Post Category → just life

winter rhythms

More January.

Two entire weeks of regular routine: Sunday evenings printing school plans, mornings with Jameson reliably preparing breakfast while other children fall into their familiar chores, gathering for Circle Time and then breaking for independent school, lunch made reliably by William followed by read-aloud and at least an hour outside (although, confession, we may be stealing far more than an hour each day, as the snow has been perfect for sledding and who can interrupt happy children at play?), rosy cheeks back around the table to finish up books or off with a rag or two to finish a chore before Mama reliably makes dinner and we wind up another day. All to the tune of someone practicing piano, because oh my, there’s a lot of piano playing every day!

My new planner arrived only a couple days into January (sort of forgot my last one wouldn’t just keep going forever and was shocked to not find January 2019 after December’s pages ended!) Top three things, it says, and I’ve been mostly filling those out thusly:

Read (my own and out loud for fun to littlest ones)
Pray (continually, fervently, with greater tenacity)
Worship (because it’s true, I used to sing and play for hours and I am so very rusty)

Those don’t all get ticked off every day, especially the last. But it’s a new focus and before I fill up the space of winter routine days with other things, I want to remember and refresh those foundations.

Waking early every morning, and the early is the easy part. The getting out the door to walk has been much harder. Enid wakes too early too often, and just as I’m thinking, “TOO EARLY!”, I’m reminded that it’s not too early, it’s just right and my times are in His hands. She’s reminding me that babies are lessons in flexibility and serving. Putting others first.

So while my Bible study is not always followed by a brisk, cleansing walk in the January air, I know that someday it will and these days will pass too quickly.

A month of back on track eating for the Mr and me, and “low” sugar for kids. No video games. Throw in early dark and heaping snow and nursing baby and suddenly we’re deep into winter’s hibernating. Lots of thinking, lots of growing. Is that how winter is for everyone? I don’t know. But winter seems to, for us, quiet the world enough that we can hear our inner workings and the refining process happening within. We can read books and be provoked and ponder ideas the change us. Children play long enough to grow bored and selfish and so they grow, too, and I don’t mind. We are under discipline, all of us, and in the pain we know the deep, deep love of our Father.

New Yearing


Highlight of the Dunphey year!

I know that’s not really a verb, but it’s kinda what we’re still doing over here. My planner had “school!” written on January 2, and I decided to cross that right out. We’re going to start Monday because we all needed a few more days of the soul rest that vacation can bring. When my kids were younger, back to routine sounded most restful; now that they’re older, and things don’t fall apart quite as much without the constraints of routine, a few days off can actually feel like a few days off.

So we’ve been New Yearing: washing light fixtures and purging closets and spending way too long trying to get the impossible to reach spots of my shower door clean, along with hours of outdoor play and lazy mornings and staying up kinda late because you can. (Them, not me.)

And meal planning: here we go, meeting January with another Whole30 and mid-winter is just not always an easy time for that. The cookie intake was real, so real, and that first day of no sugar left me feeling more than lost. Day 5, settling in, grabbing apples and cashews left and right to keep up with that nursing baby. Even heating up a quick afternoon snack of pot roast. Who eats pot roast for a snack? Answer: a mom on whole30.

Clearing out some space: Not just in our closets (and ugh, that reminds me that I still haven’t gotten to mine. Maybe in 2020…), but also in my heart and mind. Putting my phone in airplane mode so I can take pictures and not much more, and I can already tell what a challenge that is going to be. How often I turn it on without even thinking, only to remember there’s nothing there to “catch up on,” to distract me, to pull me away temporarily from this demanding or quiet moment. Mothering is always a 24 hour task, even with just one little babe, but now those 24 hours are being pulled in 6 directions, and it’s too easy to retreat into manager mode (which can also feel like survival mode) instead of investing fully. I can’t really give 6 people everything they need — in fact, I can’t even give one person everything they need — but I want to give what I can to the people God’s asked me to serve, and these six rank pretty high on that list. Talk to them, listen to them, connect with them, pray for them — I need the help of the Holy Spirit, and so here I am, offering Him all of me.

It’s a new year, and there are some fresh starts, but really, I’m in year 13 of a very long mission (mothering). I’m not at the bottom of a mountain, rested and ready to tackle the unknown. I’m somewhere deep in the thick of the woods, out of breath, slipping down the steep rocks, a bit muddy and blistery and worn. But this new year is a chance to stop and stand still, lift my eyes, and watch the fog drift away to reveal that high peak, my destination, the goal. Fresh vision for the steep climb ahead. Time to shift my pack, retie my laces, and forge ahead.

****


Matching olive jackets


Growing boys


Nights with Mom = learning to play solitaire.


They love my hot chocolate


Such a joy.

a moment

I don’t know what you picture when you think “homeschool.” I know that what I imagine isn’t what my reality ends up being most of the time. We don’t have a school room, but rather a kitchen table — as well as a couch, a piano, the floor, and other random places school occurs all day long. We don’t all sit for 2.5 hours, break for lunch and recess, and then reconvene. Sure, we eat together 3 times, and there’s our Circle Time, but otherwise it’s a lot of managing moving parts.

And so today, when I got them all situated for our weekly painting session, and even the baby was happy nearby, I had to take a picture. No talking, just paint; we all need quiet, I said. And look, all those sweet head bowed around the table. 7th grader to kindergartener working happily while music played in the background. My soul took a deep breath and I smiled.

living life.

There is so much activity in the fall, isn’t there? After a summer that always feels full enough, I am suddenly launched into that same fullness, but with the addition of school for x number of kids, birthday parties, church routine in full swing, teaching CFA, field trips and fun trips and scrambling to be outside for one last hurrah — and all to the tune of shortening days.

This October seemed especially so, with every week requiring a planning strategy of its own, as I did my best to keep the essentials and be flexible with everything else. Some weeks or months or seasons are just like that. (Perhaps most are?) Our house has seemed extra-full, and that is my favorite kind of busyness.

But through it all, in it all, under it all, a sense of peace and provision and daily bread. Pressing needs that keep us all thinking about the faithfulness of God and praying in faith for His touch. We are busy each day but there’s also a unifying waiting, carrying happening in our hearts, down to Cecily. A text comes in with new numbers for Jack and we all stop, hearts in their eyes as they wait for new news. An email from the church prayer list with heavy news, and they all pause quietly, letting it sink in. A man they all know from church gets answers that aren’t answers from doctors, and they begin to ask for a miracle. And more. They are learning to carry one another’s burdens.

We are learning to do our chores well and to be more careful with math problems but we are learning far more.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing it right, this thing called life, this task of raising up people. Most of the time I’m too busy just doing it these days, though, and have to cast even those cares on Him, trusting that He is my Shepherd and that He is their Shepherd, and He will lead us through every hill and valley.

*****

autumn catch-up

Oh, another month of living, pressed down and running over — that’s the only way to measure these incredibly full days. Days full of beauty and adventure, or the refining rhythm of routine, read alouds we love and workbook pages that must be done, church things, work things, school things, family things… So much, and most of it with a baby in arms, which is why my thoughts tend to stay jumbled in my head instead of getting straightened out into neat and tidy sentences here.

Tonight, while I laid in bed with Enid next to me, amusing herself with the crinkly package of baby wipes, I looked through pictures and was a bit astounded to realize how long ago the end of September already feels. And so, a quick photo / memory dump:


Daily work with this eager kindergartener.


Thursday’s nature journaling, packed up and moved to the park.


A Sunday afternoon with the whole family, soaking in September sunshine.


Farewell to this old friend, and even more, to my favorite neighbors EVER.


Paint and journals abandoned and Mama left just sitting in silence. I may or may not have sat there for quite awhile.


Getting rounder, cuter, and more smiley all the time.


A crazy day that managed to get collected and calmed and tied up with the comforts of Autumn.


Another year of CFA begins!

We made it to John Brown’s House, near Lake Placid. We are history buffs and history buffs in the making and studying the Underground Railroad is all the more real with trips like this.

Our day doubled as an autumn holiday in the mountains.


Besides the stunning leaves, the array of mushrooms caught Beatrice’s eye.


Passing through and noticing three friends playing piano together in the evening, and realizing, somehow in a very profound way, that this moment is their real life.


And another moment that stopped me in my tracks: turning around to see my brand new baby playing on her tummy with toys. *sigh*

That’s all for now. A son is in need of tick removal. Life never stops, does it?

august 31: a bit of a ramble

August 31st.

Somehow we have plowed our way through an entire summer and, though I think we have absolutely stuffed ourselves silly with the sunny activities and evening romps and easy living, I still have room for a few last savory summer morsels. In fact, I think I could do this for a few more months, if we could just pause for a moment for me to catch my breath.

This summer I avoided the sun more successfully than I ever have before. My redhead complexion fares best, apparently, when there’s a brand new baby to keep in the shade. I also avoided my gardens almost completely, save for one good weeding a couple weeks ago. My faithful perennials did their best without me, but I’m a bit itchy to get back to it.

But all of that did make more time for me to park myself under the picnic table umbrella and simply watch as my kids splashed in a kiddie pool, threw baseballs, chased butterflies, and asked for freeze pops because HOT. Wow, was it ever hot this year.

Jameson grew inches. His pants are a joke and I’m sort of dreading the bottom line of this fall’s clothing needs. The others are not far behind. I guess, despite the new baby, they all were fed and cared for just fine.

Summer hasn’t always ended up being my favorite time of year, thanks to no routine and trying to keep up with inside chores on top of outside play and work. It has often seemed unmanageable and more chaotic. But somehow that wasn’t how this summer played out. This team has really come together in the last year or two, and a good locker room pep talk really does the trick when it comes to laying out a game plan and executing. These kids are turning into all-stars. No trades happening here!

This summer has had its share of upheaval and craziness, as my parents prepare to sell their house, my nephew prepares for a bone marrow transplant, my husband looks ahead to the next needs in our business, and my sons begin to stretch and grow towards teenage changes. Other things, too, and suddenly a new baby, toddlers feel a piece of cake. I know how to do this.

But only doing what we know could also be called walking by sight, and that’s not what we were made for. The mustard seed inside us grows to maturity each time we step forward into what sure seems to be an abyss of nothing, trusting that when our foot comes down, it will land on the Rock that never moves.

So I flip the calendar page. I sharpen pencils and fill school drawers with new books. Plans are penciled in. We are strengthened by His faithfulness and filled with hope because we know His lovingkindness.