What is it About Five?

My baby girl turned five yesterday. I hope she remembers the day for her whole life. I wonder how is possible for a child to be sweeter, more innocent, and yet so communicative and entertaining all at the same time! It is the perfect bridge between baby-hood and childhood.

It was an all-Molly day starting with presents from Matty and me as soon as she woke up. Her godmother then came at 10:00 and whisked her off to Build-a-Bear Workshop to, well, build a bear, but she built a horse. With wings. And a party hat. And a regular outfit and a dress-up outfit. And mary-janes. And blonde hair that you can comb and style. Amazing. Then Miss Kim bought her candy, which she consumed in its entirety. Then Miss Kim took her out to lunch and she chose a big girl lunch of sesame chicken and rice--definitely not McDonald's. (That's my girl!) Then when she came home we had a lovely dress-up tea party with four of her bfsf (I know you're wondering what that stands for, but grammatically it's correct!) Then, after we took the pooping cat to the vet, we went out to Panera for broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl, which is what she requested. Then home for cake and ice cream with the family and Daddy's big announcement that WE'RE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD next week!

Lettuce, aka LeTUCE

My lettuce never really decided to grow.  I'm very sad.  I harvested a meager amount of lettuce...it should have been a whole lot more, but for some weird reason my seedlings never progressed much past that...seedlings.  I had a couple of plants flourish, but they weren't enough for a salad, so while waiting for the other lettuce plants to grow, they bolted.  Huh?

I got a soil test kit.  It says my pH and my fertilizers are "ideal."  Okay.  Then what could it be?  Did the cats pee on them?  Did something eat them from the roots? (I don't think so.) I'm stymied.  So I've decided to harvest my lettuce (pronounced le-TUCE in this house) and plant something else in those squares until fall rolls 'round and try again.  hmph.

Garden Update

We have been working every weekend in the garden since early April.  I am so excited to see tiny heads of broccoli forming, cabbage looking like a cabbage plant, peas growing up the trellis, potatoes going crazy, onions and herbs and peppers, oh my! are planted and taking root...I'm looking forward to the harvest this summer!  These photos are the progress so far, as of a couple of days ago.

National Day of Prayer

Today is the National Day of Prayer.  Wherever you are, whoever you are, please pray--for our world, our country and its leaders, our states and localities, our families, ourselves.

II Chronicles 7:14
"If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

Few would argue that our land is in need of healing.  Few would argue that it is hard to humble ourselves. Few would argue that we are firmly entrenched in our wicked ways.  Let us turn our eyes from ourselves to our maker and use this day to cry out to God for mercy and healing.

Give Me an Inch...or a Mile.

With all my thinking about self-discipline, time management, and extra hours in a day of late, it was bound to lead me to some fruitful conclusions. The other day a lovely acquaintance of mine with whom I had actually lost touch contacted me through my blog and said that she and her husband have finally agreed that it's time to start homeschooling their five children, and wanted to know if we could get together and chat.  I prayed before she came.  I wanted to have the right words to encourage her in her decision.  In that prayer it seemed that all of those meditations I've been having and writing about came together.  It came together something like this:

 With the best of intentions, I try to get what I think should be done by XX date, and suffer the consequences of trying to make the zero sum equation add up to something.  There is that temptation to do things in my own strength. I deceive myself by comparing myself to everyone else who appears to be doing better than I, and holding myself to standards that belong to others.  Then I am left to dodge the accusations that the enemy throws at me telling me that it's not enough, I'm not enough, that I will never quite measure up.  They don't have to be big lies...just the little ones that slither through my brain like the little back yard snakes my kids like to catch. 

But here's what I told my friend, and ultimately myself.  I have an overarching goal for homeschooling my children.  It is the big picture goal of how I want this to turn out.  I have no idea what tomorrow holds, but this I know--I have set my hand to the task of raising and educating my children.  Every day we move a bit further toward that goal.  One day we may move an inch in the right direction, and other days we may move a mile, and some days we may even find ourselves at a standstill.  Even so, we never, ever move backward.  Never.  When I compare myself to others who seem to be great homeschoolers, I forget that they are moving targets and are probably doing the same thing!  What chaos that creates!  Imagine a whole mass of people all attempting to get a look at each other and no one is standing still for a second!  There is only one point of comparison that I have to make--am I becoming more like Jesus?  Am I raising my children to be more like him?  He is the only fixed point on a map entirely made of desert lands, where everything is constantly shifting.  When I am focused on the task at hand, and the one who enables me to accomplish that task, then I have not failed.  If every day ordained for me was known before the foundation of the world (Psalm 139), and I didn't get something on my list done, then it wasn't in his plan, and his is the one that matters.

Thank God for the peace of knowing that each day was ordained by him with just the right number of hours, the freedom not to compare, and the joy of being enough for my children, completely equipped by the Holy Spirit to fulfill the mission of building their home and guiding their hearts.

Signs of Spring in our Backyard