Dad drove us down to the bottom of the big camp hill. The ground is hard enough that we didn’t have to worry about getting stuck. The taps have been in the trees I think for almost two weeks. This is the year is the highest yield of sap we’ve ever had. We collect it in 5-gallon buckets and then store them in the camp fridge. It really could be sap collecting galore around here, the issue is how to process it all.

Today was a work-at-home kind of day, nothing too crazy, just the normal things. I went to the grocery store in the afternoon and bought some more food to have for suppers. There was a woman in front of me apologizing for her massively full cart. She said she was doing an instacart run for someone who she thought was apparently stocking her deep freezer. I said, “Oh it’s okay, I have five kids, I understand.”

My cart was only about a third of the way full though. Thankfully a cashier opened up another lane and waved me over. “Sorry about your wait, ma’am”, he said, to which I replied, “Oh it’s okay, I have five kids, I understand”, meaning like I’ve been that person holding up the line. He said he had five kids too. I don’t even try to get the food all at once now. I have to break it into increments otherwise it’s too much.

When I just solely focus on food-making, I actually really like it. Not enough to plan in-depth, but enough to have a general idea of what I could make and how many nights I have something for. I like having food on the table for people when they come home from all of their various places. My daughter came home from track while I was in the middle of making supper. I told her I was trying to be a good wife.

And have everything ready for when Dad and the boys came home from Menards. I was saying it kind of jokingly because she’d said something to me about five different times before I answered her she said. I didn’t even know she was home. I was texting another child about other things. “So now you just need him to be a good husband”, she said, “and have him tell you when he’s coming home.” I finally did call him.

They were right around the corner. I was listening to more marriage podcasts today and I just–sometimes I just get disturbed by the sayings. I want so bad for things to be equal, that if you’re going to say this then you better say that. And they’re trying. People are trying to keep as many people happy as possible, to be considerate, to be sensitive. Sometimes I think we’re all just making this harder than it needs to be.

I’m calling it the curse of trying too hard. Is there such a thing as the phase of settling in? Cause that’s where I’m at, where I think we are now at. Maybe I’m completely wrong, but it’s like we’ve been through the adjusting and thrashing and clashing. There’s a level of acceptance where disappointment falls away, and you think maybe what the Bible said was true, that the hope produced by suffering became something real.