Sunday, March 17, 2024

St. Patrick's Day



 


We splurged on these giant magnetic tiles which can be used to make boats and little houses and all that. It is charming and the three younger kids are really enjoying it.

It is in fact St. Patrick's Day though we don't really do much about it. Veggietales has a little story about St. Patrick, who was definitely an amazing guy. He also had a really hard life. He was abducted and hauled off to Ireland as a slave, among other things.

We had a problem with our plumbing this week. 


Kevin had to replace a tank becuase it wasn't doing something right. So he put in the blue tank in the picture and also moved a bunch of water lines around. It was a big job and he worked on it for like 20 hours with only 3 hours of sleep breaking it up. We also didn't have running water for most of a day. It was "fun".

Well, it wasn't, but that's Ok. Kevin got it taken care of. He is now mostly caught up on sleep.

I have not gotten much writing done lately and it is annoying me so we are going to have a light week of school so I can spend extra time writing. 




Sunday, March 10, 2024

A New (Used) Car!

 


Kevin managed to find a new used car for us last week!

This is great news as we have five drivers and now four cars.

Isaac has been hired part time at the Air Force base in addition to college, Miriam is working full time, Joseph is job hunting vigorously, so yes, having a bunch of cars is a huge blessing.



Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Books!

 I read a lot. A lot. I love to read. It is my favorite hobby.

The last few weeks I have read a few really good books and thought I would talk about them. 

Number 1: All Systems Red: the Murderbot Diaries

This one is science fiction, and I don't read a lot of SF. When I do, I like humor, and All Systems Red has plenty of it. It is an absolutely brilliant book about a self aware cyborg who goes through a bunch of stuff... well, let's just say it is very funny and also very moving. There is a little swearing but not horrific. I have read it twice because it is so much fun and I caught things the second time I didn't "get" the first time. Also, the first six books of the series (yes, there are more!) are on Kindle Unlimited!


Number 2: The Doorbell Rang by Rex Stout.

I have read this one at least five times before but it is so much fun. Nero Wolfe is a 285 lb brilliant detective and Archie Goodwin is his assistant. Archie is the "voice" -- the books are in first person. This one was particularly enjoyable.


Number 3: How We Love by Milan and Kay Yerkovich

This one isn't "fun" but it is thought provoking and helpful. The Yerkoviches are a Christian couple who work as therapists. They contend that most people have an "imprint" about how they relate to others, usually based on personality and upbringing and life experiences. It definitely hits the spot regarding me. I am an avoider, which means I tend to manage my own emotions and not reach out for help. I am very smart and have always been an intellectual, and talking about emotions isn't easy. I have learned how to in the last 26 years of marriage which is very good. It was still useful to read the book again, and think about the children and how they talk, or don't talk, about their feelings. Feelings are important, and if they are strong enough, they can cause a person to lash out in anger (when in fact they are feeling fear, or grief). So yes, interesting and good book.


Number 4: Unveiling Grace by Lynn Wilder

This one was recommended on some FB group of mine and yeah, the library had it!  It is the story of a woman and her husband who entered the Latter Day Saints faith (more commonly known as Mormon) and after thirty years in it, decided it wasn't true and they became evangelical Christians.

I am an evangelical Christian. I am confident the Mormon faith is wrong.  The book is fascinating and well written. One of the things that struck me the most, though, is how easy it is to get confused about meaning when people of two different religions are talking. Words that mean something in one faith journey mean something entirely different in another faith journey. Mormonism is largely a works based religion. In order for an LDS individual to achieve the "celestial kingdom", which is the highest and best of kingdoms, he or she has to do a lot of stuff. They need to serve and they need to have a temple ordinance and they need to do this and that and the other.

I believe that there are only two destinations after death, heaven and hell. Heaven is the dwelling place of those who trust in Christ for salvation. Ours sins were washed away by His blood on the cross. We do "good things" out of gratitude for his sacrifice and love, not because we are trying to earn our way into heaven.

These are diametrically opposing belief systems. There is way more than that; the LDS faith has a lot of very, very, very different beliefs. We can't both be right.

But yet, when an LDS person and an evangelical Christian person talk, they may well talk at cross purposes because what a member of the LDS means by "grace" and "salvation" is different than for an evangelical Christian.

Words definitely matter! Probably when talking to an individual of another faith, it is super helpful to define words in common which may mean something very different based on one's faith.


Sunday, March 3, 2024

March

 Weather has been lovely today. Yesterday it was pretty nice too. Spring is sort of here, though I know from experience that we will still have some very cold days. Probably. It was a mild winter.



This isn't a great picture as it was taken through a window but the grass is getting green. Today it is mid 60's and feels fabulous.


Kevin kindly bought me some interesting wooden puzzles. The edges are not lines so it is easier to put them together from the inside out, which is weird and interesting and fun.


Kevin and I have a running argument (a jocular one) over whether we have enough blankets. He buys new ones for the children every single Christmas. It is a tradition. I claim we have enough blankets. He says you can't have too many.

Well, last week I pulled 13 or 14 blankets off of Rose's bed and carried them downstairs, and then ordered her to pick her 5 favorite and put them on her bed. She decided that a blanket pile was fun so she ran around the house collecting more blankets.

I am of the view that we have more blankets than we need.  Kevin is still of the view that more is always better :-).

In less amusing news, Lydia has COVID. She was sick all last week and came to visit yesterday. She was lying around and we were chatting and a few hours into her visit she mentioned that everything tasted funny.

I was like hmmmmm, maybe you have COVID!

And she said no, she never has COVID. She has never tested positive for COVID in 4 years and she works in a day care so maybe she is immune but no, not COVID.

So I tested her and the second line showed up very promptly. Poor thing!

She is doing Ok with it but she is prone to asthma so she is being careful. She is also taking next week off of work. 

It was a very busy week here. Miriam passed her driving test!  Hooray!  She can now drive herself to work!

She and Joseph had some interviews, and Isaac has some summer interviews this coming week.

My current book is an octupus. By that I mean there are many plot arms and I am working hard to make it so they converge at the end in a sensible way.

So yes, busy week, we are fine, except Lydia is not. Also we have been exposed to COVID again. We had it over Christmas (Lydia did not) so I hope we won't get it again so quickly.






Saturday, February 24, 2024

Late February

 Our new book did launch. It is doing pretty well. Sitting at #734 in the Kindle store, which means that only 733 books are currently doing better. It isn't a really long book so we won't make as much on Kindle page reads but it should be moderately lucrative.


We had snow a week or two ago and this pic is from that storm. We got like 4 inches. It all melted last week and last night we got another inch or so. The roads were bad this morning but thanks to sunshine, most of the snow is gone now.



Pic of a pizza party. I enjoy it when the whole crowd is around and able to eat pizza.
Well, everyone but me and Lydia. I can't because of diabetes and she is still eating a very restricted diet. It is helping as she isn't sick much anymore.


Rose has bears.

I have been watching a video sermon series on Ecclesiastes. The speaker is talking about how Solomon was super rich and super wise and tested to see whether love or lust or marriage or concubines or building projects or possessions or gold or anything else would make him feel fulfilled.

And he realized that everything was meaningless without God.

He was in a weird position of being able to have anything that was possible in that day and age. (He couldn't have an automatic dishwasher because obviously not invented yet!)

Most people in our world can always yearn for more because most of us aren't super wealthy.

We are not super wealthy. We are wealthy compared to many people in the world. Food on the table, good roof over our heads, heat in the winter, AC in the summer, cars, a POOL!

When I was a kid, I thought only really really rich fortunate people had pools. And we have a pool!

Kevin and I both keep talking about managing our time and efforts during this season of life. The more books we publish, the more we make. But how much money is enough?

That is actually a tricky question! If I spent 40 hours a week writing, and Kevin 40 hours a week doing editing and marketing and all that, we would write books much  more quickly. But we would neglect the kids. And we definitely are not called to neglect the kids!

So it is a balance. Finishing books is very satisfying to me. Writing them is satisfying. I really enjoy writing. But it is vital that I spend enough time with Kevin and the children, that I talk to the children about the Lord, that I keep on keeping on with homeschooling even though I've been doing this like 20 years now and I am a little tired of it.

(Public school is NOT an option. I am way too cranky in my views about the right way to educate to be the kind of parent who should put her kids in ps. We felt called to homeschool for a variety of reasons, but one of them is being cranky about modern educational methods.)

Anyway, all this needs thought and prayer. I adore James 1:5.

 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 




Friday, February 16, 2024

Mid February

 Our new book, Ramsgate Rescue, has been released as an audio book and as a paperback. The ebook launches next week.

In an ideal world, everything would be released within a few days but hey, Amazon KDP is not the ideal world.

I am working hard on the next story. I don't quite know how it is going to work out but I have confidence I will figure out something. I often get stressed that I won't be able to finish a story but so far I always think of something.

It has been busy around here, but that is nothing unusual. Today we have some snow coming down, finally. The last week was warm for February. It has been a mostly mild winter.

I feel like I should have more to report but I really don't. We're doing well. Kevin and I are both feeling mostly recovered from COVID which is great. 

That's about it!


Saturday, February 3, 2024

February

 So far it has been a mild winter except for a couple of really cold weeks in January. And now it is February! It is warmish -- like high of 40 something today.

Ok, busy week here. Health wise, Kevin and I continue to improve. We also are doing more, so increased energy input and output. I am usually super tired when I get to bed but that's Ok.

Miriam and Joseph have been studying for months to take an exam called the Comp TIA Security Plus Exam. The certification is a basic requirement for many IT jobs.  Kevin took Miriam and Joseph off to the testing center on Wednesday and both passed!  I was actually pretty surprised; it is a hard test and most people don't pass it the first time. Naomi did also so Kendigs are three for three on that test the first time!

So now they are job hunting! And I am praying. And Kevin is working a lot with the kids with resumes and all that. We have some connections in the IT industry (Naomi and some friends of Kevin's from his Air Force years). I am hopeful they will both have jobs soon.

We are going to purchase another car for the kids. We have a Toyota Corolla that Isaac and Joseph share. Miriam is taking her driving test in a couple of weeks an if she passes, we will have three teen drivers. Also we hope that M and J will soon have full time jobs.

Kevin is looking around for a used car. I don't know much about cars and he is handling all that, but I did request blind spot monitoring for the new used car. It really is very helpful and with new drivers -- well, I would like the new used car to have blind spot monitoring.

Kevin found a possible car yesterday and we decided on a "date" 90 minutes north to check it out in the great city of Lima, Ohio. Spelled like Lima in a lima bean, not Lima as in Lima, Peru.

There was a huge accident on I-75 North which slowed us down.  We ended up getting off the highway and driving through the less wonderful parts of Lima. It is a refinery city and there are giant tanks and smokestacks and fun stuff like that. We went through a part of town that was falling down.

We finally got there and checked out the car. The man showing it to us was very pleasant. BUT the car, erm, the car's heat was having opposite day. Not only was the heat not working, the air coming out of the vents was colder than the outside air, or at least it felt like it. It behaved as if it was permanently stuck on AC.

So yeah, no. Kevin also detected an issue with the suspension. Never mind.

It was a date. We got away for four hours together. We'll take it.

Kevin and I also toiled away this last week to finish the latest book. Don't have a publish date yet because we are also having Harry Frost do an audio narration of the book to launch at the same time as the e book.

It was definitely a busy week and we had homeschooling on top of it.

But we are both feeling better so are thankful!