snowatonna

The wild dreamer part of me wonders if someday we will adopt a kid and find out he/she was born during Owatonna's May Day Blizzard of 2013. Kid, if you are out there somewhere, you are INCREDIBLY special!!! I can't wait to meet you.

Yesterday was so surreal. Sure, we got snow on May 1st and put hot chocolate in the May Day baskets we made, and Norah tasted the snow off the swing, sandbox, and slide (a mere three days after we were outside in swimsuits and cooking over the firepit). But in my five years of marriage, the snow has never stopped Brett from going to work - and that includes the crazy DC blizzard in 2010 - and on May 2nd he did try for five hours anyway, to no avail.

Instead of our usual work, we walked through 15" over to Brenda's, put together a puzzle, took pictures and marveled at the fallen branches, made snowcreatures, passed stories of green and gardens on to our children, laughed, went to the National Day of Prayer service, sang about alabaster cities, and ate waffles.

Brett and I went to bed last night thinking, "WOW. Don't want this day to ever end, it'll never come again."

This morning I woke up to more freshly falling snow. It's still a snowglobe out there as I type this, with my hot chocolate and cinnamon roll. Narnia, Groundhog Day, "Don't they know about second winter?" - all the jokes apply. I just revel like Hannah in 1Sam 1:27, " the Lord has given me my petition which I asked of Him," and I devote this snowy day to Him, as though it were my last.

the book of life

Today is May Day

...and it's blizzarding.

When we basically had zero snow last winter, I seriously doubted the shortage would ever be remedied, but I'm finally beginning to feel that my hopes are within reach. (I should apply this lesson in other areas. God is not fair but He is just.)

Snow melts, flowers fade, children grow up and fly away. So dig in and savor the good, and know that eternity will last forever and we have been given each moment for a reason. Grieve, hope, rage, laugh, but thank the Maker for this beautiful messy Story.

beat with you

Five days away from my husband and daughter, scrapbooking five years of life together, and we chat on the last day:

R: My heart wants to beat next to yours.
B: I misread that, thought you said your heart wants to be with mine.
R: Pretty much.
 ...
R: Anything in particular you want to do when I get home?
B: Beat with you.

beauty and the mess

Only a little snow left, patches and puddles. Since two years have transpired since we got our home, and we have only 10 items remaining (five of which are optional) on the 77-item list I typed up that first month, an update is in order.

In December 2012 my sister Abi helped me paint our crumbly, cracked, stained, smudged, and crayon-scribbled EntryWay/DiningRoom. After months of deliberation, the perfect color finally dawned on me: a roasted coffee chocolatey brown. Behold, the transformation:

BEFORE - white-ish walls, different furniture

DURING - Abi paints over the color we did not like

...facing west, only the top edges left.

 (Drumroll, please:)

AFTER

AFTER in regular light

AFTER with enhanced colors

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty stoked. You can still tell that the trim is mid-stripped, exactly the same as it was when we bought the house. We hope to strip and refinish all the trim eventually (one of the five non-optional items left) as well as refinishing all the wood floors which need it pretty bad. Super exciting, and yet so easy to put off indefinitely. Besides, I've got summer gardens and trips and markets and celebrations to keep me busy.

Technically, shouldn't this room be called the Mess Hall? I definitely had to excavate the mess before I took this picture (as you can also see in the 'before' pics). It's also the entryway where coats, boots, bags, mail, and all manner of cast-offs get piled on a daily basis. But I'm open to suggestion, especially if they sound tidier.

“O, how this spring of love resembleth the uncertain glory of an April day”
- Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 1, Sc. 3

will you rail or revel?

E Rice Street, pre-dawn

Owatonna snowfall totals (just a few):
December 9th, 5" on Brett's birthday
February 22nd, 6" on Ryott's birthday
March 5th, 9" Winter Storm Saturn
11/12, 12/20, 2/3 we had little more than a dusting,
and today, 3/11, we had another 2 to 6 inches.

Seasonal depression has long since set in for many, and the complaints are rampant. How am I to respond? Sympathy would be dishonest. Comfort has little effect. Time is relative. My truest reaction is jubilant thankfulness! I have waited so long for so much, and we all must learn patience and contentment and steadfastness in our own way. I am learning to still trust God when He says no to what I want most. I mourn and embrace the end of winter like a long and satisfying book, and look eagerly for an epilogue.

Then I remember that there will be a sequel.

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

                                     -Robert Frost

february friday

Could there be a better day??! I think not.

Today is February 22. Birthday of George Washington, Ryott Daniel, Dex Wray Wilde, and Oliver Lightly. How I love all three dear heroes-to-be; how thrilling to have them in my life and watch them grow and be friends with their mums. Certainly they make up for any son God could have given me! More wonderful still, today we have gotten the biggest snowfall of over SIX inches of fluff!!! (Okay actually that still sounds sort of pathetic after my experience with blizzards, but there are Some Things that I will not be sad about!) And it is Friday that I get to be home with Norah, Brett gets both overtime and off early, and life is at our disposal.

Psalms 147:16
He gives snow like wool
Job 37:6
For to the snow he says, ‘Fall on the earth’
Proverbs 31:21
She is not afraid of snow for her household,
    for all her household are clothed in scarlet.


(Here is something I started to write Jan 13th)

This bright year, 2013, excites me in my bones. Though I am wont to burst into tears while singing, reading, or driving. God has taught me a new thing: That my desire is right, but the fulfillment may not ever look the way I expect it to. You would think I would know this already; I'm just that resistant to His way and insist on having my own!

“I can do all things, and no purpose of mine can be thwarted” (Job 42:2)

five revolutions

The weekend of our fifth anniversary.

Photos by our dear friend Katy Snow.