Spring Cleaning: better late than never, and maybe not even late

Spring in Montana, taken Thursdsay morning from the front porch. While still in my jammies.

I'm finally catching the spring-cleaning bug. Some years I remain immune, but this year, not so much. I thought perhaps I had escaped, since spring was finally in the air, but then it snowed several inches this week, so it feels like I'm getting a do-over for the beginning of the season.
 So far I have managed to clean out exactly one (of two) junk drawers in the kitchen, and I spent about ninety minutes organizing in my office at church. I do, however, have designs on considerably larger undertakings: the entire master bedroom, the garage, the front-room closet which is full-to-bursting with all kinds of amazing things.
The church rummage sale was a couple of weeks ago, and I'd managed to keep my new year's goal and put a thing a day in the rummage sale box. That helped, but there's still plenty to do. And plenty to pass on to someone who could use it more than we do. There is a new "giveaway" box in the bedroom. So far the hubs has made the only contributions.
Part of my hope for spring cleaning isn't just physical, but mental, too. I'm feeling a need for some new patterns of thought and organizing time. Not necessarily that much more structure, but new. And I'm hoping to get on top of some digital clutter, too. As I write this, my personal email account has 2,676 new emails in it, not counting the 23 which hotmail has identified as junk. The total number of emails in my inbox, which either have not been read or not been put in a folder, is 5,085 messages. Surely that's one or two emails more than I need.



Mother Nature's mixed-messages

Happy Eighth Day of Christmas! And Happy New Year!

After worship on Christmas morning. I think the Munchkin was hungry!

Merry Christmas! And welcome to 2012!
As you can see from the total lack of posts from the last two weeks, having my in-laws here didn't exactly promote blog-writing (or much of anything else productive) for me...
More on their visit, and my experience of it, another time.
For now: happy new year! I have a whole host of goals (I've given up on making resolutions - they're too pass/fail for me at this point - goals have the flexibility I need) for 2012. And I'll be sharing them sooner than later, as a little peer pressure to keep plugging away at them might just prove helpful.

Have YOU made any resolutions, or articulated any new goals, for 2012? If you need an accountability partner, just let me know. I'd be happy to virtually kick your butt, if you'll kick mine. :)

Missing a Few

Well, a month of daily, consecutive blog posts has eluded me once again. There you go.
Once I missed the first post, suddenly it wasn't so urgent to write every day. Of course, last week we were at my parents' house two states away, and a daily post meant staying up later than was helpful each night (I took along a novel that never even made it out of my bag!).
Our annual Thanksgiving vacation was good: spending time with family and friends and hitting a few favorite haunts always feels just right. I could have tacked a few extra days onto our vacation with great gladness, but it also feels really good to be home. What is it about sleeping in your own bed - even if no one in the house sleeps very well, as last night - that feels so good?
We arrived home late-evening yesterday, and hit the ground running. G got the car unloaded (we came home with WAY more stuff than we headed west with, after more shopping than we should have done...) and I got the first load of laundry into the washing machine. This morning we all overslept after our night of horrible sleep, and I got to the office about 10am, was home for 45minutes of lunch, and didn't get home again until close to 8pm. G got to church for the first Advent midweek soup supper (he even made soup this afternoon!) and then led Evening Prayer and got home just as I was putting the Munchkin to bed.
 Of course we didn't manage to get the house very clean or tidy before we hit the road 10 days ago, so there's still plenty of work left to do around here. My hope is to get all the autumn decorations put away and the first Advent decorations up before the end of the week. We'll see... If the tidying and cleaning get done, and I can get the advent wreath out and the mantel "done" I'll feel pretty good...

What's the state of Advent/Christmas decorating at your house? How ambitious are you this year?

Oh, and before I forget: as promised, Santa Picture #39

My sister's family and my family. The tradition lives!
Too bad the little ones weren't happy about it!

#39

Santa Picture #39: check.
I'll post it as soon as I get the email with the jpeg attached...

I Know Where She Gets It

Today the Munchkin did a new trick: after emptying the little basket we have our random assortment of coasters in, again, she put. them. back. in. She didn't quite get all of them back in the basket, but I'm not complaining. It's so fun to watch her figure things out, and she was so proud! She held the basket out for me at a full-arm stretch and a goofy grin on her face.
The Munchkin's momma (that would be yours truly) had a bit of an "aha" this evening. I spent about 90 minutes sitting on the floor in our bonus room, sorting through bin after endless plastic bin of photos, rubber stamps, paper ephemera saved (and some even purchased!) for future uber-artsy collage projects. And when I got up, I saw exactly where the Munchkin gets her Entropy-Girl skills. In my experience, such sorting always makes things look worse before they look better, and there was a momma sized empty space surrounded by piles and bins, a recycle bag and a garbage bag. I didn't take a photo- the evidence would be far too embarrassing. But you can get the general idea here:

Increased entropy achieved, the Munchkin moves on to new targets.

Entropy-Girl in Action

The Munchkin (aka Entropy-Girl), Master of Mayhem & Chaos

Here she is, doing what she does best. At least today I finally managed to get that very full basket of laundry into the washing machine!

A touch of summer

It seems winter has arrived to stay after all. We had some snow last Saturday, and though we didn't get any more snow until today, the grass stayed white all week. Another couple inches got added today, and I'm thinking we may not see the lawn til next spring. So much for planting the iris rhizomes or the last super-cheap perennials I picked up.
I'm not quite ready for winter. A couple more weeks of autumn would suit me just fine.
It's hard to believe this picture of one of G's sunflowers was taken only two and a half months ago. Ah, summer sunshine...

There are always sunflowers in our garden.

Happy All Saints Day!

I hope you had a wonderful Halloween. And an even better All Saints Day.
(Yesterday we ran an errand to a new big-box-department-store (more on that another time) and there were already Christmas decorations up. Really!?)
Our Halloween was pretty mellow - we managed to carve a couple of pumpkins while the munchkin napped yesterday afternoon, the munchkin wore her (tags-still-on-it-79-cent gift from her Auntie) costume long enough to get a couple of photos snapped, and last night all of 17 trick-or-treaters landed on our porch to get bags of Cheddar Goldfish (something salty to balance all the sugar).

While we ate lunch yesterday, G asked me which saints I'd be remembering and giving thanks for today. I didn't give him much of an answer - asked him his own question, instead, but he did get me thinking. He mentioned a whole host of folks who were members of congregations he's served, and several family members. I thought of a couple of the great church ladies I've known and buried, but mostly thought of seminary classmates, colleagues, and friends who are very much alive and well.
I appreciated the emphasis on contemporary saints in this article, though I wish the author had suggested looking at the person sitting next to you in the pew as a saint for whom we can give thanks - or looking in the mirror and thanking God that God can turn even you (me!) into a saint.
Our congregation celebrated Reformation Sunday this past weekend. Our All Saints celebration will be this weekend. In addition to naming, and lighting candles for, members of the congregation who have died since All Saints last year, we've added the practice of naming and lighting candles for every person baptized in the past year, too, since in the 3+ years we've served this parish, only one member has died. And, everyone in worship will have the opportunity to light a candle in honor/thanksgiving/remembrance of the saints in their lives. The ritual action can be so powerful, and the solemnity of the day inspires awe and reverance in even the most pyromaniacal of kids.
I'm glad we'll have that time in worship, but I wish it could have happened today - so people would have a better chance of getting the connection between the EVENING of All Hallows and the DAY of All Saints.

How I spent my afternoon -

 - in Munchkin land. Wonderful.

Simple Steps

Sometimes simple steps aren't so simple. Or, perhaps more accurately, simple steps aren't always that easy. At least not in our house. Here's what caught my eye today, every single time I came in the front door or had to go upstairs.

Naked stairs!

They are the stairs in our house, and what's different about them is this: there's nothing else there. For pushing 30 hours now, the stairs have been completely clear of anything needing to go upstairs, go out into the garage, get recycled, or generally find some sort of more permanent home. I'd say it's been close to 6 months since this has been the reality in our house. I just got used to walking past all the piles. I got used to putting things down and picking them up again, at whatever stair-height seemed convenient. I nearly broke an ankle and dropped the baby on more than one occasion. And now I can't stop looking at all that naked carpet.
I wonder how long this will last?

Year(s) in Review

I had my first-ever "ministry review" tonight. I was in my first call for almost 4 years, second call for 2, and we arrived here almost 3 years ago - and this is the first time I've had a formal review in all those years! The church council president and another council member arrived on our doorstep at 7pm and then the fun began...
My dear husband/colleague went first. I tended to the Munchkin upstairs. (The reviews happened at our house so that Munchkin could do her regular bed-time routine with us instead of either being up late or trying to fall asleep with a sitter.We figure since the two of us share one FTE, perhaps it's not too much to ask to have folks come to our house when both of our presences are required. Plus, I served angel food cake with peaches, raspberries and whipped cream. I try to make sure there's a plus-side whenever people accomodate us.)
I think the reviews went okay. We ended up mostly reviewing ourselves - there wasn't a lot of feedback from the two folks involved - it sounds like the whole council will get a turn to add their two cents at our meeting later this week. I'm not sure how I should feel about that. We'll see...
The best part about the review, as far as I'm concerned, is the opportunity to articulate a few goals for the year. Next year's review will start with those. I'm hoping to help more adults get involved in Bible study groups, do a sermon series, spend more time with members/friends of the congregation in their homes/places of work/favorite lunch or coffee spots, and be more intentional in building relationships with and among the college students who worship with us during the academic year. They're all pretty do-able, I think.
Of course goal-setting is important to me generally - how else would one become a "queen of lists"? That said, a lot of my daily to-do's don't always get done. Yep. No photo taken today. I was tempted to take a picture of the Munchkin standing up in her crib with a huge goofy grin on her face, but didn't want the flash to get her all riled up again.
So- here's a photo from the weekend. We spent Sunday afternoon at the local Sweet Pea Festival of the Arts. The Munchkin's first outdoor concert: Shawn Mullins. Not too bad.

The Munchkin and her Daddy at Sweet Pea

Tomorrow: back to work. And there WILL be a photo!

Productive Produce

Today was my first regular day off since late June. And it was a pretty good day. One of the best things about it was actually getting to sleep until I was ready to get up; no alarm was set, the Munchkin managed to go back to sleep a few times. Glorious. The past few weeks have been a bit hectic - VBS last week, the week before we were at Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp as camp pastors, and the week before that was a Middle School Day Camp, called "Service Plunge." All three weeks were great, but all three weeks were BUSY, and meant that our regular schedule of who's in the office when (and who gets to stay home to Munchkin-sit) went directly out the window.
I'm hoping that our schedule works mostly as planned for at least a week or two. We'll see...
Another great thing about today was tending to some of the fruits and veggies we've purchased over the last few days: dehydrated the last of the strawberries this morning, and several pounds of Bing cherries are dehydrating now. We bought multiple bunches of carrots at our Farmers Market Saturday (for two years in a row we have inadequately thinned the carrots in our garden, so they're pretty dang tiny...). And today I made pickled carrots - something I haven't eaten in years, but which I remember eating a lot of as a kid. Then early this evening, we headed to a parishioners house to pick raspberries. We've still got freezer jam in the freezer from last year's crop, so we're just going to enjoy these fresh and maybe freeze a few for winter smoothies and bowls of Cheerios.


8 pints of pickled carrots. They got cooked a bit past "tender."
We're hoping we don't end up with pickled mush!

 After the Munchkin went to bed we sat out on our deck for the first time this summer (long story) and watched the sunset as we made a meal plan for the week. Then we watched a thunderstorm roll in to the south of us. Quite spectacular. (The storm, not the meal plan... though the meal plan should prove incredibly tasty, make the most of local fresh produce and what's already in our freezer, and lead to minimal food waste).
All in all, a good day. The to-do list was only partly completed, but then I am an over-ambitious list maker. And there's always tomorrow.

 -- Speaking of which, it's my goal to at least post a picture-a-day for the next week. I'm hoping it will help me pay attention to what's happening around me, and maybe I'll capture a few fabulous photos while I'm at it.