Time got away
from me today
and it’s late

The year is near
over but many
good things remain

Including a God who
never stops saying
I love you

I made the boys clean today. They’re pretty good about it usually. It’s not their favorite thing to do by any means, but after making them breakfast I was hit with the urge to start cleaning the kitchen, the kind where you somehow end up with three or more garbage bags full of food and old supplements and expired meds from 2018 that you thought you’d keep around in case you needed prescription-strength pain medicine.

And instead of 16 cans of bug spray I narrowed it down to more like 8. We end up with a lot of bug spray around here especially in the summer. There are separate kinds for gnats and ticks because what keeps away gnats doesn’t always keep away the mosquitos. The cats have their own pharmacy section in the cupboard and I got rid of their anxiety medication and antibiotics but kept the dewormer. I also kept their allergy eye cream.

So that felt nice to clear out some more space. The rug underneath the table that I was so wonderfully proud of was taken out to the dumpster. I go through these periods where I’m given this almost cold unattachment to things in whatever space has called for me to address it. They emptied out jars and burned boxes and moved the chairs from here to there. I enjoyed their company and was pleased with the results.

Dad and Elianna are in Hoyleton tonight for a wedding. The wedding is tomorrow, but the rehearsal dinner is happening tonight. I wasn’t really sure how I’d be feeling by now and didn’t want to commit to going along. This was before all of the work stuff happened, which went okay again today but I’m tired. I came home and made ham and potato soup for supper and enjoyed eating with the boys around the table.

It would be interesting to go back and count not only how many weddings he’s done, but also how many of those marriages are no longer together. At one point I could remember more of them and it wouldn’t surprise me if it was even more than half. So many are divorced and remarried now. Our church there was not your typical small-town congregation. He stayed very busy doing weddings and funerals there.

I’m grateful our marriage has lasted this long. Twenty years may not seem like much to some but to me it very much feels like we “made it”, that is, we’ve crossed over into another place, where familiarity breeds not contempt but more love and peace and rest and security. At fifteen years Andrew Peterson wrote a song called Dancing in the Minefields. I like it, though I feel like many other songs could be still be written.

Over Thanksgiving I downloaded a social media app called BeReal. I only did it so I could keep in touch with my sister more. It’s a silly app where you take a two-sided picture and then post it whenever the app tells you it’s time to post. You don’t have to post and you can post late if you want to. The post almost always ends up being a selfie for one picture plus whatever or whoever is on the other side of the camera.

Ethan doesn’t have it, but Miles’s brother Graham does. His mom let him get it so he could keep in touch with homeschool friends. Miles used to be homeschooled which is one reason he and Ethan became friends sophomore year when Miles started high school at Lutheran High. His family is Baptist, and Ethan used to say that Miles was the most Christian person in the entire school. I do agree he’s a nice person.

Josh says to me on occasion, “Don’t you remember what it was like to be 19?”, like tonight when our son texted and asked if he could stay at Laura’s a little longer. She lives over a half-hour away and I thought I was being perfectly reasonable by establishing a curfew time for 9:30. Same for Elianna, when I texted Miles’s mom to pass along the curfew message because we hadn’t come up with a time before she left.

I guess I don’t approach it with the same sentimentality. I’m more thinking about going to bed and having kids home from all their places before I do so. Oh well. I did get to see her on Graham’s BeReal in their living room, which is the only reason I posted something in the first place. You can’t see anyone else’s picture unless you post yours. I don’t post every day but I do think it’s kind of funny to play around with.

We moved the card table back into the living room today. It has mostly become a catch-all for the kids’ stuff. They did attempt a puzzle but one of the cats got into it and I don’t think anyone’s attempted one since. So I put the checkboard on it and the boys did play with that a few times more today. I cooked a real lunch for everybody which is always a nice reset after being out of routine. Tomorrow I have to work again.

Today was my third day working on the summer unit. I did change my mind and told my boss that I’d like to go ahead and cross train now which is when you train on all three units. I had thought it might be better to get really comfortable with one unit first before trying to learn another unit in the meantime. But I think it’ll be okay. One of the things I like about this job is the potential there is to jump around. I like jobs where you are versatile and can plug into different spots as needed.

Lots of people are currently sick there. We’ve been having to wear N95 masks since I started and probably will for the foreseeable future. It’s not that there are necessarily active outbreaks at the moment, but this time of year people coming in and out will bring sickness in. In the short time I’ve been there I’ve seen and heard of several cases of flu, covid, and just generally not feeling well. I’m feeling better than I was last week and my voice is mostly back now, so I am thankful for that.

There are a few sick residents also. Today was a busier day because there was only one nurse so the two of us had the entire unit. I’m currently not burnt out on nursing so I was fairly indifferent and slightly enlivened by the challenge. I also felt like I was actually able to help. But yes, it’s the kind of thing you don’t want happening day in and day out. So far I seem to be liking it here and it seems like each day I’m feeling more and more comfortable in the environment and with the work tasks.

The sun came out for a short while today but mostly it’s been damp and grey. We’ve had a good couple of days doing Christmas things here and with my husband’s side of the family. Yesterday it was raining but today we went to the cemetery to visit my father-in-law’s gravesite. His headstone isn’t ready yet, but they do have the platform where the stone will be placed. He and my mother-in-law will share a headstone.

Before that we’d gone out to the farm and walked around. There isn’t a set move-in time with the house. My guess would be another month or two but that’s only a guess. Right next to the new house is the old farmhouse where my husband’s father grew up. The plan was to have it demolished once the new house was done. We walked around inside and I was surprised at how much stuff was still in there. I guess when they knock down a house you can leave anything you don’t want inside and they take it all away.

There’s going to be an auction for the farm equipment and all the things still left in the shed. For Christmas my mother-in-law gave each of the kids an ornament that was made out of a picture of them and Papa. She had one made for herself as well. It’s one of him standing in the doorway of the house while it still was only a wooden frame. He looked handsome and strong and just like himself, our many ways to remember him.

The day began early at 3:30AM. For the past several years we set an alarm for the middle of the night. I started doing this when the kids were old enough to want to stay up and catch us setting out presents. It actually used to to cause me anxiety to think of sleeping through the alarm or considering the ramifications of what would happen if morning came and we hadn’t put out the presents.

I told him I didn’t think we needed an alarm. I’m typically up at some point during the night. So we didn’t set one and he woke me up around 3:30. I really considered not getting up. He’d manage fine and then I wouldn’t have to fully come out of my drowsy state. There was not a good enough reason though not to, and to stay there would’ve only been selfishness and laziness on my part.

And neither of those things are helpful in marriage. Soon I was into the normal rhythm of things. The presents were wrapped, the stockings all stuffed. All we have to do is set everything out and manage the plate of cookies they leave us. He took a bite out of each one. He offered me some but I didn’t want any. Not only do I not particularly care for sweets, but bites are less forgiving with women.

We came back to bed and he fell asleep. I tossed and turned for a while then turned on my thunderstorms. The details here are momentarily fuzzy, in that I do not know if I began talking after I had fallen back asleep or before. I started talking about regret, and feeling like I maybe hadn’t done enough when his dad was on hospice. And there’d be no way to know because no one would tell me.

I recently said it, “You have to listen for the feeling behind the words.” It’s so easy to fixate on words themselves, a surefire way to go round and round with problems. And before too long I’d spiraled into bitter nonsense and I was the one who was crying again. But this is my portion, a part I’ve seen I’m supposed to be changing. Before long we were back to where Christmas was meant to be.

I heard this song while wrapping presents and thought I’d put it here.

Yet Not I, But Through Christ in Me
Sung by CityAlight

What gift of grace is Jesus my redeemer
There is no more for heaven now to give
He is my joy, my righteousness, and freedom
My steadfast love, my deep and boundless peace

To this I hold, my hope is only Jesus
For my life is wholly bound to his
Oh how strange and divine, I can sing, “All is mine”
Yet not I, but through Christ in me

The night is dark but I am not forsaken
For by my side, the Savior he will stay
I labor on in weakness and rejoicing
For in my need, his power is displayed

To this I hold, my Shepherd will defend me
Through the deepest valley he will lead
Oh the night has been won, and I shall overcome
Yet not I, but through Christ in me

No fate I dread, I know I am forgiven
The future sure, the price it has been paid
For Jesus bled and suffered for my pardon
And he was raised to overthrow the grave

To this I hold, my sin has been defeated
Jesus now and ever is my plea
Oh the chains are released, I can sing, “I am free”
Yet not I, but through Christ in me

With every breath I long to follow Jesus
For he has said that he will bring me home
And day by day I know he will renew me
Until I stand with joy before the throne

To this I hold, my hope is only Jesus
All the glory evermore to him
When the race is complete, still my lips shall repeat
Yet not I, but through Christ in me

When the race is complete, still my lips shall repeat
Yet not I, but through Christ in me
Yet not I, but through Christ in me
Yet not I, but through Christ in me

Casper is still around and growing but I don’t think my name preference is going to win out. Pretty much everyone else calls him Dipstick. Obviously I wasn’t going to call him that, though I will say the name has only slightly been growing on me. Besides being mostly white on the rest of his body, his tail is dark brown and I guess looks like the part of the car where you check the oil.

I wanted to get him stocking like the rest of the cats. So when we were in Target the other day, I was hoping to find one with his initial on it to match the others. My daughter initially found one with a C, except it was a rainbow pattern instead of the classic solid knit like the other ones have. And then she found, you would not believe this, one that matched the others but with the letter D.

There were like four stockings that matched and all of them had the letter D. There were no other letters. I figured they’d be picked over but I wasn’t expecting that. I was actually fine getting the C with the rainbow pattern but no one else liked it. So occasionally I have called him Dipstick but neither of his names feel right to me now. If the others want to call him that, that’s fine.

I’ve currently lost my voice for the time being. My daughter came into our room this morning and said something about going out. I went to say something back and was as surprised as she when not much came out. She said I sounded awful and asked if I wanted some tea. I said yes and she brought me some. My throat has been sore and scratchy on and off for about a week but hasn’t really felt bad enough to be called sick.

Josh and the kids are at my in-laws house again tonight. We’re going on the third holiday season in a row where I have not been able to participate as much and keep up with the family rhythms. Twenty years into marriage and I like to think we’re past the mundane issues of navigating family time during the holidays, and honestly I think we’ve had it generally easy in that regard. When we couldn’t travel they would travel to us. And since we’ve been closer we are able to travel almost nightly through the holiday. It’s what has worked.

My sister-in-law’s family only visits twice a year and so I understand the idea of wanting to maximize time together and enjoying time spent with everyone under one roof. I just am not able to keep up with that pace anymore, and also do enjoy having down time where we simply stay home without plans to go out. The further the night goes the more sick I am feeling and there just isn’t the same push through potential as before.

All that to say, sometimes you have to have those more redefining conversations in order to work to start to forge a new normal. I have felt in some sense like I have needed to break away from my family and have more room for my whole self to grow and develop. I speak as if it was a choice but I don’t really think it was my own doing that did this. It also hasn’t always been a clean or comfortable break. But now I feel it’s time we need to integrate this new way of being into our life, into something that isn’t me going without the family.

That is, something we’re not coping with until things get better. But rather, something that has altered our lives in a way that has called us to be better. I think it’s one of the keys to health and happiness in marriage in being able to be flexible and grow with the times. Where sometimes you go without for the betterment of all, and sometimes the all rallies around the one who needs it. But all in the spirit that love has no bounds.