Tag: patience

Posted in Believe it or not!, Blessings of Habit, Good ol' days, Home School, Inspiring, Recipes, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom, Womanhood

Postaday Challenge – January Favorites – 2

Posted on by Katharine
Snowflake
Snowflake

I look out my window and see dead trees, grass that’s brown and crunchy like Wheaties, cat dish always needing water . . . with all the heat we’ve had, isn’t it hilarious to read these old posts! Enjoy!

DAY OFF #2

Repairmen of streets, wires, and buildings will get our roads safe and everyone back in their places eventually.

In the meantime, we play in the snow.

The day begins with Dad shoveling snow and bleary-eyed offspring wandering into the kitchen to ask, “What is that noise?” We so seldom have the pleasure.

Now our snowman stands watch. Our cars are decorated with snow objects. Lots of hot cocoa has slipped away. I enjoyed the crazy antics of our two home-bound adult kids, playing in the snow as if they were grade-schoolers. How thankful I am for the snow! Realizing they can still find joy in each other’s company is bliss to this mom.

ALSO (here comes the fun part) THEY CAN PUT ON AND REMOVE THEIR OWN WRAPS!

THEY CAN HEAT THEIR OWN WATER AND STIR UP THEIR OWN HOT COCOA!

THEY CAN HANG ALL THEIR WET THINGS TO DRY!

THEY REMEMBER TO SHUT THE DOOR!

THEY THINK ABOUT NOT TRACKING THE HOUSE WITH SNOW AND MUD!

I get all the same fun as when they were younger, with none of the work.

Another amazing thing: No one grumbles today that the Internet is “down-ish”. We all have decided to do traditional snow-day fun and forget about the rest of the world. I love it. Board games, non-electric musical instruments, laundry hanging on wooden racks by the wood stove, homemade food, and wild birds have risen to the top of our most-selected interests list and everyone is content.

And I wonder: How is it in other homes? I hope you and yours enjoy a great day, today. I pray God grant you peace and contentment.

And snow.

Posted in Believe it or not!, Blessings of Habit, Inspiring, Scripture, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Supernormal Children

Posted on by Katharine

Children playingMy husband and I have been keeping a couple of sweet kids for a week, while their parents take an anniversary trip.  It has been a most enjoyable and profitable experience.

These children’s parents have made them behave since they were first born. It was not easy, either. The children have normal stubbornness and selfishness enough to test any mom or dad. But Mom and Dad have constantly and consistently met that test with something immoveable: the Word of God.

Therefore, the children know right from wrong. They also practice a strong grasp of mercy and overcoming, so that although the big brother may be right, he also may give in because he loves little sister, and she is much more apt to quietly point out his mistake to him, than to tattle. What an eye opener this has been!

The biggest lesson I have learned is in the area of sowing and reaping. It is the diligence and faithfulness of the parents that has formed these normal kids into such uncommon sweeties. No guessing was good enough for them; they went with the best child-rearing Manual and so far have done their best to understand and follow it. Though at times their decisions have been unpopular with friends or family, they have not backed down.

And we are enjoying a bit of their peaceful harvest.

Posted in Believe it or not!, Health, Inspiring, Rain, Wisdom

TOO MUCH RAIN!

Posted on by Katharine

No.

We have not received too much rain.

But once, we did. And this is the story of how it went.

It had rained and rained and rained. People were griping about too much rain. People were whining and wailing about too much rain.

And then it happened.

A guy was working on his car with it propped up only on the cheap jack that comes with the car. Dangerous. As was his custom. To top that off, he did not have the chocks by the wheels as he should have.

You guessed it. The car slipped and came crashing down directly on this man’s forehead.

And did not kill him.

No, because we’d had too much rain, the frame of the car merely pushed his head down into the sodden earth and gave him a grisly gash on his brow. His wife was able to visit him in the hospital, where they kept him for observation, instead of at the funeral home for visitation.

And SHE thought we’d had just the right amount of rain.

Don’t we always?

Posted in Blessings of Habit, Inspiring, Wisdom

The Doldrums

Posted on by Katharine

What Do We Do?

We’re sailing along just fine when we come to the place of great heat and no breeze.

We row and row and it’s just killing us and we cannot find any solution to that sluggish funk. Our get up and go has got up and gone.

Well, we have choices.

We can just wait. Eventually, within the Doldrums, a breeze will come, will shift, will carry us out. It can take a long time, though, and we can lose much productivity that way, can die of thirst and starvation.

We can pray. When God sends a breeze, it is His Holy Spirit. He understands. He fills us but we leak. His supply is never-ending. No prob.

We can find like-minded people who don’t mind standing next to us and shedding some of their sparkle on us. That is the hard one. People don’t stand beside people, anymore. They sit before computers. Computers don’t hug. Don’t sparkle. Don’t pray. So, the computer dependent people don’t either.

I know, I know, Paul sent out handkerchiefs, so you could send me an email.

But I need a handkerchief. I need to hold in my hand something you have held in your hand. I need to feel the warmth of your skin as you embrace me. I need to feel your breath blowing through my hair as you hold me and pray for me. I need you, physically present, if only in a physical letter.

Don’t bludgeon me with bits and bites.

Bless me.

Or we can do all three. We can wait upon the Lord and renew our strength. We can pray for new inspiration. We can call upon our friends, our fellow travelers, to stand by us.

Isn’t that how it is? Isn’t that how it was meant to be?

Posted in Home School, Inspiring, Sayings, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Babies!

Posted on by Katharine

I love babies. Their clean, new innocence makes me want to hold them, smell them, touch them.

I know I am not the only one. Every day, someone wants to chuck a baby’s chin, stroke a baby’s arm, or hold someone else’s baby. In the store, at church, even total strangers smile and want to see the baby or hold their children up so they can see him. Even stodgy, yuppie types give half a smile and nod to the babe-in-arms.

What makes most people give goofy faces and noises to extract a smile back from a baby?

Why—when newborns look basically like little old men—do we croon about how beautiful they are?

And when they get fat and develop a glistening dribble of spit on the lip, why do we exclaim how adorable they are?

I think it’s because we naturally protect. Our nature causes most of us to envelope the innocent and helpless. Some think of the potential lying in that baby carrier and all the life ahead of it. We imagine how confused we must have felt when we were that size. We think of this small bundle as incapable of wrongdoing, worthy of protection and advancement.

Our thoughts mirror those Socrates called for in his dying words, that our children justly deserve our input during their journey to be our rulers.

We naturally call up thoughts like Plato expressed in his Republic, that the beginning is the most important part of any work, for that is when the character is formed.

We echo Aristotle’s Rhetoric where he says pity may well up in those who think we may eventually find some sort of good inside a person.

Even in Homer’s Iliad, we find:

He stretched his arms towards his child, but the boy cried and nestled in his nurse’s bosom, scared at the sight of his father’s armor, and the horsehair plume that nodded fiercely from his helmet. His father and mother laughed to see him, but Hector took the helmet from his head and laid it all gleaming upon the ground. Then he took his darling child, kissed him, and dandled him in his arms…

Greek soldier with red plumed helmet.The thought of a ferocious warrior, removing his armor for a baby, rings true in our hearts. We may not realize we have such bold and universally defended thoughts. However, although written a bazillion years ago, this tender scene resonates with most of us, much as meeting a stranger’s helpless baby in an elevator does.

The fact is that every human with a truthful heart cares about a baby.

We can even say that about dogs: often they sense, they know.

The protection due a baby can alter what we would expect their reactions to be, can surprise us, as does the reaction of a seeming iron-clad soul in a chance meeting with a baby.

All of the above is one good reason not to abort.

And a good reason to homeschool.

Posted in Believe it or not!, Herbs, Homemaking, Who's the mom here?

Eye Came, Eye Saw, Eye Conquered

Posted on by Katharine

I went to the eye doctor a week ago. I’ve had some sort of problem for months and am finding little satisfaction in the medical profession. Also am spending all I have on doctors, and we do have insurance.

At first, I had all the symptoms of glaucoma, except blindness, and all the exacerbating preconditions except heredity. I went to an eye doctor and behold, my eye pressure was okay, but I just needed bifocals. I put on the glasses and three weeks of headaches were gone in three hours.

Then vision changed again, with the things I looked at moving while I looked at them. The venetian blinds were bent, the words I typed were missing letters, my eyes did not focus at the same depth. Weird.

I decided I needed a different doctor, since I now thought I had macular degeneration and the previous doctor had not even tried checking me for that although I am 60 and complained of vision loss and slow and unequal focusing.

We investigated and found—at least a 6-week waiting period for an appointment. But, wonder of wonders, I contracted some kind of infection with red, swollen eyes weeping all day, and itchy. My G.P. was booked, everyone in town having flu, pneumonia, etc. Could I try my optometrist? Grrrr.

Of course, he was available. I had a staph infection of a non-fatal type, and should pitch all my eye makeup, wash my eyes with special towelettes, soak my toothbrush in peroxide, not let anyone drink after me, and use special prescription drops with antibiotics. And steroids. Grrrr.

I did everything he said, religiously, and although the symptoms faded, I felt they never were fully gone. My eyes still itched. Sometimes they were still matted in the morning. Everyone encouraged me to ignore this, because I was so improved.

But the dimness of vision, the eyes playing tricks on me, continued. I was seriously considering visiting the booked-up ophthalmic surgeon, when, wonder of wonders, the infection came back. I knew it: It never did go away.

Only this time, I had a blister on my eyelid. This was getting out of hand. Of course, this was Friday night. No eye doctors available for DAYS. I felt it time to take matters into my own hands.

First, I drained the blister. I could see better immediately after that. Then, I used a Q-Tip soaked in colloidal silver to treat the perimeter of the eye. This gave such instant relief from itching that, coupled with hot compresses, I saw and felt great improvement.

This was my vision, though, that I was nonchalantly treating without any expertise, so I tried for and got a quick appointment: Tuesday, not the six weeks I’d heard about. Hmm.

Oh, I wish I could tell you the good doctor praised me for anything I did. Nope. He also disparaged the first doctor, saying the diagnosis and the medicine were wrong. Okay, so my doctor and I were totally ignorant, but get this: This new doctor then told me that HE DID NOT KNOW what was causing my itching eyes and to USE HOT COMPRESSES. What!

Now I have another appointment, a referral to a big time specialist who can do an ultrasound on my eyes, because it is obvious the vision is not good.

Can you guess what I expect to experience then? I’ll keep you posted . . .

Posted in Blessings of Habit, Home School, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Wisdom

Weekly Photo Challenge: Wildlife

Posted on by Katharine

Not much to say, today, but wanted to show off one of my favorite photos. Surrounded by the safety in many uncles (the blue stripes and the adult finger belong to two of them) a young boy learns about which wildlife is to be trusted, a family tradition meant to instill wisdom and fearlessness:

boy and bug
Boy and Bug

Tomorrow I’ll show you why this post was late.

See ya’.