I think perhaps I will write again. I think perhaps I have words again. I think perhaps I have missed the weight of my camera in my hand. Perhaps it is a lie that a “smartphone” can meet all our needs in one neat little device. Perhaps there is a need for more than one lens. Perhaps there is a need for time, a need to find time, a need to slow down the moments and run our fingers through them as they flow by. Perhaps there is a need … Continue Reading…
I came across this quote on Pinterest the other day and just loved it… I’m still struggling a little with keeping my camera in hand this year. But I find that my eye is still…trained?…prepped?…to see things that I would have missed before. I find that this farm life has shown me to appreciate things I wouldn’t have thought to like before. To see with new eyes. To be inspired by things I would have completely passed by. Like buzzards… I always associated them with death before, and that is … Continue Reading…
This past long weekend, we had some good times as a family. Unfortunately, not everything about last weekend was rainbows and ribbons. Farm life rarely is. {Note: The pictures below may be disturbing to people unfamiliar with the birth processes of animals, although I’ve tried to judiciously crop out some of the more…unsettling…aspects.} It started out like good news. We were shoving everyone into their coats and hats and heading out to pick up a load of hay on Sunday when Mr. Fix-It looked out the back door and saw one … Continue Reading…
All this chatter about Brittany Maynard makes me sad. Not just for her–although I have found myself praying for her so often since hearing her story–but for everyone in the conversation. So many hurting hearts. So many dealing with tough, tough choices. But what makes me so sad about this talk of “death with dignity” is that it assumes that cancer is taking your choices away and there is a way to wrestle control back from it and be in charge of “the end” yourself. I can see where you … Continue Reading…
Welcome to Wednesday Windings! I hope you like crafting, scrapbooking, card making, painting, building, writing, or creating–that’s what Wednesdays are all about around here. Feel free to post about your recent projects in the comments or share a link to a recent creative post over on the left sidebar so we can all check it out! I’ve been busy on my remembrance album journey–although I don’t have much of an album yet. I’ve been sorting through pictures and scribbling my little fingers off in my journal. Can I … Continue Reading…
I’ve been writing a lot about the farm and lambing lately. And then I took a few days off because we had snow and I was busy keeping up with the kiddos and catching up on work from days out of the office. I don’t talk about it very much, but I do work full-time outside the home and trying to be all there when I am home, means the paperwork can really pile up when I’m off for a few days. So when I sat down to write a … Continue Reading…
I can’t seem to get back everyday words after everything that’s happened the last couple weeks. After losing Grandma Koeller, and facing some lingering demons of my own, the end-of-the-school-year fervor and fuss (K5 graduations, spring concerts, field trips, sports tournaments, etc.) and then the transition to summer fun…it’s all just left me…tired. I have heavy thoughts and words that go with them, but little to offer about book lists or baking projects or summer picnics and popsicles. I find myself sitting in the truck in the driveway…looking over the fields … Continue Reading…
Well, we solved our car problem and picked the munchkins up in our new-to-us SUV on Friday afternoon. On Saturday, the Ladybug said, “I bet this car feels small to you momma. But not to us, because we’re used to driving in the “Zu-Zu.” We like it.” Then on Saturday I went out to run errands which the crew and we got to spend a few hours at the bookstore. Oh the drama of the bookstore! {smile} We like to occasionally take them out to the bookstore to spend some … Continue Reading…
May can be a tough month for me. The farm is very busy, the kids are bursting with energy from the good weather and the end of the school year in sight, and I struggle not to be constantly reminded or linger on the loss of my parents. Mother’s Day is always a struggle for me–trying to focus on being a momma, and not the fact that I don’t have a momma. Trying to appreciate everyone else’s mother even though all I desperately want is my own momma. And the … Continue Reading…
Today would have been my Dad’s 55th birthday. Sometimes it gets very hard to be thankful always in the past tense. My heart hurts so much it’s hard to breath and reality starts to get a little mixed up. I start remembering great things from the past and suddenly I find myself looking forward to the future…then there’s this horrible, wrenching shock when I have to remind my heart and mind that that will not be the future. There will be a future–but that won’t ever be part of … Continue Reading…
Well, it’s May. My least favorite time of year. Every year. No matter how hard I try to focus on new flowers and growing lambs and little boy dimples and fresh asparagus frittata..my mind endlessly circles back to those last weeks before that day… That day, that changed the meaning of all the days that came before. That day, that changed the shape of all the days that will ever come after. That day, that drew a line in the sands of time for our family. That day, that sliced … Continue Reading…
You know, I’ve felt pretty beaten up, spiritually speaking, this summer. I’ve missed my parents and longed for their steady guidance desperately. I’ve floundered with this school change–speaking acceptance out of my mouth while my heart and mind struggled frantically against it. I’ve prayed, oh how much I’ve prayed, and then rebelled against the answers I heard. My actions reluctantly followed directions, but my heart was still looking for any crack or hole to slip out of, any weakness in the wall to exploit, any excuse to change directions. Let’s … Continue Reading…
I had a pretty mixed up, unexpected weekend. I had to go out-of-town, and I had to come face-to-face with some of the less than lovely parts of my own history and less than lovely traits of my own character. Ever feel like no matter how much you pray, and how much you read your bible, and how much you go to church, that whole “new life in Christ” thing just won’t stick? That the old you is just bubbling under the surface, waiting to burst back onto the scene? … Continue Reading…
You know, sometimes words escape me. Sometimes there’s so many words around us that don’t matter that we never find the moment for words that do. Sometimes we fill the space with words so we don’t have to fill it with Truth. With the Word. I have been angry. And hurting. Angry because I’ve been hurting. And the Lord has been insisting that I give that up to Him. And the truth is that I haven’t wanted to. I can’t see the end from the beginning. I can’t see into hearts and … Continue Reading…
Dear Dad, Ya know how you taught me that I should be a leader, not a follower? And not to care what other people think and just do what I thought was right? And just be myself, regardless of what other people said? Meet your grandson. We call him Cowboy. The child who spends 30 minutes going over 3 racks of brown, gray, green, camo, stripes, John Deere, and even blaze orange hats…to pick out the day-glow, tennis-ball-yellow one that sized for an elephant’s head. And won’t be swayed by … Continue Reading…
