An open letter

My dear sister in Christ,

On this, the last day of Advent, I want you to know that I have been praying for you this season.  I know that darkness is often deep and enduring, and it can crowd out the light the Christmas season brings.  I know, because I have griefs of my own.   Advent, dear sister, is the season for us.  Advent is for those who sit in darkness, for those who yearn for redemption, for those who await from the Lord great and abundant mercy.  Advent is for us.

Advent gathers our sorrows unto herself and bids us cry our penitential tears.  And so we do. She reveals our sadness, hopes, and fears, and bids us lay them before the Lord.  And so we do.   She brings an ever-burning light into our homes, and bids us look to Christ.  And so we do.

On this night, when Christ, who is our light descends to us to cast out our sin, let not your hearts be troubled.  For though your griefs are many and your sorrows deep, Christ has entered the world to be your light.  His birth quells the power of hell, and his great and abundant mercy flows far as the curse is found.

We, with the shepherds, kneel before the manger to see Isaiah's prophesies fulfilled in Christ- a child, a son, the Word silently pleading for us.  Nails and spear pierced him through, as he bore the cross for you.  He, the second Adam, came to mend what sin had marred, and to give us the right to be the heirs of heaven above.

I pray for you this night, as I have been praying for you:

“O Jesus, very light of light,
Our constant star in sin’s deep night:
Now hear the prayers,
Your people pray,
Throughout the world this holy day,
Aleluia!” (LSB 403 v. 2)

“Thou, Christian heart,
Whoe’er thou art,
Be of good cheer
and let no sorrow move thee.
For God’s own Child,
In mercy mild,
Joins thee to Him; how greatly God must love thee!” (LSB 372, v. 4)

God’s great and abundant mercy be yours tonight.

Advent Cleaning Challenge Week 2

After the kitchen, the place we spend the most of our time is the living room, dining room, and playroom.  We have a lot of open space in house, and these rooms attach to the kitchen and each other with huge doorways, and little wall space.  Therefore, I've joined these rooms together for my deep-cleaning this week.

Here's the list:

-Sweep and mop all floors
-Dust and polish wooden furniture
-Touch up scratches and nicks on furniture with scratch cover
-Clean dining room table with wood soap
-Clean mantel with wood soap
-Reorganize cluttered toy shelves
-Sort through old candles
-Reorganize homeschooling shelves and art supplies
-Vacuum couches and chairs
-Move canning jars and pots to the store room (I think I'm finally done canning!)
-Fix sheer curtains (Okay, not exactly cleaning, but some of the clips broke, and I need to replace them.  I've been needing to do this for a long time...)

What's on your list this week?

Advent Cleaning Challenge, Week 1 follow-up

As a review, here is what I set out to accomplish this week.


-Clean all refrigerator shelves, and drawers
-Clean top of refrigerator
-Scrub sink and surrounding areas
-Scrub counters
-Empty and clean utensil drawers
-Wipe down cupboard doors and drawers, fronts of appliances
-Scrub microwave
-Scrub stove, inside, out, and under burners (and those nasty grease filters in the exhaust fan)
-Mop floor
-Reorganize pantry
-Clean trashcan


I managed to get most of it done, but I had to skip over the microwave, top of the fridge, and the inside of the stove.  I ended up baking seventeen dozen cookies instead.  Overall, I'm pleased with the house so far!  How are you doing?

Take the Challenge: Advent Deep Cleaning, Week 1

For the past few years, we have invited the congregation over to our house the week of Christmas for an open house.  I spend weeks baking cookies, decorating the house, creating Christmas playlists.  What I usually don't do is spend weeks cleaning.  I have the tendency to leave that for the couple days before the open house, then spend hours cleaning.

Since deep cleaning is an long-held Advent tradition, I'm changing things up a bit this year.  I've divided my house into four areas, and each week I'll focus on deep-cleaning as much of that area as possible.  Care to join me?   I'll post a list at the beginning of each week of what area I intend to clean, and at the end of the week report what I actually accomplished!  You can use my list, make your own, or just wish I'd come and do your house, too.

This week, I'm focusing on the kitchen. I spend most of my time in the kitchen, and once clean, I'll be able to get to work on all those cookies I'm needing to bake.

I'll aim to accomplish a few items each day, and hopefully, by the end of the week, the kitchen will be a happier place. 

Here's the week's list of cleaning:

-Clean all refrigerator shelves, and drawers
-Clean top of refrigerator
-Scrub sink and surrounding areas
-Scrub counters
-Empty and clean utensil drawers
-Wipe down cupboard doors and drawers, fronts of appliances
-Scrub microwave
-Scrub stove, inside, out, and under burners (and those nasty grease filters in the exhaust fan)
-Mop floor
-Reorganize pantry
-Clean trashcan

Perhaps I'm dreaming big, but I have already cleaned the fridge, reorganized the pantry, and scrubbed the sink.

What's on your cleaning list this week?

Five-year-old James Joyce

Are there always tornadoes in June?
Are there tornadoes every day in June? What about across the Great Atlantic Ocean?
What is a sharpie for? How do you get sharpie off of stuff? Is it called sharpie get-off soap? Would water work to take it off? Why would you want to write something you can't get off?
When will you be done writing? I wish I was God, because then I could do anything I wanted.

How can Meta-Knight turn into a tornado anyway?
How does Mario shoot fireballs out of his hands?
Where is this made in? Why does this kind of look like a stapler? But it doesn't do the same thing? Why does this move back and forth?  Do some things have the thing you press down and the ink comes off things and it makes the label?
What does evangelical mean?

I'm very strong. I bet I could knock a whole window down in one bash.  I bet I could throw that and it could get damaged pretty well.  I'm that strong.
Pikachu. Pikachu. Pikachu. Pikachu.
How come when I pick Pikachu on Super Squash Brothers, my controller goes "Uh-oy"?
The bullets go on the tornado. The light from the moon shines on Pikachu and that means he will save them.

How come there are different ways to label things? Can these labels stay on forever. Can the ink labels stay on forever? What if you use printer ink? How come the stuff on your calendar ink never comes off?

Squirrel noises.
For Amber's next birthday, I'm thinking we should buy her a Sophia dress.  She has all the other supplies but not the dress.
Dad? You know the thing where you sit on at Bible Study? Sometimes we use that and put some preschool clothes on it and that makes a stand because nothing else makes a stand, well I think so, but there might be something else that does, I don't know, there might be and there might not.

Dashi, I'm already on it.  I'm already on it, Captain. I'm already on it, Captain. I'm already on it Captain. I'm already on it, Captain.
Humming "Octonauts" theme.
Dad, is it okay if I erase some of your Bible Study things? I won't erase them all.  I just need a spot to draw a computer.

The lab launch will never end.  It's a good spot on the earth. But there is a spot where I can slide back to earth.

If only

My son forgot to do his chores last week.  He forgot to do them the week before, as well. Consequently, he ran out of pajamas.  Without knowing that his hamper was overflowing, I didn't wash a bit of his laundry for two weeks.  I marvel at the fact that he has enough pajamas to last him that long, but that's another story.  For this story, it's only essential to know that he had run out night clothes, and his dresser drawers were quickly emptying.

At first, I decided this was a prime opportunity for him to learn the importance of pushing his hamper to the laundry room each week; but soon, I was overcome by guilt, and I determined it was necessary for the lesson to be hastened.  "No friends," I declared, "until the chores are done."  With much weeping and gnashing of teeth, he completed his chores, and I started sorting.

Everything was going according to plan, and I was scheduled to finished his laundry by the time he came home from playing with friends.  I turned the water on in the washer and added soap, when I noticed a wadded-up brown sock left in the tub from a load I couldn't remember doing.  I debated- I could get it out, and it would be soaking wet, and likely smelly from sitting wet in the washer for who knows how long; or, I could leave it, and let it wash with the clothes, and figure out where it belongs later.  The latter was the more logical option; after all, it would need to be washed.  I defied logic.   I reached for the sock.

It was squishier and furrier than I expected.  Then I noticed its tail.  The "wadded-up brown sock" dropped back into the water, and I saw it for what it was: a mouse.  A dead mouse. And I had touched it.

I did what any reasonable human being would do after that.  I washed my hands (twice? three times? more?  Was there any soap left in the dispenser when I was done?) and considered soaking them in bleach.

Then I turned my attention to the matter of the mouse, which was still lying on the bottom of the wash tub with its tail bobbing along in the dissolving ripples.  I thought of fleas and mice, germs and viruses, plagues and death.  I had to rid that machine of mouse and death.  It could not be trusted to launder my son's pajamas without infecting them with mouse. I began calculating the amount of bleach I would have to purchase to make an effective 9:1 ratio to disinfect the 45 gallon basin.  Now I might be a poor math student, but even I easily figured out that this seemed like a ridiculous amount of bleach, and I still wasn't sure it would be effective, given the fact that it wouldn't remove the mouse for me. Cleaning and disinfecting are fine measures when the mouse is no longer present.  There was still a dead mouse in this machine, and its  disease-ridden tail was still waving gently in the water.  This machine needed more than a kindly bleach rinse. This machine needed purging.

I envisioned dragging the machine to the backyard and filling the tub with gasoline.  45 gallons of undiluted fuel.  When lit, the flames would surely reach the tops of the Ponderosa Pines that mark our property line, and the temperatures would obliterate any trace of Hantavirus the rodent had left in the tub.  The heat would probably destroy the machine, and I'd need a new one so I could wash my son's jammies.   Neighbors would call the fire department, sirens would blare, dogs would howl, and police would arrive.  But what a glorious thought.  Already I could hear the Hallelujah Chorus sounding as the gas ignited and the flames rose into the air. Before the police would lead me away in cuffs, and the department extinguished the blaze, I would raise my arms and dance around that majestic bonfire, for I had won.  I had vanquished that dead mouse and its filth.  I had faced bubonic plague and come out unscathed.  I had rescued my family from death's grip, and my joy would not be contained.  I would be replete!

In reality, I called my husband.  We opted for a less theatrical approach.  He disposed of the mouse, heroically fishing it out of the washer with a blue disposable cup while singing a new version of Toby Keith's famous refrain: Blue Solo cup/you scoop me up.   He added a few cups of bleach to the water and let the load run.  He even did the loads of laundry I had left sorted on the floor. It was, indeed, less dramatic than I imagined.