Welcome to the first Friday of November. I hope your month is off to a good start. Today all three of us are all healthy and I pray that continues.

I’m very much experiencing the change fatigue I wrote about this week. I cannot remember the last “normal” week we had as a family. Honestly. Every week it is something or a number of somethings, usually caused by people or circumstances beyond our control. We weren’t created to live like this. It’s not natural and it’s exhausting. When I consider that our life is fairly simple compared to that of so many others, I can only imagine how difficult life is for many people right now. But I keep going, asking the Lord to lead and protect us. I return time and again to Psalm 91.

This Week’s Artwork

I happened on today’s featured painting last night while I was searching for a piece to use. I believe it’s called The Prelude by Edmund Blair Leighton.

I’ve used Leighton’s works before but have never included a biography.

Edmund Blair Leighton (1852 – 1922) was an English painter of historical genre scenes, specializing in Regency and medieval subjects.

Leighton was the son of the artist Charles Blair Leighton. He was educated at University College School, before becoming a student at the Royal Academy Schools. He married Katherine Nash in 1885 and they went on to have a son and daughter. He exhibited annually at the Royal Academy from 1878 to 1920.

Leighton was a fastidious craftsman, producing highly finished, decorative pictures, displaying romanticized scenes with a popular appeal.

…played a distinguished part in aiding the public mind to an appreciation of the romance attaching to antiquity, and to a realisation of the fellowship of mankind throughout the ages.

I did a quick skim of my past posts and I believe these all feature Leighton’s work. I’m basing a few of these on how they are labeled online in image searches because not all of them show up in his artist wiki.

• Simple Living This Week No. 15
• Simple Living This Week No. 19
• Simple Living This Week No. 25
• Simple Living This Week No. 26
• Simple Living This Week No. 29
• Simple Living This Week No. 30
• Simple Living This Week No. 41
• Simple Living This Week No. 57
• Simple Living This Week No. 58
• Simple Living This Week No. 59
• Simple Living This Week No. 79

Homemaking

This week I did a bigger grocery shopping trip. I hadn’t been to the store since Caroline got sick in late September. David has been doing the shopping (and he does a very good job). But I wanted to go myself and see the state of the shelves and prices. Some things that were always out in the past were stocked fully. Other things that were always available were not. More than a few things were not purchased because they are just too expensive now. I cannot fathom what is going to happen in this country if prices continue to rise, especially when we haven’t even reached the worst of the financial system collapse.

I also did a lot of mindless paperwork and organizing on my computer. When I’m tired it’s something I can get done without too much effort.

David finished up the leaves for the year and gave the lawn what he thinks is the last mowing. It’s always so much work for him for about a month because we have a number of large trees in the back of our yard. I’m always glad for him when that task is done.

It was a fantastic year for color and I’m truly thankful for that. It’s such a letdown when it isn’t and you’ve looked forward to it all summer. There was no letdown this year!

Caroline is already making and shopping for Christmas presents for her friends. She loves to give gifts and is so excited. On the other hand, I’m trying to not think about the approaching Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays as One. More. Thing. To. Do. for her sake. But that’s a bit how it feels at this moment. I don’t want to feel that way so I need to adjust my thinking.

Homeschooling

We had a low-key week. Caroline was still sleeping later this week as she seemed to be lagging a bit. I don’t think she ever fully recovered from the first cold and ear infection before the next cold hit her or she relapsed. In either case, I didn’t push her very hard. We’ve done some work and that’s fine. Yesterday she seemed to be back to normal so hopefully it will be full-steam ahead now.

I’ve been thinking a lot of education and homeschooling. Observing the parent uprisings against local school boards/systems, seeing higher education condemned and ridiculed for what it has become, and watching many Americans finally begin to utterly reject what we call education in this country is truly fascinating. If only a portion of the good people of this country would unplug from it all and reject it, the entire rotted shell would collapse much more quickly. The education systems are so wicked and compromised at every level that I honestly don’t think they are redeemable. This transition time from what we have now to whatever is to come is going to be a rocky ride for many families, but there is no way around it.

Work

I did a lot of website writing this week.

I added a daily entry to my Michigan 2022 Election News series so that was seven posts. Please pray for our elections here.

I wrote two posts and updated one:

• If It Was True, They Would Tell Us
• Change Fatigue And The Realignment Of (Almost) Everything
• Recommended Financial and Money News Sources (Updated 11-1-22)

I wrote three Morning Hope posts:

• Morning Hope – Proverbs 6:6-22
• Morning Hope – Ecclesiastes 3:1-15
• Morning Hope – Romans 6:1-14

In addition to keeping up with posting information in the forums, I also recorded two podcasts.

Sallie’s Rebuilding America No. 51

and

Sallie’s Rebuilding America No. 52

The one thing I have been terrible at the past few months is getting out a weekly newsletter. I have utterly failed in that regard. I tell myself that I’m doing the best I can and that’s all I can do. That’s all any of us can do. But if you were wondering if I’ve abandoned my weekly newsletter the answer is – not intentionally. Hopefully it will resume.

What happened in your world this week? I hope you’ll leave a comment and share.