Mid April

 I love this time of year. So many flowering trees and newly budding plants and blossoms of all kinds. It is glorious.

This is our crabapple tree. It always flowers but this might be the most blossoms it has ever had. So lovely.

I like flowers and neat flower beds but I also hate gardening and digging in the dirt. Our flower beds look ok in spring and then as the summer wears on, and the weeds grow, it looks more and more wild.

One other thing I love about spring is that the chiggers aren't up and eating yet. In a few weeks I will have to start my two showers a day regimen, one when I get up and one when I go to bed. I am so ridiculously allergic to chigger bites that I need to try to wash them off before they can cause problems.

Anyway, yes, spring, gorgeous.

I finished my latest book yesterday! This is to say that I did what I need to do. Kevin still has a ton of work but my part is done. I wrote it, and I did a full second edit. Now it is in his corner. We are having an audio book made of it so that will push publication back into June. Which is fine.

I have ideas for my next book. I was going to have a character struck with polio in his 20's but apparently that would have been really unusual in the 1800s so I think I will just have him thrown from a horse and have a bad leg break.

I was thinking Franklin Delano Roosevelt had polio later in life but I looked it up and there is some thought he had something else happen to him. He was definitely stricken with something and was partially paralyzed for the rest of his life. Some people think it was Guillain Barre syndrome.

Anyway. I like this last book (the one I just finished) but it felt like it was really hard to get it done and I was writing slowly.

Well, I realized it has been less than 2 months since Ramsgate Rescue was published so I wrote it in about 2 months. That is not bad at all.

We have been busy with a lot of this and that but isn't everyone?

The kids are doing a lot because there are a lot of them. I want to be an attentive mother but also need to realize that the older ones are having to make their own choices and decisions and I can't fix stuff for them.

I am, in fact, not in control. Truth is, I never was. It is good for me to remind myself of that. I need to trust God with them, and pray for wisdom and health and direction for them.

Solar Eclipse

 From Psalm 19

The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

2Day after day they pour forth speech;

night after night they reveal knowledge.

3They have no speech, they use no words;

no sound is heard from them.

4Yet their voice ^b goes out into all the earth,

their words to the ends of the world.

We were so incredibly blessed to be in the path of totality of yesterday's solar eclipse.  I was watching the weather anxiously for the previous week and the weather people kept saying that we would have a lot of clouds. I just hoped that the clouds would part so we could watch the eclipse.

When yesterday dawned, it was blue skies from horizon to horizon. Over the next few hours, clouds did show up, but they were wispy cirrus clouds and did NOT block the sun at all. So we were able to watch the entire show from about 1:53 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. Not that we watched every minute. We kept running in and out as the moon ate the sun.

I called all the kids outside around 3 p.m. so they could see totality, which was at about 3:08 p.m.

They had their solar glasses!  We were super careful about that for obvious reasons!

Kevin wore his only astronomical shirt.

And then darkness fell at totality and lasted for like two minutes.

It was honestly awesome. Like as in I was full of awe.  I was watching as the last tiny bit of sun disappeared behind the moon and then took off my glasses.

I was expecting the night to be black as pitch. I did not expect a 360 horizon that was somewhat light, and the moon surrounded by the outside glow of the sun's outer bits. I guess not really the sun exactly. It wasn't dangerous to the eyes so wasn't the sun proper.

It was an amazing experience. We were all incredulous and happy.

The picture stinks. There are way better ones on line.

Anyway, yes, we loved it, and were so thankful for decent weather so we could see it.

I didn't know as much about solar eclipses as I thought. This one, the moon was close enough to the earth to completely cover the sun during totality.

There are annular solar eclipses where the moon is a little farther away from the earth and thus looks "smaller" to us and therefore the outer rim of the sun is still there as the moon crosses the middle.

It means that during an annular solar eclipse it doesn't get completely dark.

Very special day.

Great news, good news, and bad news

 The great news is that Joseph got an offer letter for an IT job and signed it and it is ON!

Both he and Miriam are now having to wait on background checks and stuff but it is happening!  We are so excited and thrilled for them!

I think IT is a good fit for both of them. Miriam picks things up quickly and is a problem solver. Joseph just "gets" computer stuff in a way that I certainly do not!  They (along with Naomi) get their IT skills from Kevin for sure! He has always done miracles with computers. I just want them to be black boxes. They should just work and when they don't I get fractious and irritable.

Good news is that the weather event we were expecting fizzled! Not for everyone, sadly; some people north and south of us got whacked by tornadoes, but Dayton somehow just didn't get much of anything. We had rain and we had some lightning and thunder, but no serious winds and no tornadoes. I am so grateful!

The bad news is minor, but it happened. Two nights ago I leaned over to pick up a basket of laundry and did something bad to my lower back side. I think I pulled a muscle. I was in a ton of pain instantly; it was like getting stabbed. However, I crept to a chair and sat down and that didn't hurt. The last two days I have spent most of my time sitting and my dear Kevin and my children have been running around serving me. It is better today, though still a long way from Ok. I still walk oddly but less oddly than yesterday.

It is improving and therefore there is no mental struggle with it. I am irritated but not terrified this won't go away.

A long time ago when I was pregnant with Lydia or Isaac, I pulled a muscle in my neck and couldn't turn it for a day or two. It hurt so much. This is like that. Weird but it will pass.

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I have been watching 600 lb life stories, though I usually check the people ahead of time to see if they accomplished anything. I don't like the "train wreck" episodes where the people don't lose weight. I like it when they do improve their lives.

I also read a book recently called Hungry: Lessons learned on the Journey from fat to thin by Allen Zadoff. He was a binge eater who crept up to like 360 lbs before managing to overcome his addiction to food and now is sitting at a little above 200 lbs.

I was interested because people in 600 lb life are absolutely miserable but they keep eating. It really does make sense. They are miserable, and they are addicts, so they eat to feel better about their miserable lives. Of course, eating a ton keeps them very heavy, which makes the miserable, which makes them want to eat more...

It isn't that different from an alcohol or drug addiction or even a shopping addiction.

It is very noticeable of course. People can hide an alcohol addiction for a time, but one can't hide being 600 lbs.

Anyway, I have been thinking about how when life is rough, it is hard not to escape into things. I have mostly overcome my own desires to escape. I think if I was in this much pain all the time, I would really struggle with the mental part of it. It is so much easier hurting when one is confident the pain will go away.

I wrote a lot about my back I see. It is not a big deal.

It is far more a big deal that Miriam and Joseph have been offered jobs! So happy!

Oh, I forgot to say that Moonbeam, our cat, is doing great and is recovered. I had to pour antibiotics down his throat for a full week and he didn't like it, but he is good now.

Early April

 The weather winkies are forecasting horrible storm this afternoon. We will see! At the moment, it is sunny and benign but the weather people are super excited.

We had some more exciting news on the job front. Joseph had an interview yesterday and it LOOKS like he'll be getting a Computer Security job, actually at the same place that already hired Miriam!  So that is wonderful. Of course, until he has the offer in his hot little electronic hand we won't 100% rejoice but we are 90% rejoicing.

Daniel is the only one of our 9 children who is at all on the hefty side. I have been reading about obesity and watching 600 lb life shows, not because I am worried about him, but because I am interested in human behavior.

 Daniel is a very healthy weight. Indeed, given how his older brothers grew incredibly fast during puberty and are on the edge of "too thin", I am happy he has some weight on him! He has started to grow quickly over the last six months and the coming year will be exciting. He is currently 5 feet exactly and in the next year I am guessing he will grow another 4 to 6 inches because that is what his brothers did at this age.

Well, this is a short blog post but there is a lot going on around me so I should sign off.

Last Week of March

We had some deer visit our back three acres last night! That is actually pretty rare.

Ok, what a week! Like exhausting and some good and some bad and all of it a little stressful. 

Let's start with the bad -- our poor Moonbeam is sick.

He came to us as a stray kitten a decade ago so he is pretty old for an outdoor cat. He developed some upper respiratory infection and I took him to the vet a couple of days ago. Mostly it is viral though we are giving him antibiotics and we have other stuff to try to help him feel better.

I think he is improving. I just saw him eat/drink some watered down tuna so that is a good sign.

It has been stressful, of course. Ever since we moved here, we have rescued/been adopted by various stray cats. We love them but they are not as high a priority as the kids, of course. It has been a balance to know how much money to spend on a cat. Anyway. He is doing better I think and that is wonderful.

So great news, but also stressful -- Miriam found an IT job! She has been hired to do computer support for a company here in Dayton. It is all very good but there is a ton of work that has to be done for it; filling out paperwork and getting fingerprints and all that. She won't start for awhile because she has to have some background check stuff done first by the company.

Joseph also seems to have a job! He is also pursuing an IT job but for now he is training at a sit down restaurant as a waiter. It is surprisingly exhaustive training. He has been at it all week.

So having two kids get jobs is very exciting but there has been a ton of running around and filling out paperwork. Again, good good good. Just lots of work.

It is Holy Week when Christians celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yes, we celebrate his death because He died as a sacrifice to pay for our sins on the cross.

It is an important week for sure but life is life and there has been a ton going on. Also, I am not someone who gets really excited about holidays. I do think they are important. In the Old Testament, God directed the Isrealites to have a bunch of holidays to remember his blessing through the harvest, and the escape from Egypt.

I think since I have so many children, that holidays are not relaxing for me. That is less true now as the children are older, though. But sometimes my brain is still stuck in "I have all these little kids and we need to cook a feast and have an Easter egg hunt and I am tired" mode.

Anyway. I am so incredibly grateful to Jesus for dying on the cross and saving my soul. I have had a really busy week and have not contemplated Palm Sunday, and the events of Holy Week, much.

That is the awesome thing about salvation through faith in Christ. He loves me and I can and do rejoice in my relationship with Him during calm weeks and very busy weeks.

Also, we are very grateful and happy that two of the children have jobs.

 

St. Patrick's Day

 

We splurged on these giant magnetic tiles which can be used to make boats and little houses and all that. It is charming and the three younger kids are really enjoying it.

It is in fact St. Patrick's Day though we don't really do much about it. Veggietales has a little story about St. Patrick, who was definitely an amazing guy. He also had a really hard life. He was abducted and hauled off to Ireland as a slave, among other things.

We had a problem with our plumbing this week. 

Kevin had to replace a tank becuase it wasn't doing something right. So he put in the blue tank in the picture and also moved a bunch of water lines around. It was a big job and he worked on it for like 20 hours with only 3 hours of sleep breaking it up. We also didn't have running water for most of a day. It was "fun".

Well, it wasn't, but that's Ok. Kevin got it taken care of. He is now mostly caught up on sleep.

I have not gotten much writing done lately and it is annoying me so we are going to have a light week of school so I can spend extra time writing. 

A New (Used) Car!

 

Kevin managed to find a new used car for us last week!

This is great news as we have five drivers and now four cars.

Isaac has been hired part time at the Air Force base in addition to college, Miriam is working full time, Joseph is job hunting vigorously, so yes, having a bunch of cars is a huge blessing.