Saturday Afternoon Tea

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Trampolines, craving quiet, lilacs are blooming

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

Note: I usually only share this post on my blog (Boondock Ramblings) but thought I’d share it with my subscribers here on Substack too this week.

I am back this week for Saturday Afternoon Chat and I am sipping peppermint tea but later I’m sure I’ll be drinking cool water as our temperatures are supposed to be higher today than they were yesterday and Thursday.

As I am writing this, The Husband and Little Miss are at gymnastics and I am taking a little bit of what I guess I would call self-care time.

This is the first time in – um – a long time that I have had any time alone to write or think or just decompress. I seriously do not even remember the last time I had a break when it was daylight out without people and animals all around me, coming in and out of the house, looking for attention or needing something.

This past week was very busy but not busy with going places. It was busy with being outside or washing dishes or trying to clean things out or, quite frankly, it was busy in my mind. My mind has been racing 1,000 miles a minute, sometimes a second, these days.

It’s racing over my parent’s health issues, my kids growing up, homeschooling, me trying to help the family financially while also trying to have fun with some side activities like writing, photography, and designing, knowing I need to spend time with my husband, my kids, my parents and feeling like there isn’t enough of me to go around.

I’m finding it hard to simply sit and listen to my own thoughts and try to find some balance in the midst of all the chaos. I’m struggling to find moments of peace in the chaos, something I plan to write about later this week.

Right now the house is silent. The dog is asleep on the ottoman and outside my window there is one lone bird not exactly chirping, but sort of calling. There isn’t even a truck grinding its brakes down the hill like it so often is during other quiet times I’ve been able to grab in the past.

Quiet.

My soul has been craving it.

Not long stretches of quiet because then I feel off-centered and lost and melancholy as I long for the presence of my family – even if they are loud at times and need a lot of attention. I want to give that attention. The majority of the time I want them around me because if they aren’t then I feel like life is incomplete.

Sometimes, though, I need even a half hour of quiet so I can think and remember how much I need the everyday noise and hustle and bustle because without it that would mean that those who are most precious to me are no longer part of my life. If they were no longer here then I would no longer be here because they are what give me a purpose to create and live.

I need a quiet moment to close my eyes and breathe in the peace of God and remind myself that I am not alone in all my fears, worries, and apprehensions, I am not alone with my racing thoughts. God is here even in the chaos, even in the fear, even in the anxiety that tries to take me over.

So today I will take a moment of quiet while everyone is gone and just soak in all the goodness that is my life, repelling thoughts of all the bad that I think my life produces or is filled with.

When I forget how great my life is in the overall, grand scheme of things, song lyrics from a song by Wes King from the 1990s comes to mind.

“Life is precious. Life is sweet. Like the earth beneath my feet. And his truth makes it complete. Knowing Jesus died for me, life is precious, life is sweet.”

Earlier this week Little Miss and I spent hours of our afternoons on the neighbor’s trampoline. I can’t lie. I didn’t enjoy it as I should have. I was resentful. I wanted to finish revising the book I’m writing. I wanted to read. I wanted to have “me time.” And I felt selfish about that.

I felt like I should be enjoying every moment with my daughter because before I know it she will be grown up and moved out and I will have all the free time I want but I won’t want it. All I will want is time with my children back again.

So, I felt my resentment for a little bit, pouted some, and even flounced a little.

But then I worked on just enjoying that time with her, watching her jump and do flips, and seeing how much she’s grown physically and skill-wise in the last year.

Yes, I worked on it. I chose joy when I didn’t feel it because sometimes, we have to do that and, you know what? I did soon feel joy and I felt a slow rhythm return to my soul that I needed. I had been rushing and trying to do too much at once and I feel like God knew I needed that slowed-down time to just be in one moment and not ten at once.   

Yesterday the local homeschool group met at an alpaca farm about an eight-minute drive from our house and then stopped for some ice cream at the restaurant where my son is now washing dishes a few times a week.

Little Miss loved the alpacas and kept feeding them the carrots that the owners had cut up for the kid’s visit. She fed them so many I thought they might start spitting them back at her, but they seemed as thrilled with her feeding them as she was to feed them. She stayed with them long after the other kids had gotten bored and wandered off to the little shop the farm has and the woods around it.

After the farm visit and ice cream, there was a Mother’s Day craft at the library. Then it was time to go home and cook dinner and wash some dishes.

Speaking of dinner, lately Little Miss has wanted to make special sauces for dinner, and one might last week she made an amazing cheese sauce to go with our dinner of chicken and rice. Another night she made a similar cheese sauce for our dinner of sausages and egg noodles (though I had rice with mine). The sauce was so good and I saved some to have with my lunch yesterday. I told her it is now her job to make cheese, or another sauce, for family dinners. She’s very excited about this prospect. My only issue will have to be making sure that she doesn’t get so excited she tries to do too much by herself and accidentally burns or cuts herself. She is sometimes impatient waiting for Mom to help so she jumps ahead and does it herself. This can be a good and a bad thing.

I was worried one day when she was making the sauce because I said it was cutting into our homeschool time.

“Is this sort of homeschool? Teaching me about cooking?”

As usual she’s quicker on the uptake than I am.

So, yes, we treated it as a time to learn and it removed the guilt from this homeschool mom.

Today Little Miss has a friend who is going to come to play, which will probably mean more time on the trampoline.

I don’t mind. This hour break has helped me have a little “me time.” Even the short break is so rejuvenating for my spirit. (Doesn’t that just sound so dramatic? “It’s so rejuvenating for my spirit!” *snort* I sound like I’m in one of those YouTube videos with the guitar music and some girl in an old-fashioned dress skipping through a field of tulips.)

In all this rambling, I forgot to mention that our tulips and our lilacs are blooming. The lilacs smell so amazing! Last night I had to go search for our youngest cat who has been staying out past curfew lately and when I opened the back door the amazing sweet smell of the lilacs hit me.

We used to have a very small bush by our garage and a larger bush that is growing in the middle of a tree on the top of the hill behind the house. This year the smaller bush by the garage is much larger than t had been, and an even smaller bush is growing next to the fence next to the house. I don’t remember that bush last year but It is very welcome to stay there and bloom. I should probably cut some of the bushes back but I love to see plants grow naturally. That’s one reason why I have never cut back our wild rose bush. Well, that and the fact our neighbor, who told me the bush is over a hundred years old, said that when her landscapers trimmed her wild rose bush (which was grown from a section of our bush), it stopped blooming as well.

I look forward to those wild roses blooming every year. When they first start to appear, pure joy settles in my chest and then spills outward through giddy giggles. I’ll see them through the kitchen window and go grab the camera to take a hundred photographs of them. A hundred photographs I used to have no idea what I had the use for other than to look at during the winter months when everything is so drab. This past week, though, I decided I can use some of those photographs for journals I am developing.

Speaking of photographs (yes, “speaking of” are the words for the day, apparently), I failed a bit on my Photo a Day in May challenge. I literally forgot about the challenge for nine days, but when I remembered I picked up my camera and took several photos of the lilac bushes and Little Miss jumping. I am not trying to remember to take my camera with me everywhere I go so I can pause a moment in the craziness and photograph something that catches my eye.

As I’ve said before, photography helps to slow me and my mind down, which is one reason I wanted to do this challenge.

Since I missed several days of the challenge, I am going to try to stretch it into June as well.

To end my post (since I think I hear my husband and daughter coming in now) here are a few photos I’ve taken for the challenge so far in May. I’m sure I’ll share a separate post later in the week with one for each day.

How about you? How was your week last week? Have you found any new teas to drink? Let me know in the comments!

Saturday Chat: Zooma is better! Chilly days, playing with the kids, and some old photos

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 14 Comments

This Saturday evening (because I couldn’t get this post finished before the afternoon was over) I am drinking chocolate almond beverage milk but then I’m going to drink some peppermint tea because our spring temps are low spring temps. It is cold and raining today. It is perfect weather for reading but I don’t know how much time I’ll have for reading since Little Miss has two little friends over and they can be a bit loud and like to try to get me to play with them.

When you were growing up, did you just play with your friends or try to get your parents to play with you? I don’t remember trying to get my parents to play with me. I just went off with my friends and played. No parents needed.

I think my husband created this trend with them when he started chasing them as a zombie one time when they were over. Now they want to play Zombie every time they come over and that entails one of us parents chasing them around the house while moaning and holding our arms out like we are a zombie that is going to get them.

I don’t mind playing a little with them, of course. It does get my exercise in for the day when I do it. I just don’t want to do it all day.

(Update to this part: I’m late posting this because the girls wanted to go to the neighbors’ trampoline and I need to watch them when they do that and there is no wifi out there on the porch. At least I didn’t have to chase them this time. Hee. Hee.).

This past week our Zooma the Wonder Dog fully recovered from the illness that struck her the week before. We were all so relieved. Zooma was very confused when we celebrated her climbing the stairs and jumping up on the bed, but she hadn’t been able to do those things for about a week, so it was worth celebrating to us.

Seeing her run around the yard the other night at full steam was wonderful too.

We learned our lesson too. We haven’t been slipping her any people food unless we know that it is fairly bland and won’t irritate her stomach. So, she does receive a few bites of chicken deli meat or plain chicken, but nothing else. We can’t go through that worry again. (Right after I wrote this, I literally gave her a bite of chicken that was seasoned without remembering it was seasoned. Oh boy! I hope it doesn’t cause an issue. I was thinking the plain chicken would be okay for her. Pray I didn’t make her sick again!)

Little Miss and I have been working on journals for the last couple of months to sell on Amazon. She designed a bunch of covers when she was recovering from her dental procedure so I thought it would be fun to put them up for sale for her on Amazon. Then I decided we would create a journal company for fun. She named it Rose Dove Journals so that’s what it’s called.

We are still waiting for quite a few to be approved by Amazon and I am designing some more prayer, devotional and sermon notes journals.

I don’t think we will sell a lot of journals, but we are having fun so why not try!

Don’t worry I’m not linking to them here. I don’t want my blog to be a full-time advertisement. That’s not why I started back to blogging. I just wanted to connect with other bloggers and have fun.

I used to blog when my son was young – about 14 years ago or more now. He’s going to be 17 this year. I can’t even believe it. When I blogged back when he was young I was called a “mommy blogger”. I wrote mostly about him and what he did and how he slept (or actually how he didn’t sleep) and what it was like to be a mom.

Then for a while I wrote about photography.

Now I just write about whatever strikes my fancy, so to speak.

Speaking of that saying “so to speak” – I use it often and don’t even know exactly what it means. I mean I guess it means “sort of” in a way? Such as, “I write about whatever strikes my fancy – sort of”? I don’t know what it means but it’s one of those sayings I think I use too often.

I also write “instead” and “of course,” too much in blog posts. Do you  have phrases you overuse?

Do you think I’m asking too many questions in today’s post? *wink*

Well, brace yourselves because I am going to ask another one. What beverages are you drinking this week?

Oh and one more – what’s the weather like where you are?

I hope you had a good week last week and have a better one this week.

Here are a few photos from today four years ago of my dad and the kids and Zooma. I can’t believe how different the kids look now!

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Spring has sprung and Zooma the Wonder Dog gets sick

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 11 Comments

Welcome to my Saturday Afternoon Chat!

As I type this all of our windows are open, there is a cool bleeze blowing our veil-like white curtains and the church bells are chiming loudly – finally on time after being off by an hour for almost a month after the time change.

Outside the window tulips are blooming, my neighbor is digging in her flower beds to get them ready for planting, and birds are chirping at each other.

This week I sipping chocolate almond milk as I write but had some tea when I first woke up and I am going to warm it up and finish it here in a bit.

Spring is in full bloom here.

The blooms are out on all the trees, maybe a little early, which I’ve heard is bad for the fruit trees because then they create too much fruit that sometimes spoils. We will have to see what happens.

I took photos of the pear tree (I think that’s what it is..it never really grows too much fruit) at my parents on Sunday and could hear a loud hum as I stood under it. I believe that hum was all the bees swarming it to collect the pollen, but I’m not sure.

The tulips on the side of our house, which I mentioned earlier, and the tree next to our house are also blooming.

I spent yesterday afternoon and evening on my back porch. I think it got up to 80 yesterday but it was a cool 80, not too hot.

Little Miss ran in the sprinkler earlier in the day and then The Husband cooked chicken spiedies and fries and I sat with the pets outside and ate dinner and read Fellowship of the Ring (more about that tomorrow in my Sunday Bookends post).

It was such a nice end to a slightly stressful week which kicked off with all of us thinking we might lose our Zooma. For those who are new here, Zooma The Wonder Dog is our cockapoo-Shetland Sheepdog mix and she’s the best pet ever. Seriously. Ever. Anyone who meets her loves her – well not that guy down the street who walks by and she always barks at but there must be something wrong with him or she wouldn’t bark at him. A guy my dad knows came to Dad’s last week and Zooma loved him immediately so I figure she only barks at weirdos (and my brother. Ahem. I had to differentiate that he is not a weirdo. Not exactly anyhow. Maybe a bit of one.)

Monday night I came back from taking Little Miss to a makeup class of gymnastics and The Boy was in the yard with Zooma who was trembling and wouldn’t jump up on the porch to come in. When he tried to pick her up though, she would cry out and try to nip to get him to stop touching her. We finally figured out a way to get her in the house and sat with her in the laundry room while I called the emergency number of the vet where we used to live and still use.

The vet suggested she had colitis, inflammation of the intestines, based on her symptoms and the fact she has had some issues with her…um…bottom glands in the past. I also had to confess to the vet that we had been sneaking her food, especially on Sunday when I slipped her tiny pieces of pork chop several times. Later that night my dad also confessed that he had seen Zooma eat a bone in his backyard that he had left out for the birds but that had fallen on the ground. And in fact, everyone in the family except for my mom, who is a saint, had slipped the dog food over the last week or more.

I have a feeling that all of Zooma’s issues had been brewing for a while, though. She’d been acting more dragged out and tired over the last couple of weeks.

The prescription the vet gave was to pull up her food for the next couple of days to let her colon rest and heal. We pulled her food up and Little Miss pulled her dog bed into the kitchen (for some reason) and she flopped down and didn’t move all night, which is not her at all. She usually likes to be in whatever room we are and sometimes up on the couch or chair next with us.

The Boy slept on the floor with her that night because she had no interest in getting up to go upstairs with us.

The next morning, we couldn’t get her to stand up to go outside and when we tried to carry her out she cried as she sat down, started trembling and cried again when The Boy picked her up to put her back on the porch. We called the vet again and they wanted us to bring her right up. The office is about 45 minutes away. To make sure she had space to lay down, The Boy and The Husband took her, so The Boy could sit in the back with her. Little Miss was crushed because Zooma is her best friend and she wanted to be there to care for her.

She kept saying she wouldn’t leave Zooma. The Husband and I also didn’t want her going because at that point we were concerned there was something very serious going on and she would be hysterical if Zooma had to be put down. I just couldn’t imagine our life without Zooma, but I didn’t think it looked good.

My worst fear was that she’d had a stroke or she had a tumor on her spine causing her legs not to work right.

Once at the vet, though, the little rascal started to act better by first being carried into the clinic and the x-ray room and then trotting out of the room like she was totally fine.

The vet said she had gas all inside her stomach and inflammation in her colon, so I believe the official diagnosis was colitis, but The Husband just remembers the vet saying she was full of gas. Luckily nothing was broken because at one point we suspected she had something wrong with her paw or paws.

She was placed on anti-inflammatory medication but seemed to only get worse over the next couple of days. She mainly laid down, not even stirring when there were noises outside, which is highly unusual for her. She had no interest in getting up, looking out the side window of our house like she normally does, or climbing the stairs with us at night. One morning, though, she sat the bottom of the stairs, barking at 5:20  either because she was lonely or in pain. I came down to let her outside, but she wouldn’t move from where she was sitting and simply stared at me.

We had been told to pull her food up and I had been making boiled chicken and rice, so I gave her some of that, which she ate, but then stared at me like she still wanted something. Eventually The Husband came down with her and fell asleep on the floor to try to get her to lay down.

Over the next couple of days I spent most of my time boiling chicken and rice, physically picking up Zooma’s backend to make her stand and get outside to move around and use the bathroom, checking on her, trying to get her to drink water, and occasionally warming up warm compresses to put on her …um…bottom, to see if the warmth would have a soothing affect since she was jumping up off and on like something was biting her in her butt. She wasn’t sure what she thought about those warm compresses and gave me the funniest looks. I wish I could have taken a photo of her but I was busy at the time, obviously.

I also had to spend several minutes making her get up, walk out the door and walk around the yard to use the bathroom and then lift her up onto the porch, hoping I didn’t hurt her. My fear was that this would be how we’d have to take care of her from then on, or that the vet had missed something, which would have been a surprise to me because they’ve always been excellent with the care of our pets.

On Friday morning I had to lift her off the bed because she’d fallen asleep there after Little Miss had lifted her up the night before and hadn’t moved other than the lift her head off and on as if pleading with me to pet her and make her feel better. She wouldn’t jump off the bed herself like she usually did.

The Boy and I both tried massaging her belly area and Thursday night she seemed to get some relief because the boy said there was an awful stench from her.

So yesterday morning I got her to go down the stairs and outside and when she saw our neighbors she made her way over to greet them. She even jumped off the porch on her own.

For the rest of the day, she walked up on the porch herself and seems to be on her way to healing finally. It seemed like such a long time of her being sick, even though it was only five days.

It’s weird how a dog being sick can throw life in a family off, especially when they are such a big part of the family like Zooma is.

Not only did it throw our family life off, but it made me feel off-kilter because I was used to Zooma’s perkiness and crazy behavior instead of looking like a spaced-out copy of my once-loving and fun dog.

By last night things were feeling a little bit more normal because Zooma was a bit more normal than she had been. I hope that trend continues on through the weekend, but there were good signs that it will since Zooma was climbing stairs again and jumping up on the ottoman to look out the window and watch the neighbors come and go.

On Tuesday the kids had an eye doctor’s appointment, which The Husband took them too since he had a week off for vacation. We learned that Little Miss will need glasses. I’m a little disappointed with that but it isn’t that surprising considering everyone else in the family has glasses too. I swear we gave our kids the worst genes. I had glasses around 10 and The Boy had them somewhere around 9 or 10, although he says it was 8. He was older, but that’s okay, I’ll let him have his memories.

His memories are a little skewed sometimes, though.  He often tells me things I said that I never said to him and I sometimes worry he’s creating an alternative universe and life experience in his head with ideas of what he thinks I will say about something. (If you don’t know me then you don’t know I joke a lot and since I am writing this and not saying it, you can’t hear the tone it’s being said in. Know that I am joking – yet, I am a little serious because I’m pretty sure I conjured up some scenarios between my parents and I that never happened too.)

We had nice weather almost every day this week so Little Miss and I spent a lot of time outside, including on Thursday when school was mainly reading books on the back porch.

This next week looks like it is going to be a lot cooler so we probably won’t be outside as much, which will be a little sad, but I know warm weather will come to stay soon.

That means we will be seeing a lot more of our neighbors probably. None of us really see each other in winter because we are all running from our cars to our houses to get warm. The neighbors closest to us have two Shih tzu dogs who they are training to stay in their yard if they go outside their fenced in area. They love to come over and visit Zooma, though, and I’m glad for Zooma to have some socialization. She’s not really too sure what she thinks of Little Louie though since he’s pretty interested in sniffing her in places she’d rather not be sniffed in. Gucci is more interested in attention from everyone else instead of Zooma. He also listens better than his big brother.

So that’s my week in a nutshell.

I hope this week will be a little calmer and that we are able to keep plugging away on homeschool lessons which we only have about a month of left. I can’t believe the school year is almost over. I’m sure the children won’t be happy but I am considering starting our school year on August 1 this year but on a reduced schedule so it will only be a couple days a week until we get to September. I think this will allow us to take more breaks during the school year so that it doesn’t feel like we are slogging through long spaces of lessons without much down time. Who knows. It could totally backfire, but luckily homeschooling allows us the flexibility to try things and then stop doing them if we don’t enjoy it.

How was your week?

What are you drinking this week for tea? Or is it coffee? Or are we on to colder drinks as we move toward summer?

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Is it spring or summer? My son’s life-saving walk around town and a library trip.

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 17 Comments

I didn’t drink a cup of tea all week and I missed it.

This morning I poured myself a cup of peppermint tea (I’m a creature of habit) and sat down to write this post.

Maybe it was the chill in the air that made me crave the tea since the rest of the week the mornings have been warmer than normal for this time of year. It was like we went from a hint of spring and right into summer. Thankfully spring returns for a bit this next week as temperatures decrease.

I can’t believe I am admitting this, but I am going to miss colder weather. I know. What?! Me, the person who always rambles about hating winter is actually going to miss winter?! Well, yes, I am because I loved cuddling under a blanket in the mornings with a good book or my laptop to work on my books or blog posts.

I am less interested in sweating on my couch while I try to think about how to write the next chapter in my book.

We took advantage of the nice weather this week by having two Easter egg hunts on Sunday afternoon (one at our house and one at my parents), doing homeschool lessons on the porch later in the week, playing in the backyard some (but not much because Little Miss had allergy issues all week and fought me on taking her medicine), and visiting the library.

On Monday we headed to The Boy’s guitar lesson but unfortunately, he got sick from something he ate when we were almost there so we had to turn around.

He was better later that night, thankfully.

He has a job now so Thursday night he went to work. He’s a dishwasher for a few hours a couple a times a week at a local restaurant.

Thursday Little Miss and I headed to the library. She enjoyed playing with the Legos in the children’s room while I chose books for her and I to read together.

At one point it felt nice to sit on the carpet with all the little train tracks and crack open a book that caught my attention, but that I had never heard of – Mrs. Piggle Wiggles Treasury – while Little Miss played with Legos and a little kitchen set.

While I was there the library director showed me the library website and a link to a resource of online children’s books. I’m glad to know about that for days I want Little Miss something to read something for English. Like I told the librarian, though, I prefer to be able to hold real books as often as I can. I think Little Miss does as well. She wanted to pick out a couple of books on her own. This time we didn’t sign out our limit of books like the last time, but we did bring home a pretty good haul. I didn’t get any books for myself because I have enough to read already.

They had a poetry display up and a place where people could make their own poems with words that stuck to the board with magnets.

This was the poem that was there when we got there:

Then Little Miss wanted to make her own poem so while the librarian shared with me his interest in history, such as the history of Mark Twain, and history books he had read, she made this poem:

On Friday, The Boy had a doctor’s appointment. He had a tetanus shot so I wanted him to hang around me the rest of the afternoon in case his arm got sore or he got tired. An hour after the shot, though, he wanted to go for a walk so I let him, even though I was worried because, well, I’m a worrier. I talked to my neighbor for close to an hour and he still hadn’t returned, which made me a little nervous, so I called his cell phone. He was just going to walk around town and maybe visit the dollar store so I didn’t think it would take as long as it was taking. He called me back half an hour later and told me that while walking he’d found an elderly woman laying in her side yard, unable to get back up.

The sideyard was on a slope so he’d been trying to help her back up the hill to her house but her legs didn’t work well and she kept rolling back down. He tried to talk her into letting him call me, but she didn’t want to be a bother. He mentioned 911 but she didn’t want them to be called either. Finally, he convinced her to let him get her phone and call her children, but she really wasn’t happy about that either because she said they would come and “lecture her again.”

She tried to convince him to leave before they came but he said she kept sliding on the hill even while sitting so he stayed with her until they got there. While they were chatting he found out she was 88 and had been laying there all afternoon. She’d gone out to clean out her flower beds and hadn’t been able to get back up and then had sort of rolled down the hill.

When her family got there, they told The Boy that this isn’t the first time she’s done this and that they don’t mind if she goes in her backyard, which if flat, but the side yard is off limits because of the slope.

They thanked him and tried to pay him for his help but he wouldn’t take it.

When he told me how she’d just wanted to go clean out her flowerbeds because she wanted to be able to do what she’d used to be able to, I got choked up. I was already emotional thinking about how sweet my son had been to sit and wait with her and thinking about how he wouldn’t have found her if I had let my fear rule and made him stay home. It was also interesting that he was walking where he was because that isn’t a street he normally walks on. It’s on the other side of town, on a hill that overlooks our side of town.

He said she said to him while they were sitting there, “You pretty much saved my life, you know.”

I feel that he did save her life. It was 85 degrees out yesterday. If she had been in that sun much longer she may have been severely dehydrated or had a heart attack or something else awful might have happened to her.

He doesn’t remember her name but the daughter works at the tiny supermarket in town (the only supermarket in town). He said he wants to wander by her house on the way to work today to make sure she is okay and hasn’t gone in her side yard again.

Little Miss and The Husband are gone today on a mini-jaunt to pick up Chick-Fil-A. There is a small one at a college about 90 minutes from us. For a long time, it was the only one anywhere near us but recently they put a full-sized one in about 2 hours from us, in an area we don’t often visit. We wanted to treat Little Miss to waffle fries from there after her dental surgery but she was too miserable to enjoy it so we didn’t stop.

He has a week off work next week, so he picked today to take her to kick off his vacation,

The rest of the day I hope to work on my book, read some, and hopefully watch the first episode of season nine of Brokenwood Mysteries with The Husband.

Next week we have a fairly busy week in the beginning of the week. On Monday, the Boy has guitar lessons, Little Miss has gymnastics that night, and Tuesday we have an eye doctor appointment for both of them. After that, I think we are clear of planned events, other than The Boys’ job.

We are winding down with homeschooling and Spring Fever is in full force, but I’m trying to remind the kids there is still a month and a half left of school for them. I’m trying to make school more relaxed and interactive these last couple of months so it doesn’t feel too suffocating for them while it’s nice outside.

We meet with our evaluator (which is the person who has to sign off that I did what I was supposed to do this school year) on June 9.

As I am finishing up this post a rain storm has moved in to bring cooler temperatures in.

So how was your week this past week? I hope you had a good one?

What kind of tea or beverage are you drinking as you read this? Or maybe you aren’t while you are reading, but maybe you had a special one while relaxing one day.

I still like warm tea in the summer but don’t drink it as often as I do in the colder months. How about you? Do you still reach for a warm beverage even as the temperatures warm up?

Saturday Afternoon Tea: Book sales, good food, and impatiently waiting for spring

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

Good afternoon!

I’ve pulled out the mugs and the electric kettle and the new jar of honey for you! I also have a couple different teas to choose from – peppermint, cinnamon, elderberry, peach, and a lemon chamomile mix. I also have a sleepy-time tea but it’s the afternoon so I would hold off on that until this evening.

Which tea can I get you?

And can I offer you one of the cupcakes Little Miss made with her grandparents yesterday? They’re unicorn colored so lots of pink and light blue and some purple inside.

What kind of snacks do you like on a Saturday afternoon while you are reading or relaxing (if you’re able to do that)?

I like to munch on dried cherries from Aldi and sometimes I pour milk over frozen blueberries. The milk crystalizes around the blueberries making a cold, sweet treat. This snack isn’t the best thing to have when it is cold out, but I still eat it when it is cold.

So, how was your week? Ours wasn’t super busy until Friday, thankfully. Part of that was because Little Miss was recovering from her sinuses trying to adjust to the weather change. We thought it was a cold last Saturday but based on the fact none of us got it (and I get everything she gets) and she has this reaction to the weather change at least once every year, if not twice (since Pennsylvania likes to toy with us and have it be warm for a couple days, then cold, then warm, then cold and … you get the idea), we are now pretty certain it was because of the weather.

On Friday, The Husband and I had a date afternoon. We visited a library near us that was having a huge book sale, attended a groundbreaking The Husband had to take a photo for his job as a small town newspaper reporter, and then had lunch at a cute little restaurant in the middle of nowhere.

I didn’t find as many books as I hoped I would at the sale, but I did find a few classics I had been wanting to read.

I was most excited to find Little Women because I have been determined to actually read it this year. I also picked up A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens, Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park by Jane, and A Red Badge of Courage. For the non-classics, I picked up the Mark of the Lion series by Francine Rivers and a Hamish Macbeth Mystery.

The restaurant was very small and cozy featuring rustic décor.

I kept taking photographs of the walls and set up. The food was delicious and delivered on simple paper plates, which I’m sure saves them a lot of money.

After we left there The Husband showed me the outside of the little village’s tiny library but didn’t let me go in. I think he figured we have enough books right now. Next to the library are the cutest little houses that were built for seniors. I don’t know what has happened to me but when I saw the library I said, “Oh! It’s so cute!” And then when I saw the little houses I said “Oh! They are so cute!”

I looked at The Husband and said, “Good grief! What has happened to me? Why do I keep saying things are so cute?”

But, well, they were cute. So there.

No April Fool’s jokes here. Spring is indeed taking its time to get to Pennsylvania and I am a bit impatient. We haven’t had much more snow but the other night we had snow squalls and freezing temps, it rained all day yesterday, and today it is supposed to get up to 68 and then drop fast to 27 after thunderstorms! It’s nuts but this is Pennsylvania weather, I guess.

I am writing this with our windows open to soak up the warmth and sun before it all goes to Hades in a handbasket around the time my son goes downtown for his job, which is only a couple of days a week for three hours a day right now. He was so excited to get the job, though. He went around town a few months ago putting in applications but not receiving any calls back.

He received a call last week from the owner of a local deli/diner/restaurant, asking if he would like to work part-time as a dishwasher.

Our town is super, super small if I haven’t told you before. The census says there are 600 people in our town, but I question if it is even that many. I guess there could be since we have a large apartment building in town. That small size means there are only about nine businesses in town and part of them do not hire anyone under the age of 18.  

The Boy doesn’t have his license yet, but he is studying for his permit.

The Husband took Little Miss to an Easter egg hunt today. It was funny because the weather forecast said it would be very rainy and windy today as storms move into the area. About two hours before the egg hunt was supposed to start, though, the sky opened up and it became a beautiful sunny day with hardly any clouds at all. It looks like the sun is going to stay out until after the hunt is all over, which is good for the little community that holds it because The Husband says they go all out and put a huge effort into the hunt, even offering other activities afterward.

Little Miss’s friends live near the little town it is being held in so she will be able to see them. (As I write this I have received a text from The Husband and apparently one of the friends is coming home with her. I’m guessing The Husband caved into that request because he had a bad night of sleep last night and is delirious.)

 As we look ahead to spring maybe, someday, possibly coming to Pennsylvania, Little Miss and I have already decided we want to try our hand at a garden again this year. Wish us luck because she and I both often get excited about such things in the beginning and then lose interest as the months go on.

As I wind down here, I thought I’d mention how I’ve been feeling a little guilty lately about that rant I had on here about dentists a few weeks back. I know dentists can be good people – but then why aren’t they? *cymbal clang* I’m kidding, of course. That last part just popped into my head, and I had to write it down even though I really know there are good dentists. I’ve just had some bad experiences and that’s tainted my view more than a bit.

Tomorrow in my Sunday Bookends I will share what I’ve been reading and about some ideas I have for my newsletter (there will be a new feature I’m going to offer, but am a bit afraid to do so), and also about some Youtube channels I am watching and what else I watched during the week.

Let me know what snacks you are enjoying this fine Saturday and what tea you are drinking – or whatever other beverage. I’m sure we will all be drinking cooler beverages as the weather warms up soon. I mean, if that little rodent in Punxsy ever stops holding spring hostage!

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Dog grooming, visit to a museum, and annoying cold thwarts our plans

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

I’m back to peppermint tea this Saturday for our afternoon chat.

I’m glad you could come for a visit. I really needed some adult conversation after a week of mainly being inside and working with children. Okay, one child. My eight-year-old who isn’t a fan of homeschool right now.

I had planned on adult conversation yesterday during a homeschool gathering, but Little Miss woke up with a sore throat so that was out. I spent my day trying to get her to eat despite her sore throat, writing a little, doing a little bit of school work with her, doing some dishes, cooking dinner, and only talking to adults online through Discord.

It isn’t that I like being super social. I can take about an hour or two of being social with other people and then I’m good for a few more days, sometimes a week.  

On Tuesday the kids and I traveled 45 minutes north to have Zooma the Wonder Dog groomed. While we waited for her, we visited the local library, which has a museum of local artifacts upstairs. To turn the day into a little bit of an educational field trip, the kids walked upstairs to visit the museum.

Little Miss and I have been studying Native American culture and history so it was fun to see some actual Native American artifacts that the museum has.

She was more interested in the fossils of animals they had, however. That and the star fishes and shark teeth.

The building was built in 1897 by Jesse Spalding in honor of his son. He asked for the building to become a library and museum.

It was renovated in 1927 but as far as I know, the marble staircases and impressive high windows are the originals. There is something both comforting and creepy about the building. I don’t know how to explain that.

Like most libraries these days, they have a permanent book sale out front, and I couldn’t help picking up a couple new books – a cozy mystery and a Christian fiction book by Bodie Thoene.

After we picked up Zooma we headed to the playground, which was packed since it was the first nice day our area has had in weeks. That may be where Little Miss picked up this little virus she’s got going on now.

Zooma and I wandered in the parking lot while The Boy and Little Miss played on the playground equipment.

Thursday it was raining so we didn’t do anything, and we were grounded again yesterday because of Little Miss’s sore throat.

I felt like I was washing dishes and cooking meals all the time this week, which left little time to write blog posts or read or even work on my latest book. I hope I will have more time for all those things next week, since, so far, we don’t have any big plans.

It looks like our plan to see Jesus Revolution tomorrow might be canceled because my parents were going to watch Little Miss for us since The Boy is staying at a friend’s house.  I don’t want to expose my parents to something that might be mild for Little Miss and major for them.

For now we will plan to stay home and watch movies like we did today. Little Miss said the movies we watched were too dramatic and after I cried through Brave she said, “well, I’m proud of you. You’ve had an emotional breakthrough.”

Hopefully we will all be well by Friday because I am looking forward to going to a book sale at a library near us.

Because I need more books I’ll never read. Ha!

So how was your week last week? Any big plans for this week? And what are you drinking while you was this? I have a list of teas I want to try thanks to all of you now.

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday Afternoon Chat: Dental procedures, branching out with different teas, and more snow

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

Today I am taking it easy while snow hangs out on the trees around our house. I am not sipping tea while I write this but later I plan to be sipping tea sent to me by Bettie G. of BettieGsRAseasons. The tea is cassia cinnamon from Vietnam and made by The Republic of Tea.

Yes, I am branching out from my regular peppermint tea. Shock. I know. I’m a creature of habit.

Right now, I am sipping just plain water because yesterday I did not drink enough and I can tell I am a bit dehydrated.

I’m not the only one taking it easy today. Little Miss had a dental procedure yesterday so she is also taking it easy while also still sort of being her crazy self.

As you recall, I was very nervous about the procedure and not happy it had to happen. Long story short, Little Miss had some damage to her baby teeth caused by soft enamel. There is a lot more to this story that involves dentists who misled me, dentists who pushed us off, dentists who tried to accuse us of being bad parents, problems caused by Covid lockdowns, dentists who wouldn’t take our insurance, dentists who walked out of the room while I was asking questions, and a lot more. It’s been a rough last several months.

I have a lot of anger at a lot of people, even myself for not making a bigger stink about it all when I started to saw the issues developing, but having Covid in 2021 and suffering for a while from that didn’t help the situation either.

Also long story short, the procedure was less than ten minutes long and Little Miss recovered quite quickly, but she and I both are very sad about her missing teeth. We are very thankful that her front teeth are her adult teeth and they are looking great, which hopefully means the soft enamel was only an issue for her baby teeth.

I expected Little Miss to be a lot more out of it after the teeth were removed because they used a small amount of sedation, but she was actually very alert. She was crying, of course, and shaking, but after a few minutes, she walked herself out of the office and to the van. She cried more on the way home, especially because there was gauze in her mouth and she was angry about the whole thing, sort of like me.

At one point The Husband said to go easy on her because she was out of it and didn’t know where she was.

We could understand her, despite the numb mouth and the gauze, when she said sharply, “I know where I am and I am not out of it. I am in the van.”

She slept for about 30 minutes on the way home and then she was up and bouncing around most of the day. She wasn’t able to eat normally but she did enjoy a few bowls of ice cream and a couple cups of pudding. We both also had a good cry over her lost teeth and the weird feeling without them and the discomfort she was having because of all this.

First, I comforted her and then told her that her dad and I did what we felt was right to make sure her adult teeth come in healthy and then I cried and she comforted me. It wasn’t a pity cry on either of our parts. We both really needed that time to mourn all we have been through for the past six, almost seven, months since our local dentist said they wouldn’t help us.

We cried again this morning, or rather, I did. I looked to see that things are healing and it just broke me to see all those holes in there. She was so sweet. She took my face in her hands and said, “Mom, this isn’t your fault, okay? This isn’t any of our fault. I just had soft enamel. It was for the best.”

Hopefully, she will continue to heal well.

With this behind us, I hope to be able to share more on the blog, finish writing and reading a couple of books, and catch up on blog posts from my favorite bloggers!

We had so much support and prayers from so many people leading up to this procedure. I truly think we both felt so calm walking in there because I told her how many people were praying for her. For those of you who prayed for us, contacted us and encouraged us in a variety of ways – thank you so much! I was simply overwhelmed with the kindness and I know she was very touched too.

We were happy that her gymnastics class was canceled today because of the weather, but we probably wouldn’t have gone anyhow so she could have more time to just take it easy.

Yes, as I predicted, we are getting more snow in March than we probably had in February and it’s only two weeks into March. That’s Pennsylvania for you. When everyone else is anticipating spring, we are still slugging through winter.

My children insist that I angered the weather god known as Phil the Groundhog because I call him a rat and refuse to recognize his weather-predicting authority. I don’t even remember what that fat rodent said this year. Was it six more weeks or winter would be over early? I’m pretty sure he always says six more weeks so whatever. I never listen to him. The Husband and I could have taken that little jerk out years ago when we visited Punxsutawney but I’m sure those guys in the top hats would have just dragged some other poor unsuspecting creature out of it’s hole in the middle of winter for that ridiculous spectacle they do every year.

Every time it’s snowed since I dared to “disrespect Phil’s authority” my son has turned to me and cried, “It’s because of you! Because you’re not a believer in the greatness of Phil! Now he has brought his winter wrath down upon us!”

So this weekend Phil is spitting some snow at us (though much less than forecasters keep saying we are getting) and I believe some more snow is coming Monday night.

Our area should see spring sometime around the end of May at this point.

Earlier in the week I kicked out about 5,000 words in my latest book to keep my mind off things. Other than that, I wasn’t able to think about much else other than the procedure so I accomplished very little. We did a little bit of schoolwork this week but I really took it slow. This next week I’ll be adding a lot more to our plate and hopefully Little Miss and I can avoid more math-related breakdowns. She knows how to do a lot of it so she feels bored but then when I show her something she doesn’t know she still says she is bored. I guess we are just not a math-loving family and I need to accept that.

I was sipping water when I started writing this post but now I am sipping hot cocoa sweetened with maple syrup. Little Miss poured four tablespoons of maple syrup in for me. I will be making my cinnamon tea next for writing this afternoon.

So how about you? What are you drinking on this fine day? And how was your week? I hope it was a little less active than ours was.

Saturday Afternoon Chat and a Cup of Something Warm: a hard loss, weird weather, and homeschool gatherings

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 17 Comments

Hey there! Come on in. I’m just heating some water for some tea. I also have coffee (made in the Keurig), milk (lactose free only, I’m afraid), orange juice, and, well, water. Let me know what you’d like.

I was out of honey most of this week, so I tried sugar in my tea.

Ew. That was seriously gross. I haven’t had sugar in herbal tea in years. My taste buds have no idea what to do with all that sweetness anymore.


I’m still only drinking peppermint tea. I’m so boring. I am going to look for some new flavors soon.

This has been a tough week emotionally so I hope you don’t mind if I have some chocolate with my tea.

My dad’s sister, my aunt Doris, died last Sunday. She passed away a few hours after my husband drove my dad up to see her.

I’ve been trying to pretend I’m not sad all week for the sake of the kids. This didn’t work well and yesterday The Boy and I pretty much fell apart under the pressure of trying to be fine with it all. When a person who is 90 dies people shrug their shoulders as they offer you condolences. They say things like, “well, she had a good, long life,” or “she’s in a better place.”

My aunt didn’t have a great end of her life as she was forced from her home of 50 years or so into a nursing home. Her family fought very hard to keep her out of that home but in the end, they all ran out of funds and she ran out of health.

It isn’t the ending I wanted for her but I had no control over that and it’s been hard to admit how little control I have over things lately. I feel, in many ways, that my life is spinning out of control around me and I have no say – not even, “stop this thing I want to get off.”

The passing of Doris in combination with a difficult diagnosis for a family member, plus upcoming oral surgery for Little Miss, due to what I feel is some incompetence on the part of local dentists, has left me clinging to all the wrong things. Here on the blog I remind us all to look to Jesus and cling to him but in real life I am clinging to feelings or to forcing feelings or happiness that simply aren’t there.

Pray for me this week that I can practice what I preach.

I should mention that I was typing this part of this post on my phone when the following verse popped up on my Bible app at the top of the screen:

 And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. 

Hebrews 12: 1-2

Timely, no?

I’ll write about my aunt in a future post. For now, I’ll try to move on to some happier topics because there are days we have to choose joy when we do not feel it.

Today I was going to take Little Miss to gymnastics class but woke up and Old Man Winter had decided to vomit an inch and a half of snow on us when I thought it was going to be a dusting.

I decided not to chance driving the roads since the road to get there is a stereotypical rural road that twists and winds around curves and under trees. Instead, I braved the cold temps for a few photos and then Little Miss decided she wanted to go out in it for a bit even though it was only 23 degrees and 13 degrees with the windchill.

She was suited up in a snowsuit, winter coat, thick gloves and boots, and I was not, however. I didn’t last as long as her. While we were out there she wrote a note to Aunt Doris: “I hope you are happy in heaven.”

It made my mom and I cry but it opened the door for us to talk about her feelings about all of what is going on.

Tomorrow she has her first home gymnastics competition. We have to be there at 8 a.m.

Eight.

In the morning.

Ick. Not looking forward to that, but it should be fun for her at least.

Off to a new topic —

Our weather was so seriously bizarre this past week.

Its bizarre behavior made my head feel weird, my ears fill up, and my anxiety rise for some reason. Maybe because the barometric pressure was going up and down, up and down, all week.

It was like it was its own personal yo-yo.

On Tuesday the weather started out with freezing rain, then moved to the sun, then to rain, then to sun, then our lights flicked off and on and I looked out the front window and there were dark clouds. Within ten minutes the outside was a swirling mess of white snow and the wind was blowing trees so hard the tops of them were practically touching the ground. Ten minutes of that and the sun was shining again. So strange.

Then the next day it was freezing rain and some snow and yesterday it was sunny but breezy and only 32 degrees out.

I feel like our weather is very schizophrenic and I’m really tired of trying to get the fire started in the wood stove, so this year I’ll really be happy when spring comes.

There are daffodil shoots coming up in my neighbor’s yard but they may have been frozen in the deep freeze we had last night. Not sure because I forgot to look.

Yesterday the kids and I went down the street to the library in town to attend a homeschool gathering I found out about earlier in the week.

There were about ten other children there and apparently it is a gathering that happens twice a month. The kids and parents gather together, share information, participate in a craft, and read a book to the younger children. There are teens on down in age who attend.

Little Miss really enjoyed herself even though she didn’t talk to the other children too much during this first meeting. Maybe that will change in future meetings.

We are in a very small town so it was nice to find a homeschooling group that is right down the street

I’m looking forward to this next week because I have nothing scheduled except one event for Little Miss which I still call Awana but is actually called Kids Club now. Oh, and I might have an appointment for Zooma the Wonder Dog to get her nails trimmed. That is often an all-day thing because we have to drive 45 minutes away to the vet where we used to live. Actually, I’ll probably do the grocery shopping that day too. So I do have things scheduled but not until later in the week at least.

How about you? How is your week shaping up for next week?

And how about what you are drinking? Hopefully, no booze to get you through. Ha! Luckily all I’ve reached for during this craziness is a cup or two of hot cocoa!

Saturday Afternoon Chat and a Cup of Something Warm

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 3 Comments

About the time you are reading this, I hope to be at my parents’ watching Anne of Green Gables with my mom. This will be after I take Little Miss to gymnastics, where she will prepare for an upcoming competition and I will read a book.

I hope I will be drinking a cup of tea of some kind at my parents.

What are you drinking today?

Is it cold or warm where you are?

It was warmer here earlier this week, but then dropped fast yesterday after a thunderstorm at 5 a.m. A thunderstorm in winter. It was certainly weird. I’ll miss the warm weather. That little sample was enough to make me long for spring. I feel better when it is sunny out. My sinuses are happier with warmer weather too.

Earlier in the week, Little Miss and I played outside and enjoyed the sunshine. She created slime and ran up and down the hill in the backyard with Zooma the Wonder Dog and then I read her history lesson to her. The wind wasn’t cold exactly. More like chilly but it was whipping fiercely most of the time and later that night I realized my face felt dry and chapped. I finally decided I had windburn, even though the wind wasn’t freezing.

That night, though, she developed a sore throat and a low-grade fever. She missed Awana, which she loves, and cried, but said her throat hurt when she talked, and she wouldn’t be able to sing either.

That night she fell asleep in her room with a fever while Bluey played on my phone. The moment struck me as wholesome. Her face was serene and beautiful. I watched her with her hand propped sweetly against her face and prayed that the next morning she would feel better and her fever would be gone. Thankfully it was.

I absolutely dread my children being sick. It’s not only because I lose sleep by watching over them, or in Little Miss’s case, tending to her when she can’t breathe through her nose or wakes up in a delirious feverish state, but because I simply cannot stand to see them suffer. I absolutely hate being sick, but I would rather be sick than see them hurt or suffer.

On Monday, I made a pot of ham and bean soup, which was really only local ham and butter means mixed together in the Instapot because I wasn’t sure what else to put in the soup.

My parents make their bean soup with onions and carrots, but the only carrots I had were canned and I was afraid they’d be too mushy. Also, my son doesn’t like cooked carrots and my daughter doesn’t like onions. This way they’d both be happy. I did find out later, though, that my parents now use canned carrots in their soup to cut back on all the work of cutting up fresh carrots.

It has become a tradition in my family that when one of us makes bean soup we send some to the other one. When my parents make bean soup, they make a huge pot of it and send containers of it to us because the kids absolutely love their bean soup. When I make some I send it on to them, even though their soup is always going to be better than mine.

This week is pretty void of appointments, thankfully.

I hope to keep working on a new cozy mystery I am writing.

Little Miss and I will also be continuing our lessons for homeschool, including history through fiction (I picked up some Imagination Station books for her. They are from Focus on the Family), science and math, which is something Little Miss and I frequently butt heads on. I hope that can get easier for us soon.

I found a couple of photos taken on the way back from our trip to Scranton a couple of weeks ago when I was downloading the photos from our sunny day Wednesday.

The sunset one is near a Procter and Gamble plant near us and the building is a former Catholic school that is now the location for a Jewish summer camp.

Tomorrow in my Sunday Bookends post, I will ramble about what I’ve been reading and watching this week.

How was your week last week? Try any new teas?