now, He isn't saying that His creation of man is not good, He is saying that man needs a helper..  meet, or fit, for him...  My husband always jokes that God used Adam's rib to form the woman so that she would always be close to man's heart - I don't know if there's any real truth to that, but I love the imagery!  As I've been listening to Victoria Botkin's "She Shall Be Called Woman", she addresses this and says that it's like man is not complete without woman - she complements her husband and makes him complete - if that isn't convicting, I'm not sure what is...  have you acted as a completion of your husband lately?  Have you complemented your husband lately, or have you clashed with him?  Hmmm...  that gives pause, doesn't it?  TJ and I have a very good marriage, and it is quite rare for us to not see eye to eye on things - but there are occasions where I step out of my God-appointed role and take MY way.  Oooh, that's not good, and it usually results in conflict.  Now, my gracious husband is wise to me, and he knows that it takes two to quarrel...  and he doesn't take my bait when I'm fishing for an argument.  Because of him and because of God's grace, we have never fought.  Ever.  Not in our coming up on 14 years of marriage, not in our over 30 years of friendship.  Never. Ever. Ever.  And that is sooo not because of any credit due to me.  How convicting to think of those times when I was bucking my head, my husband and being un-complimentary...  uuuugh...  that's something I need to work more on.

Our husbands are our spiritual heads, the leaders God has given us to guide and lead us, to love us, to teach us, to take care of us...  our job is to lovingly submit.  A good husband seeks his wife's thoughts and opinions, but he still takes the lead and makes the decision he believes is right and best.  He may not always be right, but it is his place to make those decisions and the wife's place to accept his leadership over her and submit to his decisions.  Obviously, the exception to this is if her husband asks her to sin - God is the higher authority (the HIGHEST authority) and we should always, always live according to His word, but unless our husbands ask us to go against God's word, we are to submit to our husbands.  Not be doormats, not be punching bags, not be slaves, but be submissive and loving partners.

So, Eve was created to be Adam's helper...  not his head, not his leader, his helper.  We wives were given to our husbands  by the Lord to be their helpers.  How helpful have you been lately?  Are your priorities in line with your husband's desires and dreams?  If not, why?  If not, what do you need to do to honor your husband and make him, his desires, his dreams, a central point of your attitude and actions as his wife? 

Moving on...

In chapter 4, Cain has  killed Abel and God is confronting Cain about it...  God meets down punishment and what is Cain's response?  Well, first let's back up  a bit...  their offerings...  Cain works the land for food...  plants are his livelihood.  Abel raises the animals...  Cain beings some of what he has grown...  there is no mention of being selective, of choosing the best, or even putting any thought into his gift - he picks some plants and takes them to be his offering.  I haven't caught the significance of that before...  I always wondered why was God displeased with Cain's offering?  It's because it wasn't a real offering...  it was just doing what was supposed to be done, without any real thought or effort put forth.  Abel, on the other hand, takes of the firstborn of his flock...  firstborn of his livelihood...  what the growth of his flock depends upon, and he chooses the BEST.  He selects a healthy, fat, best of the best.  His offering has value, meaning, it has been given thought, and it comes of a personal sacrifice.  This gift pleased the Lord.  It wasn't just part of the abundance the Lord blessed Abel with, it was the best of the best of the best. 

Wow...  what part of our lives, of our time, of our thought are we giving the Lord?  Is it the creme de la creme of what we have to offer or is it scant leftovers, given as an after thought?  I have to confess to being guilty of sometimes giving as an afterthought...  and sometimes, to my shame, not really at all.  There have been days that I have gone without being in His word...  without praying beyond "thank you for this food" or "Lord, give me patience...  now, please!!!!" - what kind of relationship builder is THAT?  How close would we feel to someone who gave us the time and attention that we so often give (or don't give) to God?  Ok, that hurts...  so what are you going to do about it?

Now, back to Cain's reaction to God's correction and punishment...  my husband pointed this out in our discussion and I think it is profound...  Abel does *not* feel regret for his action, he does not repent or seek forgiveness...  he argues - but God, it's too much!  I can't deal with that, it's too hard!  He's worried that someone might do to him what he did to his brother...  there's no "God, you're right.  I was so wrong, please forgive me, Lord..."  It's all fighting the consequence of his action, arguing his case rather than seeking restitution.  That says a lot about his heart, doesn't it?  How is your heart when God corrects you?  It's hard to be admonished, to be punished or given painful consequences for our sinful choices, isn't it?  How do we accept (or fight?) that admonishment?  Do we pray "Lord, show me my sins that I might confess them to you and turn from them? or do we try to hide our secret sins from the God who knows all and sees everything?  Are we willing to give our sins away, to be washed clean, and to be made new...  fresh...  by His forgiveness, His grace, and for His glory?

Something to really think on...

I like David's prayer - "Search me oh God...  search me and know me." In another he asks God to "create in me a clean heart, O God"  I pray the same...  and ask Him to show me the sins in my life and for His help to turn from them, to walk away from them, to be washed clean...  white as snow...  to have a clean heart...  and a hunger and love for the Lord that can not be equalled.

There's more, but that's all for the moment, since I am out of time for right now...  food for thought - and some people say the Old Testament is boring...  irrelevant...  but if you're looking for food, you will find it there...  if you are hungry for the Lord, get in His word...  start at the beginning and seek out the challenges...  think about what you are reading...  look for questions, and when you find them, seek the answers. There's a lot of food for thought in this Book, God's word...  how much can you glean from conversing with and listening to the Lord this year?  How can you improve your walk with God this year, this month, this week...  this day?

He tells us "seek and ye shall find" - I am seeking, and look forward to what I might find that I haven't really found before...  and to being reminded of things I have found before and have forgotten.  I have so much to learn, but He is a great Teacher - in fact He is the best!