Please put a penny in the old mans hat.
Tonight at HFG (Home Fellowship Group) we talked about Jesus the Servant. But I’ll get back to that in a minute. This sentence should hold my thought spot.
November 29.
Hatcher finally finished his last drive for his Segment 1 Drivers permit. He was signed up to start May 9th but if you recall, that is the day we brought Mark home on hospice. The soonest we could get him back in was October. A few drives were cancelled and then rescheduled and that was frustrating to Hatcher as he really wanted his license at 16 or at least before school ended but, alas, that will not happen. I try to explain to him how it will not matter in the big scheme of things but also try not to discount his expecations and feelings…I was there once upon a time but Drivers Ed was different and much less complicated. We will go to SOS tomorrow and he will be official. I’m mostly worried about hitting a deer. I’ve had so many close calls and I’m not sure 15 yr olds think about it as much as we do.
I get some great thoughts but they leave my puny brain so fast!
Trapped Emotions.
Submission.
Charlie Kirk.
Thanksgiving.
Jack Junior
The 10 plagues.
Cat.
and back to Servitude.
Okay…lets start with Thanksgiving (that was my list to remember). Both girls came home and well, Hatcher lives here and Felicity lives nearby and so we were all together, which was really nice. I had a small gathering at my house Tuesday night and everyone was leaving about the time both girls showed up so it was perfect. I don’t actually remember was all we did but I think it involved a movie. It was going to be Christmas Candle but that got pushed aside….oh.. and we hot tubbed. Bucky was very excited to see Cora and he also got groomed a few days before. DId I tell you he was flea free? He was!!!! Hokey Pete…the plagues are subsiding…(just in time for new ones)
Christmas Candle
(note to self)
My house was major clean Tuesday and I moved furniture so it felt really nice. (the corners got cleaned!) and Wednesday I spent making or prepping food for the next day. I was bringing a salad, no biggie, but I also wanted to use my sourdough so I had that baby out and bubbling over. I made sourdough chocolate chip cookies and scones. I think I messed up the scones but the cookies were good. HOLD. I need to send Cora text before I forget.——
K. done.
I mean the scones were great for dipping in coffee but they are suppose to be more cakelike and less biscotti like. Ya know? I also prepped for cinnamon bread. I was kind of a busy body that day but everyone was here and around me and it felt nice. I really can’t remember details. Thursday morning we all got up and packed up our canned goods and headed off to the Sparta Turkey Trot. Karson and Abby joined up but Felicity had gotten sick the day before and so we didn’t bug her and let her rest instead. Hatcher hasn’t run since cross season ended and had a 2 week chest virus and then had a 48 hour stomach bug since then, but finished well. Cora and I stuck together and Aly walked with her other injured friends. She was starting to feel the pressure of having to run and run well and so I’m proud of her for saying…”this is my day and I’m gonna do what I please” and she walked it. I got home, assembled a salad, packed a basket, showered (yes I did!) and we spent the day at my parents with both my brothers. Everyone was there. Well not everyone. I recieved some really nice messages from all of you as I spent my first holiday without Mark. It actually was doing fine till Felicity reached out and rubbed my knee after a comment was made. That got me all choked up. I didn’t have my table partner. Even last year I helped Mark choose foods he’d like to taste even though his appetite was crap…he was still there. I made no plates…I made my plate ast actually and sat with Felicity because we seemed to outgrow the table. We won’t always be able to meet at the farmhouse. My parents won’t live forever. Nobody wants to take it over…so one day, another family will meet there. So while we have it and while we are all here, I’m glad we can fill the space up and enjoy each other. We played some Guesstures before I rounded my kids up for a quick visit to my in laws who had recently bought a second home/cottage closer to me (not to BE closer to me but it just WAS closer to me.) We put a puzzle together, got a tour and had some more pie and then headed home for…I think…the Christmas Candle. But that might have gotten pushed off til Saturday. I think we did Love the Coopers. (I just can’t handle Diane Keaton well. She is so screamy and dramatic). Friday Cora and I took the shift at Blondie Blossom in Fremont to cover and help out Kendra. It was pretty busy and kind of fun.





Friday night, Hatcher packed up his guitar and we headed down to the open mic at the Flying Bear Bookstore in Newaygo. He was excited and nervous. We knew it was not attended well yet as it was knew but still, you have to sing in front of somone you don’t know. The woman running it, Sandra Bernard, was playing when we came it and she has a great sound! She was a wonderful woman who made Hatcher feel very comfortable and she was very uplifting and encouraging. After Hatcher was done she played some more and then somehow got Cora up to sing with her. That was fun too. Hatcher did some Johnny Cash and she even got me to sing a couple—and I don’t sing well. Hatcher is excited to spend every Friday night there this winter. This Friday is the Christmas walk so it will be a special guest but the open mic will resume after that.

We have done the Christmas walk since Cora was a month old, in my front pack zipped into my oversized coat. We may have missed one year in there but its always a tradition. Last year Mark insisted on going even though walking was so hard for him. I wanted to go early knowing he wouldn’t last long so we could get home. I was anxious all day worried he would slip or someone who bump him. At this point we knew he had a broken back but he has not had Kyphoplasty yet and was wearing a brace. I walked behind him and went where he wanted. We looked in some shops and said hello to some friends but we weren’t there long. I did NOT enjoy one bit of it. I was a nervous wreck. In hindsight, of course, I wished I’d had just relished in the moments but I know he was doing it mostly for traditions sake and he didn’t want to be the reason we didn’t go. I was happy to return back to our little house up on the hill……which we hadn’t moved into yet so we must have driven back to Kent City.
Anyways…I think I wanted to be productive Saturday but I wasn’t. I think I went and used Karson’s saw but then went back and was very on edge. Aly tried to help me with a few things and I was all amuck. It wasn’t her at all..I just had too heavy a battery in my screwgun…I didn’t pre drill holes…my shoulders have been killing me and so holding stuff up was killing me…etc and so on. I was frustrated I couldn’t get these small tasks done and I think I was a bit angry…not at Aly but that I couldn’t just call on my hubby to hold it for me or better yet, I wasn’t holding it for him. Instead I’m on my own trying to get this rental ready and it feels like 1 step forward and 2 back. Aly was so sweet trying to communicate that I needed to step back and re-evaluate and that it wasn’t the cabinet I was upset about. She was 100% right.
Sunday was church and then sadly I had to send Cora off and then Aly. We did do lunch together with Cora’s “Uber”…Joe Moody. Handsome kiddo from Moody who lives in Caledonia. One of 10 kids! He was very nice and was good company at lunch. (Yes his last name is the name of the Bible College. Not related) Cora left from there and then when Aly got back she packed and left. Felicity helped me with some organization and I spent the rest of the afternoon keeping busy with that and dishes etc.


Wow. One hour has passed. I need to got to bed. I don’t have huge plans for tomorrow so I’ll finsih up then. Thank goodness for my notes right!!?
****************
Good Morning. You didn’t know it was morning but it is! November 30. We are about to enter into, yet, another month. A month of cheer, glee, joy, and giving. Don’t you feel like you just give give give all year?? (Moms…are you hearing me?). I know. It’s a different give and for totally different reasons. Do you ask yourself what those reasons are? This is why Christmas has frustrated me over the years. People use the holiday to overspend on things they really can’t afford (and dont’ need) and then try to persuade me to do the same. The 3 wise men showed up and gifted Jesus. Christmas is the celebration of our Saviors birth and so we gift each other. I want the gifts I give to be meaningful and special and something that person really wanted. I want them to look back and “that Christmas” when they got “that gift” and remember all the sounds and sights and smells of that year. I very specifically remember the year my sister and I got a dollhouse that my parents built for us. It was AWESOME and my parents built every bit of it including the sandpaper shingles and the barbie beds complete with painted headboards and lace bedskirts. I remember Mark and I’s first Christmas as a married couple (we never had one as an unmarried couple). We made one gift. We thrifted a gift and I think we bought one new. I”m not sure now but he got me a wooden ironing board like the one I made a coffee table out of but was too rickety and I wanted a new one. He built me a cedar chest. Every so often he would look at it throughout the years and say how ugly it was and pick apart his lack of craftsmanship but I thought it was great and I still have it. I made him a buffalo check hat with ear covers….that I gave him like 2 years later because I never finished it!! I also bought him an Alaska beanie hat from the Surplus store in White Cloud. (he loved that store and Alaska) and then I think I got him Carhart pants. But we lived in the farmhouse on Kenowa and it was just the two of us and Karson. I had to put time and effort into the gifts. Thought. I know we all feel like we are short on time and effort but if you did less with more effort…it means so much more. I think we think we can just pile on the gifts…keep running the card and that will make up for anything we lacked throughout the year or even the lack of thought. It usually works but thats not why we celebrate. Well, thats not why I celebrate.
Anyways…wow. Off topic for sure!
Last night was a bumpy ride again. I’ve been dealing with hand numbness again. I had this a while back and it was due to major tightness of scaleens (spelled wrong I’m sure) The small muscles that run up your neck and into your shoulder/pectoral area. Just tight shoulder muscles overall. I have been stretching and I had a really nice massage yesterday and I was sure I would sleep without waking up to an annoying arm/hand tingling feeling. I was woken by my Christmas containers (left on the porch) being flung off the porch by the violent winds. I was sure it was a burglar at first. This happened again about 20 minutes after that with the second one. I then woke to a numb arm and then I woke to my pump running (?) at 4:15. At 5:50 my alarm went off and now I’m pretty sure I’ll need a nap again. When I was at the massage place I convinced myself that I need to come home and put candles/difussers in my room, cover my bed with a heated pad and play nature music and then I’d sleep awesome at night because I just wanted to stay on that table and sleep.
So where were we?
Charlie Kirk. A politician and a christian. He heads up the Turning Point something or other. He goes to college campuses and speaks and I’d love to take Hatcher. I’m not going to try to reiterate what he said but basically when all this covid stuff happened (with masks and lockdowns etc) he was really excited to watch the church stand up and stand taller and when they didn’t he was really dissapointed (as was I) and so he talks about how the church needs to be leaning into what going on in the world and standing strongly AGAINST it. We have two churchs: courageous ones and cowards ones. Which is yours? Here is the link. Listen to it! While you drive or whatever. Calling out the Church Part 1 and Calling out the Church Part 2. Just click on the blue (or is it red on your phone?), it will bring you there :). You are welcome! (I especially love the part where he talks about submitting to government officials…..except WE are the government so really we only have to submit to God. Something like that. Part 1)
Chrsitmas Candle. A movie by Max Lucado and you can pick it apart because we don’t have any Biblical stories about angels blessing one candle every 25 years but that’s why it’s a story. What I did like about it was that it aligned wtih some things I was saying about miracles. They misplaced the candle so they led 29 people to believe they had the special one and all they had to do was light it and pray. Meanwhile, the new pastor in town took their list of people and prayer requests and went to each one of them to try to meet their need and so many of them thought their prayer was answered because they lit a candle but it was because A: they prayed and asked and B: one of Gods extensions, His “hands and feet”, the pastor and his congregation and community….got involved and got into they yuck of these peoples lives and met their needs. His roof was mended, her family was fed, she got a knitting partner….and so on. Not miracles…but how we are suppose to work as a family of God. Would love your thoughts on it. Altogether, a good movie. The ending is cool
Ok. Submission. Oh that word people hate but if we didin’t have to submit to anyone or anything ever…we would be a mess!! Well, look around!! We are!! I’m not talking about government etc. I’m talking about God. God set it up so that I would then need to submit to my husband who has to answer to God (well so do we but…) He gave me a leader and a protector who is suppose to mimick God. I do NOT want to have that responsibility of leading a family. I liked having someone make the final decision, someone I trusted with our future and finances. I liked that Mark would go to work and work hard so we could have what we needed and more. That did not sit in my shoulders. I liked having someone to confer with and make decisions with about the kids and that stood by me when they wanted to defy the boundaries we laid out. Those boundaries were based on what God wants for us. I don’t want to do that by myself. I can’t believe that anyone WANTS to do that by themselves. I want someone to drive me around, open the door for me and figure out whats wrong with my car for me. I don’t want to have to think about all the finances, the house projects, the cars, the property, the spiritual well being of my family and all the cleaning and food etc. I’m not complaining…what I’m saying is that I’m so so so pro traditional marriage and that anyone who says they don’t need a man or whatever, is lying. They are prideful. Yes, I can do things on my own…but I don’t WANT to. Its scary to me where the world is trying to take marriage and how woman want to destroy themselves (starting with abortion) and how we don’t want to take responsibility for our actions but instead sit back and play victim. That was a little misconstuded but perhaps you can hear what I”m saying. I’m not asking for help or signing up for a Russian groom…..I’m just shouting out God’s plan (like a “shout out” whoop whoop) and that its so good IF you can submit to Him!! Be okay with being the helper!! I don’t want to run the world..it irritates me when women think they want to. I’m not saying we are inferior, we just play a different role and I will gladly play that. I will take pride in that. The other problem is I think men are not stepping up to fill the shoes they were meant to fill. The world is weakening them and some of them are okay with that…like maybe it gets them off the hook. Ladies…do you really want a weak (mentally spiritually emotionally) man? Do you want that for your daughters?
Okay new subject.
Jack Junior (my short term rental) is so close…but my brother came to turn on the water heater and we seem to have another snafu. Its brand new, never been turned on and isn’t working. I think once that is done I’ll be good to go. Just some decor stuff and I’m done. If you know of anyone who needs a room/space in the Newaygo area over the holiday season, send them my way. (No crazies please) Not sure on pricing yet but I’d gladly give really nice deals so people can help me work out the kinks. Photos to follow in about a week. 🙂
Ever heard of trapped emotions? Ever heard of muscle testing? If so, what are your thoughts. I’m reading a book by a man who is actually a christian and a chiropractor who also does muscle testing and its really interesting but also on the edge of “kooky” but I think its because its not traditional and we don’t really truly understand how our body works. Energy and all that. I mean, God created a body that has blood cruising through it and cells that regenerate constantly…nerves sending messages at speeds I can’t understand. Do you think there is not energy being created right now as my fingers peruse the keyboard? So its interesting to think that our emotions create energy…but if not dealth with properly, they can get trapped inside of us and cause all kinds of issues from depression to physical pain. I’ll have to report more as I get into it more. Don’t worry, I’m not reading witchcraft.
2 nights ago I was getting out of the hot tub and I looked up into one of the very tall oak trees in my yard and saw a black image. I thought it was an owl but it was too dark. I looked again and went up on the deck for a better angle. It was a black cat. Stuck WAY up on a very small branch. Do firefighters really rescue cats out of trees? It was gone in the morning but I had started to compile a plan to get it down the next morning if it was still there. I started to envision myself reaching for it and it freaking out and then I go tumbling to the ground and break all of me. I didn’t like that plan. See, this is why we need husbands. Mark would have said, “I’m not climbing up there. It will find its way down. It’s a cat”. So that is what I did and he was right.
The 10 plagues of the Linsley house seem to continue. (we all have them, I’m just talking about them). The worst of them was cancer. Then bats and mice. Mice were taken care of quickly (I think it was just a couple rascals) but the bats invited friends and that took a while. Then fleas. The fleas would not subside. Then every car in our fleet this summer needed brakes and some needed more. Hatcher got the worse case of athletes foot Ive ever seen. Thats gone. Now its the leaking tire plague. I’ve had this before and you can get this fixed its just a pain. Today its being taken care of. There is always something to do and something to tend to and something plaguing us isn’t there!!? I do think I am struggling with the emotional plague of “am I doing enough?” Its exhausting when you can’t just concentrate on one thing..when you have to be juggling so many balls at once. When I was baptized I talked about all these balls we try to keep up in the air in motion and that I decided to let them drop and let God put back into motion what He wanted in motion. That was a relief and something Mark talked about often. He specifially remembers me saying this. I need to reapply this to my life because Satan tells me everyday I am not enough and I am not doing enough…..
Bringing me to servitude..our HFG study. I wanted to share with my group that I have experienced such huge forces of service this last year or so…but I couldn’t even say it out loud. Its okay because most of the people in that room played a roll in what I had wanted to say. They had brought me dinners, helped with my cars, cleaned my house….cried with me, done physical labor at my house etc. I just wanted them to know I recognized it and was very grateful. But I couldn’t say it. Funny how it seems to take a community to fill one man’s spot. I just want to encourage you to find a simple thing you can do that would mean mountains to someone…and do it. Not because its Christmas, but because we are called to serve each other and we don’t do it enough. Put a penny in an old mans hat—– or fill a single moms gas tank.
Ok. That’s enough.
Comments 2
Just catching up on your blog! I listen to Charlie Kirk almost everyday. I also want to attend Turning Point Events with my family. I tried to talk Chase into starting a TP high school chapter at Kent City, but he refused.
Author
thats too bad