Order In Chaos

What’s Green Wednesday

Upstairs:

Some very big cherry tomatoes, hoping desperately that I will transplant them soon. And some not so big “Tomato Tree” tomatoes (behind the cherries). I’m not really sure what they are hoping for, but apparently I don’t have it. And a couple of planted pots by my boys, who desperately wanted to plant some of each of my seeds (I held them to radishes and carrots and peas).

Downstairs:

Many transplanted tomatoes:

a few allysum sprouts and roma tomato sprouts (which I planted last week, as soon as my seed order came in from Veseys):

Brassicas, doing well. I think they like it better when I turn off the Christmas lights (which keep my babies warm in the cold basement) under the grow shelves at night.

Oh, and those cutie patootie little asparagus sprouts?

Which looked like this just two short weeks ago?:

Now:

Apparently asparagus grow quickly. And it gets tall.

It gets tall rather quickly.

In fact, its grown out the grow lights.

Now what!?

Who’s who?

Still no camera, but I may have a lead…

In the meantime, a cute quip:

While talking to Giant and Ettin as they helped me build some garden boxes, I asked Giant if he was Bob from Bob the Builder.

“Oh yeah mom, I’m Bob and I’m helping you get the job done, right?”

You bet buddy.

Then I asked Ettin if he was Bob too, or Spud.

He grins, giggles, and says, “I’m Spud!” (The mischievous scarecrow who has a good heart but gets into trouble all the time).

I’m tempted to start calling him Spud now 😉

Thankfully, Ettin’s good heart prevails—most of the time!

Bwoken

Monday morning, after diligently taking many pictures of an impressive crane truck swinging a load of lumber onto our driveway while my boys looked delightedly on, my camera died.

No clicky.

No turn-y on-y.

Just no.

Admittedly, it’s been dropped and chipped repeatedly,  held by sticky-fingered little boys, and dirtied by a messy momma.

But it suffered all patiently and well.

Thanks for capturing our memories for over seven years.

In Memory,

Our Camera.

A Very Cool Truck

Guess what came to our house?!!

We had a load of lumber delivered. Well actually, it was even better than that.

Saturday morning, Daddy spent a few hours traveling to the nearest “big” city (an hour away) to get me a whole lot of nice wood for garden boxes. He paid and was directed to the pile of lumber to load, and he proceeded to load it with the help of some employees. He could only get half the wood I needed, but half would have kept me busy until the next time he could head into the city. However, after he: drove it home, unloaded it (all the way into our basement), and watched conference, he then went to cut it.

And discovered that the boards were a foot too short.

After calling Totem, the person he talked to offered a $50 gift certificate for the muddle, or to deliver the correct order and take back the wood now living in our basement.

Well, as it turns out, they not only switched the wood. They also brought me a slightly different (and a little bit cheaper wood, and better for my budget) type of wood, and they brought all the lumber I’d wanted in the first place.

Truly an awesome blessing!

Best of all (to a mother of 3 boys), a really cool crane truck brought the order!

It was a party (they even delivered at lunch time so daddy could come home and take pictures help):

Note please, there was so much excitement that Giant’s feet are not actually touching the ground:

(mommy was pretty excited for all the wonderful wood for her garden boxes, too)

Thank you!!!

To Serve

There is a beautiful picture in January’s ensign.

Eunice Teaching Her Son, Timothy, the Holy Scriptures, by Sandy Freckleton Gagon.

I will admit, however, that my first thoughts when I saw this picture were rather derisive.

Wonderful. Another woman with amazing patience. Inner calm and serenity. Great strength. Perfect.

So not me.

I scoffed.

Why, if that was me trying to study a long and cumbersome scroll, I would have been grateful for some quiet alone time. Perhaps I would have gotten up early in the morning just to be by myself—with no little ones climbing on me!

I studied the picture a bit more.

Seeing the young boy leaning on her shoulder, I could feel his weight pressing on mine as well.

I felt proud. Knowing now that perhaps the mother was in truth slightly grumpy with her son, as I would have been. The weight. The awkward positioning of her arms holding the scroll out so her boy could see it now too. Perhaps she could be patient for a little bit, and she’d soon ask him to go play elsewhere.

But then I noticed the light.

I noticed that the world around the mother and son is very dark (a home early in the morning? a reference to an ever darkening world?).

And that, as she studies the scriptures, the mother is illuminated with light.

And, as she bears her son’s weight and makes the extra effort to hold up the scriptures for her son, he too is illuminated.

And I wonder, where would he have been, if she had not made room for him?

Left, perhaps, somewhere in the dark?

My challenge, ever so often, is to change my way of thinking.

The world has taught that we deserve. We deserve our time alone. We deserve happiness. We deserve pleasure. We deserve all we want. And in de-serving, we lose all thoughts for others—aside from what they can do for us, of course.

The Master Teacher, however, has taught us to serve. For in serving, in thinking of others and in bearing the weight of others and doing things that may be uncomfortable for us, there is joy.

While I know I am far, far from perfect, I am thankful for the bit of light that has shone my way.