A Year and then some...

I was looking over the photos from last spring and I can't believe it has only been a year since they were taken. I know it sounds cliche, but I guess all cliches have some basis in the truth or we wouldn't say them so often. It feels more like ten years have passed, rather than one. If I wasn't so tired right now, I would post some pictures to illustrate my point, but for now, you will just have to take my word for it. The kids have grown up, and there is another one on the way!

I chuckled to myself when reading my most "recent" (If you will) post, and how I went on and on about using things up and making everything from scratch. Lately, I have been wondering how I'm ever going to have time to get the laundry folded and put away, much less baking our bread and whipping our butter. We do still get our milk from a nearby farm, but that practice too, alas, may come to an end, as baby number 5 makes his or her presence more known over the next few months. The farm has become so popular that Farmer Frank (as Jack has dubbed the farmer after a beloved library book) has had to add another day to his weekly distribution schedule and I had to wait in line for 45 minutes today to get my measly 5 gallons of milk! This is no mean feat when you are seven months pregnant. On top of that, it's a 40 minute round trip drive to get the milk. So Jarret and I estimated that we paid about $5 a gallon for the milk, all things considered. As mush as we love the milk, this is too rich for our budget! So, we may just have to streamline the milk-getting right off the to-do list. I actually am quite relieved and amazed that Jarret and I are on the same page about this. Usually, I am the one wanting to throw in the towel on something that was fun for awhile, but the rural charm of which has long since worn away for me. He keeps at it a bit longer. But, I have tried to warn him that this summer will not be like the others.

You see, all our other babies were born in the depths of winter, when we had nothing better to do than keep warm and try to sleep. This is after all, what you try to do in the winter. But this baby is due when things just start to warm up around here for Jarret. And while I am looking forward to taking things at a slower pace (that is one of the wonderful things about babies, they give you an excuse to slow down a bit) summer is Jarret's time to live out loud and I think he will have a hard time tempering his summer self. I am not worried though. Jack is an outdoors-man like his father, and the other three are big enough to tag along pretty much anywhere. So if I am left on my own with Baby most of the time, I won't find that too bothersome at all.

Enough on that for this evening.

I have thought a lot about this blog over the past year (again, I can't fathom that a year has passed!) and I realized that I need it to do more for me. So, if you will indulge me, I will let you in on my plans. I am going to use this space to write about whatever strikes my fancy - crosses my mind while I am mopping the floor or ironing Jarret's shirts, or tending the kitchen woodstove. That could mean a family update, but it could also mean an essay on the wonders of my faith and how I am sharing it with my family, my latest feats in the kitchen (and failures too, of course!) or comments on my favorite or current books and magazines. I just need a space to vent, and if you want to share, by all means, you are welcome here. I just ask that you keep your comments thoughtful and polite, because one thing I have noticed over the course of the past year is that everyone seems to have a place where they can think out loud, if you will, and they all seem to have an audience. I have gained much from reading the thoughts of these people, seeing how they live their lives in different and similar ways from the manner in which I live my own. I figure I have just as much of a right to speak out. So, hang on to your hats because here we go!