My Week

Faith: I've been reading and re-reading about the Proverbs 31 wife this week:

Psalms 31:10-31

A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.

She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands. She is like the merchant ships,  bringing her food from afar.  She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls. She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard. She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks. She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night. In her hand she holds the distaff  and grasps the spindle with her fingers. She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy. When it snows, she has no fear for her household; for all of them are clothed in scarlet. She makes coverings for her bed; she is clothed in fine linen and purple. 

Her husband is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies the merchants with sashes. She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. 

Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: "Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all." Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

My sweet husband is always telling me I'm a Proverbs 31 woman. There is so much more of the Proverbs 31 woman that I want to become. But here are some of the things that strike me as I read Proverbs 31. She wasn't passive. She spoke for herself. She didn't go through her husband to speak into others lives. Yet, her instruction was faithful and full of wisdom. She wasn't selfish is her confidence. She was a business woman. Yet, she put her household first. I strive to hit that balance. And, above all of that I pray that I would become truly a woman who fears the Lord.

Our Farm: Not much has been happening on the farm front. Our two black calves are out grazing the field with all our other cattle. We have another calf due probably in about a week to two weeks.

I've been getting overwhelmed with the chickens in our yard. Even though we've moved them out of our yard into the field and then even farther away from our yard, they keep coming back to our yard to scratch and poop, which is just embarrassing when people come over and we have to tell them to watch their step. My DH put up a 2x4 under the gate where we figure they get into our yard from. This helped, but two chickens got into our yard anyhow, then couldn't get back out to go to their pen. Natalie, who is our resident junior chicken master, noticed a couple places where the livestock fence was up a bit from the ground. So, she and are hoping that Jon will be able to re-inforce these spots and keep the chickens out of the yard. I really do love having chickens. I just don't like having their mess on the sidewalks.

Our Home & Our Health: I took Rachel to get her MRI this week. So she doesn't have Tethered Cord. And she doesn't have Celiac (her tests came back on that earlier). So, I guess her issues are just a mystery and I'll just keep on keeping on and keep her off gluten anyhow and maybe work harder at getting her off dairy. All our family is really healthy as can be and Rachel's tummy issues seem to be more of an annoyance than anything.

In The School Room: We only got three days of school done this week. That's ok. We often do school when the school district doesn't have school, so it all works out. Monday, I had the MRI for Rachel. Then in the evening I worked at our business. Tuesday, the girls had dance (pic below). Then when we came home it was so warm and sunny (so unusual for us this time of year) that I just couldn't make our girls do schoolwork.

The rest of the days we did schoolwork and also violin on Wednesday.

We continued to read Mr. Bowditch. We continued to learn about sea creatures (this time mullusks and coral, etc.). Natalie has been finding scriptures on her own and writing them down in a journal. She was really interested this week in a scripture from Isaiah that talked about sacrifices of animals and such, and how they are nothing if a man's heart wasn't right. She asked me what it meant and I explained it. She had been dealing with just such an issue earlier in the week, and I think it really spoke to her. It was neat to see. We've done copywork. We've done math. Natalie did violin. We didn't do much history this week (unless you count Mr. Bowditch). I tried a technique Robinlyn used with her girls when they were younger, which is allowing the girls to do things with their hands during reading time. That is...allowing Natalie to draw pictures during reading time as long as she drew something related to the story. She was really enthused and motivated by this, and seemed to have improved understanding because of it.

Our Business: In addition to working earlier in the week, there was also some business I had to work on one morning when our programmer updated our website and it broke some html on our site, which is a lot cheaper for me to fix than a programmer. As much as I hate combining the business with our home life, we really are blessed to be able to be there with our kids most of the time.

"Me" Stuff: Not much me stuff this week. Yet, I just can't help myself and I'm always playing around in Photoshop with photos.