We’re home from our working trip just in time for the morning-afternoon-all-evening sickness to set in. With every baby that I’ve carried to term, vomiting is just a part of life for several months. Suggesting a couple crackers in the morning is akin to prescribing a Tylenol during labor. It just doesn’t work. I am, however, open to suggestions that haven’t been tried: BRAT diets, regular doses of B6, warm lemon water, Phenergan, Zofran, motion sickness bracelets, high protein diets, and of course, the gingers: ginger ale, gingersnaps, and gingerroot.

There is an herb that I’m willing to try that supports the liver, but I can’t remember the name of it. I believe the information is found in Shonda Parker’s Naturally Healthy Pregnancy, but I don’t own the book.

I mentioned that because I wanted to excuse myself from regular posting and also to tell you about yesterday. After putting the baby down for a nap, I asked the 7, 5, and 3-year-olds to play quietly so that I could get a few minutes of rest. They played nicely and after an hour or so, I awoke to a (somewhat) clean and quiet house. They told me to go back and lay down so that they could make me some lunch.

I graciously agreed, knowing that my oldest knows that I like mayonnaise and mustard on my sandwich.

Here’s what they brought me:

I didn’t even know that we had that much junk in the house. What’s more, they didn’t even “test” anything out beforehand; it was all for me. (Though, I did ask for help in eating the presentation.) My stomach doesn’t feel that great, but my heart is just fine.

Holly announces that #7 is on the way in the comments on the previous post, but we all missed it. So, hear hear, everyone! Congratulations, Holly–another one for the Kingdom!

When I say that I’m “missing in action,” it is really only a half-truth. I’m missing from general life, but it’s not because of any action on my part. Rather, my absence is due to inaction or whatever you might call lying on the couch with a bucket in hand.

I was afforded a nice break recently. Friday morning, I loaded the kids in the car and made a couple hour trip to meet about 8 or 9 ladies that I’d previously only known online. I am part of a wonderful large online community of women known as MOMYS, which stands for Mothers of Many Young Siblings. To qualify for the group, you must have at least four children in eight years or less. (Women who don’t “qualify” are welcome to join as a read-only member.) MOMYS discuss many topics, but some things are particular to MOMYS-type families and only understood by those who have walked that way or are currently in the trenches: 15-passenger van models, color coding for organization, and where to find dining room tables that will fit your whole family. It is also the only place where I can announce our fifth baby is on the way and still be seen as a novice.

So, while I was delighted to have enough relief to make the daytrip, I more than made up for it yesterday. Hopefully, however, maybe the trend will continue with little breaks in the sickness. If so, this will be a first.

While I’ve enjoyed meeting a large amount of online friends, there are still at least a dozen I’m hoping to meet one day soon.

How many writers can claim that they’ve had 100% of the articles they’ve submitted for publication published? In keeping with the humble theme of this site, I’d like to point out that I can now claim this status. Yes, I’ve had every single one of my articles published. Yep, all one of them.

I won’t point out that I wrote the humbling thing ( —-link is now expired—- ) seven years ago, and that it took the magazine this long to run out of good things to publish. Yes, it took them seven years to find a spot for it. No, it’s not the cover story. It didn’t even make it in the back small-print articles. It’s worse than that. It’s a web article, but my husband assures me that it still counts. In this day and age, anyway.

It took me about ten minutes to find it, and I knew it was posted.

Even with professional editors, my yet-to-be honed writing shines through. But, give me a break. How would you like it if I printed something you wrote seven years ago? I’ve noticed some bloggers won’t even list their archives from the last several months.

It’s just as well, though, as I’m always on the lookout to justify my lame blog title. As my latest malady keeps my posture bent low, it is only fitting that my spirit should follow suit.

Before I waste any more money on pesticides and any more time on Google, I’d like to know what it is that I’m trying to kill. (For any organic gardeners, vegetables don’t grow in the Florida summer heat, so don’t worry about me poisoning the family.) These white bugs breed underneath the leaf, and then move on to destroy everything in its path.

This is the middle stage.

This is the fully morphed creature that I’m trying to name so that I can pronounce my curses on the thing more effectively. “Die! Aphid! Die!” sounds a lot better than, “Go away and stop living, you thing.” This is the big feller here on my sick looking Don Juan Climbing Rose. The rose bush isn’t wielding any affections right now, though. Mr. Don needs a makeover show.

On a related note, over the years I’ve found that while impatiens can be easy to grow, microscopic bugs that look more like a fungus than an insect also easily kill them overnight. You go to bed with everything looking lush and wake up to your entire impatient bed lying on the ground. Easy to grow; easy to kill. Tomatoes are kind of like that too. Come to think of it, so is my hair. I know there are other ways to style one’s hair other than piling it on top on one’s head everyday, but I can’t think of any.

To complete this profound post, I’m also asking if anyone (Rick, Valerie, Mr. Kalm?) knows the name of the flower below. I planted a couple of these before the hurricanes last year, and of course, all my annuals and young perennials had to be replaced (or rather, just ignored). Anyway, I thought these had a distinct leaf on them and decided not to pull them during weeding. Apparently, they self-seed and reproduce without any prodding on my part. They also tolerate the heat very well. So, I think this might be a plant that I want to put in multiple areas, as I need low-maintenance specimens. That’s just so I can better concentrate on my more “active higher maintenance specimens,” found inside, outside, in trees, and in pools. They also make good snacks for their mom and are pretty disease and pest resistant.

If you walked inside my house right now and saw the mayhem, you’d probably ask, “What do you do all day? Sit around and blog?!” Usually, the writer of this blog is borderline obsessive about a spic-and-span house, and well, let’s just say that Said Blog Writer is a little lax on the housekeeping right now. But she’s a little lax on the writing too (in case you haven’t noticed). Her email box is so full of unanswered mail that every time she opens it up, it asks, “Would you like to archive old items now?” It also has a subtitle that notes, “You should feel really guilty about not answering these.”

Forbid the Auto Archive thing ever happening. I’d never find the mail again. My husband tells me that I need to create folders and stop saving every document and picture to my desktop. You mean there’s another way?! If I saved it somewhere else, it’d be lost forever. Not that you can find anything on a messy desktop anyway, but I could if I ever needed to. CD’s, disks, and USB thingys are just more stuff for the kids to launch with their Lego creations. And forget saving it on the C: drive. I’ve done that before and never found the thing again.

Yes, I’m the wife of a rocket scientist who does software stuff. But, I liken that to being a pastor’s wife or cobbler’s son. Why does everyone expect the pastor’s wife to know lots of theology stuff or the cobbler’s son to have some shoes? It’s the same thing. I can’t say that he hasn’t tried to teach me this stuff, but I have a mental block. Kind of like the mental block he has about emptying his jean pockets of change before tossing it in the laundry. Works both ways.

But I get richer because of his mental block. I’ve made $1.13 already this morning, and I still have two loads to go. He’s great!

Now, I was going to say something here, but I forgot what it was. I wanted to talk about our home improvement projects, book reviews, and some more stuff about family culture last week, but I was too busy laying on the couch eating bon-bons and catching up on the soaps. (If you believe that, consider yourself a new reader.) A big thanks to everyone who helped in the garden and whoever suggested the cranberry juice and club soda for the morning sickness. I don’t think it helps any, but it tastes good.

Speaking of morning sickness (which is what I’m speaking of in the first paragraph), I will do my best over the next several weeks to not be so myopic in my outlook on life. I know life is happening and will continue to go on without me. In all these things—in sickness and in health—the glory of God is always the point. It would be a shame to diminish His glory by wallowing in my plight, not seeking to savor Him in the sometimes painful details of life.

In the first verse of Holy, Holy, Holy, the third line reads, “…merciful and mighty.” I am reminded here that He is the God who looks upon His people with mercy, care, and kindness—all the while, being the Ruler and King over all. His greatness is not diminished by His compassion. He is merciful and mighty. And because this nature, I have hope and so many reasons to be grateful.

So, I take my oldest son with me to Olive Garden because I’m craving Pasta e Fagioli and also because I want to reward him for being such a huge help while I lay on the couch all day. We eat, have a good conversation, and I keep my soup down. The waitress brings our bill and my son says, “That’s interesting: they let us eat our food without us paying for it first.”

I’m not saying anything else.

Mary Poppins hasn’t knocked on the door yet. She hasn’t even bothered to call. I checked the phone book, but she has an unlisted number. I don’t know why. So, I climbed up the stairs, hoping that there was enough hot water left after a few loads of whites. But it didn’t matter since my Calgon was gone, the last bit used up on the Saturday-night-make-the-kids-look-like-they’re-always-this-clean-for-church baths. Note to self: there is nobody to take me away.

But at least the kids are squeaky and presentable to the public.

Who will deliver me from this body of death? I’m not the first woman to experience all morning, all afternoon, all evening sickness, but the women of old didn’t have blogs to advertise this fact. They didn’t even have microwave fettuccine alfredo. I’m not sure how they did it.

Perhaps without the benefit of modern medicine, women of old resorted to other means such as a “this too shall pass” attitude and community? I don’t know. What other choice is there but to get through it? But as I’ve been groomed by my culture to focus on what’s in everything for me—which is the antithesis of an eternal perspective and real community—I find myself wanting to swim upstream but flailing and floundering.

For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! ~Romans 7:22-25a

And so it goes. I look forward to That Day, and in the meantime, I keep watch for a lady with an umbrella and a spoonful of sugar.

“Most of us would like to do something special in life, something to distinguish us. We suppose that we desire it for God’s sake, but more likely we are discontent with ordinary life and crave special privileges. When Israel asked if they should offer some spectacular sacrifice–thousands of rams, ten thousand “rivers of oil,” a firstborn child–the answer was, “He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Mi 6:8 RSV).” ~from an email devotional by Elisabeth Elliot, originally published in A Lamp For My Feet, emphasis mine.

I remember flipping through a book on our coffee table when we were first married on the subject of church growth. My husband had just graduated from seminary the year before and was beginning his sixth year as a youth pastor. I don’t remember the title of the book, but I still recall the gist of it: God requires faithfulness.

I don’t suppose there are too many church growth books currently circulating wherein faithfulness is extolled above numbers and activity levels, but faithfulness remains a measuring stick by which we are to examine ourselves. Am I walking in faithful humility with God? As Elisabeth Elliot says further, “Lord, deliver me from the delusion of imagining that my desire is to serve You, when my real desire is the distinction of serving in some way which others admire.”

In the end, it is really His smile that I want to see. And for this, consistent humility in the dailyness of life is required. It is offering all of our moments to Him, especially those that are not spectacular, of which there are many if you cut apples slices for a living. It is loving the things that He loves, doing justice, walking humbly. May the Lord give mothers today the grit to do what He requires.

My husband just installed GPS software on his laptop and wanted to impress me with his new gadget. Upon returning from a family dinner, my husband called out commands and the voice recogintion device guided us flawlessly home. Wanting to test it out myself while we sat in the driveway, I asked the GPS, “Computer, where are we?” No answer. Apparently the GPS is partial to a deeper male voice that I had trouble imitating. I asked several times in various tones, finally resorting to yelling and screaming, “COMPUTER, WHERE ARE WE?!?!”

A tiny three-year-old voice from the backseat piped up, “I know where we are. We’re at home.”