Tossing Snacks

This month’s theme at Out of the Ordinary is reading, and today was my day to post, so I told a true story about me and my fiction reading habits.

One day, when my oldest children were toddlers, I found myself reading a novel, sitting in a rocker I’d pulled into the kitchen beside the fridge. When one of the children fussed for my attention, I’d open the fridge door and toss a snack to keep things quiet while I read just a little longer—to the end of the chapter, then a few paragraphs into the next, and with yet another tossed snack, the rest of the new chapter, too.

Read the rest.

Status Report: January

Sitting…on the couch in the living room.

Drinking…mint tea. Because it’s almost bedtime, so no caffeine for me.

Feeling…tired from a day spent with my two toddler granddaughters—and a couple hours with my almost toddler grandson. It was a great day: We took a long woods walk/sled ride in our perfect winter weather, played hide and seek in the house afterward. All day long, there was almost no whining or squabbling. (Recently there’s been some cousin rivalry happening, but not today.) Still, I’m tired, because even well-behaved toddlers are exhausting.

Enjoying…perfect winter weather. I’m repeating, I know, but it’s January in the Yukon. Good weather gets double mention. 

Also enjoying…nights warm enough to sleep with the bedroom window open. I like sleeping in a very cold room under a mountain of quilts and blankets.

Liking…the string of Christmas lights I left up on the mantle. I could not go from well-lit tree to nothing lit at all. I leave them on all day long to curse the winter darkness. 

Saddened…to hear that the father of one of my youngest daughter’s elementary school friends has been missing since December 19. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a family member disappear and not know what happened. I’m praying there’s a happy explanation, but afraid there won’t be.

Thinking…about taking a trip. I’ll say more if (and when) it happens.

Reading…this book (half-way through 600 pages now) and, when I need a change of pace, The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War, which I highly recommend, too. And to the granddaughters, this afternoon, I read Ezra Jack Keats’ The Snowy Day (library edition), which came in the mail today. (I ordered two other library edition picture books, too—Peter’s Chair (Keats again) and Make Way for Ducklings (Robert McCloskey)—but they are coming in a separate shipment.)

Anticipating…the end of the kitchen project. All the bottom cabinets are painted now, and when the paint has set for a week, they will be installed. The countertops can be installed then, too, and I will have half a working kitchen. 

Theological Term of the Week

saints
The body of Christ; all believers worldwide, both living and dead.

• From scripture:

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building upthe body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, (Ephesians 4:11-13, ESV)

• From the Second Helvetic Confession:

Chapter 17

What Is the Church? The Church is an assembly of the faithful called or gathered out of the world; a communion, I say, of all saints, namely, of those who truly know and rightly worship and serve the true God in Christ the Savior, by the Word and Holy Spirit, and who by faith are partakers of all benefits which are freely offered through Christ.

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