The Big White Farmhouse

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Bringing back this prompt one more time!  (Here’s part one, part two, part three, and part four.)  This week, I’ve exhausted myself thinking about all the things: hurricane recovery things, teenager things, dyslexia things, financial things, farm things, homemaker things, preparedness things, etc etc etc.  My brain is full and my days are packed to the brim.  I crash hard at night and am up at an (obscenely!) early hour to begin again.  It’s a lot, but I’m keeping my eyes focused on all things good and constantly repeating my mantra, “One step at a time.  One day at a time.”  Somehow, despite all of my overthinking and planning and worrying, the good Lord gives me exactly the amount of energy I need to complete that day’s work.  What a blessing.  Deo gracias.

Anyway!  Here is this week’s “Little Moments of Delight” list:

Early morning silence.  Seeing the sun again after a week of rainy and cloudy days.  Watching yellow leaves fall like rain in the breeze.  New interest in our farm products.  An unexpected phone call from my mom.  The opportunity to help (in a small way) to fill a truckload of goods headed to the people of North Carolina.  Finding a possible solution to patch our walls in the living room.  Finally get paint on one of those walls!  Seeing how much my littlest boys love drawing.  My hands in the dirt again after a week away from the garden.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ finishing up the documentation of everything that came in and out of my home in the month of September.  The results were surprising!  Not counting food and junk mail that immediately went in the trash, I ended up with a final count of 157 items in and 105 items out, making a net total of 52 additional items in the house.  This was a birthday month for two of my children and I also stocked up on egg cartons, but I was still surprised at the final amount!  I did sell 38 items, but I think going forward, I’ll have to be intentional about continual decluttering to keep that net number low.

+ another Weather the Storm Challenge update.  I’m sure at this point my lists are redundant and boring, but I appreciate compiling them because it feels like I’ve accomplished something when it feels like nothing. This week, I:

• avoided the grocery store, only purchasing a handful of needed items
• used this post as inspiration to make breakfast sandwiches for the freezer (using bagels I got for buy one, get one free)
• used a King Arthur flour coupon I received in the mail ($1.50 off!)
• sold eggs and chicken to friends
• made homemade bacon from sidemeat from our pigs using our meat slicer (delicious!)
• went through the winter coats and snow gear, removing outgrown pieces and making a to-buy list
• purchased snow pants for a son on Poshmark: brand new with tags, retails for $60 and I paid $13!
• found a belt for the same son in the hand-me-down bins
• listed a few items on Poshmark/ebay
• made bread
• wrapped my brushes in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge in between paint sessions to keep them from drying out

+ starting to pick up little things for Christmas.  A few finds so far: I picked these multicolor gel pens for my daughter.  I’ll either put them in her stocking or pair them with a few packs of greeting cards, stickers and stamps for a snail mail-themed gift.  I also picked up this Anne of Green Gables cookbook for her, which I know she’ll love!  Lastly, I found Bubble Factory soap bars (I purchased the shaving soap set, which seems to be sold out already) to tuck in my biggest sons’ stockings.  I’m a big fan of giving the kids “fancier” but still practical gifts.

+ selling five unneeded items for the Car Loan Payoff Plan: three shirts and two books.  After shipping and fees, I made $12.85.  I’m seeing a significant slow down in sales lately, which is a bummer.

Reading //

• A Child’s List of Prerequisite Reading for Tolkien from Dominika at Gathering Light // This is an awesome list – I’ve got a cart full of her recommendations now!
• Why Are Babies Most Cradled on the Left Side? from Carrie Gress at Theology of Home // This is interesting!
• How to Be An L. M. Montgomery Heroine in a 21st-Century World from Elsie at Tea and Ink Society
• How the Amish are saving the disappearing art form of wood-working from Alexandra Fasulo at House of Green // I loved this.
• What We Lose With Our Attention Spans from Walker Larson at Intellectual Takeout // “But for contemplation, we need focus. We need quiet. We need an absence of distractions. So if it’s true that our attention spans are being degraded, we may risk losing something even more precious than productivity: We may risk losing that which is distinctly human, that which makes us us: our ability to understand and know things at a profound level, which is a corollary to our ability to love deeply and meaningfully.”
• We Need Moral Direction from Freya India at GIRLS // “I’m not saying that living by strong moral values makes every decision easy. But it gives guidance. It helps the constant doubt and confusion. From what I can see, a major part of anxiety today is feeling like we can’t trust ourselves to make the right decisions. We rely on all these experts—influencers, therapists, dating coaches—to tell us what to do. And the more we turn to them the less we trust ourselves.”
• The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise by Cardinal Robert Sarah // One quote:

Without silence, we are deprived of mystery, reduced to fear, sadness, and solitude.  It is time to rediscover silence!  The mystery of God, his incomprehensibility, is the source of joy for every Christian.  Every day we rejoice to contemplate an unfathomable God, whose mystery will never be exhausted.  The eternity of heaven itself will be the joy, ever new, of entering more profoundly into the divine mystery without ever exhausting it. (p.126)

New Additions to The List // 

• Dressed for a Dance in the Snow: Women’s Voices from the Gulag by Monika Zgustová
• Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages by Holly Ordway
• You Can Go Home Again: Adventures of a Contrary Life by Gene Logsdon

Watching/Listening //

• How Do Your Expenses Compare to the Average American Budget? from Under the Median
• 30 Day Declutter Challenge 2024 from Clutterbug // I’m not completing these in order, but I did check five days off the list and got rid of 85 items!
• UNBELIEVABLE DESTRUCTION: Hurricane Helene destroys our Farm from Justin Rhodes // This video brought me close to weeping.  While I have experienced only a fraction of the devastation, I know exactly how it feels to watch your hard work/money get pulverized by nature in an instant.  So, so heartbreaking.

Loving //

• these printable postcards from Kody Stewart // I think I need to order this for my daughter and I to paint!
• this shelf-stable dry milk // A recent preparatory purchase as I think about what gaps we have in our supplies.