I Love Jesus

 Life is very busy for us for obvious reasons.  Kids, and cooking, and housework, and errands, and Kevin's job, and exercise, and sleep, and so on and so forth...

It is easy for me to lose perspective.

 I am a devout, enthusiastic, committed evangelical Christian and have been for many years.  

Jesus Christ is my Savior and my Lord.  I believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary and grew up fully human, even as he is fully God.

I believe that I am a sinner, whose sins are so great that I cannot enter Heaven based on my own merits.

I believe Jesus voluntarily went to the cross and died a terrible death as a sacrifice for my sins.

I believe that I am saved by the shed blood of Christ, not because of my own "goodness".

I have many things to do in life that are my job.  I need to be a good wife and a good mother.  I need to be faithful in completing my tasks.  They are important.

But I also have to remind myself, often, that the most important things in life are spiritual.

Mark 8:36

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?

I pray a lot for wisdom.  A lot a lot a lot. It is so easy to get swayed by the busyness of life, or by personal preference, to not do what God really wants me to do. Maybe I'm unusual in that way.  I don't know.

I do know that I love projects and I love completing projects but people are more important, especially the people God has entrusted to me -- Kevin, my husband, and the nine children, who need me.

I love you, Lord  Jesus.  Continue to give me wisdom and strength to do what you want me to do.

Feet, Cats, and Other Topics of Interest

 

I bought very expensive shoes for my poor feet. Well, specifically my left foot.  My right has been fine, but my left foot keeps hurting. I am pretty sure it is plantar fasciitis, as I said before.  With these shoes, it is pretty happy. It is weird basically wearing shoes almost all the time, but for now I need to do so or my left foot starts hurting a lot.

This is Ghosty, a stray cat that has kind of adopted us.  That is to say he likes our food but he finds us very scary.  He always runs away if we get near him.  He is, at least, eating our food and is filling out a little, though he is still overly thin. Poor cat!

Jet outside. We are transitioning the kittens outdoors.

Opal up in the tower with Isaac.

We have been sick off and on this week. Miriam and Angela did not get baptized last Sunday, which was a big disappointment. The reason was an illness. Rose threw up a couple times and Kevin was sick, and then I got sick...

Baptism is important because our Lord Jesus commanded that his followers be baptized. But baptism doesn't save anyone.  It is a ceremony of obedience.  We will wait for another opportunity. Miriam and Angela are all ready and our church will have another baptism in the next few months.

Isaac and Joseph have been working three days a week at a local college, moving furniture, pulling up carpet, putting down carpet, and so on. It has been a really good job for the boys and we are proud of their hard work.

One minor problem popped up this week, and that is that Joseph has lost a few pounds in the last weeks.  Now for a normal person, no biggie, but Joseph is very underweight.  He is a little over 6 feet tall and weighed in at just over 100 lbs this week.

That...that is skeletal.  Now I assure you  that he does not have an eating disorder.  He is a somewhat picky eater and he just doesn't have a big appetite.  He has been doing a very physically demanding job of late and obviously calories in are less than calories out. So we sat down with Joseph and talked about bigger meals and more snacks, and Joseph is working on it.  

Other than that, we have been sorting out college classes for Isaac, Joseph, and Miriam, and I have continued to work in the basement, and Kevin has been working hard for his job (which supports us all) and also on the launch of our new book, which goes live on Amazon this coming Thursday.

So we are not bored!

Mid July

Cute Jet

Cute Opal

Cute Moonbeam.  He likes this tub.  This is an outside art table.

The kids had a little picnic outside.

Lydia had a birthday recently. She is 21!  My babies are growing up!

Isn't her hair beautiful?

The older girls are liking their new apartment. It has air conditioning and vaulted ceilings.

Today our older four girls are at King's Island, an amusement park not too far from us.  Naomi got two free tickets through work and invited her three younger sister and two next younger brothers to go. The big boys weren't interested but Miriam and Angela were.  So the four girls are presumably have a great time today at the amusement park.

I think the big boys are just tired. They work three days a week hauling heavy objects around at a local university.

Decluttering Frenzy

 So I am in the middle of my annual decluttering frenzy.  I know people do this in different ways. Some people toil away faithfully through the year getting rid of excess stuff.  I just get an urge, and have the time, and dive in.

So our secret room was a huge mess.  Secret room is a funny name, I know.  It is really a tornado shelter which we've made into a store room, but it is kind of in a funny place so we call it the secret room though it is no secret.

We also call the little room between the master bedroom and the master bath the "sewing room" even though I don't sew there.  What can I say? We are weird sometimes.

Anyway...

That is how it looked.  Yes, that is BAD.

I started pulling things out and organizing and tossing and this is how it looks today.

I hope it is obvious that it is much, much better.  

I am actually really good at tossing things, to the point that sometimes my kids are horrified.  But I am also busy, and every time I start organizing, things get messier outside the secret room. So I need to have time and sufficient determination.

I am not sure about our ice cream maker. I pretty much want to get rid of it because it takes up space and we haven't used it in years.  But I will talk to Kevin and see what he feels about it.

One nice thing about the frenzy is uncovering some old pictures and stamp albums. It has been fun going through them.

July

 Whew, time flies when we are having fun!

It also flies when we are working hard!

When we can combine working with fun, that's the best of all!

I finished another book a few days ago (my part of it) and that is a cause for celebration.  Kevin now has to buckle down and do a whole bunch of stuff to get it launched.  We plan to publish end of July.

Last week, Kevin and I went away for a day to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary.  That is obviously a tremendous milestone and we are thankful for all those years of marriage together!  We went to a botanical garden and then to a giant weird grocery store called Jungle Jim's.  All in all it was a very pleasant day and my foot held out well.  More about that in a bit.

Regarding Jungle Jim's, it is really huge, and they have weird walls thrown up now (I haven't been there in a while) and I decided I was NOT going to bring the kids there on a field trip.  Someone would get lost.  We nearly got lost. It was very strange geographically. It was also fun, we bought a few things, including some yummy scallops.

Back to my foot. I am certain it is plantar fasciitis because it behaves like it.  I have been wearing shoes most of the time I am awake and with the special soles in them, my foot has improved significantly. It still aches when I walk a lot which is annoying but hey, better than it was.  Last night, I decided to buy a really expensive pair of shoes that are supposed to help with this malady.  They will come in the mail soon.  I am notoriously cheap and spending $160 on a pair of shoes isn't my usual jam, but I will pay that if these shoes can take care of my foot hurting. I don't have time for this nonsense!

This week has been a whirlwind.  Our church is having a giant rummage sale and we helped out with that a couple of days.  They have a lot of furniture they are selling so our children helped haul furniture around.  I carried lighter things until my foot started aching and then I sat.  

We also have had a bunch of orthodontist appointments lately, and eye appointments, and so on and so forth.  So so thankful for a reliable car, and good health insurance, and the freedom for me to stay home so I can leave the house with our kids to take them to doctor appointments.

Joseph passed his temps test so now has his temporary driver's license, which is cool.

I met via Facetime with my assessor which is required for homeschooling; she looked over the kids' work through the year and signed documents that they are making good progress.

So yes, lots going on.  Tomorrow, for now anyway, there is nothing on the calendar and I am glad about that. 

One last thing -- many of my children are enthusiastic Minecraft players.  There is this guy who went by the name Technoblade who was in his early 20's and a really charming guy. He did youtube videos of Minecraft game play with him talking in the background.  He was very humble and mellow and funny.

A few days ago, he died of cancer.  Several of the children were very upset.  Now they obviously never met this guy, but they cared about him and so his death hit them hard.  And I think that is completely reasonable.  He was very young and it is a tragedy, so they cried and mourned.

I think it is really important for people to learn to mourn well.  It is painful to cry and grieve, but we are meant to feel sorrow when someone we care about dies.  Our kids have cried hard over pets too. Also very valid.  It is sad when someone we care about dies.