Not Quite Ordinary Observations

For Today...Monday, September 28, 2015

In the great outdoors...a warm fall day. Leaves are starting to fall, but there’s not a whole lot of color, thanks to the dry summer. And I just noticed that the hummingbird feeder is empty. Oh, girlies!!!! The hummingbirds are calling you!

Oh, and our sweet, orange cherry tomatoes (can’t remember the exact name) are ripening finally! We planted the bush very late because of the move, so it’s ripening late.

Our precious Almyra friend Mary Ann Stone grows these tomatoes in her back yard. Every time we went swimming at the Stone’s pool, the girls and I would snatch a few. They taste like candy! I’d never found a bush before to plant them in my own yard, so I always just enjoyed Mary Ann’s. But right before we moved, I found a plant at Home Depot, of all places. I was almost in tears as I snatched it up. Eating those little tomatoes is like a sweet taste of “home.”

Within our four walls...purging time again. We’ve been here four months, so it’s time to re-evaluate all that survived the move purge.

You probably wouldn’t believe it by looking at our house, but over the years, we’ve simplified SO much. But, there’s still just a lot of stuff in our home. We know it, and it’s a long process to change habits that built up the stuff. The kids and I chatted this morning about the anxiety caused by too much stuff. They immediately rushed through their chores so they could go start purging immediately. How I love my kids!

There’s an American Heritage Girls yard sale this weekend – our only fundraiser plan for the year. (I like that so much better than trying to sell things door to door!) So, that’s even more motivation. It’s tempting to cancel school to do that all week, especially since I also need to find time to go through their seasonal clothes. But I just don’t know that the schedule can handle that with all of the days off we have coming up in the next quarter. Praying over that one!

A heart of thanksgiving...for the blessing of plenty, and for the lesson we learn as we purge. For friends. For the anticipation of seeing friends face to face (can’t wait, Julie!). For friends who love my children so much.

A heart of prayer...for wisdom about our upcoming busy season. For my children to thrive spiritually. For Baby Elijah. For our church. For our new neighbors.

Speaking of which…

Random observations...there’s a house on the corner of our street that’s been for sale since before we moved in. Yesterday the kids noticed vehicles in the drive, and this morning Doug and I saw that the For Sale sign is down. I’ve been praying for the future owners of that house. I’m excited to see God’s plans for them – and how we fit into that.

My silly children...want to listen to Christmas music so badly. They’ve started walking around the house singing it. And they’re trying to find excuses to turn it on. “What if we’re working on a Christmas project, Mommy?!”

Our Christmas music start date used to be Thanksgiving. Then we declared that we could listen to Canadian Christmas music after Canadian Thanksgiving. Haha!

This morning, we did play multiple versions of “Good King Wenceslas,” as today marks the anniversary of his martyrdom.

Thoughts from the kitchen...I’m still so uninspired. I really want cold weather food, and cold weather just isn’t coming. Struggling immensely with cooking these days. And, I think Doug misses being able to work more cooking into his schedule.

But, we must eat. So, cook I will.

On my bookshelf...same old stuff. The evenings we decided to set aside for reading/writing have been consumed by other obligations of late, and continue to be taken up for the foreseeable future. So, we snag moments here and there as we can find them.

Projects...editing for Doug (love it!), purging, sorting seasonal clothes, thinking toward Christmas. 

Sounds of the moment...birds outside my window. Quiet in the house as the children and I process through morning activities.

From Hibbard Academy...the need to make checklists for this week! I didn’t have much school prep time last week or over the weekend, so I still need to process what we should be doing this week.

Fortunately, last week I accidentally planned for Friday, even though I knew we’d be going apple picking with the Choates. So, there is school work planned for today! Nice!

A favorite thing from last week...sights like this. (More pictures from our field trip coming soon.)

2015-09-25 10.54.34

And enjoying the beauty of this friendship as the Choates spontaneously offered to adopt our children for the rest of Friday and all day Saturday, even though I had to hurry back to work Friday afternoon. I’m telling you – there’s nothing like those safe friends who you love like crazy, combined with the knowledge that they really do love you back.

The planner...is starting to show the typical fall craziness, standard for the Hibbard family. It’s the season when personal and ministerial busyness coincide. This year, though, we haven’t had a lot of our normal down times leading up to this season, and the family vacation we had scheduled for this month just didn’t happen, thanks to the move. So, we’re praying especially hard for balance and time management as we head into this season.

In the immediate, Doug and Steven have Scouts tonight (no AHG for the girls and me, but this is my only available squad planning evening, so I’ll be diving into that). Tomorrow night we get to enjoy the company of some of our newer friends, coming to play for a little while. Yay! Wednesday church. Thursday and Friday are at-home, but still full of family to-dos. Saturday, the girls and I will be working the AHG yard sale, and it seems we have something else that day, but I can’t remember what.

Because visuals are fun...I love actually teaching my children. But, if I’m honest, this is my absolute favorite part of homeschooling – planning. Laying it all out in my online planner, then transferring it weekly to my paper planner just brings me joy and pleasure. (I’ll always be a paper planner kind of gal, no matter how wonderfully convenient My Well Planned Day may be!).

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Comments

We're having the same fall issue here - not as much color because it was so dry, everything turned kind of brown. But we still have some!

I'm with you about purging, but NO TIME right now! Between camping, Arkansas, and then Arizona/Mexico... it's too crazy around here :D Can't wait to meet you all in person!

Julie

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