cleaning, cleaning, cleaning!

The house is looking beautiful and we’re getting ready to have our first real party in it.  I can’t wait.  There is something about having a ton of guests over to really christen your home as yours (well, that and paint, but you get where I’m coming from).  We are in the midst of all sorts of preparations, we’re planning on an afternoon of playing and then an evening of bonfires and smores (we are all scouts after all and we just can’t let a good fire go to waste!). 

Can’t wait!  We should also be getting our house blessed on Saturday morning!  Oh to finally have it blessed! 

I’m off to clean and hang and purge and paint!

peace

 The house is heaving a quiet sigh, catching its breath, while children and their father play with the new lawn tractor we got this weekend, to take care of this land we now own.  They are riding, weaving in and out of trees and up hills and through the forest, towing  a trailer full of bubbling, giggling, cheering boys. 

I am sitting and listening to the beautiful music on Ann’s blog.   It’s a piano, I’m not sure who at the moment, but it’s so beautiful.  It’s so human.  So deeply soul filling.  I am listening and am amazed, in this age of sterility and noise, that in the silence you can hear the pianist.  You can hear his movement of the pedals, the quiet echo of the strings.  You can hear the music being played.  The sound of the instrument hasn’t been digitally silenced to create a more “perfect” recording.  The recording is what it is, a piano being played.  An instrument used to show beauty and light,  it’s living and breathing and moving. 

All too often I am searching for the sterility the world insists is life.  I want the septic quiet and artificial silence that can only be had through technology and machines.  I fall into the trap of believing that life is clean and starched and crystal clear.   The myth that life should be perfect, starched straight up with razor-sharp creases. 

The beautiful reality is that life is messy.  Children are so wonderfully, incredibly noisy.  In my search for sterile peace I am missing the living, breathing reality of life.  We are all instruments, being played by a Master.  You should hear the pedals.  You should hear the Great Musician in our lives.  There shouldn’t be a perfect silence in between notes being played.  You must hear the echoes of the Master to hear the music coming from the instrument. 

While my house heaves it’s sigh of silent relief I can hear the echoes of the children living, playing, being outside.  I can hear His instruments, hear His joy, His peace, His life-giving love and I am suddenly filled with the peace that can only come from The Creator.  When I stop to actually listen to the instruments,  I can hear The Master.

it sure did!

Just made the first batch of cookies in the new house, now it’s starting to smell like “home”!

The two year old and four year old were helping with this particular batch and even chose the recipe “pumpkin spice cookies”.  You know mom was on board with that one!!  I pre-measured everything and let them just dump things into the bowl at the appropriate time.  It was a lot of fun!  Once I got the dough spooned onto the cookie sheets they got to put craisins on top of each cookie and into the oven it went. 

The boys got back to their movie watching and I was perusing facebook waiting patiently for the timer to go off.  Once all was done and the cookies were appropriately browned I called them into the kitchen and big sister helped remove them from the cookie sheets.  The two year was so excited he was jumping up and down.  “It worked, It worked!!!”

I had no idea he had any doubts.