Simple Living

    Being sick has not all been a waste of time after all. How else would I have gotten this reminder now, right on time. Now, while we have been clearing out extra stuff and dreaming of simpler ways to keep this old house tidy and welcoming and functional. I can get carried away in discontentment, forming up new, better goals unless I'm soundly distracted in a good way about being present and thankful right here. Today.
   Being sick has kept me right at home.
 

 At home with nothing to do but sit and look at this house. Except when I was reading Jan Karon or scribbling or visiting with the girls online.
Except on Sunday when everyone was off to church and suppers elsewhere; I found something interesting to watch on Utube. Amazing. They were documentaries on the old, off-grid stone cottage and farm homesteads in Europe. (Can't imagine why I'd be interested in that, right?) Utube of course, wants you to believe that these old homesteads are few and far between and like some kind of zoo animal to be gawked over. I gawked, I'll admit, because I realize that an old stone cottage being lived in and loved by the same family for many generations is currently happening in many places. Is it just Americans who believe that everyone has to have the biggest, latest and greatest to be worthy?

 And the bottom line to value is a dollar amount. I want to protest. But, that's not even what I started out to say here.
I came away from those videos seeing my own old stone cottage with new eyes.
We do canning. In fact I made wonderfully tasty cheeseburger soup for pennies with canned venison and fresh produce. Here's our one dish meal for two or three suppers. Why do we think we need a four course supper and a different variety each evening? We can't afford it here, nor do we care.

Here we are, burning wood, which we'd like to change to LP for heating because it would be easier and less messy. But wood heat is arguably better for the dollars when we end up drying towels and jeans by the stoves on racks.  All these practices are sustainable and our grandchildren can live simply and cheaply, using them, if they choose, as well.
One thing that European folks do that we don't is to walk whenever they can to the post office or bank or market or mailbox. I wonder if they're thinner and more fit? We'd have to walk a lot further than they do, right? So we have cars and thick waists and high blood pressure.
 

  I find it rather satisfying to bring a dormant geranium plant in to revive and re-pot it. I'm dreaming of a white and blue ceramic pot for my wintered geranium and I shall have green in only a few days. I'm going to keep this one in the kitchen where I can watch it while I do dishes. 

 I do not know where the succulent trend came from, but I know that it has been a happy trend at this house. We created centerpieces for the church dining table last spring. The others eventually died, but this one is still happy and growing even though it lived on the banister in our very cold, unheated porch all this winter.
During my little clearing binge, this piece of decor escaped Salvation Army and the dumpster both. Good decision.
I looked out the porch window and saw the best snowbank decor they make standing right there in plain view. I'm not sure there is a better place for them anyway, unless it would be on our feet.
Looking forward to taking them out soon. Simple pleasures. The best.

What I Think

While the world watches the Olympic activities and the surrounding news and opinion about North Korea's cheer leading squad, I get to sip my freshly pressed coffee at home, quietly. I enjoy my faith openly. Everyone in my world respects my right to work where I wish, shop, play, cry, smile and pray whenever, wherever I desire.
    I get to sit at home where it is safe from the ugly and dirty of crime. Crimes against children and women. Of slavery and exploitation. I feel safe and secluded and rather naive about the evils of the big, bad world out there. Even the headlines sound unreal to my little backwoods ways. And my compassion feels hemmed in by boundaries that seem to be an important part of my culture and lifestyle. There are no bridges, it seems, from this side to that unknowable side.
And then someone shares an article about the other side painting a graphic, hideous picture of an unthinkable crime that I won't repeat here, written as truth. My critical thinker kicks in and I realize that either this is not true and the article is written for the sake of propaganda for stupid unknown reasons, or it is true and nobody is stopping a piece of hell... but no, this also is unthinkable. I cannot wrap my mind around either option. And I find myself again pinned to the wall with the question.  If it is true, then what? And if it isn't, why do we share on Facebook the drivel of the ugly, filthy, immoral out-workings of a sin-diseased mind? Still, if it is true, why would you share on Facebook the drivel of an ugly, sin-diseased mind? I ask you!
    Rumor and intrigue are being pumped onto my computer screen from the media, as if there are no stops, no judgement, and its just a game. It is sickening. If it's true that the cheer leading squad of North Korea is being taken home to be sex slaves now, then I've got some tall praying to do and so do you. And we have been praying for North Korea for many years, right? Have you? Please do start.
    I suggest that each time you see an article about unspeakable, unthinkable crimes against humans, don't share it on Facebook. Get down on your knees and pray for it. God can figure out what part is true need and what is simply propagandist rumor. Christians don't need the internet to make an appeal to the right authorities. We can pray and intercede.
      For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places...praying always with all prayer and supplications in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints...Ephesians 6
      Did you know that the ugly and filthy of bad news and sin and lies does bad things to your brain? Meditation on God's Word and beauty and peace, heal and help our brains. It's true, prayer makes a good physical change to the brain. Why not take all that terrible news and attitudes straight to prayer?
    He hears our prayers, and He answers. Perhaps His answer to your prayers will be the building of a bridge to the other side for you. Maybe He will use you to free a child. Or to be a voice in the wilderness. Let's pray.

Numbers and a Theory

Sometimes numbers are just boring. But right now, in our family, they hold a certain interest for me. We have been married for thirty-five years. Five of our seven children are married and Amy is about to add a husband to her life making our total number for the Graber family a nicely rounded thirty. Exactly half of us are eight years old or younger, which is to say, we have fifteen grandchildren. Thus, in our mid-fifties, we are not bored.
    In fact, we often need to re- prioritize. Sometimes we get so busy with plans, visits, Facebook, sharing ideas, jokes, needs, jobs, sorrows, church, suppers, birthday parties, chores, deadlines and all the ordinary daily things that it feels like we are mindlessly existing. There's hardly time for thoughtful decision making. Normal routines keep happening along with the unstoppable turning of the clock. As long as everyone is happy and healthy, why fuss?
    This then, is why I am glad for the habit of quiet time each morning. In the latest Daughters of Promise magazine there is an article about how prayer physically contributes to our brain growth and health. What a mercy, because I really need rejuvenation on a daily basis. The comfort of knowing that prayer heals my tired brain helps. So instead of feeling overwhelmed by too many thrills and needs from our crazy, large life; I can view all of it as prayer material. I get to kill two birds with one stone: grow my brain and bring all these things to our Sovereign Father for His care and keeping.
    Another fact that helps is knowing that each of these seven children of ours is, in fact, an adult. I don't have to live their lives, raise their children, (our grandchildren), fix their beds, cook their meals, pay their debt, or make their decisions. Oh, the wonder of leaving and cleaving. It means that Elv and I get to be just two people doing life quietly when we choose.

    Still, keeping life sane and joyful requires vigilance. I have a theory. A theory that we are actually in the Tribulation now and too blinded by media and easy living to realize. If suddenly we remember to pray or provide some push-back to it, we are met with barrages of fear or negativity.  Elv says my eschatology is faulty. I hope he is right. I contend that peace and joy are fairly illusive unless a person really puts the mind to trusting God relentlessly.
    
   

Snowshoe Weekend

 We did have such a nice time at the cabin last weekend. We hadn't been since October so Elv and I had lost track of how we had left it then. Getting in late Friday evening to an empty wood box, pantry and unmade beds is not fun. So pulling up to welcome light spilling out onto the snow from all the windows, the generator running, and warm fires in both stoves was amazing. Our friends had even hauled in water.We are so blessed. It's purely a gift from the Lord.
    Brad, Amy and Tim were due to follow us in two hours later, so Elv and I unloaded and worked on settling in. He filled the wood box and kept both fires roaring to heat the very corners. And I fixed beds in all three bedrooms with clean sheets and piles of blankets.
    Even later, Elv fried up hamburgers on the cookstove and I made popcorn. Everyone was hungry. Eating that late made us  feel content and drowsy especially after the haul in through the snow and cold.  Cabin bedtime by midnight or so.

 Morning coffee and quiet time by the fire is especially nice. Elv really spoils us. He prowls around building fires and making coffee an hour before any of the rest of us even wake up.

 Then he cooks delightful breakfasts. This time we enjoyed his version of eggs and bacon. Besides we have cookstove toast which is bread  buttered on both sides and toasted on foil on the cook stove. It tastes wonderful with our own plum jam to spread on. You can't eat just one slice of it even with the eggs and bacon.
   I love our arrangement. He cooks and I clean up. Besides, he installed a cabinet with a ceramic sink in the kitchen right after breakfast Saturday morning and hooked up the drain. So even though we still have to dip hot water from the reservoir in the cookstove to wash dishes, we don't have to haul it outside to dump anymore. 

What we really wanted to do this time was snowshoe. By refurbishing Elv's old bear paws from logging days, and Brad buying a new pair we each had a pair of snowshoes. Elv fitted Amy's boots into the old bear paw shoes.
   Off we went, feeling triumphant because we could walk out across swampland, where we could never go in summer, and oh, just anywhere we wished. Such fun it is.
   Then back to the cabin to dry out and warm up, drink hot chocolate, and dig out games and books. Pit and Scrabble.
And we read and napped by the fire when we weren't cooking or snowshoeing.

   

Snow Storm

To top it off perfectly, there was a snowstorm on our last day that threatened to snow us in completely. At first Elv wasn't too concerned because we had the Jeep and snowshoes, but eventually as the snow deepened and the the forecast kept changing the amounts to more and more, we decided to get out while we could still drive out.
It also meant though that the expected visit with Herb and Susan did not happen which is disappointing.
Afterward, we thought maybe we should have parked the pickup and jeep out at the end of Joshua Rd and waited till morning snowshoeing out just for fun one last time. We could have, easily enough, but then, it was really nice to be home and off to our various duties Monday morning.

Winter De-cluttering

The whole family here at the stone house is involved in it. I began this little effort sometime during January after Amy got engaged. Began because it suddenly struck me that if I am going to be the only home cleaner and keeper around here, the only laundress, cook, and bottle washer, something is going to have to change. That is, a lot of things are going to have to change. Actually a lot of things are going to have to go away.  

We have too much clutter. Decor is fun and cozy and all that, but too much decor and cozy is suddenly not fun. It's work.

   Please don't worry. When we are done giving things away and hauling other things out, there will still be plenty of cozy and decor left to ensure that we do, in fact, still live in a cabin. You can hardly throw way the cozy of books and wood walls and lamps. I am already wondering what all it was we have been throwing into the dumpster. All except that huge, broken, awfully dusty, stuffed chair. It fitted into the dumpster, after a fashion, on top, making the lids of the dumpster stand almost straight up, it was so full. I do wonder what our friends driving by noticed and thought. No, I don't.
   We are not done. Elv offered his ideas to further our minimalism cause when we talked it over again yesterday. "Do it one room at a time... start with the porch.Throw away all those coats we aren't wearing that are hanging on my hooks in the porch." and "Those old shoes belong at the firehall." and "Yes, I'll take away the boxes of work related things." Wonderful words to my ears.
   Furthermore, (wonders never cease) we are going to stop heating our house with wood heat by next fall. The LP furnace that has been quietly waiting to be mended and fired up is going to get mended and fired up so that I can stop having so many daily messes of wood chips and dust and ashes around two wood stoves. This should help tremendously. We still want to have a fire for ambience and extra warmth on a cold winter's night now and then. But dusty shelves and blue smoked windows should soon be a thing of the past.
   And one more rant. What with the education, propaganda/articles, and blog posts about minimalism, I'm guessing Wal-mart is about to go out of business, especially if the zero waste folks get us talked over to their paperless, sans plastic camp, as well. I have been reading up on both of these radical ideas. Some of it makes sense, even though complicated. (It was supposed to be about simple living, right?) I'll say though that most of the super radical ideas they're trying to put over are not sustainable. In the end, I believe that we can help our situation of having too much house work by getting rid of too many things and replacing them with just a few quality things.
   So I did relegate about 15 dresses I'll never wear again to the comforter patch bin. I want ten perfect outfits that I love. Don't laugh, its a happy thought. Hardly sustainable for the likes of me, though. I'm known for being picky and ridiculously annoyed with supposedly perfectly passable outfits. What I envision as stunningly beautiful always ends up being on someone else. Don't worry. I haven't any other major hang-ups.
   Hopefully I have better luck with organizing and simplifying the rest of life at the stone house for when it's just me being the homemaker around here. Dreaming of a dishwasher and one of those newfangled instant pots.

Winter Posting

 We've been having the nicest kind of winter there is.  Snow-fall at regular intervals, sub-zero nights between snows, and the blue sky days to turn the whole world into a dazzling vista. Snow is blue and white and grey and all the shades thereof. Charlotte tells me that I talk about the blue colored snow every winter, so I'll not bore you with it again, but truly, we have the most beautiful snow that there is, anywhere.

As is all of life, I suppose, there must always be the proverbial fly in the ointment to balance the big, beautiful, blue-snow things. The logging job is an hour away and they have no phone reception. They cannot receive or sent texts. Elv says that this happens every winter and it is just that the winter stumpage happens to be more in the boonies.  But I say it is because we are planning a wedding. This has happened every single time we have been planning a wedding, without exception.
Amy and Tim are getting married. They're excited about this and so are we, of course. Yes, it was, a short courtship, unless you take into account that they've known each other all their lives. Both from our home church. This fact then, for now, insures that at last one of our daughters settles in our community.

The wedding will be in May. It will be a small wedding. We learned again that you have to book a church before you set a date. Check. Put money on a reception hall. Check. Colors. Check. Invitation pictures. Check. Make a tentative food order. Check.
We are also learning again, that even a simple and economical wedding requires list making and many phone calls and note takings. Details, too numerous to mention above photographers and servers must be carefully tended. Amy is good at this. And I've done it three times before. Which helps. And it's fun, too.
So Elv is securely sealed away in his Buffalo cab with no connection to the outside world while Amy and Tim plan.  Sometimes I rebel heartily inside about this. Other times I know that in reality even if I could be telling him every detail and asking him about other details that he'd be far less than enthused about listening to so many of them. Detail is not his forte. His words, "My job is walk her down the aisle and to give her away."
 Of course, he has attended to the important parts of preparing each of his children for adulthood already. Check. Wedding planning is about when and who is doing what and paying the bill. He will approve the planning as we go along because the answers to all those questions are obvious and simple. We have so few choices and I am grateful for that. Loving our little, ordinary, backwoods world just now, again.
All that to say this. Amy and Tim are their own unique couple and no amount of simplicity of ceremony will detract from that about them. One thing I notice is that they love to laugh together. I pray they never forget how to laugh, even through the frustrating times. Laughter changes the color of "blue". He likes her chatter/running commentary. She likes him. Period. I should have her make a list of all the things about him that make her feel secure and hopeful and happy about life ... to look at later, someday, when laughter fails. For now, God Bless You, Amy and Tim. We Love You.