It’s the first Monday in August. That means the next time it’s a new month it will be September! That’s a wonderful thought for this Autumn lover to contemplate.

How are you doing? I mean that sincerely. I’m not just making conversation. How are you doing?

Our family has been locked down now for five months. David gets out regularly because he can wear a mask and comply with the state guidelines. I know from trying an allergen-filtering mask a number of years ago (due to my EoE) that I cannot wear a mask and Caroline refuses to do so (sensory issues). So Caroline and I have each been to the dentist and chiropractor once in that time (where we were not required to wear masks). We’ve been nowhere else and haven’t seen anyone in person. Due to additional circumstances before the lockdown, we haven’t seen my parents in almost a year. The church we had been trying to attend is going to finally have a significantly changed service next week, but I doubt we will go any time soon. We didn’t sign up for homeschool co-op because I’m sure it will get cancelled and I’m not going to lose our payment.

I’ve written about being blessed with a small life before, but this is taking it to an entirely different level. At the same time, I’ve been pondering if God might be using this entire situation to completely shake up the Body of Christ (the ekklesia) in the months and years ahead. To completely disrupt the dead institutional churches, full of people who do not know Christ, and bring about a fresh movement of the Holy Spirit. That’s another post.

Caroline and I are finally reading through The Little House books together. I’ve tried them a few times with her over the years and she never took to them. I finally told her that we were reading them and she’s enjoying them. I had honestly forgotten how funny they are. But they have also been helpful to read right now because the challenges the Ingalls family deals with are far more difficult than what we’re dealing with right now. I think they offer us both some much needed perspective. At least we’re not covered with grasshoppers and walking on them in our bare feet.

If you’ve ever done a home remodel, you’ll understand what I’m about to say. A few years ago we did a big update of our home (Our Cozy Home Remodel). There were a few mornings in the midst of the months this went on that I came down to breakfast and just wanted to put my head down and cry. I was so tired of the upheaval. That’s kind of how I’m feeling about life right now.

Most days I’m fine with everything. I keep busy and try not to think about it. But sometimes I just want to put my head down and cry at the never-ending-ness of so many things. I don’t think I realized how much I had bottled up inside until last week when I was reading to Caroline the chapter in which Jack dies in By the Shores of Silver Lake. That part of the story has always gotten to me, but I could hardly read those four or five pages aloud for crying.

So when I ask how are you doing, it’s because I realized that as well as I’m doing, I’m still struggling. If you are struggling, I don’t want you to feel alone. And the only way people will not feel alone is for some of us to admit that we’re struggling a bit even as we soldier on for our families and ourselves.

This weekend I decided I was so desperate to finish something that I pulled together a pile of short books that I had been wanting to read and started reading through them. My life has been so full of ongoing, seemingly never-ending big projects the past several months that I was starting to feel desperate to know I had accomplished something tangible. Even if it was just looking at a little pile of short books and saying, “I read those.” So I finished a book I was reading (Mother’s Hour: Encouragement from Home for The Christian Housewife) and read two more short books this weekend (Wait and The Candle in the Window). I’m almost done with another short book which I’ll finish today (Jesus is Family – His Life Together). I updated My Reading Tickler List and added a section for the Read Alouds I do with Caroline. But I did something. I finished something. I needed it so much.

So we have our good days and occasional hard moments. How are you doing?

I’m hopeful two of the really big projects we’ve been working on behind the scenes will be done this week. Seriously.

Coming up this week I have a new high school economics curriculum review to share with you so look for that.

So on to the goals for the week. I’m moving some of my goals forward again from last week. I did finish Goal 2 of organizing our homeschool paperwork from preschool through grade seven. It felt good to get that done and put away. I did not get the other two done so I’m going to try again this week.

Goal 1 – (This is the one I’m moving forward – again.) Update my own binder with my own products. LOL! I need to update the printables I’m using myself from All Products for Women and revisit A Quiet Simple Life Series. Every year life changes and I need to revisit these topics just as much as anyone else.

Goal 2 – Plan for a long fall and winter. I’ve already started writing a post about this to share my thinking.

So, how are you doing? What do you have planned this week?

Artwork: “The Shepherdess” by Daniel Ridgway Knight