The Cider House MOVES!

I have been DYING to write this post!

And I’m going to start by thanking you all for your patience with me. Not a single follower (friend?) dropped off my radar while the blog lay stagnant for a week at a time…over more weeks than I care to count. But, I had good reason! And, now I get to share it with you. (Is there bigger news than writing a novel? YES, there IS!)

MY FAMILY IS BUYING A HOUSE!!!!

We move across town TODAY. To our new very own free-standing HOME. With a LAWN. I am very excited. Could you tell?

Let me show you around.

Big sunny front yard with a trellis (I’m seeing roses, people!), picket fence, and what looks like a perfect tree to climb up and read a book in. Does anyone know what that tree is? I’m so bad with botany.

Okay, you can come on inside now.

The main living area is petite, but it’s still nice and open and welcoming. The hardwoods have been stained in two different tones, separating the different areas, which I love! The kitchen has a lot more storage than it looks like, and the counter space is great. I’m planning to pull up a couple of barstools on the side by the dining area, and we’ll store our extra pantry items on shelving in the colossal laundry room downstairs.

Now, down the hall to take a peak at the kids’ bedrooms.

As you can tell from the glare, the light is pretty nice. Good closet space. There are three of these rooms on this floor, all about the same size. For the time being, we’re planning to make one Sophia’s room, one for James, and one will be our homeschool.

There’s also the upstairs bathroom. Always important.

Now before we head downstairs, let’s take a peak in the backyard. We’ll head down via the balcony/deck off the kitchen dining area.

It’s just the right size for entertaining, made of cedar wood means it won’t rot out here in the rainy Pacific Northwest! You can see that the concrete patio below is not really finished. It could use a cosmetic make-over, but that’s the fun of home owning, right?

And down to the yard…

That patch to the left there gets some gorgeous afternoon sun. I’m planning to dig it up and build raised beds for a kitchen garden.

We’re going to move that odd gate way up to the patio area where those two giant tufts of grass are growing. (Seriously? 7’ tall grass? Maybe on a prairie, but… no.) Where the gate is now, we’re going to put a playset with a slide and swings for the kids. They are very excited about going to pick one out.

In the very back, along the fence, we have plans for a coop and chicken run. Our city allows us to keep up to 10 pairs of fowl in our yard. We have no intention of pushing the city limits, but we are hoping to have a nice supply of fresh eggs in the future. Not to mention the cozy clucking of the hens.

Here are my very own Italian plum tree and lilac trees! I think I’m in heaven. The plum tree is bearing fruit right now, so I got to see how prolific it is. And it is! I can’t wait to see what variety of lilac we have.

We’re planning to tear up that odd patch of bamboo to the right. It really knows how to take over a place! And, we’ll be planting several varieties of apple trees. Of course, those won’t bear fruit for another 2-5 years, but we can enjoy our plums in the meantime.

Alright, time to head back in. We’ll go through the master suite so y’all can see my room :-)

Yes, that is a gas fireplace in the master bedroom! Something I’d always dreamed of having and never thought I’d get! The furniture isn’t mine. I’ll have to show you what it looks like again once we’ve got it all spruced up.

Then, we have the bathroom with a walk-in closet. Hoping to replace the capsule shower one day, but we’ll give it a little time.

Down the hall, we have the enormous laundry room, which I will also be utilizing to house a freezer and shelving for storage and pantry items that don’t fit in our kitchen.

There are actually appliances in here now (hooked up Saturday). One of the blessings (stresses? expenses? No, blessings is better!) of buying this particular house is that we needed to purchase all new appliances. I have NEVER in my LIFE been able to choose my own refrigerator, people! I feel like the most pampered homemaker on the PLANET right now, I really do. There will be pictures of the refrigerator in the future. And the stove! Oh, don’t get me started on the thing of beauty that is our stove!

Further along, there’s another bedroom with lovely beadboard wainscot with a third bath across the hall from it. To me, it just screams “nursery.”

Then, finally, we have the long, thin room that will be a combination guest room and office.

There’s also an enormous open closet at the other side that you can’t see (because I was standing in it when I took this picture) with plenty of room to shelve all sorts of books and supplies. And it opens onto the south facing backyard. A great comfort an inspiration while you’re hard at work.

Now, one more quick jaunt back upstairs…

Are you still with me?

Garage/Brian’s shop…

…and the attic (technically, there’s a crawlspace-style attic inside the main house, too, but this one is really more convenient for long-term storage)…

…Alley next to garage to house trash and recycling. Alright, can I just so how absurdly excited I am that I will get my very OWN trash, recycling and yard waste bins and that I won’t have to share them with twenty other households????

Here we have the walkway on the opposite side of the house that stretches into the backyard. We met our neighbors on the other side of that fence, a very sweet retired couple who has lived there since the early 60’s. They have a border collie that my kids have already fallen in love with.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, we’re done!

So, what do you think?

I can’t wait to get our stuff unpacked so I can start making this house into our home!

Toasting Pumpkin Seeds

Whether your family’s carving jack o’ lanterns or saint o’ lanterns or just enjoying the delicious aroma of baking pumpkin for an autumn supper, don’t you dare waste those seeds! Toasting pumpkin seeds is a perennial tradition. Unfortunately, many recipes end up resulting in burned, bitter seeds. This one may take awhile, but the results are consistently delicious.

We like ours with just plain oil and salt, but you can experiment with spices or sugar as your heart desires and imagination inclines. The nice thing about the low cooking temperature is that it won’t burn more creative toppings.

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

Seeds from one pumpkin, about 1 1/4 cups from a typical jack o' lantern carver
1 T canola or vegetable oil
1 t. salt

Preheat oven to 250 F. Mix all ingredients. Spread on a cookie sheet. Bake in center of oven for 2 hours. Cool and store in an easily accessible place for spontaneous nibbling.

Grace to Grow

We spend a lot of time as mothers thinking about growth in terms of our children. How tall they are getting. The new skill she learned. The temptation he is struggling to overcome. We spend our days shaping, encouraging, disciplining—training these rowdy saplings of ours into forms of strength and beauty.

But we need to grow, too.

Sure, we know that. As Christians, we know too well that this life is a journey, often an arduous one at that, and often the greatest challenge we face is the challenge to let ourselves be changed.

We know that motherhood changes us. In fact, never have I felt on such a highway in this journey of life. A highway where there is no speed limit and a whole lot of pitfalls. And God keeps beckoning, switching on the streetlight just ahead. Then, the next. The next. Calling me forward, spurring me on to follow Him and to be better than I’ve been. Sometimes I balk at being expected to go so fast. I grumble at the pitfalls. And I definitely don’t like being able to see only one streetlamp ahead.

In her powerfully petite book Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches, Rachel Jankovic speaks to the mothers who, like me, tend to resist this kind of growth:

“I have heard more than one mother [of little girls] try to head off growth like this at the pass. Announcing to whoever wants to listen that they don’t ‘do’ hair. That they hate to shop. That this girly thing is way out of their league. Essentially what they are saying is that they are afraid of the new territory that God set before them. If this sounds familiar to you, you are going to need to get over it.”

Don’t get me wrong, I love to do hair. I love shopping. I’m as girly as the next girly girl.

What I “wasn’t” was a “preschool person.”

I didn’t “do” crafts. Pipe cleaners and popsicle sticks and pompoms were not things I kept in my house. And glitter? Definitely no glitter. I’m not fond of playgrounds or particularly enamored with playdates. I’m a homebody. A homebody who likes quiet. And uninterrupted periods of reading and solitude. Needless to say, little preschool people do not fit so well with the me I had convinced myself I was.

So, God sent me preschoolers. To teach me that I was more than I had thought.

Slowly, sometimes grudgingly, I have learned to grow. Sometimes it hurts. I have complained and fought back, but He is patient. And now I often laugh looking back on the woman I was. The one I am now is so much better than what I’d fought so hard to stay! I’m growing in trust, too, and I am looking forward to seeing how much more I can be changed in these few, precious preschooler years.

If the thought of all this growth sounds intimidating, remember that it’s not you who are responsible for this change. Your only responsibility is to remain open to the work of the Spirit and to seek Him with your whole heart.

“So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” – 1 Cornithians 3:7

And thank the Lord for that!

October 1st: Feast of St. Therese of Lisieux

To learn more about St. Therese, read this post from 2009.

Below, I have included some ideas for how to celebrate the feast of this beautiful, beautiful saint.

• St. Therese was deeply passionate about bringing souls to Christ, and she prayed fervently for missionaries. She even corresponded with a young missionary priest, though such a thing was almost unprecedented for a Carmelite nun. Consider giving a donation to a favorite missionary cause, and do take time to pray for the mission fields all over the world.
• If you personally know someone who does not have a relationship with God, consider sharing the Gospel message with them. Commit this person to St. Therese’s intercession in prayer.
• Therese’s “little way” teaches us that it is in the small, everyday places that God often finds us and where we can best serve him. Therese once wrote of finding God in a jam sandwich! Consider serving some jam sandwiches for lunch today, especially if you have young children. It’s the perfect time of year to crack open a jar of homemade jam, if you were canning this summer, but any kind will do.
• Make a Rose Cake in honor of the Little Flower, as St. Therese is sometimes called, to serve at a mother’s ministry that I am co-leading at our parish. Our first session is on Therese’s feast, so we are dedicating our group to her intercession. Our theme will be “Meeting God in the Little Ways,” a very appropriate theme for mothers. As a mom, I certainly share St. Therese’s conviction that I am only capable of serving God in the little things.
• Read aloud from any of St. Therese’s remarkable writings. Her thoughts are rather like Holy Scripture: deeply profound, and yet simple enough for the littlest child. Why not choose an excerpt or two to add to your family devotions on October 1^st?
• In the morning, commit your day to St. Therese’s intercession. Then, strive your hardest to live her “little way.” Be conscious of all those little temptations you usually ignore or routinely give in to; resist them, and lift them up as sacrifices to Jesus. Find little ways to bless those around you today, and perform small, good deeds without seeking to be noticed or acknowledged for them.
• Celebrate St. Therese’s French heritage by whipping up a meal from her native country’s excellent culinary repertoire. Despite its undeserved reputation for being fussy and expensive, much traditional French cooking is actually quite economical and easy to make. Why not serve some French toast for breakfast? Or maybe whip up a simple cheese soufflé (surprisingly c’est du gateau) with a salad of fresh greens and a baguette for a light supper? Uncork a bottle of your favorite wine, and bon appétit!