Less than a week until Christmas

 And just like that, we are almost at the end of December. Wow.

Isaac is improving but is still sick. Like, the tail end of being sick. Kevin is still a bit off. I am mostly fine. But as usual, it has taken a long time for everyone to be healthy.

In the middle of illness and busyness, I have continued to slowly work on decluttering and organizing. These very nice cups and saucers have been hanging out in our cupboards for 25 years or so. We don't use them, so I packed them carefully in a box, with lots of tissue paper, and put them in the basement for now. We don't have lots of cupboard space so I don't want these unused cups taking space in the kitchen.

Someday our children will move out and we will want to help them so we can give them mugs and pull out our cups, or something.

So yes, a little organizing and decluttering still happening.

We are still down a car as it is taking awhile for Kevin's car to be fixed. We are still waiting on a part. It is SUCH a blessing to have multiple cars. It is weird to think how it is normal for families to have multiple cars in this day and age. 150 years ago, there were no cars. Then there were cars, but only for rich people. And then if you were middle class maybe you could afford one car.

And now we have six cars among the whole family, as Naomi and Lydia each have a car, and Isaac and Miriam have a car each, and Kevin and I each have a car.

Amazing.

Also we have four bathrooms. Crazy stuff. So blessed

Sickness

 At the very beginning of the first movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy of movies, there is a dramatic scene wherein the narrator talks about how Sauron and the One Ring took over Middle Earth, almost, until an army came up against them and managed to temporarily take Sauron out of action.

The sentence that comes to mind is "One by one, they fell to the power of the Ring."

We are falling, one by one, to the power of a cold.

Which is totally normal. This is life with a big family. We get sick, and it takes its sweet time working through the whole family.

Unfortunately, we can't cast the cold into the depths of Mount Doom and destroy it. We have to be PATIENT.

When I realized we had a respiratory illness flowing through the house, I prayed fervently that I wouldn't have breathing problems. When I start having asthma issues, it is often a multi week affair that ends in steroids and I really hate the whole thing.

By God's grace, I have no breathing problems! Hooray!

However, two days ago, I had a massive nosebleed that lasted more than two hours. Not sure if it had anything to do with being sick. Maybe it is just dry air. Anyway, it was kind of scary and I didn't feel great yesterday. Thankfully so far yesterday and today I have been fine, and I have been using some nasal spray and other things to get my nose happier.

Almost all the kids have been ill, with Isaac the sickest. I did test him and me for COVID and the tests were negative, so this isn't COVID, praise God!

Isaac had finals last week and he was healthy through them and then after his finals, he got pretty sick. He is a miserable puppy. Not like dangerously sick, but not feeling well at all. I remember after finals I would often be incredibly tired and sometimes I would get sick too. My body and mind were pushing really hard and then when I could relax, I was incredibly exhausted. So maybe that is it?

Anyway, it has been a kinda miserable season of illness but it isn't dangerous, just annoying.

Oh, we also have been down to one car most of the week. Kevin's car has a crack in its fuel line and the auto place we took it to is waiting on a part. Of course, two of the kids have cars of their own, but they have been using them most of the time.

It is fine. I stayed home all week and it was actually nice seeing as I wasn't feeling well and also was looking after sick kids.

Rose with the finished puzzle. She has a remarkable eye for finding the location of puzzle pieces.

I have also been a low key decluttering frenzy, organizing and throwing things out because here comes Christmas and three birthdays, with all the presents that come with it!

December

 

Kevin kindly bought me a lamp to illuminate my puzzle table. I have been working on this puzzle for awhile and am almost done. It is kind of puzzles within puzzles; a picture of a whole bunch of paintings. So much fun.

I am in the middle of a decluttering frenzy. This happens once or twice a year. This picture shows a whole bunch of our office supplies, which I spread out and then organized neatly. I threw stuff out too, of course. I really like having a neat and tidy house, but have also accepted that our house will never be really tidy with seven children roaming around. However, there is a great advantage in working on stuff and organizing it and throwing out trash and broken items. The most important thing is knowing where stuff is so we can find it when we need it.

Kevin kindly bought me a treadmill! Walking is my favorite form of exercise, and this treadmill allows me to read books or watch movies while I am exercising.  I have exercised faithfully for a couple of weeks. I haven't lost any weight, but I feel more energetic. So yeah for that!

Unfortunately, I am sick with some cold now. I tested for COVID and it was negative so hooray for that! My greatest concern is asthma. Sometimes my lungs get mad and I am a mess. I really am praying that doesn't happen this time.

Oh, I went to the doctor and my latest A1c (blood sugar test) is 6.2, same as 6 months ago. So no better or worse.

Random Photo Dump

 I had not downloaded pictures off my phone in months and just did. So here are a few random pics.

Sarah's birthday

Thanksgiving

We got snow. Silly cat hung out and stared at us instead of going into heated houses on the porch.

Moonbeam is fat.

A while ago. Rose is a daughter after my own heart. Reading while on the swing.

Kevin's birthday

Rose's fake computer

Exercising and Losing Weight

 

This is a not very good picture of me taken in a mirror, with a surprising mess in the background.

But hey, I don't take pictures of myself often so here it is.

Anyway.

I have slowly been gaining weight over the last few years and I don't like it. It obviously isn't healthy to keep gaining weight and gaining weight and gaining weight. Also, I am diabetic which is another reason to not be happy with getting heavier.

Last week I was thinking about this. The thing is, I hate being hungry. Like, really. Eating less is stressful. I have never had to go on a real diet in my entire life because I used to be effortlessly thin.

Then I thought, well, I could at least start exercising regularly. That would be good, right!

Then I thought, WHEN? I have a busy life.  Except that I often get up pretty late. So I decided I would start getting up at 8 a.m. (which is not THAT early) and exercise.  I have done so the last 6 days. I already feel more energetic which is impressive.

Regarding losing weight, nada so far. I am about the same. But I will focus on the exercise part before tackling the eating part.

Speaking of eating, I have been having lower blood sugars the last few days, and I can feel it. That is not a happy feeling. Now I am not on insulin so I am not in danger of going REALLY low, but it isn't comfortable when I drop to the mid 70s. I feel shaky and weird.

Anyway. I am paying attention to how I feel. It may be I have been running rather high for awhile, and am lower because of exercise and my body is confused. I have an appointment this week and will see what my latest A1c is. I hope not above 6.5; if so, I will be seriously annoyed with myself. for eating carelessly. Or maybe I need to add some other meds.

We will see!

Sarah

 Our seventh child turned 14 this month. Wow.

She is taller than Daniel, age 12.

She is taller than Mom, age 55! I am 5 ft 8+ inches tall and none of the older girls are taller than me. But when you throw the genetic dice enough, eventually you get a very tall daughter! I think it is fun that she is 5 ft. 10 inches tall though hope for her sake she doesn't get a lot taller. Because buying clothes is harder when you are super tall.

She is probably about done growing.

I took her to the doctor for a teen checkup and she is very light for her height and age, and actually lost a little weight last year. That isn't very good though I have had other children who were overly thin. However, after discussions, we realized Sarah just isn't eating a lot. She is the kind of person who eats a lot when she likes the food, but doesn't feel like eating when the food isn't wonderful. We discussed this and agreed she needs to start eating more. Joseph is the same way and is slowly crawling higher on the weight scale, which is a good thing. 

I was thin in my youth as well, but I always ate. I like eating. The idea of just not eating when the food is boring isn't the way I operate :-).

But yes, she is working on eating more.

She is very creative. She made this little plushie on her head with no help from me. Nada. I am very incompetent with sewing and she and a couple of the other girls are AMAZING!

I am very thankful for every one of the children. Sarah was a 'triple rainbow' baby, which means she was born after three miscarriages. I thought she would be our little caboose and then God blessed us with Daniel and then Rose!

One of the funny things around here is that because Angela and Sarah are over three years apart, I have long lumped the six older ones together and the three younger ones together, and for years I called the three younger ones "the little ones."

Now Sarah is taller than me so that doesn't work :-).

So now they are "the younger ones".

Thanksgiving is this week and I am excited and grateful for many things.

Kevin and Monkeys

 

Kevin turned 54 in the last week. I turned 55 a few weeks ago. I am just a little more than a year older than he is

I love him so much. He is very smart, and hard working, and we have a lot in common, and he loves Jesus, and me, and our kids.

Please note the jade plant behind Kevin. Usually it lives in our sun room but we have been hosting a cat who has a bad ear infection. Twice a day I get to snatch her and pour drops in her ears. She doesn't like it, but she is improving.

So the plant is indoors. Now the plant is interesting because it is alive. I kill plants.  Like, I am so bad with plants. I am great with kids, but not great with plants. So every living plant in the house is thanks to Kevin. He does a good job.

So yeah, great husband and father and editor and grower of jade plants.

Why did I mention monkeys? Why, because about a week ago, more than 40 monkeys escaped their enclosure in Yemassee, South Carolina. MORE THAN FORTY!

Crazy stuff! They have managed to capture most of them but apparently there are still 13 on the lam.

It just makes me feel kind of, I don't know, happy, to think of monkeys leaping on trees and fences and generally causing chaos, so long as no one gets hurt, of course. It is funny. So far, the captured monkeys have all been well. Now realistically, the sooner they are captured the better, but there is this certain joy in thinking about them carrying on and leading their caretakers a merry dance.

Post Election

 Before I talk about the election, I have sad news. Our random rooster died at the teeth of some predator. Poor Cogburn. Chickens are generally stupid and he lasted months, which was surprising, really. But yeah, something got him a few days ago. We will miss him.

Ok, the election. Obviously Trump won.

I am a conservative and so I voted for Trump and I am happy that he won.

I know lots of people, including some people I love very much, have VERY different views of the matter, and are very sad that Kamala Harris lost.

When I was considering the available information on Monday night, with the polls supposedly tight as tight in the swing states, I was frankly confused. I thought it SHOULD be a Trump landslide, not necessarily because of Harris's deficiencies as a candidate, but because she is VP during a time in American history where inflation has been high and people are nervous about bills and groceries and all that.

Historically, when the American people think the nation is "on the wrong track" in large numbers, they vote out the party in power. Presidents have a lot of power, but still, life happens -- the COVID pandemic caused a lot of trouble and while I definitely did not approve of many of Biden's decisions, I am aware that the troubles of our country cannot all be heaped on his shoulders. But people look at their own lives and if things aren't going well, they tend to vote for a "change" candidate, and while Harris tried to make herself out as a change candidate, it was hard for her to do so given that she is the VP at the moment.

The whole thing was a mess for Democrats in other ways, of course, given that Biden stepped out of the race only a few months ago. Now I would argue that was a mistake on the part of the party; the man is obviously declining mentally, and shouldn't have tried to run again. But I also have sympathy for the situation. He IS the sitting president. And people with dementia often don't know they HAVE dementia. How do you tell someone who is the most powerful man in the world that he should NOT run again for President?

As for Harris, I am confident she is an intelligent person with many gifts, but she is not, frankly, a gifted speaker. She repeated herself a lot, and there were the word salads, and she just didn't connect well with a lot of "normal folks". I understand she talked at one point about how much she loves Venn diagrams. I love them too! They are so awesome! But apparently Venn diagrams leave most people cold.

One thing that is undeniably true is that people are individuals. Yes, black men OFTEN vote like other black men, and women with college degrees vote like other women with college degrees, but not everyone thinks the same way within the blocs. I am a highly educated white woman who would never, ever, ever, ever, ever vote for Kamala Harris because a huge part of her message was abortion rights, and I HATE abortion. I hate it. It breaks my heart. To be clear, I recognize there are rare occasions when abortion is the only viable option, like life of the mother, but in general, I think it horrific, and the one thing that Harris was very clear on was her defense of abortion, up to and including post birth. I mean, it is happening in Minnesota. Babies have survived abortion and been left to die, and Walz, her running mate, signed a bill so that medical people don't have to tell anyone if an infant survives abortion and is left to die. So we don't know how many almost full term babies are dying post birth in Minnesota. Now I think a life is a life is a life regardless of gestational age, BUT that is infanticide. That is carrying a baby somewhere and leaving him or her to die. It is another level of evil.

One of the vibes from the Democrats was that women should vote for Harris because she is a woman, and we should want one of "our own" to be in the White House.

I have no problem with a female president. Maybe in my lifetime, there will be a female president. But by God, I will NOT vote for someone MERELY because she is female, or black or whatever. We are talking about literally the most important job in the entire world, and we need someone who can do the job. I think Trump can, nor will he be a dictator.  Lots of people hate his guts. I get that. I respect that. If people voted for Harris because she was NOT Trump, I understand.

In my case, I would have preferred a different Republican, but I was never going to vote Harris and I think Trump will do a good job.

So yeah. I am going to pray for our nation and that our government can do the right thing. And I'm going to focus on the most important thing, which is my job as wife and mom and child of God.

November!

 

I love fall colors so much! Gorgeous! I don't even know where this tree was. I found it on my phone. I took the pic but don't remember where I was at the time.

So...

Lots going on. First a new book launched a couple of days ago. It is doing fine, though nothing like the last book, which was called Elizabeth is Not a Bennet. That one was a BEAST. But this one is doing fine so far.

Our church had a Trunk or Treat ministry on Thursday, Halloween.

Angela manned a table and also did the decorations and made the Flower Face for herself. It comes from a video game. Isn't it cute?

We had about 400 people go through.

Yesterday I went to the funeral of my friends' seven year old son. It was a powerful service and also so incredibly sad. I thought the pastors both did a great job. They didn't speak empty platitudes. They said, yes, we have a Lord and Savior who loves children and this little guy is with the Lord. BUT this is agony for his family. We don't understand it. We may never understand it.

So yeah, that was a hard service. I wish I had brought more Kleenex. I am praying for my friends and also will be available to help them in the future. 

This is funny to me... I have been watching a lot of shows and video clips that have little commercials mixed in. It seems like no one knows who I am because the commercials are absolutely aimed for someone else. I keep seeing a wine commercial. I hate the taste of wine so much. I keep seeing commercials for special shampoo for black women's hair. My hair is straight and boring, not beautifully curly and able to be braided in a fancy way. I also keep seeing Pampers commercials, sometimes in Spanish. WHAT? I mean, yes, I had plenty of babies, but a long time ago!

Rose learned to ride a bike this last week. Yes, it was late but she took to it like a duck to water. Then yesterday she and a couple of other kids were doing the Death Gully Challenge and she crashed into a tree. She is fine though has a bruise on her leg. Like why, kids? Why be so crazy?  Because they are young and full of vim and vigor.

Obviously the election is on Tuesday. A lot of people are stressed, including me. It has, if nothing else, been a whacky election cycle with a previous president running again, and Biden dropping out, and assassination attempts, and other insanity. 

I keep trying to remember that God is God. Sometimes the "wrong" leader comes to power. God is still God.  

We do have seven voting Kendigs and will be doing our part on election day. 

One thing that is regrettable is that people generally ascribe rotten intentions toward people with other views. I can believe someone to be wrong while still understanding the motivation behind it. There can be good intentions which lead to bad outcomes.

Well, we will know soon...

Birthday Week

 

I turned 55 this week. Angela made me a chocolate cake using almond flour, which was excellent. Rose made me a fake little cupcake out of playdough, plus two paper 5's. She is so creative.

My birthday was excellent. Good weather, plus two fun gifts from Kevin, namely a new Kindle and a new Fitbit watch.

Tuesday, some dear friends of ours visited for dinner. We had our 9 children and they had their eight younger children (their eldest lives elsewhere) and we had a wonderful time. We mostly were outdoors on the porch, where we set up tables. The kids haven't seen one another in three years, as our friends were in Germany for military reasons. Now they are back in the area. It was great.

Friday morning...

Sigh...

Friday morning I was doing my devotions when I got a call from a dear friend, and she was crying. She told me that her seven year old had died a few hours previously.

He showed every signs of a stomach bug the previous day and seemed to be improving, and when they got up in the morning, he was dead.

It is just... hard to put into words how wrecked they are. Of course they are. But there are no words.

It was a freak medical thing and not their fault at all. But as she told me, how do we go on?

I honestly don't know. They do have other children so they will go on because they have to, but to lose a child?

It is so easy to get upset and angry and irritated about little things and then when a child dies, suddenly all those little things seem far less important, don't they?

I look around at our children and they have their struggles, but they are alive and healthy and I am so grateful.

I know it is a cliche, but I am hugging my children a bit harder.

So yeah, at the moment I feel sad because my heart breaks for my friend and her husband and other children.

But I did have a good birthday, and am thankful for that.

Mid October

 

Kevin made swings and they are very popular, even with the older kids!

I was hilariously reminded of a scene in the Avengers movie, the first one, where various Avengers are striding toward the camera looking buff and ready to fight.

I think it is wonderful when the posse, the Horde, goes out and walks up and down the driveway together, chattering away as they do so.

We released a book in early October. So far it is shaping up as a Beast, which is to say very popular. It hit like 250 in the Kindle store, which is stupidly good.

Thanks to various odd circumstances, we are almost done with ANOTHER book. I am currently doing second edits on it. I hate second edits so much. I whine every time I have to do it.

Of course, I could just publish as is but second edits make the book much much much better.

So yeah. Why do I dislike it so much? It is hard work, and painstaking, and not fun.

But necessary.  So quit whining, Laraba!

Good things happening

 I decided to separate this blog post from the one full of pictures.

This last week, a bunch of good things happened. Let me start with the one that I am most thankful for.

When Kevin and I were in Michigan at the beginning of our marriage, we were friends with a couple with a large family.

One of their sons was working overseas for some years. Something went wrong recently regarding paperwork, and he ended up being detained and stuck in some rather lousy prison for foreigners with these kinds of issues. The problem in question lingered for literally weeks as our embassy didn't move quickly to sort out the paperwork issues. The young man has some underlying health issues and the prison was not a healthy place. 

I was praying, as were a great many people. Finally he did get the necessary documentation and he returned home in the last week.

So so so thankful. As a mom myself, I cannot imagine how hard this was for the entire family as they worried about him.

That's the biggest win of the week, for sure! 

Other far less important things, but nonetheless I am thankful.

1. I found a pair of my glasses that went missing. They had been gone for weeks and I decided to search my car. Yep, they were under a seat.

2. The Detroit Tigers, "my" baseball team, are on a tear. They have won 30 of the last 41 games or something and are on the cusp of making it to the post season for the first time in a decade. It is likely they will quickly be eliminated but still it is great fun!

3. Lydia is happily installed in her new job and likes it.

4. Our books are doing well. We have a new book launching next week and there is a lot of buzz around it. Of course, the buzz is partially because Kevin is doing an AWESOME job of promoting the book. But even aside from that, apparently people are pretty excited about the concept. It is a trope called "Elizabeth is Not a Bennet". Basically Elizabeth is adopted by the Bennets instead of being a Bennet daughter.

5. We got rain! Lots of it!  So so thankful!

I tend to focus on the things that aren't great sometimes, which isn't good. So right now I am thinking about how thankful I am for all these wonderful things that have happened recently.

 

End of September

Our cats are cute. 

Gorgeous skies one night. Obviously the pool is still open. It is getting cold though.

Kevin tore down our playset that we acquired like 17 years ago. It was falling apart and not safe. Then he decided to construct some swings for our front yard. After figuring out everything including making diagrams and using geometry...

Voila!

Cogburn is still hanging around looking happy. He is also very loud but he is so adorable we don't mind. Much.

Rose played with the train set this week. It is funny; a toy will sit in a corner for literally months and I will think, hmmm, maybe we should get rid of it...

And then the kids get excited.

Kevin did a great job with the garden this year. We had a drought but he watered very faithfully so we got lots of squashes. We are also getting many green beans still which makes me SO happy!

After aforementioned drought, we finally have been getting rain, which is a huge relief. There were dangers of wildfires and now the ground is nicely wet and the water table is probably a lot better.

So we are thankful for that!

 

 

Mid September

 It is hot out there! It has been a hot and very dry month. We are praying for rain.

Our pool is getting colder thanks to longer and chillier nights. That makes it easier to keep under control as colder water doesn't grow as much algae. On the downside, fewer Kendigs are willing to jump in because it is less comfortable.

This is a large bin FULL of crumpled paper. Yesterday I finished my edits of the latest book. Now I am basically done with that one and Kevin will take it from here. Hooray!

I have another book that is already 64,000 words long. I set it aside a few weeks ago to finish Elizabeth is Not a Bennet (the latest book) and now need to start it up again. It needs some more drama so I am thinking about adding a plot thread.

Lydia started her new job today. She battled major health issues for months and has been steadily improving so that makes us all very happy! She is a receptionist now.

I usually don't get political on this blog and will just touch on a couple of things today. First, I am sad and worried that another person tried to assassinate Trump. It is crazy and scary. The man in question seems totally delusional and screwed up.

Another thing is that Springfield Ohio has been in the national news due to some things that came up in the debate. Springfield is only 15 miles from us. Kevin technically grew up in Springfield, though actually his house was the first one beyond the line of Enon, Ohio.

There is a genuine struggle in Springfield because an incredible number of Haitian immigrants have been settled there. Through no fault of their own, they don't speak English. Through no fault of their own, they don't know how to drive. The social resources are strained beyond the breaking point.

Lots of Christians on my Facebook feed are calling for love toward these people, and they are, of course, right. There are ministries working to help them in various ways.

Since we live so close to Springfield, one obvious question is -- what am I called to do to help these people?

The answer is, nothing.

That sounds dismissive, but I pray often for God's wisdom on what I am supposed to be doing in this season of life. My primary job is to care for my children. Given that there are many of them, and given that I am also writing a lot, and given my own emotional and mental make-up, I definitely cannot spend time doing ministry in Springfield.

Kevin and I and the kids are involved in a pantry ministry at our church (not in Springfield) but that is a small thing, only once a month.

The children do more than Kevin and I do with ministry; the older ones, I mean.

When I was a young mother, I was told by wise people around me that teenagers love to talk into the late evening about difficult topics. And I thought, I sure hope not! I am totally a morning person and am brain dead at night.

They were right. Last night I ended up talking at length with two kids (separately) about some emotional issues.

That was good. That was my job. 

I love Ecclesiastes 3

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2     a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3     a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
4     a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5     a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6     a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7     a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8     a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

Kevin and I are in a LONG season of raising children. I am guessing many people don't make such heavy weather of it. I think we are doing a very good job but it is hard work for us. I am confident that if I devoted myself to ministries outside the home, my parenting and teaching would suffer.

So yeah. I am praying for Springfield but I am not doing anything else during this season of life.

Latest Book

 I have finished another book! The last one I wrote, Handsome Enough to Tempt Him, was finished in late June and was only released last week. That is because we were having someone do a simulatenous audio book and had to wait for her to do it.  There were other reasons but I don't know them. Part of the reason our writing partnership works is that Kevin does a bunch of stuff and I do a bunch of stuff and we leave certain decisions to the other person.

Kevin decides on when to publish.

The next book is coming out in like, three weeks. Wow! So we will have two long books a month apart!

Current one is sitting at over 100K words. I kept telling Kevin this book was going to be short, and then it wasn't.

This is very common for me, by the way.

I dislike this part of the writing process the most. I have to do a full edit of the book and keep track of disparate threads of the plot. I wrote the epilogues a few days ago, and then realized I had entirely forgotten a very important original character and had to insert him back in!

I have random notes on my desk to remind myself of names and details.

We print out the entire book on paper, and then Angela does an edit on paper, and I do a follow up edit on paper, and then I put the corrections into the Word document.

I cannot express how much I dislike this process. It is tedious and requires a lot of attention.

A couple of books ago, I discovered that when I finish a page, it gives me a blip of happy chemicals to rip it out of the binder, crumple it up, and throw it on the floor. So that is what I do.

I have thought long and hard about how blessed I am to be able to do this job. Lots of people cannot. I have major areas of weakness -- athletics, art, imagining battlefields -- but I can write! I can come up with interesting plots and keep track of all the threads pretty well. I make the occasional mistake but I am definitely pretty good at it.

And I didn't do anything to make that happen. I work very hard and I persevere and I am disciplined, bu the actual ability is a gift.

I am grateful. 

And... back to work on editing!

Cogburn the Rooster

 

Kevin named the rooster Cogburn and he is obviously quite comfortable with us. He struts around our property with the occasional foray over to the neighbor's house, and crows often.

He is a very, very handsome fellow.

Kevin has been throwing him zucchinis and bread so yeah, he definitely likes us!

It is kind of a miracle he hasn't been eaten by anything yet. I guess he is smarter than he looks.

There is no danger from the cats, anyway; he is bigger than most of them!

Late August

 It is hot. So so so so hot. High of 95 today or something! It was 95 yesterday, and 95 the day before. There is a theme, as you can see.

However, it is supposed to be cooler starting this weekend. August is ending and September is coming so this is the last really hot gasp of summer, I expect. The kids have been swimming a great deal. The water is delightful.

Kevin took the kids raspberry picking last week. They picked a bunch of berries and...

Kevin made jam!

I ate so many beans these last weeks. I love beans and bacon.

We had a visitor; a rooster showed up at the neighbor's house a few weeks ago, out of nowhere. Then he decided to spend a few hours strutting around our pool area. Then he left to go somewhere else.

More beans. 

We lined up the seven kids at home in order of birth. Isaac is over 6 ft. 3 inches tall. Daniel is growing fast, like an inch in the last two months! He is definitely in the middle of his massive growth spurt.

A few last things though. Lydia, as of today, has a job!  She interviewed for a receptionist position this morning and was offered the job. We are so happy! She is definitely feeling better than she was even two months ago. God is good and we are so thankful.

Another one of our books is coming out early next month. Kevin has been toiling away dealing with our narrator and getting files set up and all that. I am so grateful for him!

I am feeling pretty good now. In fact, great, though I still am not being super active in the very hot weather.

Improved

 I am like 95% now. Still occasionally feel a trifle short of breath, but so much better!

I have been doing more, too, which is great. I like being able to walk around the house, and talk, and fun stuff like that!

We had two birthdays in the last week. Angela is now 17 and Joseph is now 20. Wow, they are growing up!

I will try to get a picture of them together.  I was sick both days so wasn't taking a lot of pics.

Our green beans are going mad and I am so happy. I love green beans and bacon, so much!

The three younger kids started homeschooling last week. So far so good.

Whew, what else? I am writing a lot. Kevin's mom is in the area so we are spending time with her, which is wonderful.

Still sick

 ARGGHHHH!!!

It wasn't COVID. It isn't COVID. We are happy about that.

But while most of my symptoms from the recent illness are gone, I now have breathing problems. I had breathing problems all week. On Thursday I went to an urgent care with Kevin and got steroids. I am better than I was, but am not yet perfect.

It is very annoying. Thursday I couldn't talk for more than  a couple of minutes without panting for air. Now I can talk fairly well though any activity makes me pant.

So baby steps. I am trying to be thankful but I am more annoyed than thankful. But I should be thankful.

Needless to say, Kevin and the kids have been doing all the hard work.

Kevin and two of the girls picked green beans. I love green beans and bacon so much.

As is common for us Kendigs, it took weeks for everyone to get sick with this thing. Joseph called off work on Friday, and Daniel is sick now.  Sigh.

But we are getting there.

Early August

 

Now it is getting serious with the veggies. Lots and lots and lots of zucchinis, and Kevin is freezing tomatoes, and we have cucumbers and GREEN BEANS.  I love fresh green beans. So much.

Kevin likes to take the kids to lunch one at a time. Very different interaction then when the Horde is swirling.

So...

James 4: 13-15

13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

I got sick this week. That is annoying because HELLO it is SUMMER and I don't want to get sick in th summer! We got sick after VBS too so yeah, I guess when we hang out with people, sometimes we get sick.

I have tested twice for COVID and it has been negative so that is good. Whatever I have, and I think it is just some random virus, it is affecting my breathing. I can't do much without panting dramatically.

It isn't dangerous, just annoying, but I had it in my head that this week we were going to start school for the year. BUT, the kids are sick too so no. That would be stupid. We will wait a week.

I am someone who loves to plan and indeed, planning is good. There are plenty of places in the Bible, particularly Proverbs, where people are urged to plan ahead. 

I think the verses in James have more to do with keeping one's heart ready to accept changes that the Lord brings into our lives. Not that I think God struck me down with sickness. I was hanging with someone who was sick, no doubt, and got sick. Or someone else in the family did. The point is, I need to not fret about pushing school back a week. That may sound like a minor thing, and thanks to Lexapro (yeah!) it isn't bad, but like I said, I LOVE to plan.

Six years ago I had a hysterectomy at the end of August so that whole school year was weird and the kids learned a lot anyway. So sometimes life throws a curveball.

In other news, we get to see a family this week whom used to be neighbors. They are a military family and were in Europe the last few years serving there, and are moving back to the area. They are a wonderful family with as many kids as we have, so we are all excited they will be back in the area soon.

Also, what would a summer blog post be without a mention of chiggers? Two finally got me. Sigh. I am so thankful for cold packs. 

I wrote a lot this week as sitting at a computer doesn't make my breathing get wonky. I have made major progress on both books I am working on, so that is good.