Tax Day. In case you forgot.

-or-
Peanut Buttery Yards!


One of the reasons I wasn’t blogging was b/c I made other things a priority, but I’m glad to report that I finally made it through Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy.

One of my favorite quotes from it is “When I ask someone to do or to be or to give something, I stand with that person in the domain of a constraint without force or necessitation. We are together. A request by its very nature unites. A demand, by contrast, immediately separates. It is this perculiar “atmosphere” of togetherness that characterizes the kingdom and is, indeed, what human beings were created to thrive in.”

I hope to have learned a lot from that book, I certainly am seeing the Gospels in a new light. I’ll keep praying that my behaviour will reflect that new head knowledge. We’ll see.

I also read the New Testament in “The Message” translation, which certainly echoed some of the same passions of The Divine Conspiracy.

Living in a rural area has made me think more about crops. Last week, I played “The Farming Game” which is like Monopoly but with a pile more math, and which I think I like better. It cracked me up b/c sometimes we talk the way the game is written. We may have lost the winter wheat. Many of the fields near my house have winter wheat planted in them.(The ones that don’t have strawberries or little squash.) A couple weeks ago I heard that if we didn’t get rain the farmers would lose the wheat, and you could see a dramatic colour change- from green to brown. It definitely rained on Good Friday, it rained long, and out of season. (Dec-Feb is season, and even then, it’s only be raining a dozen times) We were shocked! We stopped what we were doing just to listen to it on the roof. Nobody spoke. I can’t tell you how it changed our mood; maybe there is the same elation when you get a strange hailstorm, or a puffy thick snowfall.

Another thing that is certainly out of season here are the town Christmas decorations. STILL UP. South of here, they took them down just in time for St. Patrick’s Day. My town did not follow suite. Maybe they thought the longer they had them up, the more chance the clouds would think it’s still rainy season? It’s windy every afternoon, and soon it will be foggy every morning. I made the mistake of walking outside in a skirt with fresh lotion on my legs. When I arrived at my friends house, it looked like I had a spray on tan, but really it was just dust and sand. Ok, collective “ewww”

Lotion and wind, Christmas decorations and spring, my head and my heart, so many things in opposition. Galoshes and bicycling also make the list. Galoshes are made so you don’t slip/get wet. Seeing as how after it rains my yard has the texture and consistency of peanut butter I decided to wear galoshes even though I was biking to a friends house (plus what if I ran into an uncrossable puddle on the way??- It’s happened before) . They served their purpose until I made it to the road and mounted my eldest child’s bike (she lets me borrow it whenever I want!) But they DIDN’T provide for a gecko like grip. The whole ride to my friend’s house my galoshes kept slipping off the pedals, until finally I decided to use the heel of the shoe as my leverage. I will possibly never wear galoshes while using a bike ever again, it probably looked funny anyways.

Here’s to looking funny! ☺