Welcome to this week’s post. I hope you had a good week. This post is a day late because I spent the week enjoying my family and not putting myself under pressure to get certain things done.
This Week’s Artwork
Today I’m featuring another painting by George Dunlop Leslie. I’ve featured him many times and shared his biography in Simple Living This Week 89.
This is the Way We Wash Our Clothes is such a sweet painting. I love all the little details like the wee black ribbon in her hair, the lace trim on her dress, the dimples in her elbow, and the way she’s standing on the chair.
My Week
Rather than break things out by topic this week, I’m simply going to write an all-encompassing summary. That will be a fitting end to the week.
As I already said, I spent my time enjoying my family and home this week. Too often I don’t allow myself to enjoy my life. I know some of you will understand what I’m saying. I had a fire two nights in a row when it was chilly. We went out on some shopping trips for craft supplies and things for the home. Our toaster oven died after many years of faithful service so we needed to replace it right away because we use it almost daily. We didn’t do anything super spectacular this week, but we enjoyed spending time together doing something different.
It’s been interesting to watch Patrice at Rural Revolution develop a new writing career at this point in her life. She’s been a prolific columnist and writer for many years. Now she has settled into writing Amish romance novels for Love Inspired. (See her books here on Amazon.) I’m not interested in writing Amish romance novels, but it has caused me to think about how the Lord can open doors that we would never expect. I’ve been feeling very stuck and in a rut lately so I suspect that is why her post jumped out at me.
After publishing the post with recommended financial and money news sources, I feel like I’ve reached the point where I’ve done all I can do to help people try to make sense of the craziness around us. Over the past few years, I’ve outlined what I think is happening and why through videos, podcasts, blog posts, forum entries, etc. It feels like repetition at this point to keep going. There is no point in me being a broken record. I’ve told you what I think about the big picture at 40,000 feet. I’m either right or I’m wrong. Time will tell me which it is. To keep rehashing the same topics isn’t going to change anything even if the day-to-day events surrounding the big picture continue to evolve.
So I’ve found myself this week (and in recent weeks) facing some kind of an existential crisis regarding it all and thinking about it from a sunk cost perspective. I’ve invested so much time and effort into creating content related to current events that it seems crazy to just unpublish it. But honestly (and at the risk of sounding vulgar) I’m so sick of it all and seeing the damage it continues to do in the lives of people that it makes me want to throw up whenever I see it on my own website. There are moments I just want to be rid of it. All of it.
Anyway, that’s my honest recap of this week. I had a great week in most ways even though I feel this stuff looming over me at the same time. But I need to push publish on this now and move on with my day. I hope what I’ve said makes sense.
How was your week? I hope it was a good one.
Homemade Mocha Sauce (Coconut Milk Base)
It sounds like you had a nice week. I hope school is going well too! After 13 years of home school, I feel a bit adrift this year, not ordering books and getting everything in line. Seasons change. 🙂 I am noticing the season changing outside too. The cicadas are buzzing, the tent worms appear to have taken over so many trees and the days are getting noticably shorter.
This week E wanted to put up the cafe string lights in our back yard that I bought back in the spring. We spent a few days researching how to do it correctly, then attaching the support wires and hanging the lights. We did need to order an extension for the lights and a short extension electrical cord, but those came in today’s mail and we got them finished up today. They are beautiful and will be so nice as the evenings get dark earlier. I also got some repair stuff done around the house that needed to be done – nothing major, things like tightening faucet handles that had loosened over time, reinstalling a toilet paper holder that had come out of the wall, etc. It feels good to get those little things out of the way.
I understand your feelings right now about everything in the world. Before you hit the unpublish button, though, I encourage you to take a little time to step back a bit. After a little time away, you might be fired up again to be a herald to the rest of us. 🙂 There’s no way a person can internalize all the evil happening in our country and not get burned out once in a while. I will continue to pray for peace for you and your family in the midst of the turmoil.
Amanda
Hi Amanda,
The outside lights sound so pretty! When I see them in ads they always look so pretty and cozy. And I love days when we tick off lots of little projects like that. It always feels like a lot of accomplishment in a short amount of time.
Thanks for the kind words about not deleting everything. The worst I would do is unpublish them so people couldn’t see them. I very rarely delete anything because I know I might change my mind at some point. I guess it’s time to read some impreccatory Psalms. That will cheer me up. LOL!
Sallie
https://sallieborrink.com/tag/imprecatory-psalms/
I had a good week, although I was stuck at home a bit too much while my husband was fixing our vehicle at a friend’s house. I re-covered two chair seats, and started on a third. Pulling staples awkwardly with a small screwdriver works fairly well to distract me from the sheer ridiculousness of where our country is at now, but I am running out of chairs. I will have to switch to sewing.
I started a fiction writing project, not sure it will ever be publishable.
Hi Peggy,
I laughed out loud at your distraction comment. Isn’t it the truth? Laugh or cry. All the time. I’m trying to focus on the laughing part right now, but it’s hard to laugh in the face of such massive evil that a good portion of the country still doesn’t even begin to fully grasp.
I hope you are successful in finding lots of sewing projects to keep you distracted. ♥
Sallie
It sounds like your week was like mine, but for different reasons.
The feeling you have is a great deal of why I don’t put much about current events on my blog or on my social media, because I don’t want that to be what I dwell on too much, but I also do enjoy consuming content in limited amounts about that material.
We had a somewhat bad week last week. Car in the shop for 3 days, troubles registering for dual-enrollment because our local community college is inept, and then finding out Jeff’s job is being out-sourced to India, and he’s supposed to train his replacement. He’s not losing his job, he’s being transferred to another department, but it is discouraging to find out the department you’ve worked for over 20 years is just something they want to milk for as much money as they can while spending as little money as they can, and they will be expected to do their new jobs AND help the new people in their old job. All around not good. But, we’re praying and waiting to see how much of a boondoggle it is.
Hi Ticia,
Reading stories like your husband’s makes me so angry. I despise companies that do that. David lost his corporate job when he had just passed 20 years with the company. It’s a terrible feeling of disrespect. I hope the two of you see God lead in good ways that you might not even expect.
Sallie
I’m praying for that as well.