Every once in awhile, ...

Every once in awhile I am hit with one of those moments.  One of those moments when I see the concrete results of what Joe and I are trying to do with our kids. 

And every once in awhile, when those moments hit, my emotions run amok.  Happy my child is resilient.  Sad I can't do more.  Pleased our parenting seems to be paying off.  Frustrated that life is sometimes so hard. 

All of these and more.  But pride.  Yes, pride, good or bad, pride is a big emotion right now.   

Raising our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord is, of course, our primary responsibility. And this particular moment hasn't to do with that part of our parenting.

Besides that eternal undertaking, in the regular day to day things, we try to raise strong and independent, resourceful kids.  Kids who can stand on their own two feet come what may.  Kids who will know how to survive even if something devastates our American way of life.

Simply having a big family and living on one income goes a long way in helping with that.  We can't live according to mainstream society's standards.  We can't provide our kids everything they want.  We can't have everything we want.  But we can show with our creativity and life choices how to live "outside the box."  How to have a rich life in spite of doing it differently than many of our neighbors and friends.

It also means that as our kids get older, and they begin to fend for themselves, sometimes we have to let them work their way through hard times.  Flounder.  Come up with their own unique best way to solve the problem.  Each of the four oldest has gone through such times.  And each one has handled such things differently.  Feelings of stress, deprivation, jealousy, even bitterness, sometimes accompany such challenges.  This is adult life, right?  It's a hard world.

But as every parent can attest, sometimes I just really wish I could fix everything for my kids.  Many times, because of our life choices and the blessing of a large family, we simply CAN'T step in and help out.  Except by simply, "being there," for them.  In the long run, I hope that makes our children stronger as adults.

It is still hard, though, to watch them going through difficult times.

This little facebook interchange between Elsie and I led to one of those moments I mentioned at the beginning of the post.  The kind of moment that just hits me. 

Earlier in my conversation with Elsie, I'd asked her if she needed help hauling stuff home after her school year was done.  She said she couldn't make any concrete plans until she got a car.  I had not heard anything about car trouble.  And so I asked.

Wow!  It hits me right in the back of the throat.  I am astounded.  Astounded, humbled.  This young lady hadn't even let me know she was having troubles.  She is a 17 year old, living pretty much on her own, working 15-30 hours a week, while taking college classes.  She is also in track. 

And apparently, she's been doing this all without the use of a car.  And without parental support.

(Joe said he thinks she had been talking to her Grandpa about it. Grandpa's smarter than we are in such matters anyway.)

Elsie, I'm pretty sure that not every moment in the last week or so has felt as nonchalant as your reply sounded.  But I have got to say, you're quite a gal!

Love you tons.

How do you solve a problem like Mary?

Frantic search in all the usual places for the car keys this morning so Joe could go to town. Then one of the sisters suggested, "Sister, considering it's Mary, I suggest you look in someplace UNusual."

I thought back to the last time I drove. Tuesday. Coming home from Bible study. Late. Sharon waiting here to help pack, and me not home to direct her. McDonald's bag from previous day on the floor of car. Grabbed it and the two cups and threw in dumpster on the way into the house. Dumpster empty except two McD cups and a bag. No keys. I'd have seen them.

I'd have seen them, right? I really wouldn't have been so dumb as to throw away my car keys?

"Which dumpster, Mary?"

"Uh, ... I'm not sure. Maybe that one," replied Mary hesitantly, adding to herself, "Let's hope so, since that one has nicely tied bags and the other one is full of loose garage detritus."

Joe removes the nicely tied bags from the one he's searching, while I grab garbage bags and start to fill them with the gunk from the other.

Joe found a McD's bag at the bottom.

"Did you find two cups?"

"No."

"Check again."

"No cups. Just a bag."

"Shoot that means it's in this one."

Joe repacks all his nicely tied bags.

I dump the dumpster all over the driveway and Joe joins me in digging.

A few minutes later Joe exclaims with great relief, "Here they are!"

What a dope I am!

A little hand written pick-me-up

Yesterday I received a surprise note card in the mail.  I did not recognize at first the name on the return address.  But I was curious about the handwritten address.  It did not appear to be junk mail.  Curiouser.  Some handwritten something, addressed just to me, from a person whose name was, well, familiar, as all Scandinavian American names come to be after living a community like this.  But not instantly recognizable as someone I knew. 

I eagerly slit open the envelope, and as soon as I began reading I knew who the sender was.  This card is from one of "my readers."  When I started this blog, blogging was kind of new.  Many people had online feeds from their favorite bloggers.  I myself had a list I checked every morning, like scanning the morning headlines.  These blog feeds were, in a sense, an early version of the crazy social media we have today.  These writers were my friends.  And my readers were my friends, too, leaving  comments or e-mailing me about one or another post.  Occasionally, one or another with more "old fashioned" social skills would actually pop me a letter in the mail. 

Off the top of my head, I believe I've only gotten real honest to goodness snail mail from a couple of blog readers.  The note I got yesterday was from one woman who has kindly read and supported me throughout all these years of blogging with occasional handwritten notes of thanks. 

You see, this reader grew up near here.  Her parents were both under Joe's care as homebound parishioners when we first moved here.  I can't say that I have met this dear woman in person.  Perhaps I have, once or twice.  It seems I remember an in person conversation.  But I'm not sure.  I do know that I remember her as a person.  A mental image.  This is O and G's daughter.  The one who lives near the Twin Cities.  The one who reads my blog and enjoys hearing about things at home.

Her notes to me throughout the years had a positive impact on my writing.  It brought me a deeper kind of pleasure to talk about things in the northland when I knew that someone who could see it in her mind's eye was enjoying it.  It challenged me to lend visual details to my posts.  To dig a little bit for local things of interest.

I found yesterday I was blue in a different kind of way to think that I won't be able to write about this community, changes in the seasons, little nothings in our life here, for much longer.  It made me sad that this dear reader will hear only news of our new home and community and people.  All good things, of course.  But not the same as hearing about home.

And so yesterday, as I scanned this kind note or thanks and support, I remembered this friend fondly.  And I thought, "I'm going to write her a little thank you note for her kind words."  But then I immediately thought further, "STOP!  You know good and well you will never do that.  So don't even kid yourself."

But I can write a blog post of thanks and kind thoughts.  And I know she will see it.  And I hope she will smile.  Thanks you for your kind words of encouragement throughout the years. 

Just a very quick snip of sentimentality in the midst of a day of catching up on laundry

In the process of getting our whole household sorted and packed up to move, I find it increasingly hard to keep up with the regular stuff.  Besides that, the pile of "not sure where to put this" stuff is growing exponentially. 

The living room is a twisted, jumbled wreck of boxes and bins that are either 1) waiting for those few more things that I just know I will find to fit in them; or 2) filled with the miscelleny of life in a ten person household and waiting to be sorted.

Besides that, my couch had been, until the last hour or so, heaped high with clean laundry, some folded, some not.

To get to the chair I like for my morning coffee, I have to wend and wind my way through the mess, planning the route ahead of time to descry a way through, and looking at each step before setting my foot down.  And all this without spilling my coffee. 

I've mostly managed to keep the dining room table mostly clear.  But we have a second table in our dining room, still sitting there from before Christmas when Jeremy came with his gang.  Every time we've gotten it cleared off, it fills up again before we get it out of the room.  And now that we're trying to pack to move, it has become an extra place to stack and sort and store temporarily.  Which leaves us squeaking and squishing our way around the regular table and seats when we have to sit down to eat or answer the phone or anything over that direction. 

And I so I deemed today the day to get caught up on folding the clean clothes and sorting out all the bits and pieces of packing that has stacked up.

I find that I'm just ready to be done.  I'm not in a hurry to leave this community and this town and these friends.  But if it has to be done, I'd just as soon it just BE DONE. 

Something that is perhaps unique to a pastor's family situation, is the attachment we feel to two communities.  Our hearts are in two places.  We are attached to these people here, and caring for them in times of happiness and sorrow.  They've been our family for the last thirteen and a half years.

And yet we're eager to form those same attachments with our new church family.  Different ones have been periodically calling to check on things since Joe accepted the call.  But in the last week, we've had more calls from more people.  Asking about Joe's preferences in scheduling things in his first few weeks there; asking about our preferences about paint or other household repair issues; and so on. 

Today one of the ladies called to ask about window shades.  She and some of the other ladies noticed that the current shades were nearing the end of their lives.  And so she and her husband had purchased shades for some windows and were wondering about doing more before we come. 

It's a rare thing in today's world to feel such love and care and support from people that one doesn't even really know.  It's a gift in this broken world to see the members of Faith showing such love for their new pastor and his family.

And we see the same love here, too.  Our people here have offered to help in so many ways.  Some have taken a load of stuff to the thrift store or metal recycling.  Another friend has picked up several loads of boxes and other packing materials from a local business.  Others have come to help me clean or pack.  Another friend taught Sophie how to finish the binding on the quilt she started long ago, and will take time from her schedule to teach Clara with the same.  She also bought the kids a bucket of ice cream and some Fruit Loops as a special treat.  Others bless us with gifts of money or food items to help out during this time.

And it's not becasue they are trying to hurry us away.  It's because of the blessing of love between them and their pastor and his family.

I find myself constantly on the verge of tears, thinking of leaving here.  And also emotional when anticipating the joy of being in a new community of similar love and support.

But to add one more thing to my precarious state, ... the snow melted.  That is usually not a bad thing.  It is this time, though, since it exposed my new flower bed that the kids and I put in last summer.  Oh, I was looking forward to finishing it off this summer and nurturing the young plantings through another growing season, enjoying their growth and beauty. 

We had planted a clump birch out our living room window the first summer we were here.  We had to replant it twice because of damage from weather, kids, and youth group outings.  But finally it's a wonderful clump of white and black boles and silvery green leaves.  When I first planted that birch I envisioned it surrounded by a perennial bed, with a raised hill curving around one side.

I imagined.

And dreamed.

And hoped.

And had babies.  And mowed lawn.  And planted vegetables.  And put in other flowers here and there.

Finally last year was able to create my long awaited landscaping.

And this spring, we will leave before I even see it coming back to life after it's first winter's rest. 

It creates a strange mix of sadness and excitement, and tears of joy and frustration, when I  contemplate, among other bigger things, my flower bed here and the newly painted living room walls in the Clara City parsonage.

Getting ready to move

So, we have shifted from an effort to rearrange rooms (see index tab "Room Upset 2014"), to preparing to move.  Here are some highlights, starting with those relating to the Room Upset:

• Just before Joe got the call for Clara City, as in, the day before, we finally had finished Sophie and Stella's orange room.  Sophie had requested an orange room shortly after she got a quilt from her Grandma A. that was bright colors with black: orange, green, purple.  We had gradually gotten some items for her in those colors, a lamp, clock, storage containers, etc.  Kyle N. painted the bunk bed in a bright green.  We had bought and installed wire shelving for the closet. 
• Our poor youngest girls were finally moved into their own room.  Or at least their own beds.  Clara and Sophie still had several piles and bins of things to remove from when they shared that room.  But at least the girls had their own beds for the first time in months.  
• We got Clara and Sophie's stuff moved out.  Since we knew by that time that we'd be moving, they simply sorted and packaged most of this for the move.  
• And seemingly strange, yes, ...  we moved Clara and Sophie's empty dressers into the garage and moved Inge and Donna's into their room.  Why, might you ask, would we bother moving dressers into a room?  Because we'd been squeezing past them in the hallways for the last four or five months.  With all the hauling and carrying we knew was coming, we wanted to clear the hallways.  

Sophie's custom shelves

The Orange Room and the Orange Lamp

The Purple Trip and the Purple Clock and the Purple Cork Board

That's the summary of the tail ends of the Room Upset.   The highlights of the move operations follow.

• We started by sorting books.  Books and books and books.  Besides an extensive home library we had boxes and boxes of homeschool books to organize and figure out what to do with.  Most of these had been boxed up since we quit homeschooling and changed our school room into our Louisa room.  But in that time the boxes and been shifted and spilled and restacked and respilled and it was simply chaos.  We worked on books for about a week.  And even then each new thing we started we'd find more.  But most are either packed, gone to Goodwill, or waiting to be sold or given to other homeschoolers.  
• We have all the stored-for-later-use shoes, boots, jackets, coats, snowpants, etc, sorted and packed.  Except those, of course, that are currently in use or that I find while digging through other things.
• Joe's parents came for a quick weekend and helped with many little sorting and packing jobs.  Primarily they did some of the lesser used and more breakable kitchen and dining room items.  
• Kim and Todd C. brought us pallets and more pallets.  We know that with the spring thaw comes a very wet garage floor.  And we knew we wanted to use the garage to store the packed boxes.  Joe and Matt gradually cleaned out areas of the garage enough to start to organize the stuff.
• The kids and I have sorted and packed many/most of the toys.
• Clara has been such a trooper to haul and haul and haul many stored boxes up from the basement for me to sort.  
• Sophie and Clara (who are homeschooled) have been busy helping to keep up with regular household tasks such as dishes and meal prep and laundry, along with their studies.
• Joe has all his guns and ammo sorted and ready.  

Some of our book sorting

Some more of our book sorting

Donna and I working in the living room

John and Stella helping Grandma

Grandpa cutting packing bubbles for Grandma

Grandma and Grandpa packing some of the dishes

Garage Chaos

More Garage Chaos

Garage Order

And besides all this, we've gotten many details of the move worked out:

• Primarily the dates.  Joe will preach his last sermon here on April 12.  The churches here have planned a joint service that day with a meal following, so we will be able to say our goodbyes to the members of all four churches at one time.  Our new congregation is sending a semi up here on Monday, April 13, to move us down there.  It is their hope/tentative plan to rent a semi trailer for some extra time, so that we can gradually move in rather than having trip over boxes while trying to figure it all out.   And Joe's installation at Faith Lutheran Church in Clara City will take place on April 19.  Our new church family is planning a hog roast to welcome us and to thank Pastor Muehlenhardt who has served them during the vacancy.
• We have all the details worked out for the kids' schools.  Sophie, Clara, and Inge are homeschooled now.  All will be homeschooled after the move.  Next fall, all will enter the MACCRAY schools.  We're excited for this since the Jr. High and High school are right in the same town, and the elementary schools are each only seven or eight miles away.  This is only half as far as our nearest school is now!  Elsie is currently doing PSEO work at Bethany, which allows her to get two years of college under her belt while she finishes her last two years of highschool.  And we've just found out that she will be able to continue to be enrolled in Oklee while doing this, so that she can still graduate with her Oklee classmates.
• Big Kids' summer plans: these are still in the works.  Somewhat.  Elsie will be living with us and hopes to work at the Clara City Care Center as a CNA.  She would have preferred to stay in Mankato and keep her same job, but Joe and I feel that as a 17 year old, she still needs the time with her family.  She, understandably, does not agree.  But I hope it will not be too miserable for her.  Clara may or may not stay up here with Tiffany's family.  Clara has been working for Tiffany doing babysitting, housework, and outdoor chores, and learning from Tiffany livestock husbandry skills.  And she's bought from Tiffany a filly in exchange for some of her hours.  They have plans to continue training on the filly this summer, which is the reason Clara wants to stay.  Louisa is (this week) planning to stay in Moorhead for the summer, but I'm not sure she's decided for sure.   I keep hoping she'll decide to come stay with us in Clara City, but she has a very good paying CNA job in Moorhead.  I've encouraged her to be sure to calculate food and rent when deciding which options would really be a better deal.  But I suspect she is calculating based more upon my boring meals and all the dishes she might potentially have to wash in Clara City.  We shall see.  And Matt has found a place to live up here until he can move to Moorhead in the fall when he plans to start classes in Law Enforcement and/or Criminal Justice.  Along with his USMC drill weekends and annual training, he will be able to continue working for Quinten (Nelson and Nelsons Construction) throughout the summer.

Of course there are many, many things left to do.  But we go one day at a time.  We trust God to provide what we need, whether it's patience, time, energy, brain power, help, health, strong bodies, well behaved kids, etc.

And although it didn't exactly fit into any of the above paragraphs, I want to thank Barb C. who has brought us several Suburban loads full of boxes and Chris V. who dragged a absolutely huge bag of  packing bubbles home from Digi-Key.  We've had gifts of food.  We've had the support of many prayers.  God is good. 

Oh, and we made a quick trip down to Clara City to visit a little and to see the lay of the land.  Marsha P. and the other ladies helped me to pick out paint colors; and they have been busy painting some of the rooms down there.  Marsha has been my main contact at our soon-to-be home and I appreciate all the questions she's answered and measurements she's taken, etc.  Jeffrey L. has been so helpful to Joe in getting everything ready for the move.  He and the men have had many decisions to make to help us settle in easily.  They are putting a new bathroom in the basement of the parsonage and are working on finding some sort of space for the pastor's office.  Joe's vast pastoral book collection, which he indeed uses regularly, needs a home with much wall space for shelves.

And speaking of books, I ran into Sheryl W. yesterday while getting my hair cut at Gelene L.'s.  Sheryl mentioned several boxes of Old Norwegian books, some pastoral, that her dear departed mother Ragna had wanted Joe to have.  So, Joe, I think I forgot to tell you last night, but you will be getting some more books before we leave. 

Geeky redneck ingenuity

The right hinge on my laptop broke shortly after Christmas.  I used traditional gray duct tape to hold things together.  My charging cord has two bits of duct tape, one silver and one orange, at opposite ends, holding things together.  My disc drive stopped working when I dug out the pre-school and kindergarten computer games for Inge a year or so ago.  I guess the old Windows 98 games were too old, and so messed up my drive somehow.  My screen flickers sometimes, as though it's about to give out.  And there's some sort of fan problem that causes the fan to periodically stop working and the computer to shut itself down.  I always try to sit with it propped up so that much air can get in. 

And then yesterday my second hinge gave out. 

Joe said I could probably get a non-functional case for my laptop, for about $30, and then switch out the innards into that one.  But with all those other little things, and the move coming up and ensuing change in income, ... I don't really want to spend the money. 

Today, when I probably ought to have been packing, I found myself challenged to do a little engineering.  Home computer repair using duct tape and shoe laces.  I'm pretty happy with the results.  I feel sufficiently ... accomplished.  I think it competes well with the steel can/2x4/duct tape cup holder Joe's dad made for our creeper van. 

view of the top; note the residual silver duct tape peeking out

view of the bottom, featuring the support string for the side braces

Note the snazzy half hitches on the laces that allow for adjusting the angle of incline

Just another view of my masterwork

One has to shape the tape around the various edge portals

The other edge with portals handily exposed

But wait, ... what about that disc drive?  I know it doesn't work anyway, ... but still, ... it looks like she taped it shut?

No worries.  A foundation layer of tape facing upward keeps the supporting tape from sticking, but still offers a surface upon which to add the vast layers of diagonal tape strips to keep the shoe lace from shifting when the weight of the screen is applied

Dishonest Memories of homeschool days

I had to give up homeschooling before all my kids were through school.  My memory of that era, ... well, pregnancies, nursing babies, homeschooling, meals, laundry, ... I really don't remember much at all.  But I thought I remembered being an abysmal failure at homeschooling. 

Because we couldn't afford to join the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, I saved everything the kids did.  I wanted to keep proof of what we had done.

And now I'm weeding through that proof.

And throwing out all those assignments.  Math.  Spelling. Grammar.  Writing.  Handwriting.  Science.  Thinking Skills.  Book after book, binder after binder of Jeremy's work.  7 years.   Book after book, binder after binder of Matthew's work.  8 years.  Louisa's.  Seven years.  Elsie's.  Six years.  And even Clara's.  Four years.  A few of Sophie's, John's, and Stella's but not much.  The kids went into school the year John was going into first grade. 

I can't believe how much they got done.  Really.  I paged through most of the workbooks, expecting to find big chunks of incomplete work.  But no.

I have no memory of all the work they did.  Only of all the fights.  All the nagging.  All the failure.  All the sitting in the school room on Monday morning throwing together some assignment lists.  All the tripping over the ever growing piles of dirty laundry.  Joe cooking supper, because I was still busy with school.

I even had a gradebook.  I had a couple full years worth of grades entered.  For each and every assignment.  Each and every child.  Impressive. 

I am, ... stunned.  Without words.

I guess, ... I guess, ... I guess I'm not a failure after all. 

Kids! Jeremy, Matt, Louisa, Elsie, Clara, I'm sorry I only remember the hard parts of it.  I'd love to remember all those accomplishments. 

You other homeschool moms out there, don't despair.   You're likely doing much more than you think.  But save their work so that one day, you'll find out.