New Banner and Paring Down

Good Sabbath, Dear Readers,

Do you like the new banner my husband made me? It looks rather like a store-front, doesn't it? Can't you just imagine walking inside and seeing piles of linens (made from organic and natural fibers, of course) with lots of lace and roses, antique wicker furniture, and lots of rosy china?


And of course, the shop would be situated on our farm in Missouri. . . . Maybe there would be a write-up on it in the next Victoria Magazine. . . .

But, in the meantime, we'll to have be back to cleaning out our personal landfill/garage (here in Idaho) before the baby comes! It appears as though we have been keeping a colony of mice happily situated over the winter, happily "multiplying and replenishing the earth" (no Margaret Sanger for these rodents!).

Look what they did to Homer the Hillbilly!

Cleaning it out has been a daunting task, to say the least. Working in the garden was the excuse for not doing so through the spring and early summer, but now that things are more established, I've had to face the music. And the destruction. Wow! It's pretty scary out there. What's even scarier is, after throwing out at least twenty garbage bags full of stuff that the mice had ruined, and giving at least twelve bags of stuff to the thrift store that wasn't ruined, I still can't tell that anything's gone! I seem have discovered an eternal truth, which is that, A: When you clean and get rid of things, you are creating a vacuum, and that B: Nature abhors a vacuum (Which means that out of nowhere, someone from church will dump off a few bags of clothes they thought your children might need, etc.). Not that we're ungrateful for the charity behind it!


We must have given away AT LEAST 100 bags of toys, clothes, blankets, etc., since our first baby was born, but it keeps coming right back at us! Plus all of the stuff I've inherited from my mother that she didn't know what to do with (like the "lovely" orange, green, and rust paisley polyester she never got around to making a dress out of, etc.). In the past, I've dutifully (foolishly?) packed it away, knowing full well that I hated it, and was never going to use it.


After getting over my disgust at what the mice did, and learning to look at it as a natural disaster (Mice are natural, and it WAS a disaster!), I believe the mice have done me a favor in making me see how silly it is to keep these things. I do come from a family of pack rats, but it LOOKS like pack rats have been living in everything, so out it goes. Also coming from an environmentally-conscious family (Not to mention the inherited "You never know when you'll need this mentality"), I have felt guilty throwing things out to the overcrowded landfill, but have come to realize that the environment is no better served if these things are left to rot in MY environment.

I have been lothe to get rid of the children's baby blankets and layettes, but after having received multiple blankets and layettes from family, friends, church members, and drowning in the residue thereof, I think it's time to share them with someone else. I wish we had a big tube like a laundry chute that we could stick all of our excess stuff in and send it to the third world country of our choice, since every thrift store in this area has literal mountains of donations, but we have to get it out, once and for all (or at least till someone brings some more by!).


Maybe this time we're creating a vacuum that will be filled with what I'd like to make, but don't have time, like bloomers, petticoats, and sweet pinafores for the girls, and sweet little sailor suits for Frankie!


On a happier note, the latest issue of Above Rubies came a few days ago, and I have been refreshed by the articles and stories written by others who are seeking to give a Godly heritage to their posterity. The first article is on raising our own vegetables, for which is such a need today. If you do not receive this wonderful publication already, may I suggest you visit their website and sign up for it? It is available by donation, so you just give what you think you can afford.

To close, I'd like to share the hymn that I strive to live each day (though it can be challenging in these Made in China days):

"Simple Gifts"

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,'

Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain'd,

To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come round right.

The Lord's blessings be upon you,

Marqueta