march 2023.

Happily, March was book-ended by trips.

The first weekend, David and I spent a night at Lake Keowee (near Clemson) so he could help perform a wedding. He’d returned from Israel two days before, so the two of us were delighted for a little road trip to catch up from 10 days apart.

It apparently takes a community to get me dressed up for any event, especially a black tie wedding. I borrowed a dress from my friend Maxine, and McKensie came over the night before I left to give me a make-up tutorial (she was horrified to learn that I never use toner or overnight facial moisturizer, so I have since rectified the situation. Thanks, McKensie!) The below picture is me showing her and Amie hair/make-up/nails before the ceremony for their approval.

 

The clear, crisp air and mountain setting were truly magical (David said, “How is it that they don’t even have pollen at the Reserve??), and we thoroughly enjoyed an evening with friends from church and around Columbia. David does a lot of weddings, and we always love the ones where we actually know other guests. I didn’t get him out on the dance floor, but we still had a lovely night.

 

 

 

 

 

And of course we had to make a stop at Tandem on the drive home for our favorite breakfast.

 

Homeschool Co-op

I can hardly believe our homeschool co-op community is winding down for good; just a few weeks left. Our director, Beth, made the difficult decision to end it after our other friend and I decided not to teach next year. These last weeks are bittersweet for me as I’m very ready for a break, but will miss my students so much. During this last quarter, Jonah and I are working on a research paper of the sinking of the Lusitania and it’s truly fascinating (heart-breaking, and fascinating). I’d totally forgotten that my very favorite thing in school was writing research papers! I know, I’m strange.

 

Organzing & shopping our house

After a year of having Kira’s crate in our dining room, I was really, really ready for it to move. It wasn’t awful; it just gave the room a cluttered feel and frankly, isn’t pretty. David’s stipulation was that it could not be in our bedroom or closet so it took a lot of creative thinking to figure out an out-of-the-way spot. Gabe and Noah were incredibly generous to offer up their closet for the crate, and it’s worked out perfectly. I say “generous,” because Kira typically wakes up before them, and it involves one of them stumbling out of bed to let her out of the bedroom each morning. Amie helped me shop the house to make our dining room pretty. Then she took it open herself to clean and re-organize our built-in too. It feels like a new room!

 

Before:

 

After:

 

Before:

 

After:

 

Spring Break

We enjoyed an early spring break mid-month, and while the weather decided to dip back down into the 40’s and 50’s again, we were happy to have a slow, restful week sleeping in, drinking hot chocolate, playing games, and visiting the library. On Friday, a friend invited us to a guided walk at Congaree National Park, led by her father-in-law, whose knowledge about the history, flora and fauna of the park is astonishing. It was my favorite walk at the Congaree I’ve taken.

 

 

 

Books I loved in March

 

 

(Still working on some of the following):

 

Starting seeds

David’s been planning his spring garden. He bought a cherry tree for the side of our house and planted it, as well as started seedling (under lights on Noah’s dresser). He said his seeds aren’t looking as well as he hoped, so took a big trip to Seven Oaks this weekend for seedlings. That works too!

 

Starting fires

One day I woke from an afternoon nap to find that Gabe and Noah had fashioned themselves a fire pit in our front driveway and started a fire with a magnifying glass and dry leaves.

 

David said “Well I couldn’t discipline them because I’ve never actually told them not to start a fire in the driveway. But I did tell them to please just use our actual fire pit next time!” Good grief.

I blame homeschool science and their grandfather, who lets them start fires in an old candle stand.

 

Other

Speaking of resourcefulness and his grandfather, Noah fashioned a knife blade by heating a bullet casing over the fire and hammering it out. Grandpa then helped him make a handle. I’ve got to give it to them: they are very creative.

 

In case you’re getting worried about my youngest, here’s another example of his creativity. He picked these roadside flowers for me while walking the dog.

 

After a long hiatus, Judah has picked up sketching again, and it makes me so happy to walk into the kitchen and see him sketching alongside one or more of his siblings.

 

Back in February I celebrated 50 classes at my gym, EQ Fitness. I finally got my picture taken with Wes this month to prove it. I couldn’t be more thankful for this community and the difference they’ve made in my life.

 

David’s been avidly reading what I like to call my new favorite book: The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, and we’re working together towards a more intentional weekly Sabbath. For us it falls on Saturdays. Yes, we do have church activities about half the time on Saturday, but we’ve decided that as much as possible we’ll stick to that as our day of rest. We’re still talking and thinking through what that involves specifically, but it feels good to make a start.

 

 

We also gave family devotions a re-boot after Habits of the Home. I loved Justin Earley’s idea of just shooting for one night a week of formal family devotions. We’re studying the book of Colossians together; David made everyone a print-out of the book and we’re showing the kids the inductive Bible study methods we use for our personal quiet time. We are all loving it.

 

We went to the Ruiz’s for the best tacos we’ve ever tasted and decided as a family that we will no longer frequent local Mexican restaurants: we’ll just go over to their house!

 

I spent a morning at my friend Annie’s to pick her brain about homeschooling while our kids played. I’m rethinking a lot about school next year and love the rhythms she’s created for her own kids. It was so inspiring and I find myself excited about making some changes for us.

 

Our umpteenth cheap vacuum kicked the bucket this month, so David let me do what I’ve considered and researched for years: use our saved-up credit card points to buy a fancy vacuum. I really, really hope it lasts longer than my two-year average, because it was not cheap. But it’s incredible! A game-changer for sure. My baseboards are so clean! And under most of our furniture! All those fun attachments. I wanted to look cuter for this picture, but here I am in my really life, in my real sweatpants, vacuuming away happily.

 

Cola Pres is fast approaching our 10th anniversary, and we’ve already hit 10 years of meeting as a core group. Ashley and I got dinner to celebrate a decade of friendship — of going through highs and lows and doing ministry and sharing our hearts and raising kids and praying for each other. She and her family helped us with our adoption 8 years ago, and we’ve been overjoyed to help them with theirs in these last couple years. I can’t wait to go to court to see them finalize in April!

 

As I said, March was book-ended by trips, but since this post is already lengthy, I’ll write a second one for our weekend trip to a homeschool conference in Greenville.

In the meantime, today is Palm Sunday, and a friend gave me this lovely print which sums up everything I feel about the coming week.