This week is VBS at our church.  It starts at 9 a.m. and we are home just in time for lunch.

As much as I love VBS, it makes for an exhausting week.

During this hectic time, I am so grateful that my “morning sickness” has abated almost completely. 

Bird update: My battle against the squirrels seems to be successful. The suet feeder is still hanging where I strung it up, and the woodpeckers visit many times a day. We see both male and female downy woodpeckers, and we get so tickled at their antics as they hang on the feeder, sometimes upside down. And much to our delight, the woodpeckers have also discovered our other bird feeder. This morning I noticed three other birds at the feeder, two eating at once and one waiting on the fence for his turn. I wish I knew what kind of birds they are.

Dream update: Yesterday Michael saw an ad for a piece of property about 20 minutes south of town. So we decided to go look at it. We walked around, admiring the rolling hills and the trees, and wondering if there’s any way we could ever make such a move. As we walked back to the van, a neighbor came by and we started visiting. She and her husband have some property for sale at a more reasonable price, so we exchanged information and made tentative plans to see their land on Sunday afternoon. We don’t know what lies ahead for us, and we are willing to stay where we are if necessary. But we are interested to at least follow the leads and see if God opens doors for us.

Personal update: Last night as I laid in bed, I was so grateful to realize that I didn’t feel sick at all! What a thrill to drift off to sleep without fighting waves of nausea. Sometimes we don’t appreciate ordinary things until we go without them for a while.

Ok, here’s another dilemma for you.

It’s been my dream since I was a child to live in the country, have lots of animals, and enjoy the wide open spaces.

My dream hasn’t yet come true, but I still yearn for that style of life.

But I’ve been thinking recently about what God’s plan might be for my life. Since we live in town, we are able to participate in lots of people’s lives. I can visit my grandmother every Sunday evening, I can give people rides to and from activities, I can establish relationships with our neighbors, I can stop by my parents’ house, etc. But if we move out into the country, we’ll have to consider trips into town more carefully. With gas prices so expensive, I won’t be able to justify zipping into town for every little reason. We won’t be close enough to people to share rides. We won’t live close to neighbors that we can get to know on a daily basis.

So what’s the right thing to do? If we are called to reach out to the world and be “salt and light”, isn’t it better to live around people? How can we influence our society if we withdraw from it?

One positive example I have is my friend Janie who lives quite far out in the country, but she is always reaching out to people, having folks out for visits, etc. So she doesn’t let her country life isolate her from society. But I’m much more antisocial than Janie. I’m afraid I would get lost in my own world.

I would like to hear your philosophical opinion on the pros and cons of living in town and living in the country.  Meanwhile, I’ll keep dreaming.

There are some things in my life that I know I can’t change, so I just accept them, for better or for worse. For instance, I don’t particularly enjoy being pregnant, but that doesn’t really matter. It’s the way things are, and I think that I’m finally just accepting it. I’m not trying to hide in my regular clothes, I’m not questioning my calling… I’m just walking the path of pregnancy. Makes me think of the ways our children sometimes fight and resist the inevitable. It doesn’t help anything for them to throw a fit at the prospect of taking a bath or going to bed. They’re going to have to submit and obey eventually anyway. In fact, it makes the whole process much more difficult if we have to take time out to discipline them and convince them to obey. How much better it is if they just obey without complaining, even if they don’t feel like it.

But where is the balance? How do we know when to fight and struggle, and when to just accept the way things are? I’m thinking specifically of our house situation. A few years ago we tried so hard to get our house ready to sell. We found a house to buy. We aggressively marketed our house. We advertised, we had open houses, we talked to realtors… and in the end we got nowhere. So we took a break for a while to have a baby and recover from that. We also decided that we needed to remodel the kitchen to make the house more attractive to potential buyers. But now that our remodeling is almost done, the thought of trying again to sell our house is overwhelming to me. I know how much work is involved in getting our house on the market, and I also know that our effort might not get the desired results. And on top of everything else, I’m getting quite comfortable here at this house. I like it here. Oh sure, we’re crowded. And I don’t know where we’re going to put the next baby. And we still yearn for a house in the country. But I feel like I’m resigned to my fate. I accept my house. I’m not fighting it any more.

What should we be doing? Should we be working hard to make our dreams come true? Or should we just stop fighting and enjoy our life and accept it for what it is? I don’t know. What do you think?

I don’t know why I have this sudden interest in birds, bird feeders, and bird baths, but it sure has kept me entertained. I’m starting to recognize the chirp of the woodpecker, and I can tell the difference in some of the birds who come and visit. I’m still very much a bird novice, but I’m having fun getting acquainted with my new friends.

When I had the suet feeder hanging on the porch, our woodpecker was only brave enough to visit when the porch was empty. So Michael patiently climbed a ladder and hung the feeer from one of the birdhouses as I requested. The woodpecker loved the new location, but two days later the feeder was completely empty, and I swear I heard some squirrels giggling in a nearby tree. So Michael again climbed the ladder, moved the nail, and hung up the newly-filled suet feeder. Two more days passed, and yesterday morning I found the feeder on the ground, half empty. Hmmm. I guess it was still in the reach of the squirrels. While I pondered a solution, trying to think like a squirrel, I went ahead and re-hung the feeder on it’s same nail, figuring the woodpeckers could get a snack before the next round of squirrel raids. Sure enough, this morning the feeder was again on the ground. This time Miguel was witness to the mischievous climbing rodent’s crime. “A boy squirrel reached out with his paw and knocked it down!”

There was no time to wage war this morning since we had to hurry off to church, but after lunch I gave it some more thought, studied the trees, glared at the squirrels, and decided to put my next plan into action.

I fetched a ball of yarn, tied a rock to one end, looked around to make sure no one was watching, and then threw as hard as I could to get the rock over a tree limb. No luck. Not even close. I fetched the rock and tried again. A little better, but still not really close. I changed my strategy, noticed a neighbor sitting on her front porch watching, answered questions from Miguel who had come out to watch the strange things his mother was doing, and threw again. This time the rock sailed high, up and into the tree and stuck tight on top of a large branch. I tugged the string to see if I could encourage the rock to head on over to the other side of the branch, but after a few tugs the string came loose from the rock and fluttered down gently. I stared and then laughed. If anyone ever climbs up there, they will just have to wonder how that rock got all the way up in that tree!

Ok, time for a new rock. After a few more tries, with advice from Miguel, the rock finally went nicely over a branch and sailed down the other side swaying back and forth gently. Victory! Miguel was surprised. We played with the swinging rock for a few minutes, and then I went and got the ladder, tied the rock and string up over my head, and cut the string. By this time Laura had joined Miguel on the porch and asked, “How did you do that?” She quickly fetched the suet feeder, I hung it from my rock and string, and put the ladder away. Now we will wait and see if the woodpeckers will go for my squirrel-proof suet hanger dangling in the middle of the front yard.

A little while later Isaac looked up from the porch and asked incredulously, “Is that a rock???”  :-)  It’s fun to keep the kids wondering!

As I type this, I’m sitting on the front porch, and there is a male downy woodpecker on the tree right next to where the suet feeder used to hang. If I am quiet, I can hear him muttering, “I thought it was right here… I could have sworn it was right around here somewhere yesterday…”

I don’t know if I’ve won the battle against the squirrel thieves or not. I’ll keep you posted.

Meanwhile, I’m tickled that a few birds have noticed my homemade bird bath, and a few other birds have found the bird feeder in my garden. I get so tickled when the birds deign to dine at my house!

Last night as I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep, I got to thinking about my blog. With an internal groan I realized it has been a while since I posted. I hate falling behind. I realized that falling behind on my blog is like letting my housekeeping slip. When I walk into a room that is terribly cluttered, I often just turn and walk away feeling overwhelmed at the job before me. But if the room is mostly clean, it’s easy to straighten a few things and bring it back into good shape.

Same with my blog. If I post every day, it’s easy to comment on the newest things that are happening. But if I let it slip, I often don’t know what to post because there are so many thoughts tumbling around in my head. What do I write? Do I comment on my mother-in-law’s visit? Do I mention that the pool is open and tell about our adventures? Do I tell about something interesting Miguel did? Often I just close the computer and figure I’ll work on the blog later.

But alas, eventually I can stay away no longer, and I am drawn to write, even though there’s no way to catch up with all the news I’ve neglected.

Here’s a quick list:

1. My mother-in-law is here for a visit. We are trying our best to convince her to move to this area, but so far she hasn’t given her final answer. Meanwhile we are enjoying her company and already feeling like her visit is too short.

2. The State Farm pool opened last Saturday, and we’ve already been there three times! It’s a brand new pool, completely renovated over the winter, so the kids have been delighted to explore the new features.

3. Good news: I think my “morning sickness” is almost gone! I feel like I have a new lease on life. Now my challenge will be to avoid overeating since all food looks so yummy.

4. After a long break, I’ve started Laura and Isaac back to their school work. I’m hoping to have them work through the summer, getting a head start on next year’s work before the baby comes in December.

5. Luke is almost done with his school work, and Amelia is delighted to have finished her Learning-to-Read course. She is now in first-grade work and loving it. I suppose I need to start thinking about when I’m going to start Miguel on the Learning-to-Read course. It’s never-ending!

Well, now I feel like I’ve at least scratched the surface to catch up on our news for the past week or two.

Have a beautiful June day!

Last night we took the whole family out to run errands. What a job! We hardly ever go to the mall as a family, but that’s exactly what we did last night. I even stopped at the pretzel place and bought some pretzel bites to share with the kids. Considering what a Scrooge I am with buying food like that, I’m sure the kids thought it was pretty exciting.

Our big stop was in the Old Navy store. One thing we used to do but haven’t done recently is to buy the whole family matching Old Navy flag t-shirts. For some reason we get a kick out of wearing matching things. As soon as we went through the check-out line, Amelia wanted to change into her new shirt. One after the other we started filing back to the bathroom, and before you know it, Michael was the only one left wearing the shirt he wore into the store. With a sigh he took off his t-shirt and replaced it with the matching flag shirt. Then we walked through the mall one big happy matching family, and I sorely wished there was a photography place so we could get a photo made.

One other interesting thing happened in Old Navy. I was checking out the maternity section, and I saw a blouse that mildly caught my eye, perhaps because it was actually in my size (XL). I glanced at it and then checked the tag to see how much the clearance price was. How strange. The bottom of the tag read “.01″. Hmmmm. Surely it was mismarked, but on a lark I stuck it in the shopping cart and told Michael I wanted to at least see how much it cost.

As Michael was unloading the cart to pay for everything, he handed the maternity shirt to the cashier and said, “This is marked at a penny, so I’m wondering if you can tell me what it really costs.” When the cashier scanned the tag, she replied, “It’s actually a penny!” Michael said, “I’ll take it.” What an odd thing!

The moral of the story? Buy matching clothes, and always check the price tag.

I don’t know why it works, but I’ve discovered the perfect remedy for me to not feel so sick while I’m trying to fall asleep. After I’m all ready for bed, I pop a starlight mint or a cough drop into my mouth, and then I suck on it as long as possible while I’m trying to fall asleep. Of course, it takes me a long time to fall asleep, so the mint is gone before then. But the effect of it lasts until I’m asleep.

I don’t know why it works, but I’m not worried about that. I’m just going to buy a big bag of cough drops!

P.S.  Update:  After some experimenting, I’ve found that mints actually work better than cough drops.   So if you try this idea, next time you’re pregnant, try the mints first.