I made this last year and handed it out for Christmas to the family.
An old JC Penny photo shoot "memories" came to my email box last fall with these pics and others so I made a collage. Ever since Ben was born, joining Lara as a then two-sibling family, I'd gone every year until 2016, usually in August, to get an all-siblings picture from JC Penny. The same Penny's, at the mall, every year, from 2001 until 2015. I loved those times . . . even that one time with the "all five" energy (shall we say) in the waiting room spilling over to a plastic photo display, rendering it...well...broken. 😅
I never got one in 2016.
So now, I've spent too long writing and deleting.
Writing and Deleting.
But the gist of it . . .
I didn't like not having a voice as a mom for her son that year.
I don't like not having a voice as a mom for her son this year.
Again.
While teen boys suffer/ed.
Rudderless, left alone and without.
Not, and I mean not, regular teen boy/single mom stuff.
So . . . for some reason, unanswerable as of this very day, I was/am left to be voiceless and powerless of change for my boys. BUT, we all know that I am not alone in that walk, and it is ultimately not my voice, my power or my desire for change that is in control here. So I endure, I watch, I observe, I grieve, I wonder, but I do not despair, I do not shut down, I do not wither away in anger or spite. I give God all the Glory during broken, earthly times and He provides comfort, healing, care, support, and love beyond all measure.
Thanks be to God!
Oh, my friends, let us take a quick look at how I was provided for today, that day, which is also election day.
A most beautiful, sunshiny day.
With leaves still floating like gold in the yard.
Seeing "our farmer" plow up his field with the most gorgeous sunset to the west while driving home from volleyball with Livia. Isn't he a lucky farmer to be bathed in such beauty at work today?
I got to make a whole pan of my very own, garden-grown roasted carrots tonight!
With this simple but BEYOND delicious recipe:
And why was I SO excited to be able to roast this batch of Fall carrots picked just two days ago????
Well...look who called around 4:00p.m. today announcing she'd be arriving by 7:30p.m. to vote in her first election . . .
Oh my goodness!!
Lara dropped on in for the evening.
This evening.
That evening!!
She lives four and a half hours away, this doesn't happen all that often. Something happened with her absentee ballot, she applied for it and put her college house address on it, but it never arrived. Not sure when exactly she decided she'd be coming home to vote, but what a treat that she did!
💜💜💜💜💜💜💜
And she got to eat a warm dish of homemade baked mac-n-cheese, and we both got to "oooo" and "ahhhh" together over the roasted carrots that both of us agreed we'd never tasted anything like before, and she got to talk me into getting the new video game craze, "Among Us" where she, Liv and I played together with other people from who knows where around the world, and we got to laugh and laugh, and she got to play her most gorgeous new Chopin piece that she's working on, and I got to record it, and I got to give her a hug and she, William and Livia got to run around the house being silly and jump on the tramp at 10:30p.m. in the dark with my "power's out again" flood lamp flashlight...and...and...and...
💜💜💜💜💜💜💜
Roasted carrots with olive oil, kosher salt, pepper and fresh dill from the "fend for yourself" garden out by the shed that not only did it fend for itself this summer, it planted itself out there too and has survived 30 degree nights so far. You go, Dill! (-:
💜💜💜💜💜💜💜
Simple Gratitude for the Day
Well, I mean, what we've just read up above is a gush of gratitude far beyond "simple" for me today. But here's an actual, "simple" one that caught my attention as I did it:
Grateful to have been able to grab a flashlight and pick dill in my yard in the dark.
(-:
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