Escape

Last night we "escaped" church. I sat outside in our vehicle with the kids waiting for one son to finish his duties, staring at this window and the peace it evoked and wished I could be sitting alone inside with Jesus. Despite just receiving Our Lord, I felt very disconnected and uncharitable.

It's the season of feeling stretched too thin, and the thought of small talk and niceties was just too much. I was spending more time stressing over what I might say rather then preparing my soul, and honestly it was giving me heart palpitations. I parked by the side door purposely so that we could make a quick exit.

Honestly, this overwhelmed feeling has been the prevailing theme for me not only this holiday season, but this whole year. As an introvert I struggle with the number of times I have to run kids to classes, appointments, or practices, often with no time to recover. Then my personality struggles with the desire to do-it-and-be-it-all, and the urge to give excuses or explanations when I "failed" to do something. And really, it didn't matter how much I accomplished, it never felt like enough. So I'm here to share my secret "cure" for this.

Let it go. Give it to God.

It's clichéd because it's true. And I don't know about you, but I need reminding often.

This Advent is about simplifying everything, because it's what we need right now. 

If it gives me great anxiety, I won't do it.

If my boys hadn't put up the Christmas tree and decorate it, it would not be up. (I even  discovered garland mysteriously draped across the back picket fence.)

We do not have an Advent wreath because I failed to buy candles. We are using the candles that were already on the mantel shelf.

We are not doing the Jesse tree this year.

I missed the start of the St. Andrew Novena.

Christmas cards are not ordered; I don't even have pictures taken yet.

There were no chocolate gold coins or oranges in shoes for St. Nicholas day.

And we have five days to start Jesus' birthday cake or that's not happening either.

And you know what? It's okay.

Christmas isn't all about the things -- and sometimes we lose that tiny Babe in all the things that go along with the holidays. 

First Fall Break: Pack Rats, A Basket Case, and a Two-Headed Pig

We *finally* took our first week off from school this past week. There's always a rush this time of year to prep for our annual All Saints' Day party, get in our fall field trips, and winterize things. And by week 10 of school, which we just completed, the house has taken a hit in the orderliness department and desperately requires us to regroup for sanity's sake.

Monday morning dawned gray and drizzly, which was perfect. It was such a luxury to let everyone sleep late while I cozied up with a book and my cup of coffee in the comfy chair in the school room.

I was able to get a couple small projects completed, which ended up being the extent of my Monday productivity. The boys played with, fought over, and spread Legos from one end of the house to the other until they were banished for everyone's sakes.

A new ceiling fan wasn't in the budget this year, so I gave the old one a face lift. I flipped the blades upside-down and spray painted them. I scraped the dated flowers off the shade with a paring knife and a green scratch pad~something I would never like to do again! 

I've been working on the back room updates bit by bit. This is the door into the kitchen. Green and orange were the prevailing color schemes throughout the whole house.

My expectations always exceed reality, but looking back I accomplished most of what I had hoped to. I tackled some problems areas in the house that get neglected when we're busy. The ancient carpet upstairs has been a concern for a long time, and one of the boys developed a dry cough since moving here.

Years and years (at least 50 since this sculptured wool avocado carpet was all the rage in the 1960's) was hauled out of this old house this week. I vacuumed years of dust and things out of the cracks in the floorboards and felt peace of mind knowing I could scrub and disinfect the wood. I was hoping to find some exciting artifacts long buried. The most interesting was a 1940 wheat penny, and I can't really say where it came from. It just materialized on the floor in my absence. I found several sewing pins and a hair pin.

And then I started on the hallway...

While everything was pulled out of the bedroom I decided to rearrange them AGAIN. I don't know why I ever decided on child-specific decor. Ah well! We have discovered as boys age different personalities work better together than others. It keeps changing.

This smaller room has been Aidan's plus another boy (each has taken turns), but always Aidan's since we moved here. The bed has a trundle bed underneath that ended up staying pulled out because of how tight a space it was crammed into. So we ended up with over half the room covered in beds, underneath of which were unreachable. We decided that Gavin needed his own space for a while, so the trundle bed was switched to the big room to accommodate three boys.

There's still some rearranging to do and stuff to sort, but this project is a huge weight off me at the moment.

And this is the mess that was left in the wake of the bed moving. All this stuff fell or was stuffed under the beds. Pack rats. I live in a nest of pack rats.

And while this post is much longer than I had planned, I wanted to share shots from the highlight of our week, a field trip we took with my mom. One thing that always amazes me is the amount of craftsmanship that was put into things "back then;" the beauty and attention to detail is breathtaking.

The day ended with our annual visit to my old "home" library, where we again came home with a whole box of discarded treasures.

To think this was the height of fashion when our house was built! 

Seed Savers, Creatures, & Garden Sweepers

With the first frost, foliage darkened and wilted, comes the need to "sweep the garden" for winter. We use mornings for studies and reserve a couple warm afternoons to pull vines, roll up fences, and collect what seeds we hope to replant next spring.

All the kids are required to help with this ritual. Some are more enthusiastic than others in the process, but naturally the discovery of a new creature that once called the tangled overgrowth home, piques their curiosity. They keep on for the possibility of uncovering yet stranger creatures.

Refuse is barrowed over to the compost pile (littles enjoy rides back and forth!) and seeds are spread out on sheets to dry. Our compost bin has sadly gone quite neglected the past couple months and took on the stench of a hog pen from too many greens that were added. Incorporating a good amount of browns -- dried leaves, newspaper, and sawdust -- twisted into the mess with a garden fork, will help balance the mix.

This fall the most exciting of the creatures, holed up under a pile of twisted tomato vines, was a family of prairie voles. They are recognizable by their docked tails and almost invisible ears, buried in velvety fur. Three babies scurried out and made a run for safety before the mama emerged. The boys were able to corral a couple of the babies to examine them, but I warned them not to stop the mama. I try not to instill unnecessary fear in their hearts about creatures -- if this is even possible with my children, they don't seem to harbor a whole lot of fear about anything -- but one of the baby voles was feisty and nipped a boy's finger. While it didn't break the skin, I thought a disturbed mama might.

New plants were also set out for next year. I planted the garlic from bulbs we harvested earlier this year and set out peony roots (thank you, Mrs. Vsetecka!).

For next year we saved pole beans, marigolds, gladiolus bulbs, and hyacinth beans. And, of course, pumpkin seeds were roasted for a tasty snack!