I was browsing through an old journal today and I found this. I wrote this back in 2007.
__________________________________________________________________________
Mark 16: 2-4
Very early on the first day of the week. they cam to the tomb when the sun had risen. They were saying to one another. “who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” Looking up they saw that the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large.
Message I got from this.
Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome had a task that they wanted to do. They didn’t know how to do it. They were questioning how they were going to accomplish thier mission for the morning. Yet they went to the tomb anyway. They didn’t give up and stop. Knowing they couldn’t do it themselves, they just kept going. Despair over the impossibility of moving that stone was not there. Or maybe it was….. but it certainly didn’t stop them. They just knew where they were going and what they wanted to do and so they went.
I need to remember this example the next time I am despairing over the impossibility of preparing my children for life. I often doubt my ability and question how things are going to get done. Yet I know where I am going and I will just keep on heading in the direction I am led. I have friends for support. I can lean on them, dicuss the impossibilities we are faced with, and just do the next thing. Trusting that when we arrive at the end of this road called home education, the stone (highschool and life prep) will be rolled away by someone or something WAY bigger that me.
My husband and sons are building a carport. There are some unusual results from this simple act that really show how hard times are economically in our area.
Today two men stopped by just because they saw that we were building on. They offered to finish the outside for us or do the drywall on the inside. My husband said no thanks, he does the work himself. He wished them luck finding work. They politely thanked him for his time.
The unusual thing is… that is the third time someone has stopped by. Yesterday it was an offer to sell us a garage door. Last week a young man who had a business card offering drywall services.
Basically they are looking for work and took the initiative to stop by just in case there was an opportunity here. I admire that. They were looking for work, a good thing.
I wish we could afford to hire them.
The oldest graduated basic training. We attended graduation spent 2 short days with him and left him at airborne training. It was WAY harder to leave him this time than even when he went to basic.
Here he is saying goodbye to his littlest brother. In a brotherly sort of way :0) My poor 6 yo sobbed! He just couldn’t understand why his brother couldn’t come home.
Brotherly Love
Love Ya Little Bro
My garden is just about done for the year. The weather has turned colder and all that is left is a few Roma tomatoes that are half orange and I am hopeful but doubtful they will turn red.
I’ve been canning carrots and canning beets this past week. I froze the last of the peppers today and made a batch of orange rhubarb jam. Just for fun. It turned out really good!
It is always fun to see the variety of vegetables that emerge from this rocky ground here in the high dessert. Here are my samples for this year.
Poor confused carrots did not know which way to go in our clay soil.
Mutant beet
This came up with the beets. Uhm is it a turnip??
riding bikes up the drive
Our humble home
Flying
wheelies
Flowers for you hair momma
Bucket Diving
My oldest entered the military this morning. He left for Ft Benning GA. Change. Life goes on… doesn’t it?
I was a little emotional this morning. Not too bad I kept busy making breakfast and all. The big test was when my 6yo son asked me
“how many days will (the 18yo) be gone?’ I had to explain that he will only be
back for visits and that he will be living somewhere else. That nearly did
me in. LOL But I did not cry until just before he left. And again when he
drove out.
After he was gone I just seemed to calm down and was fine. Sure I am
worried about him and all but I really do have peace that he will be fine
and will make us proud. OK I better quit now before I start crying again!!
Good thing I took a picture of our little outside fish tank. It was broken today. No one got cut, but the tank is in the trash. We had that tank for at least 4 years. Look out goodwill here I come. It is fish tank season!
——————————————————-
Did you know that the definition of a ’small business’ is one that grosses less that 10 million? I also saw the figure less than 25 million.
I guess that makes my husband and myself a microscopic business! LOL
We make enough to take care of ourselves thank-you-very-much!! Now if we could just keep some of it. Taxes, sheesh.
What do you get when you combine
- boys
- critters
- fish tank, or a large jar
- or a horse tank?
Summer time fun.
An old fish tank just may be the best Salvation army buy you might ever make. Get one with a screened lid. Kids will be entertained for hours. They can watch all kinds of critters. Frogs, lizards, grasshoppers, tadpoles, baby chicks, baby bunnies. The list could go on.
The last 2 summers my boys went down to the pond and ‘caught’ tadpoles brought them up and put them in the tank to watch them grow and develop. Lots of fun! I wish I could find a picture.
Here are brief descriptions of the pictures below.
- When the frogs got big enough we transferred them to what we call the horse trough. This horse trough gets lots of use. It has also housed lizards (obviously when it was dry) gold fish, and sunnies caught from the pond. Actually makes a decent swimming pool too.
- The spider actually was in a jar and not the fish tank. It was so big my youngest was imitating it’s teeth!
- Here is a HUGE bull frog the boys brought home. It was in our indoor tank. It is VERY unusual for this one to hold wild critters. It just happened to be empty when this big bull frog made it to our house. The gold fish had just been moved outside to the horse trough. The boys figured they’d like a change of scenery.
- The boys have a smaller fish tank that stays outside and this is where the wild things go.
- This outside tank is well used. It has also housed crawdads. The boys and their dad are ‘crawdadin’
- It also makes for great GI-Joe sea adventures and underwater explorations!
-
- horse tank
-
- frog in a fish tank
-
- GI-Joe-ocean-adventures
Got some more vegetables planted in my garden.
- 8 roma tomatoes, 1 cherry tomato and 1 pear tomato.
- 2 pickling cucumbers, 1 slicing cucumber and 1 other cucumber don’t remember what it is called… some exotic looking thing that my friend got by accident and was going to toss so I took it. maybe it’ll turn out to be something cool.
- 4 green bell peppers, 4 anaheim, 2 spicey peppers ( can’t remember the name of that one either.
- 2 cantaloupe
- 1 watermelon
Spinach is almost ready to pick, only two lettuce plants came up so I reseeded, they are just sprouting.
I forgot to snap a picure of the carrots . I think that is 3 things I’ve forgotten for this post. :0)
I have what I believe is a pumpkin volunteering… should I let it live? It is in the middle of our corn rows. Lets have a vote! Leave a comment and let me know.
-
- baby pumpkin plant
-
- baby beets
-
- baby corn
-
- 2 cateloup 1 watermelon
-
- cucumbers
-
- lettuce spinach
-
- peppers
-
- tomatoes
