Spring beauty

One of my favorite things about moving to a new house is getting to discover what has been planted in the yards, and see things grow and bloom each first new season in the house.  This season was so fun to see the yard come alive with all the bright hues of spring!

Social-ism

Topic at dinner tonight:  What is the difference between communism and socialism?

Milo's response:  Communism is where everybody is paid the same no matter how hard they work, and socialism is where no one is social-distancing, they're being social, and they're all the paid the same now matter how much they work.

Finally people can come over!

This quarantine has gone well past the eponymous (is that the right word?) 40 days we expected, so when we were finally able to see some faces outside our family, we were quite excited.

We had been corresponding a bit with some of the students who were still on campus, and right before they were done with the semester a few of them came over for dinner.  Then the next day a few came back with their unicycles to play with the kids, which was fun.

 We've also been blessed to have some NC friends stop in to see us -- both the Meikrantzes (not pictured) and the Knechtels came for meals and it was so nice to see their faces! 

Family 6K Walk

This year we did our first true family "race."  Well, it wasn't a race so much as a walk/run just by ourselves, because quarantine and all.  It was called a "Virtual" 6K and people around the world were supporting the efforts of World Vision to provide clean water in third world countries.  (6K is the average length of the round-trip distance women and children need to go in those countries to get clean water, which is pretty distressing.)

So our family walked 6K around town -- and Jinna, who a few years could only go 1K at a time -- was one of our frontrunners!  Four of us walked it and the boys ran it -- it was a lovely day all the way around.

Thanks to some very generous extended family members sponsoring us, we raised $500 for World Vision!

Other rooms

Besides the big kitchen project, the Hazys also tackled the master bathroom, and a few other details around the rest of the house (like pulling up the carpeting and refinishing the wood floors underneath and busting through a wall and adding French doors).

This house will likely always be a work in progress, but here is where we are so far...

New master bath and closet:

 Boys' bedroom on the 3rd floor (it used to have yellow floral wallpaper):

Re-designed den (it used to be yellow, curtained, and carpeted):

Entry way (used to have darker wallpaper):

 Dining room: (Had floral wallpaper)

Living room: (Used to be carpeted and the French doors on the right are new)

For the "BEFORE" pictures, check it out on Zillow  (155 E Pine Street)

Renovations

I keep forgetting to document the changes that went on in our house before we ever moved in...  After months of discussions, planning, decision-making, and WORK (done by the Hazy company),  several areas of our house were transformed.  The biggest project was the kitchen.

 They gutted the old kitchen, took down 1 and a half walls, and changed the layout to maximize the space.  I have been astounded by how much bigger it seems now, and by how much I can do and store in this kitchen!

Before:

AFTER:

We love all the natural light and brightness in the space now!

11: Cold day, warm hearts

When you wake up on your birthday and it looks like this:

.... it's a good day for your Frozen-themed activities. 

Since the governor said we could start meeting with other people again this weekend, we had originally planned to have a our next-door neighbors over for a backyard party, but then the forecast said it would be coooolllld, so we had to change our plans.

(I've been told by locals here that this weather is highly unusual, to which I say, IT HAD BETTER BE!)

So, instead, Jinna contented herself with making cupcakes and taking them over to the neighbors' houses instead.  (The kids on either side then brought her some sweet cards and a gift, which was super sweet)

And, as the highlight of the day, she got to watch both Frozen AND Frozen 2.

She had also asked for a scavenger hunt to find her presents, so we obliged and she loved it.  We get such a kick out of hearing her squeal in delight over every little thing!

She got an "American Girl-ish" doll, which she had been asking for, and it, appropriately, even came with a mask.

Milo really wanted to make her cake, and Jinna thought that would be a good idea -- and it was.  As expected, it had a unique design (and was missing a layer... but we won't mention that in depth).

Our delightful girl had a delightful day, and one she will probably never forget!

Quarantine Miscellany

Quarantine day 41-ish:  Our kids have started using our 2 laptops to video call each other from different rooms.  Then in the middle of a call one of them says “Have a nice day!” and hangs up on the other.  Then they do it all over again. Super fun.

**

Quarantine day 43-ish:  Found this.

Not sure why my laundry is being suspended on a fishing pole...

**

Me:  I think it would be good this summer if you guys became an expert at something, if you really studied something that would be helpful to your life.  Maybe something like a new skill or studying a subject in depth.

Cole:  Ok, I’m going to work on something that is REALLY important for my future jobs and job interviews.  What is the most important thing?  Social skills.  So I’m going to work on being social this summer and hanging out with friends as much as possible.

**

Colsen just offered to clean a dish that I had unbelievably burned (long story), saying he could try to scrub off the residue with various substances and it would be a “science experiment” for him. 

My homeschooling work here is finished.

**

I came upstairs and heard voices coming out of Jinna's room, but when I went in, it was just her.  I asked her who she was talking to and she answered, "I'm just being pen pals with myself."

Re-setting to heal

This morning I woke up and looked out the window at the gray, cold day in the middle of a gray, cold week*, and felt droopy and weak.  I started calculating how long it would be until the time when I could get a nap.

Then, before I got out of bed, I opened my Bible (app) and got hit right in the face with these verses from Hebrews 12:

12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. 

What a perfect passage for these latter quarantine** days.  The sudden cessation of activity was a shock to us all.  The great disruption brought threats -- to our security and our comfortable rhythms -- but it also brought opportunities to re-set.  The removal of our fast-paced lifestyles and packed schedules meant that we had more unstructured time, time to play, to rest, to spend time as families around the dinner table.

No doubt we've created some good habits and explored some new interests.  We've had time to stop and reconsider ideas, and the chance to get creative in how we do things.

But with the paradoxical experience of having less freedom and more time, it is also likely that we've had the opportunity to develop some dysfunction.  We may be slipping into some bad habits or letting laziness take over.  We may, in fact, be becoming rather lame.

Just like a leg that is broken and lame, if it is not re-set, will remain that way permanently, so our spiritual lives may be put "out of joint," according to the writer of Hebrews in the passage above.  If we carry on with the same habits for long enough, they begin to shape who we are.  And if those habits are making us lame, we will eventually not be healed in the right way.

Forty --- or 60 or 70 -- days is a long time, definitely long enough to have new habits ingrained in a permanent way.  Now is the time we need those words in Hebrews 12!  We are weary -- all of us, I think -- and we all may have drooping hands, but the antidote, the cure, is given in the passage.  This is the good news!  We don't have to wait for someone to develop a suspicious vaccine or drug fix -- it is something we already have and control.

The cure, the way to not heal in deformed way, is 3 to do things:

• Lift your drooping hands
• Strengthen your weak knees
• Make straight paths for your feet

When a person is already droopy and weak, telling her to strengthen her body may be received poorly, I realize -- and surely God knew, too -- but it is, in fact, do-able.  She may NOT be able to do it on her own, and may need other people or other resources.  When a person's physical knee is weak, it may need a brace.  Similarly, we may need to be braced up by others, or through the aid of something external to us.  We need to seek out what those braces might be.

Making straight paths for your feet could be putting in "rails" on either side of the path, or actively removing obstacles/rocks from the path.  Again, this might require help from someone or something else.

It strikes me that community is often what we need when we are weak, and yet the lack of physical community is something we are currently strained with.  But there are still ways to reach out and connect with others... they just may take more effort.

As I thought through this passage from Hebrews this morning and asked God in what ways I may be on the road to being "out of joint," I realized that my focus has changed over the last several weeks.  When the quarantine first started our family talked often about how we could try to reach out to others -- making cards for residents in a nursing home, writing messages to our neighbors on the sidewalk, sending letters in the mail, making cookies for the policemen, etc.  But over time, we have petered out, and I find myself less and less concerned with those outside my walls.

Even my friendships have become more of an effort... and I've been putting less of that in.  Days can go by when I don't really have a conversation with anyone besides my family.

So this passage was a wake-up call to me today, and my focus went from "how long until I get a nap?" to "who should I be reaching out to today?"  I don't want the insular and self-centered way I've been living to "set" and become my new pattern.  I don't want that lameness to be put of joint; I want to be healed.

These days are hard and life is confusing right now.  But, to go back a few chapters in Hebrews, "let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together." [even if it must be by Zoom]   We need each other to lift our hands, brace our knees, and make the paths straight, so that we can come out of this time re-set, healed and whole.





*Who has cold weeks in MAY??  Apparently, Pennsylvanians.

** If quarantine came from the word meaning 40 days, and this lockdown is heading towards more like 60 or 70 days, is it time to change the name to sessantine or settantine?