Oh how I've missed this...

I haven't blogged in forever, but I haven't forgotten about it. Nearly every day I have a line of thinking that strikes me as something I'd love to share here. I've mostly lacked a computer from which to share it (had another drive crash in June). Thanks to a great sale at Best Buy, I have a new laptop, and thanks to my dad, a new desktop too. So my excuses are gone and I need to carve out the time to sort through my thoughts and dust off my writing. I realize that my blogging is not really for you, my readers, although I appreciate your being here, and your words of encouragement are valuable in ways you will never fathom... but really I write for myself.

So many times I am struggling, imperfect, lonely, despondent, and feeling like all I do is tread water. Going back to my journals ans seeing where I was before and far my Lord has brought me can be such an encouragement to me. So here I am. I'm going to attempt to write out my thoughts here on a regular basis again. I've updated the look of my blog and hope you enjoy it. If you find any view-ability issues, please comment!

I'm not sure what kinds of content I will be including here just yet, but there are a few things you can count on:

• Scripture, I'm studying in several places right now and need a place to record my discoveries and thoughts. 
• School reviews. We are back in the midst of our homeschool year and have discovered so many fun things I can't wait to share with you.
• Thoughts on Life. My thought-life has been a roller-coaster lately, especially when it comes to marriage and friendships. As I work through some weighty issues I will share what I can without violating any trust. Just know that whatever is shared here is just a ripple on the surface of a deep, murky, and fast moving river. Somedays I feel like I'm rowing along and enjoying the river for the sights and recreation, and sometimes I'm just drowning in a whirlpool. 
• Rural life. Get ready for LOTS of pictures, recipes, fun farmy thoughts. 

©2012-2013 Loving and Learning on the High Plains. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://www.homeschoolhighplains.blogspot.com

The Holidays, a great time to start a new job with the Post Office

Still trying to get my feet under me at my new job, I realized this week that I've been there for 4 and a half months. I'm starting to get the hang of my little PO. I'm the postmaster relief so in a sink or swim kind of fashion I find myself working extra hard at figuring things out or finding out who can help me get it right. This week I had one of the other postmasters stop over and show me some procedures that helped me out a LOT. Overall I'm really liking working for the Postal Service. It certainly helps that I love stamps. I have been a stamp collector since I was a kid. It's all I can do not to buy everything that comes across my desk!

It was really fun to get going at Christmas, seeing all the great packages coming and going. For Christmas we held an open house and my stamp collection was the "historical display":

In the process of getting everything ready to display I got to reading a bunch of the old postcards in my collection. My grandma had given me them when I began collecting, years ago, but only now do I understand their sweet notes and the name and places mentioned. It was a fun adventure going through them again. I hope we never give up on the written word. Emails are just so much less of a memory, and I doubt we will ever print them up and put them in an album. Because of this realization I've made a list of all the birthdays of all my nieces and nephews and all of my siblings and our missionaries and their families. I plan to send each one a card, and, or course, I've bought lots of COOL stamps to go on each one.

I even gave stamps as Christmas gifts this year. I can tell this may be getting out of hand. My little PO is now just a 2-hour office (it had been 6 hours a day), and yet the stamp sales are higher than last year. I hope that's not all me. ;)

I can see that I'm sort of meandering here so I think I'll wrap things up as quickly as I can. I am thankful for this week:

• my husband being home from a two week trip
• my kids being healthier
• the weather being milder
• the animals all behaving, as I happily watch my free range chickens outside the window right now
• Sunshine coming through my window
• clean curtains
• good smelling laundry
• charts filling up with stickers
• getting caught up with projects at work
• friends that I get to see more frequently
• Good books, more than I could possibly read any given time
• Almost finished reading through my Bible and its complete entirety, a project which took me almost two and a half years even though I had attempted to do it in one.
• Getting all of our taxes done and discovering that the granola business, the doula business, and a little bit of side construction work... actually all was worthwhile this year
• Being invited to lots of 1st birthday parties for some of my doula babies from the busy spring that I had last year
• Nearly finishing my Awana book, which will be the third book that I have endeavoured to do while the kids are in Awana as well
• Discovering how much we love leeks and going through two bundles of them thanks to Bountiful Baskets, recipes forthcoming.

So. Many. Blessings.

And grace, always, grace.

Scrapbook Saturday, first edition...

I have quite a bit of journaling to catch up on from January. Even thought I wasn't blogging, we weren't sitting around! I'm going to try and write up a few memories every Saturday and catch up on that.

First up: New Years! 

We had a quiet New Years Eve at home since Ben had to work. The kids and I did the same thing as last year. We wrote a bunch of our favorite things to do (and our favorite snacks) on little slips of paper and then sealed them randomly into several envelopes, one for each hour until midnight. You never knew which one was next, or which snack would be coupled with it. For example: right after dinner was board games while eating crackers and cheese. Other snacks included:

lil smokies
chips and sodas
cookies
sparkling grape juice

Some of the activities we enjoyed were: flashlight safari, Just Dance marathon, board games, shooting fireworks (at midnight), skype with the east coast family (during their HUGE New Years party!) and watching a movie. It was a great time, and Ben got home just in time for the fireworks!

Happy New Year 2014!

©2012-2013 Loving and Learning on the High Plains. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://www.homeschoolhighplains.blogspot.com