What I'm LOVING this day

Loving that its a pancake morning. LOVING Bible Study Fellowship and the redemptive story of Joseph.  See Genesis 39-45

LOVING sunshine. 70 degrees. Being outside. Picnic at the park two days in a row. Riding the bike with Tirzah in the Ergo and all the funny crazy looks we get. LOVING What a daredevil she is. Watching her with her new love: sidewalk chalk.

LOVING today and the next two. . .

LOVING girls date morning: treats and play room at the Local Co Op. When grocery stores/ restaurants have play rooms. Amazing! LOVING gingerbread men even though its April. Coffee for Mama and a big chocolate chip and peanut butter cookie. Crumbs on her little face. Walking through the store with a toddler-made-chocolate smear on my cheek (didn't know til I got in the car). Dropping off a treat for Daddy too just because we were thinking of him. Celebrating life just because. Celebrating life because one year ago today we sad goodbye to Daddy for 9 long months.

This was the night before he left last year. . . swollen and puffy eyes.

And this was a year ago, just hours after we had said goodbye.  Trying my darndest to keep smiling and keep from thinking about his leaving.  PRAISE Jesus that is over!!!

LOVING driving with the windows down and car dancing with my daughter. Have I ever told you I LOVE the banjo??

LOVING big boxes from the Co Op to use in our move. Ladies who see my need and help me in the grocery store checkout line. The excitement of our move. The first sprouts came through yesterday! Spring mesclun mix (thanks Kathleen!!)! LOVING 4 chicks to call our own (our new landlady gave us her 4 pullets!) The generosity of our new landlords.

LOVING lunch out on the front porch: vegetable soup in the sunshine.


What are you LOVING today?

Well, I am going to do What I'm LOVING early this week. . . for tomorrow I will be gone all the day long. . . taking Tirzah out to be with her grandparents in Colorado!

Block Leave, about 3 and a half weeks without work, begins officially on Friday!  We are so thankful and so excited for this time together.  We haven't planned a huge trip, but rather we decided to have some time together here at home, a "stay-cation" if you will.  So, I fly Tirzah out to her grandparents house early early tomorrow morning, and then fly back super late in the evening.  For 9 days she will be with them and I can't even say all the fun things they have planned for her!  She is so excited. . . we have been counting down since about day 16, so she is ready (I think Grandma and Grandpa are even more excited!).  For Daniel and I?  Enjoying one another and the slow days together.  We hope to get a few day trips in, since we really haven't explored too too much of Washington.  But nothing is on the calendar yet.  Definitely some trips out to eat: breakfast, coffee, and dinner.  Most assuredly mornings sleeping in and evenings spent staying up way to late.  And of course, food will be our theme!  (always is!)  Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for giving us this time!


So. . .

LOVING the thought of Block Leave!

LOVING the unity that Daniel and I have been having; especially after a long hard week last week of missing one another.

LOVING these chocolate chip cookies. . . we made this morn for someone special whom we will see tomorrow. . .

and loving it all over her smile

LOVING celebrating with Anna and James!  He arrived home today from his 9 month deployment!  Praise the Lord for all that he has done in their lives.  How we give thanks for their presence in our lives and how we have the opportunity to walk side by side in this military season of life.

Anna is on the right.  I LOVE this picture, it makes me cry every time I look at it.  What emotions !!

He's HOME!!

LOVING hearing the sound of laughter, trailing down the stairs.  Tirzah and her Daddy doing what they do best: wrestling!

LOVING funny remembrances of yesterday:

* I was cooking that Roasted Sweet potato with couscous recipe, and as I stood by the stove, stirring the couscous, Tirzah came and stood by me looking in the oven saying "fire.  I see fire."  But I couldn't quite understand what she was saying, and there wasn't anything in the oven.  But then I looked: and there indeed was a fire!  Ooopsies!  But all is well. . . just a little startling to have your toddler tell you of these things.

*One other: thank you so much for your prayers for Tirzah and her bowel movements.  We are doing SO much better in that area.  So much so, (and this will most definitely be too much information but I have to write it because it is the opposite of what we were bearing 2 weeks ago), she was not wearing a diaper and we heard a catastrophe upstairs. . . yes. . . a bowel movement on the floor and all over the socks of Daniel that she was wearing. . . yikes!  But so funny in light that 2 weeks ago we couldn't get her to go, but now, we can't get her to stop! (So sorry to have written this! )

LOVING, absolutely LOVING, that just now as we put Tirzah to bed, Tirzah let her Daddy hold her while we sang and prayed over her.  The first night in 2 months!  Well actually, in 11 months!  Since he left on deployment, Daniel has not held her for her bedtime routine and tonight was a breakthrough.  He simply asked her with the tenderest of hearts, and she said yes.

Control: on Tilling Tuesdays

I would have never called myself a controlling type of person: fo the most part I think of myself as quite laid-back- perhaps not in the kitchen or over meal planning- but in all other areas I had considered myself relaxed.  Funny though; I find myself in this season and it seems the Lord is taking away things I like, no love, no HAVE to control and it has been quite a hard thing for me to relinquish this control.

Let's begin with myself.  My headaches.  They are back.  I thought I had found the culprit with our hand-crank grain mill and the noise- that grating roughened noise.  And yes, understanding that cause has helped but they are back again these past few weeks and how discouraged I am because of them.  we bought a netty-pot for me the other day and yes that has helped too, but last night after a perfect day, I felt on start to creep in and I was plain and simple: frustrated.  I think the part that is hardest for me is not knowing- not having a NAME for these headaches.  We have tried many different cures: gluten-free, no grinding, earphones while grinding, face-mask while grinding, new electric grain-mill (we traded ours to Marlene and Greg!!), netty-pot, etc.  And just when I think we've found the cure, there it is again.  So hard for me!  I try to control it, I WANT to control it by knowing (my current thought now is they are a combo of seasonal allergies, since they began last year at this exact time, as well as tension headaches due to a tight neck).  And so it was, last night, after the perfect day, just one small headache brought my world crashing down and I was so stubborn and so low.  My sweet husband, he has all the patience in the world for this woman, and soon I was sitting on the counter top, next to him while he blended his morning smoothie, able to see past the headache, to see past the moment.  I realized I wasn't carrying the weight of the world and that this little trial (though so small at moments so heavy in its weight upon me), this will pass.  I realized, if I could just keep the inheritance that is mine, at the forefront of my mind, headaches would seem but a whisper in the wind.  If I could but just  come to a place to say, with an open-hand: If I get a headache, it's ok.  I will still give thanks.  If I could but just come to a place, the hardest place, and still lean in and see and say THANK YOU.  For our inheritance?  Great endurance!  Great Patience!  Joyful Thanks! (Col 1:11-12)

Continuing on to Tirzah.  Becoming a Mama is what really has shown me my need and desire for control.  You all are well-acquainted with my battle with her sleep.  well it seems, once again the Lord is using her sleep (or lack of it!) to teach me and how much longer until I learn completely?  The little lady has been waking earlier and earlier: 6:15 and then 5:50 and then 5:40 and now today? 5:24.  Whew!  But, is it so I am indeed slowly learning?! My feathers were surely not as ruffled yesterday morn as they so often have before.  yes, there was a battle in prayer to joyfully welcome this little lady in my arms, but shortly after, over the messiest morning counter ever, we sang of the Lord's victory.  Just a sweet little song, one we made up as we went along: singing of the victory of a joyful, love-filled early early morn.  for the past 2 years I have tried and tried again to maintain control in this area-perhaps I almost fully understand that I do not, and can not control it, and that's ok.  And it doesn't mean that I am a bad Mama if her sleeping patterns are irregular.  All that matters is: am I strengthened in His might to have Great Endurance!  Great Patience! and am I giving Joyful Thanks that Heaven's grace may be seen and known and touched and felt by Little One?


And then.  I am so sorry if this is too much information, especially for my non-Mama readers.  But just one more area where the Lord is taking away the control I thought I had. . . Tirzah and her bowel movements.  I know.  Potty training was going so well and then who knows?  We traveled, we were in a different home, we were eating different food?  The Little Lady had such a hard time one time and that is what did us in.  She is so scared of going to the bathroom (not even on the toilet!) and now she holds it for days. . . and days. . . and days. . . which makes it all the more worse!  It has been a trial for me too, though we know it is for her, poor girl!  But how discouraged I get when I KNOW she has to go, when I KNOW it is the best thing for her- and then she won't do it.  And so then that is what makes me want to control it: how desperately I wish I could control it (I have a feeling that this battle will resurface again when she is a teenager and then it will not be over going to the bathroom!  Perhaps it is good I am learning to come with an open hand and a praying mind towards Mommyhood?!).  As of now, we are adding Miralax 2x a day and trying to avoid "binding foods".  Our hope is perhaps this will help her little body recover and bring her to an understanding that going to the bathroom is good. . . and it does not hurt. Even so, the Lord is bringing me to a place to say: even if she does not go today, and even if she holds it for days on end, and even if she has to wiggle and twist this way and that because of discomfort, I will still say God is good and sovereign and we will give great thanks for Tirzah's life and her overall health and growth.


A season of losing control. . . in a good way.  Losing control over all things domestic and daily; the hardest things of which to let go.  But may it be so in the burying of control, there grows an "herb of grace" and a flower of sweet release with blossoms of joy.