Morning Work
My neighbor laughed at my miniature orchard and wished me well yesterday. Perhaps he wasn’t humored so much by the trees but of my coddling them. You can’t just stick them in the ground and walk away. You have to pour money, I mean, special soil into them and give them lots of attention, especially in the beginning.

These trees need lots of water and tender, loving care. I still wonder how a puppy fits into the whole picture. Will I have time to stroke trees and a puppy? Remember, folks, you heard it here first: this is my husband’s dog. [Don’t fill the com-box with advice; my marriage issues are private, I tell you!] I can see it already, and I’m not even a fortuneteller. (They are bad and unbiblical.)

I decided that early morning is the best time to coddle my landscape. The sun is still bearable, the mosquitoes aren’t out, and the damp ground makes weeding easier. I noticed I was unusually hungry this morning. It seems early morning chores are good for the metabolism! (This, of course, applies to everyone except the recently pregnant woman, who always has those last few unmoving pounds. Nothing will help her except the flu.)

Housekeeping
A few posts back, some of you wondered aloud how to keep a house well when it is full of little ones. There are many methods and FlyLady tricks floating around the internet (none absolving you of plain hard work though), so I will just mention the one thing that keeps us together here at the Scott house.

Do not allow the children to go onto another room or activity without cleaning up the current one. (I hope the dog learns this rule quickly.) This means, at any given time during the day, you have only one room that is a federal disaster area. I could elaborate, but all the male readers (except Tim) would click on out of here. Just try it, and see if that doesn’t change your whole house.

[Okay. Well. Just one more little thing. Get rid of clutter! But you already knew that.]

Pollution
An often-quoted Bible verse (besides the regularly misinterpreted “Judge not” one) is James 1:27: Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress… However, there is actually more to the verse. I just noticed the end of the verse yesterday: and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Real Reformed folks embrace the whole counsel of God, not just the grace verses. And so, I try to make an honest daily habit of examining my allegiance to Christ. Do I love him wholly? What “of the world” do I allow in my life? Can a person serve two masters? We know it is impossible.

The follow-up question here is: Can a dumb dog serve two masters? Because we all know that he’ll have two of them, not one.