Paige and Mike arrived in town on Wednesday, and Daniel and McKenna dropped by last night. As soon as they walked in, I realized that we had all of our kids together in our home. It’s been two years and several weeks since we have enjoyed time together like this.
It was a busy evening, with a friend visiting and preparations for my parents’ anniversary party. Daniel played through a Christmas songbook on the piano, and eventually several of us sang along. Paige and Mike played a game, Tim and Richard watched a movie together, and I moved from room to room, enjoying the sight.
We took a quick trip to Alabama to visit Paige and Mike and their new house. It is a beautiful house with a large yard. Their neighborhood is rural and quiet, surrounded by corn, cotton, and soybean fields. People wave to you and are very friendly, and there is a slower pace in the South which is pretty charming. Richard and Mike worked on a car dilemma and we helped select and install bathroom fixtures. Remember your first home? How exciting/daunting/fun it was to set up your own place? Well, this is where they are. What an exciting time of life. 💕
Our car has been hit twice during the past two weeks, once at a stoplight where someone backed into us, and the other time, with a panel flying from a truck on the freeway. Richard was driving alone on the freeway, and was not injured. This is such a tender mercy. There is a lot of damage to the bumper and hood, and the car is being repaired. Things could have been so much worse if the debris had gone through the windshield.
The day of the accident, Richard’s burden grew with two more projects at work, and we were scheduled to host a youth activity at our house that evening. Mark and I set up the activity while Richard finished some work in his office before the boys began to arrive.
The boys chopped wood and made a fire in our solo stove, and cooked hot dogs, marshmallows, and biscuits. Happy sounds echoed through our neighborhood as the boys played kuub. Night fell too early, and soon, there were only adult voices coming from outdoors. I sat in my living room and thought about the good things that happened throughout the day.
A text from a friend.
Time with Mark.
A compliment from a young dad on our home.
A conversation with Paige as I worked in the yard.
At the beginning of the month, I made a general list of things I wanted to accomplish in September. Most projects are long, and can’t be done in one day or one week.
So far, I have been able to check off just one thing from the list. I play my own version of hopscotch, with sequenced, short steps to do each day for my goals. Some of this is catch-up after a rough summer. Some of this is in preparation for a busy fall ahead. Some of this is because I am in the stage of life when it’s time to part with things. Most of it is study, though. I sit at our kitchen table and read and write through the mornings on most days. Lucky me to be able to do that.
Our carpet needed to be replaced 11 years ago when we bought this house, but we waited to make the purchase. Tonight, our kitchen is full of furniture, including our grand piano, ready for new carpet tomorrow morning.
This time tomorrow night, that old smelly carpet will be gone. Still, what did I do today? I carefully vacuumed it one last time.
Each year on July 2, I remember this was the day that I walked into our house for the first time and I knew that this was where we should live. It was a unique experience for me, where I suddenly understood the meaning of an old dream. This was my kitchen in the Salt Lake Valley that my dream prepared me to recognize.
I have filled books with our experiences, photos of youth activities and neighborhood parties, and handwritten cards from this era of our lives. It is the neighborhood connections with specific people, including our children’s spouses, Michael and McKenna, that make me I believe that the Lord brought us here.
Even though our numbers at family dinners are small, I still set a special table on Sundays. The rest of the week, we sit on bar stools around the kitchen island and eat from basic plates and drink from plastic cups. Whatever the setting, dinnertime is a sacred family rhythm. Amen.
These seasonal displays are a lot of work, so I chronicle them. Everything is old in this array except a few of the books…there are always new books. Do you see that poinsettia being amazing in June? Weird.
