Beth Troy's Blog, page 8

Day 24: Keep On

February was a rush, and I knew it would be. There was the start of the semester. There was the Lu2 manuscript with difficult revisions from my editor. There was a trip to Israel in March, which required me to move a bunch of classes online while I was out of the country.

Or so I thought, right?

And there was also this on the February To-Do – some questions I was asked to answer about people going after their dreams. It’s not that long ago, chronologically, but it feels like an artifact from another time. I didn’t know what would unravel in the week after I drafted it, but quarantine doesn’t change what I shared. It amplifies it.

Don’t ignore what God has given you. Talk to him about it. Listen. Hope. Trust. God will let you know when it’s time to move again.

For those who are “too busy” – You have 24 hours every day! It’s your choice to see that as an abundant or scarce resource. I choose abundance.

There are some more nuggets, too, of what I’ve figured out along the way. I hope it encourages you in the weekend ahead.

READ ON …

Day 23: Parse

It was apparent early on that yesterday wasn’t going to work. School was boring, brothers were bugging, mom was annoying. If only there was a garbage truck to take us far, far away.

There was also the matter of the beautiful day. If I hadn’t had my own work to do, I would have scrapped official school for outdoor unschool. But my deadlines carried me to the late afternoon, at which point no one could breathe in another’s direction without causing offense.

We needed to get out, but I didn’t want to take this act public. Then, I remembered. Jess is going on 12. He can stay home with the dogs.

In a family of young kiddos, it’s not about quantity; it’s about dynamics. Taking one out of the equation can shift everything, and that’s what happened.

I dusted off my camera. We took to the trail. The boys puttered in the dirt and water, and I followed them around.

It was a perfect day, a perfect match – the kind where you can’t feel the air against your skin.

The hour brought us all back to ourselves.

When we got home, Jess was building Legos and listening to jazz music on Spotify.

Day 22: Neighbors

Today, as I walked a dog around the cul-de-sac, I noticed my neighbor, Angela, sitting criss-cross applesauce on her driveway and cutting up paper.

“Working on your scissor skills?” I asked.

“Yup! I had the kids watercolor some paper, and I’m sizing it for them to make Easter cards.”

“Did you also make the paper from pulp in a tree you cut down by yourself?”

“There’s that, and if this goes on long enough …”

“You’ll start dying the watercolors from berries you forage in the forest.”

“Exactly.”

Quarantine, the Great Equalizer. Everyone’s a homesteader. Everyone’s a hunter and gatherer.

Day 21: Reading

Tom Sawyer: Its my first reading as an adult, and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. The boys are taking to it, too. They’re fascinated by all of the boys’ bug trading in St. Petersburg.

Primary Phonics Set 1: A friend lent me this set, and I LOVE it. Storylines are charming, graphics are simple b/w, and there’s plenty of room to take it in a number of ways. Right now, I’m using the stories to work on “Why?” questions with Tommy.

Yesterday’s interchange:

“Tommy, why is Al happy?”

“Because he is not sad!”

“Yes, but why is he not sad?”

“Because he is happy!”

[Because the kids gave Al a hot dog and popsicle … we’ll get there]

The Read-Aloud Family: It’s a mix of read-aloud benefits and tips with blog-ish moments from the author’s experiences. She’s a good writer, and she makes a good point – not that I’m a hard sell on this topic. We do this in the morning right after Matt leaves for work. Ezra either cuddles on my right side or works at something on the coffee table (puzzles, magna-tiles), Jesse lies down on the opposite couch, and Tom is a free agent. Yesterday, he played a light soundtrack on the piano as I read Chapter 8, and yesterday, Jess and Ezra asked me to please read a second chapter. Win!

Free to Learn: I’m not sure how much worksheets and screens play out during my kids’ non-quarantine school days, but I’m ready to build a bonfire for both at the Troy Country Day School. Ezra, in particular, struggles to focus on the worksheets, and I was able to make much more headway in language arts with him last week when he was working on his comics. The author and I don’t start from the premise, and his chapter on the “deadly sins of public education” was overblown; however, engaging learning at the point of my boys’ curiosity – yes! Transferring ownership of their education to them – yes!

The Giver of Stars: This is my fiction read of the moment. I still love the general storyline of a group of female librarians traveling the hills of Kentucky in the 1930s to deliver books, but there are about a dozen other sub-plots, and it’s too much for me to track. I’m reading to get it done at this point.

Feeding a Family: A couple months back, I started borrowing 1-2 cookbooks a month from the library, and I’m glad I snagged this one before it closed. It’s what you’d expect of current cookbook fodder – gorgeous lifestyle pics around cooking simply with whole foods purchased locally, all backdropped in a cool location (in this case, Martha’s Vineyard – and so you might have to push past that envy-inducing yoke (I sometimes do). The recipes here are TASTY. Are my kiddos eating the red, coconut lentils served over black rice with dried apricots anytime soon? Nope. But I’ve adopted the authors’ tips for how to set a dinner table that incorporates a few other things they will eat in that spread (not hot dogs, Tommy!) and it’s going well.

This is Marketing: I haven’t blogged about it much, but I’m only two copy edits away from making Lu2 ready for the world, and I aim to launch her this summer, by which I mean doing something more than listing it on Amazon and sending you all an email. Seth Godin is my go-to marketing guru because he makes marketing feel A) accessible and B) not slimy.

Isaiah: Our Bible study has been on this one since January, and we have only 6 chapters left. The prophecy pairs with the current times, and I’d recommend it as good “now” Bible study. Don’t be turned off by the confusion of changing narrators and fuzzy timelines. Approach it like you would anything else – read it, mark it up, draft your own thoughts, ask good questions, find the relevant threads.

I’m winding down on many of these and open for suggestions, in particular on the next book to read to the boys, fiction for me, and more books on educating kiddos. Do you have any for me?

Day 20: Curiosity

We are God’s chosen conduit for light. Like it or not, qualified or not. Sensical or not, too, because we’re at our conduit best when we step aside and let the light shine through:

Without delayWithout shadowWithout exception

But, I often hesitate. I mess up. I look for loopholes.

I felt a bit wearied reading some “light” passages in my Bible today. All I could see were the ways I am not. Then, I stopped and remembered some basic rules of reading comprehension (courtesy of the Troy Country Day School):

Author IntentSentence Structure

Check out this one from Isaiah 58:9-10.

If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger of malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

God’s not delivering these words with a finger wag; He’s extending an invitation to try and see. I accept the invitation best when I bring an open mind.

Can I shine light here? Can I shine light in this way? Can you remove this so I can shine more light? How far will this light shine?

What are all the ways you can use me to shine light today?

Who says God doesn’t like questions? He just wants us to ask good ones – the ones that come from a curious place and test him in the right ways.

Explore God’s “If you …” today. Until you try and see, you won’t know the “then …” And tell me about it! I’m hoarding encouragement like toilet paper right now.

Day 19: Weekly Recap

A Win: Last Saturday, I snapped a pic of the sun waking up the trees on my morning hike and posted it to Instagram. I sloughed through many a mud pit to get there and hashtagged my bean boots. Yesterday, LL Bean liked my photo! I think we’re done here.

Some Learning: Figures that are the same shape and size are congruent. Figures that are the same shape but different size are similar.

An update: Ezra is a self-proclaimed pescatarian, though the only fish he eats is tuna from a can mixed with mayo. Also, he eats every other kind of meat.

Restocked: Chicken legs are back! I will be sheet panning them with sweet potatoes, cauliflower, and green olives tonight. The Troy boys will eat one of those things.

What’s Working: Family dinners. I set out the spread (and try to make sure everyone likes something in it). I tell them they may choose what they like and not say anything mean about what they don’t like. I remind them dinner is the last thing they’re eating before breakfast the next morning. Which is all to say that Jess tried potatoes (in non-fry form) for the first time since he was 3.

Google Love: I’ve started buying non-homogenized milk from our local co-op, and Jess was crying foul about the floating bits of cream.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked.

I told him to make like a sleuth and figure out why. He Googled it and tried the milk again with a more open mind. He is now drinking too much of it.

Accidentally … I drank a whole French Press of coffee the other morning before Matt woke up.

A Loss: I tried to fast one day this week – an earnest attempt not to be tried again until I’m not around the kids all day so they don’t grow up to misconstrue “fasting” as “yelling.”

Everyday: Tommy asks for an ice cream cone.

Day 18: Range

Last night, I thought I’d stock up the pantry with as much Aldi as can fit, but Matt can tell there’s something else in my plan.

It has been a bit of a week.

“Maybe don’t go to Aldi. Maybe just go for a drive.”

The parking lot is empty when I pull in. I’ve missed the new closing hours by 37 minutes. I don’t mind; the 25-minute drive on country roads with windows down and music playing has done me good. The night is clear, minus some thin cloud lines, and the sun is going to bed loudly, shining brighter than it has all day.

Home is a little to the north and then west – straight into the sunset – but I don’t turn on 129 like normal. I keep straight on 177 through Darrtown. There’s an old white barn with a stone foundation that I like to look at when I drive by.

I think about my friend, a nurse in post-op, whose surgical floor has been scrubbed and re-purposed. She worked only one day last week, but any day now, she might be working every day.

I thought about other friends – small business owners I’ve met in the last couple of years – whose businesses rely on people walking through their doors. They’re waiting, too.

The next left to Oxford is at 177 & 73. I keep straight. The big farms start here. I want to sit on all of their wrap-around porches. There’s one farmhouse recently renovated with charcoal siding, white trim, and a black metal roof up ahead. I pass it and turn left on 732, looping back to Oxford.

To the right is the entrance to Hueston Woods Lodge. Matt, Tommy, and I went there for pizza a month ago, back when my mom would pick up the older two boys from school for a Thursday night sleepover. Mom has popped by the house a couple of times to leave surprises on our stoop – books and lego sets for the boys and one time, flowers for me. Today, she dropped off a cookie cake with all of their names written in frosting.

Tommy keeps asking if he can resume his weekly Friday sleepover at her house.

“Can’t, Tommy – quarantine.”

“I do not like con-teen!”

I’m heading into the mile square, but it’s been awhile since I’ve driven to Indiana. The border is three miles west. I turn right and waive at my house as I go by. The sun is still showing off, sitting too low on the horizon for my visor to be of any use.

I used to run on these roads when I trained for races, but I’m more of an in-town walker these days. My sister-in-law is a librarian, and she sent us her first YouTube video of reading aloud. One of my friends is now on Facebook Live and another has downloaded the dreaded TikTok. Two nights ago, Matt and I celebrated a friend’s birthday – 42! – by opening a bottle of red wine and chatting with him over WebEx.

When the road switches from Ohio to Indiana, it’s basically a one-lane with no middle or marginal lines. The big farms start up again, and I wish they’d just institute a farmhouse crawl already so driversby can peek inside. I bet every single one has 5-inch baseboards. I want to check the fireplaces that go with all of those chimneys.

I got a letter in the mail from a friend and read it twice. Another friend texted that she’s ready to expel her kids from homeschool. For one of my friends, the isolation is unnerving. He needs a crowd of people, STAT. for another, the isolation never needs to end. Being at home with her family is her best life.

The sun is going down, and I’m 39. I don’t like driving in the dark anymore. Two lefts, and I’m heading east on Bath Road, which turns into Fairfield Road at the Ohio border. I’m two songs away from home.

“Is it okay?”

That’s what a friend texted me yesterday about what she’s feeling. She’s all right and feels all right.

But is that okay?

I see the range. I feel the range. Every day has so much range, and we can’t disconnect our feelings from the circumstances. A change in circumstances – something as slight as a cough – could render whatever it was we were feeling a minute ago into a distant memory.

I’ve been reading the book of Isaiah for a couple months, and I’m in the 50s now – those chapters where God delivers promise in the midst of a pressured moment.

Sing. Shout for joy. Enlarge your tent and stretch your curtains wide. Do not hold back and do not be afraid. My thoughts, my ways, and my words achieve as I intend. Come, those who are thirsty. I will heal. I will guide. I will restore. Peace, peace.

God’s love is not false. He does not lie to us, saying one thing while thinking and feeling another. He does not promise what he cannot deliver. Maybe this is why it’s so hard for us to receive – we’re not used to words pure like that; we’re not used to love clean like that. To receive God’s love requires more than trust. It requires imagination. We need to see past the horizon.

I turn left and left again. Two more quick rights and I’m back in my driveway. I will go on to draft these thoughts in my journal before I fall asleep. I’ll wake up before my alarm the next morning, read through the Isaiah chapters again, and then pray over the draft before I decide to post it. I will pray for everyone who will go on to read these words.

I prayed for you this morning. Peace, peace in your range today.

Day 17: Math

“How come all of my trophies are third place?” Jesse asked.

“You only have the one trophy,” I clarified.

“And it’s third place.”

“Mathematically, that’s only two less than one,” I said.

“Mathematically, that’s not first,” he said.

Day 16: Jokester

I’m not a [see blog title], but I want to be. And, I’m in quarantine, so I thought this would be the year I pulled off Ye Olde April Fools in some fashion.

Matt was never my intended audience. He’s pesky in normal times. One of his fantasies is to throw a bucket of water in my face, so if I somehow got away with tricking him today, who knows how the man would retaliate?

I thought about pulling one over on the boys, but I – a creative writer by morning and creativity teacher by day – cannot come up with anything other than saran wrap on the toilet. This is not a good joke for a mom to do in her home.

I thought about texting my mom a picture of a positive pregnancy test.

I thought about pulling one over on all of you, weaving a magical tale of … see how far I got with it?

My students aren’t around for me to trick, though I am hosting a live class via zoom tonight, so if you have ideas, lmk.

There is a dog lying next to me. “Hey, JB – want to go for a walk in a free-range chicken field? April Fools, sucker!” That feels more meanster than jokester.

And now I’m back to the boys. They are the best targets. I vacillate between mean mom and stern teacher in their eyes right now, so they won’t see Jokester-BT coming.

Google isn’t helping, and there’s only 6 more hours before I send them to bed. Ideas! Ideas, anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Day 15: Coda

To circle back on yesterday:

We did not make a fire, though I forgot to turn on the furnace (after I turned it off yesterday afternoon to open windows), and in the early hours this morning, I was thinking we could use a little fire and wished someone else was awake to build it.I did read aloud the first chapter of Tom Sawyer. I should have chosen something with less dialect. Did the boys like being read to? Tom didn’t say, Ez took it as an opportunity to cuddle me, and Jess thought it was strange I would “read him a book I can read to myself.”Ez made granola – I’m about to have some.Jess made bread and had a great attitude about it. Later, I found out that’s because he was trying to butter me up to rescind the afternoon video game ban. It didn’t happen, he feels his efforts were wasted, and I have two loaves of homemade bread!

In the afternoon, I found myself in the kitchen with one kid playing outside, another in his room for a rest, and another in his room, reading.

I thought: Wouldn’t it be grand if I ate a bowl of ice cream without interruption?

I took out the ice cream (chocolate almond coconut chip – Graeter’s), microwaved the bittersweet chocolate (Graeter’s), arranged it all in one of my pottery bowls, and ate it.

I wasn’t interrupted once.