It's that strange time of the year when the seasons are mingling, and I'm just never really sure what to do. There are gourds and a pumpkin from the garden sitting next to impatiens on the porch. The nurseries are selling mums but the summer flowers are still mostly vibrant and clinging on to life. The chilly morning air requires a sweater which is then quickly stripped off only an hour or two later. Time is tugged back and forth between garden preservation and getting on with the new endeavors of autumn.
With two weeks of homeschooling tucked under the belt, we are getting ready to dive into the full swing of fall schedules. Music lessons, co-op classes, art class, community group, and the other activities that fill up our moments. And my yearning for some fiber work has been creeping back in over the last several weeks as the mornings and evenings have grown cooler and the days just a tad bit shorter. I am finding myself scrambling to finish up the few projects I left languishing over the summer so that I can break through into fall with a fresh project. Socks? A sweater? A poncho? All things that have flickered through my mind.
And a tizzy of preserving and canning has had me falling into bed exhausted every night lately. It's a good kind of exhaustion, stemming from long, productive days of work. And that freezer and can cellar is filling up with all manner of homegrown and homemade goodness. And if I shall be frank, this girl here is quite possibly looking forward to the fall and the change it brings. A bit of a break from the endless harvesting and a time to just draw in a bit more and concentrate on some cozier activities.
The garden basket has been full and overflowing the last few weeks. It's been wonderful, and when I have felt myself feeling slightly overwhelmed at the massive amount of veggies and work, I remind myself of the blessing it is to have an abundant garden.
The can cellar shelves are starting to fill up and the freezer is full of berries, and there are still more to be picked and preserved. Simple but busy work to keep the hands busy and the heart full.
I couldn't imagine life without a few certain things, one of those being a garden.
This is how I love to spend my mornings. After Brad leaves for work, I brew myself a cup of coffee, slip on my rubber boots and a sweater and head out to the garden. I tend to my plants, watering, weeding, loving on them. Each day, I observe their growth, appreciating each plant that will be feeding our little family very soon.
The green of the leaves, the tendrils wrapping around the trellises, the smell of the basil and tomato plants, the way the dirt splashes on the sides of the beds when I water. All of these things are noticed and swallowed deep. They feed my soul. They fill my God-given need for nature and beauty.
A seed is planted and cared for, and then it bursts open beneath the ground. It bursts from within the boundaries of its dead, hardened shell, and new life pushes its way up from beneath the dirt and soil. What once was dead is now alive.
So it has been with my life. This is how I have been changed. It is a process. I have died to my own selfish pursuits so that I can grow through Christ. First I must die so that I can grow and florish. Such an upside-down way of thinking.
But won't I be miserable if I deny myself? Oh, but this is where it really becomes topsy-turvy. My heart is filled anew with lasting joy, with contentment, with a treasure of the knowledge of all of the good things I have received. My eyes are suddenly wide open and capable of seeing things which had not previously been seen.
And the heart knows that this is best. It is full. It has been filled with the treasure of God, the gift of His Son. And this is best.
In all honesty, I'm a true procrastinator at heart. I work much better, much more efficiently when I have a clear and looming deadline. I'm the type of person that finds setting a timer for thirty minutes helps me to stay more focused on tasks and chores because I push myself to work hard to get as much done as I can in that short period of time. It's the way God wired me, I suppose. Sometimes it drives Brad a little crazy, but I always get things done and get them done well. And the looming deadline invigorates me a bit and pushes me to do my best.
However, this procrastination also carries over into the kitchen and meal-making. I would get an "F" in meal-planning if I was graded. Oh gosh. And this is the one area where I find my procrastinating spirit to lead to a bit of stress. All I can say is thank goodness for the auto defrost option on my microwave!
So one of my goals this coming fall (and coming school year) is to start meal-planning again. I have always enjoyed the mental freedom that has come from having a plan when it comes to meals. I suppose I just haven't disciplined myself enough to actually make it a habit. However, it's such a WONDERFUL feeling at 4:00 p.m. on a weekday to know that dinner is already planned and probably already started or even in the crock pot almost ready to be eaten.
My kids, at ages 13 and 10, love to cook and bake. It's something that they've always seen me do, and I've let them have reigns in the kitchen since an early age. In my mind, it's one of the most important life skills I can pass on to my kids ~ the skill of feeding oneself. And not only feeding oneself, but feeding oneself good, wholesome, home-cooked meals.
My problem as a kitchen procrastinator, though, is that when I've waited until the last possible minute to start a dinner that I'm not even sure what it's going to be, I don't have the patience for the kids in the kitchen with me. I want to get in there, have all the room to move around, and crank out whatever I'm making. And sometimes I don't even know what I'm making until it hits the kitchen table and is done.
But, I'm totally robbing my kids and myself of some special, very productive time together as well as some really awesome learning experiences approaching meal-time this way. And it's all because I'm too lazy to do a little planning ahead of time.
This past Saturday, Ian and I went to the garden together and picked a bunch of veggies to use to make dinner. The kids and I then husked the corn together and spent an hour chopping, mixing, sauteing, and prepping our dinner. When we pulled the stuffed green peppers out of the oven two hours later, there was a great satisfaction felt around the table that night. We had worked together from start to finish. And on top of that, most of the food was from our garden.
I was reflecting on this later that evening. We had so much fun together. The kids kept saying how much they loved cooking with me and how they want to do it more often. And, I really do swear, that food tasted so much better knowing that we made it together.
So this is one of my goals this new school year. I'm going to work on disciplining myself to meal-plan again, and I'm going to work more group cooking sessions into our schedule. Not only does this enable some really great quality time with my kids, but it's also equipping them for their future when they leave home.
So you've all heard about the snowball effect, right? Well, have you ever noticed that that's what often happens in the world of home improvements?
Ian and I decided that we were going to paint the inside of the front door yesterday morning. We visited our "paint store" in the basement (in an effort to not spend money and use what we already had) and found a gray color that I liked.
We painted the door. We stepped back. We gagged.
Oh my goodness did it clash with all of the honey oak trim that is ALL through our house.
It looked horrible.
We found a can of white trim paint in the basement. He started sanding. I started painting. Twelve hours and four coats of paint later, two walls of beadboard wainscoting were white.
But I still have a hallway, a third living room wall, and a dining room worth of beadboard trim to paint. And now the walls need done. Which, in all honesty, haven't been painted for eight years and are in desperate need of some new paint anyway. It's been on the to-do list.
Then Brad comes home from work, and he decides that our ceilings need painted before the walls (which they do, but I'm typically not one to examine ceilings so it wasn't something that was extremely important to me.) Also, those honey oak colored beams? Yeah, we should probably give them a coat (or five coats) of paint too.
And that, my friends, is how a front door paint-job snowballed into a whole-house job.
So for my own sanity, I am already psyching myself up to view this as a summer-long project. I'm doing this by myself as much as possible (Brad's so busy and the last thing he needs is another project), so it's definitely not going to be a quick job! And that beadboard? Gosh is that time-consuming to paint. I think I'm going to go for a mix of white trim and the oak. It can be done quite tastefully, and I honestly can't even imagine the time it would take to paint all of the oak trim in our house. Besides, in the next few years, we're planning on ripping down the old trim and replacing it with a more substantial trim, so this is a bit of a temporary update.
Also, the garden beds and the big garden are planted. I might throw in a few more seeds, but everything is pretty much set. I planted impatiens in our landscaping, and I'm patiently waiting to see what perennials decide to spring forth from the soil for the summer season.
The peonies are blooming like crazy. This is the first year that I've gotten a good crop of peonies. I think that this is the third year since I planted them. Anyway, I've got jars of peonies set out around the house. They are my most favorite flower. And I even spun up some pink yarn to match!
Ian made me a coffee table. It was my mother's day gift, but I just realized that I never posted a picture of it. He did it all by himself, and I love its simplicity. It's actually exactly what I wanted. He's getting really good at building things from wood. I started a board on Pinterest for him to mark projects that he could maybe tackle over the summer.
I pray that you have a most blessed day.
I'm off to spend the day painting again!
