A Quiet Simple Life | Sallie Borrink

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

A Quiet Simple Life

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Caroline Surprised Me With Kirsten From American Girl


Last week I finally bought doll stands for our American Girl dolls. Caroline has the Caroline Abbott doll (Christmas gift from my parents) and a doll named Daisy (that she designed and bought herself). There are pictures of Caroline with her American Girl dolls here. I have Rebecca Rubin (also a gift from my parents).

The dolls sit on top of a bookcase in my office/homeschool room. Now they stand up and it’s a remarkable improvement to be able to fully see them! We started talking about American Girl doll history because Caroline wondered why I didn’t have one from when I was younger. I explained they came out just after I graduated from high school so I missed the appropriate age timeline for them.

I mentioned that I had always wanted Kirsten because she was blonde, blue eyed, and Swedish (like me). But they had stopped selling her a long time ago.

Anyway we hopped online so I could show Caroline what Kirsten looked like in the archives and discovered that Kirsten is for sale again! We stopped getting American Girl catalogs a number of years ago so I haven’t kept up at all with what they had been doing.

Caroline decided that evening (Friday) I needed a Kirsten doll so she secretly ordered one for me (using some of Bob’s money). She told David and they kept the secret all weekend.

The doll arrived today.

Caroline took pictures of the doll around the house so I could share them here.

Kirsten especially likes the deck and flowers.

West Michigan is not that different from Minnesota so she probably feels right at home.

Gifts is one of Caroline’s love languages and she used it to bless me today.

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Caroline Is Enjoying All Bob’s Money


Do you remember this video from 2019 about All Bob’s Money? We jokingly refer to Caroline’s Social Security payment every month as Bob’s Money. I honestly feel a little funny about the money. At the same time, David worked decades for her to qualify for this benefit and I think it’s the first time our family has ever come out on the positive end of any niche government monetary policy.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I included the explanation below the video. I mentioned the Social Security situation in the Discourse over the summer, but a lot of people probably never saw it. 

I cannot guess how much time I spent reading and watching videos about Social Security over the past several years. But I never heard about this dependent benefit until I read about it in a comment under a YouTube video.

As people wait longer to have children, a special benefit comes into play. If you have a child aged 18 or 19 who is still in high school when you turn 62 and you start your Social Security, your child can also claim a benefit until she graduates from high school.

The golden part is that even if you retire at 62, your child’s benefit is calculated as if you had actually retired at Full Retirement Age.

So here is what that means. David took his Social Security at 62. Caroline was 18 when he started last spring (turned 19 this month) AND she is still in high school. She can therefore receive a monthly Social Security benefit equal to half of his full retirement age benefit. It doesn’t matter that he is taking a smaller amount now at 62. She still gets half of his full retirement amount. She will get that for several months. 

This is why they ask on the Social Security application if you have any children aged 18 or 19 and still in high school. We thought it was a weird question, but had never heard of this provision.

Depending on how much your full retirement amount is and how long your child will be 18/19 and still in school, that can add up to a hefty amount over many months. The child can use it however she wishes – education, training, buying a car, or simply building a nest egg. Caroline has used some of it strategically, but has saved quite a bit already. We calculated with her how many hours she would have to work each week at a job that paid something like $15/hour to help her comprehend how much she’s getting. (She’s not had a job outside the home yet.) She is incredibly blessed to get this money and she understands that. 

Caroline took some of Bob’s money and bought me a special surprise over the weekend. That is the subject of another post. 

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A Reset Week | Cozy Life Reset – Day 21


We’ve had a very full September. Caroline and I have been well into homeschooling after starting the last week of August. We did a lot of home updating, fall cleaning, and preparing for Caroline’s birthday. She wanted to invite friends over for lunch on her birthday after church so we did that on Sunday. A good time was had by all. But this was a long, busy month. Even a month full of good and desirable busy things is still tiring. 

Caroline and I decided after five weeks of school and everything else, we were ready for a reset. We decided to take our floating fall break week this week. Many families hit a wall about six weeks into the homeschooling year. Ours came a bit early (five weeks) given everything else we had going on. 

(If you remember this very popular post and the accompanying PDF, you probably already understand what I’m saying: The Real Phases of the Homeschool Year.) 

So this is our reset week. We had a couple of errands to do so we did them yesterday. Hopefully we can spend most of the rest of the week decompressing and resetting life for the time between now and Thanksgiving. 

Do you ever take a reset week? A week when you focus on getting on top of things? Re-prioritizing life? Resetting your short term and medium term goals? 

Or if you can’t take a week, can you take a day? A long weekend? 

The cozy life doesn’t happen by accident. It takes deliberate choices made over and over again. Week after week. Month after month. Year after year. 

Photo credit 

In My Shop 

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Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Allowing Men (Transgenders) To Become Members


Remember how I shared just a few months ago that Caroline and I had gone through the process to prove out our lineage and qualify for the Daughters of the American Revolution? We completed the process and became charter members of our chapter.

About a month later, I was looking something up online and discovered the DAR had made the decision in recent years to allow men to join.

I cannot fully express to you how sick I felt when I read that.

It NEVER crossed my mind when we were looking into the DAR that the organization would have caved on this issue. It’s a women’s group that makes you jump through a LOT of hoops to prove that you qualify. I know some of you probably think all I do is read current events all day, but I don’t. I had not come across this when I was looking up information on DAR. And, as I said, it never crossed my mind that this would be the case. Naive, I know, given how the National Panhellenic Conference sororities caved on similar things.

Anyway, I felt completely deflated after I discovered this. If the leadership cannot be truthful about basic biology and protecting women, then how do I trust them with other things?

So after thinking I had found something to enjoy in the coming years, I realized that this would’t be the case. I can deal with the not discussing politics and religion aspect of DAR in order to maintain a focus on the mission. But I can’t deal with denying basic Truth.

I don’t regret the time or money invested in going through the process. This is something I had always wanted to research and prove out so I’m glad I did it. I’m thinking that instead of spending money on a yearly DAR membership, I can spend it on membership to a genealogy website and continue doing my own research.

But, yes. Sigh.

I’m done joining groups. I’d rather just read a book by the fire.

If you want to read about the DAR admitting men (transgenders), here are two links. The information is at the very end of the Wikipedia article.

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