As you might already know, Central Florida was hit by a tornado today. Our families are well; still others are not. Reports indicate that several are confirmed dead, hundreds are still missing.

Acres of Hope emailed me, asking me to pass this message along:

Acres Of Hope America is a small farm support Christian Ministry. We are headquartered in Tampa Bay.

We are facilitating resources specifically for the needs of any small farmers impacted by this crisis. We will be on site at Lady Lake in Lake County either late tonight or early Saturday morning.

We plan to move east through the damaged areas trying to bring small farm specific relief aid to as many small farmers as we can locate. We will be on site for as long as it takes, ministering the love and comfort of Christ and facilitating help for the small farmers.

I have direct contact information should you know of anyone needing assistance. Use the contact form above to reach me.

Every family has their own table rules, and our house is no different. At mealtime, I’m not a short-order cook, except when we have a cold breakfast or sandwiches. It is my job to serve 21 meals a day (7 x 3), and it’s easiest when everyone is required to eat the same thing.

We tried different “rules” and such when our children were younger, but quickly settled into the one method that seemed to work best for us. We’ve had the same “rules” for about five years, now.

We don’t require our children to eat everything that is served, though we do make it a game to try every new thing. But if they dislike what is set before them, they are required to wait until the next meal or eat fruit. (No peanut butter sandwich or separate dinner.) Fruit is our official all-the-time snack; nobody has to ask permission to grab a banana. I try not to create battles, knowing that they come along just fine on their own. If a child decides to forgo what is served, grows “tired” of fruit, and then whines about their being hungry, nobody freaks out. The child simply is sent to his room so the rest of us can enjoy a pleasant dinner.

I like my children to be happy just like the next parent, but it is important to guard against indulging their appetites. Their appetite for candy is physical; their appetite for the world’s candy is spiritual. Better to teach them early on not to act on impulse, get along, and not require special treatment. Get wisdom. Use self-control. Allowing children to have whatever they want, whenever they want will not make them fit to serve the King.

So, my oldest decides last night that he doesn’t like what we’re having. No problem. The vultures move in and my middle daughter is quick on her feet, “Well, then can I have your roll?” Even the dog wagged his tail.

“In the Holy Spirit’s leading of the soul through the stripping of what may be called ‘consecrated self,’ and its activity, it is important that there should be a fulfillment of all outward duty, that the believer may learn to act on principle rather than on pleasant impulse.”
~Jessie Penn-Lewis

Things aren’t work unless you’d rather be doing something else. That’s what I was thinking this afternoon while propping up my tomato plants. My five children played nearby and fetched more string for me when I ran out. Even the baby fell asleep in his stroller, which he’s never done before. He must’ve worn himself out from taking his first real steps today. Even the dumb dog is behaving himself.

I finished reading a little book by feminist Sue Bender last night. In Plain and Simple, she discusses her reaction to two conservative midwives deprived of modern choices, as they sought to fulfill their duties to care for their families. Bender nails it:

But Sarah and Becky weren’t old-fashioned. They were two strong, dynamic women who had found ways to fulfill atypical roles for women within a supposedly restrictive system and yet still remain rooted to their home.

They lived with a short cord and lived fully, while I had a long cord and was always tripping over it. (p. 112)

Bender noticed the peace and contentment these women possessed and wanted the satisfaction of a good life too. The problem was that she couldn’t find it. She writes, “Maybe one of these days I’ll be able to give myself a gold star for being ordinary, and maybe one of these days I’ll give myself a gold star for being extraordinary—for persisting. And maybe one day I won’t need to have a star at all.” (p. 130-131)

For all the “freedom” the feminist movement has scored, we aren’t any more content than before. The truth is, we are all slaves—whether to Christ or to sin. That long tether we trip over is the myth that you can “become anything you want to be” (an NBA player?) instead of celebrating the blessed ordinary before us. Freedom is being in Christ; it’s not found in an array of choices, which really aren’t choices at all: to abort or not, to be married to another woman or not, to change your gender or not.

What if we spent the energy we waste exploring our supposed choices on doing what is required: “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Malachi 6:8)? This is how the two women found a good life, and this is what we should do to have one too.

In a comment box below, Kristi asked me to clarify what I meant by the phrase “insulate them within.” The direct quote was, “Rather, we purpose to teach them to love God and to resist the things of the world by insulating them within.” I’ll try to clarify my ambiguity in a few sentences here.

There is a passage in III John 1:4 that says, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth,” and like many Christian parents, this is my greatest joy as well. The reason I have an unfussy hairdo and function on less sleep than a human should is so that my children will walk in truth. We try to live life intentionally—sometimes we fail, sometimes we succeed—with the end goal of seeing our children love and obey God.

The “how” is what we quibble over. Each generation benefits from the one before, while wrestling with their compatriots about the particulars they face. Some of the issues our grandfathers didn’t take on quite like us are: the technology explosion, rampant sexuality masked as freedom, increased moral relativity, and violence as recreation.

Since there is nothing new under the sun, we have to apply ancient wisdom to our present godless culture. The debate concerning the Christians’ response to the world is usually referred to as a “fight or flight” one. Each side paints the other in hyperbole. In one corner, you have the fundamental wacko (always a homeschooler) who locks their children away from the world in order to be holy, forgetting that they locked themselves away with a bunch of sinners. In the other corner, you have the culturally sensitive Christian who becomes so like the world that he is indistinguishable from it, all in the name of saving it at the peril of his own soul.

The answer to the “flight or fight” debate is not a compromise of the two, but rather a combination of them. The Bible teaches both, not because it is contradicting itself or is postmodern, but because this is the way that God keeps us both separate and holy. God shows His glory through His people who are like Him, not like the world. And God shows His glory to the world through His people who are in it, not out of it. In this way, we are in the world, but not of it. (John 17:15-19)

Which brings me back to my comment about insulating children within. The path to holiness is not one in which the environment is hyper-controlled so that you have the easiest time being holy, but it does begin that way. We all control our children’s environment very much while they are young in order to teach them what is good and what is evil. This is external insulation.

We cannot always do this, however. Using the example I gave in the earlier post, they will eventually hear that four-letter-word somewhere. Did they first hear it in a context wherein we can talk about what God has to say about it? (Or do we freak out and ban all grocery stores in the name of “holiness”?) Are we instructing them how to work through what they encounter in this fallen world and how to process it with reference to the glory of God? This is internal insulation.

As children grow, parents rely more on the internal controls they have worked to develop in their children (self-control) and less on the external ones. Every parent does this to varying degrees. What we argue about (and still will) is how much for how long. For this, we must look to God for wisdom for our children, keeping in mind that there is no greater joy than to hear that our children walk in truth and that whatever sacrifice this requires is more than worth it.

My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
~John 17:15-19

“This isn’t working” seasons are usually punctuated with Mom being frazzled at the end of each day. Threats to send the kids off to boarding school are whispered in secret, and if it’s particularly bad, The Mom reminds her husband how much a full-time multi-purpose person would set him back. Since this never happens to me, I’ll hypothetically tell you what I’d do if it did.

The first thing I’d do is find out where it broke down. If this ever happened to me, it’d probably occur during one of Greg’s business trips or during a week of sickness. Or if you want to get dramatic, have the baby learn to walk during the week that everyone is sick and your husband goes out of town. Yes, this is the best-case scenario.

The second thing you should do (after eating a bunch of chocolate) is put the dog in his crate. Eliminate unnecessary distractions so that you can zero in on the matter at hand.

The third thing you should do is talk rationally about the situation. This is especially easy if your husband is an engineer, programmer, or math whiz. In the end, I realized that the schedule wasn’t tight enough, and miscellaneous kids were often off-task causing trouble, messes, and mayhem. Furthermore, the Whac-a-Moles won’t pop as often if better, more meaningful consequences are in place.

So it’s time to get back on track. Children were created to be a blessing, and God gives us the tools we need to do the task He’s called us to do. I’m often tempted to fix a little wood-rot by patching it with a truck full of 2 x 4’s. Stepping back and realizing that it’s not personal will help me think more clearly about these things. But since this has never happened to me, I’m writing it down just in case it does in the future.

You are forgiving and good, O Lord,
abounding in love to all who call to you.
Hear my prayer, O LORD;
listen to my cry for mercy.
~Psalm 86:5-6

When a couple of you asked about our schedule, it dawned on me that the biggest contributing factor to our (hypothetical) meltdown is the fact that The Baby stopped taking his morning nap. This is huge, since I relied on that time for schoolwork with the big kids. The Baby is teething, walking, and awake from 6:00/6:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., which is a long time. In case you’re keeping track, that leaves us with two wild cards: the one-year-old and the two-year-old.

The two-year-old– bless the Lord– is a delight and sits for long stretches “doing school”: puzzles, coloring, cutting stuff up, and saying her flashcards. The baby just likes to eat everything. The five-year-old is learning phonics. The seven-year-old is borrowing and regrouping, and the eight-year-old would rather be climbing a tree. We employ a Robinson/self-teaching philosophy, but they are still very young. I correct all their work, make suggestions, and keep law and order.

There is a popular method many women use with success, called Managers of Their Homes or MOTH. Each person’s day is divided into blocks of time, i.e. 9:00 – 10:00 = Math. The problem that happened in our home is that the kids would fool around, causing trouble if they finished their work 15 minutes early. Instead of going onto the next activity immediately, they’d use the 15 extra minutes to get into trouble. What we found to be more conducive to where we’re at (with lots of littles) is to have an order/routine (math first, then reading….), so at any given moment, the child knows what they’re supposed to be doing. No excuses for being off-task, i.e.: “But it’s not time for reading for another 20 minutes!”

Here is the brief regular rundown:

6:00/6:30 – 9:00: Morning routine, laundry, chores, breakfast. (If Greg is home, he gets up with the kids and reads from the New Testament. If he goes to the Cape, he is gone before we get up.)

9:00 – 12:00: School. Each kid starts with math and then works through their assignments. The eight-year-old takes the dog for a walk after math. This time frame is the problem area I was referring to yesterday. It is easy for one kid to start playing with bubbles in the bathroom, while I am distracted with place value and keeping the baby safe.

12:00 – 12:30: Clean up the house, which is by now a federal disaster. No cleanup=no lunch. Try me. This is where I make my daily speech, “You’d have less to cleanup, if you didn’t take so much stuff out.”

12:30 – 1:00: Lunch

1:00 – 3:00: QUIET TIME. The littles nap while the big kids read. I regroup, email, read, and/or relax. If I am pregnant, I sleep this entire time.

3:00 – 4:30: Free time. I usually work in the garden while the kids ride their bikes in the cul-de-sac.

4:30 – 5:30: Dinner preparation and phone ringing time. One or two kids help with dinner, while I assign another big kid to push the baby in the stroller or swing. This is the official bewitching hour and must be handled with care.

5:30 – 6:30: Dinner and cleanup. Greg comes home or out of his office. ( Since the 5-, 7-, and 8-year-olds do all the dishes, floors, and counters after dinner, I feel like I’ve “arrived.” The first “arrival moment” came when they could buckle their own seatbelts/car seats. The second “breathing moment” came when I could relax after dinner, as I just mentioned. The third “arrival” will be when I can send my oldest into the store with five bucks to grab something quick, negating the need to unbuckle and reload FIVE kids for a measly stamp.)

6:30 – 8:00: (The baby goes down at 7:00 p.m.) Read alouds and Bible. We are currently reading the original Alice in Wonderland. Greg reads aloud while I google words like March hare, hatter, and magpie on a wireless laptop. Then we do catechism and verse quizzing. After declaring a winner (sooo not PC), we read the Bible (also not PC). We are reading our way through; we’re on 2 Kings. At the end of each chapter, my son interjects, “As for the other events of [said king’s name] reign, and what he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah/Israel?” because that’s how each king’s section ends.

Then we pray round-robin-style. Kid #2 always prays for wisdom. Kid #3 asks for God to help the Baby to stop throwing his food from the highchair. (Guess whose job the floor is.) Each person has “their day” to pray at dinner. In the evenings, that person starts the family prayers. My day is Tuesday, so if you come for dinner on a Tuesday, then you will hear me pray. Now that there are 7 of us, I’m not sure what we’ll do if anyone else joins the family.

Evenings are everyone’s favorite part of the day. The kids moan and groan whenever Greg finishes a chapter. “Keep reading! Aw, that was too short!” It could be just because bedtime is next, though.

8:00: Bedtime. (“I’m sorry that you’re not tired yet. Goodnight.”) They line up Von Trapp-style after Greg calls, “Attention!” Then they do some crazy marching thing, heading upstairs. I wonder if this will be cool when they’re 16. They love it. Greg sings each child one verse of their hymn and tucks them in.

I’m going to take a break from my usual droning this coming week to talk about Life With Three Under Three. Five years is far enough removed from those days to have some perspective and yet close enough to remember everything. Motherhood isn’t meant to be survived but enjoyed. Yet, the skills we need to enjoy it usually are learned after-the-fact. I hate it when that happens.

I remember that older moms would pat me on the head while chanting in unison, “This too shall pass.” Every time that happened, though, I wanted to stop the chorus and ask, “But what if I’m dead of exhaustion before it passes? And what if my marriage doesn’t make it through to the other side? And what if I ruin the kids in the process?”

Michele gave me permission to post her email here:

As you mentioned that you don’t remember a harder time than having three under three, I’d like to pick your brain a bit.

I’m due to give birth to #3 in about six weeks and my oldest is just over 3. Knowing what you know now, what would advice would you give to me? What do you wish you had known back then that you didn’t? What could be done to better prepare myself, the kids, the house, the husband, whatever?

I’ve heard over and over from other mothers who say that having three littles was much harder than having 5, 6, 7, or more. So I’m keen to hear what you have to say, when you have a chance.

By the fall of 2001, I had a two-year-old, a one-year-old, a miscarriage, a newborn, and a new move. I had my hands full, according to me and all the folks in the grocery store.

The internet is full of tips, tricks, and organizational methods. There isn’t a need to repeat them all. However, there are a few secrets known among veteran moms that are still unpublished because—well—they’re secret. I will tell them to you and enjoy the extra humility it affords.

My theology is orthodox, but my notes this week are unorthodox. That is, if my confessions assault your good senses, then feel free to hang me out to dry. Speaking of, let me begin with the laundry.

I prefer knit clothes for the three-and-under crowd because of how it helps with the laundry. I stopped folding baby clothes after the third baby, because really, the piles never stayed neat. Here is my laundry area, which is technically a hallway off the kitchen. The tall basket collaspes flat when it is empty.

So far, so good. Here’s where it gets unorthodox.

Baby clothes go out of the dryer into a deep drawer. All of baby’s clothes (except special outfits) fit into one convenient drawer that is accessible to big kids who are helping. Baby is messy? Send the two-year-old to grab an outfit. This will work because your outfits are only one piece or pre-matched. (Always ask the youngest-abled child to fetch, as you don’t want to over-burden your older ones.)

Pre-matched usually means knit dresses for the toddler girls and onesies for the baby boys. Sometimes we are given shorts and t-shirts, but when I buy, I stick to one-piece items. This helps little ones dress themselves sensibly, and it means there are less casualties in the laundry (i.e. turquoise pants without a match). When boys outgrow the onesie-type clothes, I look for neutral bottoms: navy, brown, and denim.

Everyone wears white socks so that the brands and sizes don’t have to match. They just have to be close.

The sooner they can dress themselves, the better. At age four, they have dressers with folded stacks; this age group puts their own laundry away. I fold, and they do the shuttling upstairs.

And for my last confession regarding the laundry. The reason we are usually on-time for everything is because… I dress the little ones the night before.

I moved this comment by Lora Lynn to the top because she’s brilliant. She captures the whole thing perfectly—life with little ones— with her laundry game. She totally gets it:

I don’t have time to wait till mine are four to make them put away their own laundry. My twins are not 3 yet and I’ve already taught them this task. I got three big galvanized buckets from IKEA. I labeled them with pictures of pants, shirts, and pj’s. Once they learned the system, I use laundry time as a way to get out little boy energy.

They take their clothes upstairs, one or two pieces at a time. After five trips up and down the stairs, they’ve burned a few wiggles. I’ve now taught them to help me put away my own laundry by showing them which are mommy and daddy’s sock and underwear drawer. They have races to and from the drawers as they put away each item INDIVIDUALLY. That part is key for me. Putting away laundry (a task I hate) and burning some energy.

I like how she combines work and play. She turns work into a game. All my kids go bonkers for our “30-second Pick Up.” This is where I countdown (slowly) aloud from 30. With four of them scampering about, our family room is presentable in 30 seconds—even the floor schmutzies are up.

Since the Bible teaches that all of life is worship (I Cor. 10:31), we ought to live with God’s glory in mind in whatever we do. Work and play; play and work. There are plenty of opportunities to bear one’s cross, but in the instances where we can make some lemonade, we should. Have some fun.

This is a true story. A couple years ago, Greg took it upon himself to help out in the kitchen. So he began racking up the points with his wife by wiping the counters. A clean rag and bottle of purple stuff—what’s so hard about that? A couple swipes in and POP! He breaks the tendon on his third finger.

He ends up with anesthesia, surgery, a metal pin, a bottle of good drugs, and months of therapy. (He skipped the therapy but not the drugs, “Physical therapy for a finger?!” he laughed at the nurse.) To appreciate the story, you have to know that Greg launches 260-foot high metal containers of highly combustible liquids for a living and builds furniture using table saws, routers, and other things that have fast-moving carbide teeth. He trims the oak tree in our front yard by himself and climbs on our two-story roof whenever necessary. He also attends me while I’m in labor (the nurse at my fourth delivery will attest to the danger in that).

The kitchen incident is a great party story. Greg admits that he isn’t Mr. Gourmet in the kitchen. Cooking duties rest primarily on me, and we are all happy (and alive) with this arrangement. This is how it works in our house, and so you can imagine that it gets sticky when I’m out of commission. People keep wanting to eat whether I’m sick or not.

If you’re not keen on leftovers, then you will not enjoy my second unorthodox method of getting along in a house full of babies. I always make enough food for several meals so that I do not have to cook every night. I do not make one chicken pot pie; I make eight of them. We eat chicken pot pie for two nights usually, and then I freeze the rest. Your mileage may vary, so feel free to adjust this.

Think about it this way. If you make eight chicken pot pies over the course of a few months, you will have to clean up the mess eight times instead of just once. That’s eight pans to make the saucy stuff (chicken broth, butter, milk, salt, pepper, thyme and flour…boil), eight knives to cut up the veggies, etc. Then you have to cook the chicken eight times while keeping the dog out of it. Why not do it just once? A fresh salad, veggies, and/or fruit, and voila—dinner is served.

So there you have it. If you stay at our house for a week, you will only get three different dinners. If you’re a hankerin’ for something different though, feel free to defrost a little pot pie from the freezer.

Call off the dogs already. How do you even know that my Chicken Pot Pie is decent? Because it’s not my recipe, that’s why. Here is a version that I tweaked from the recently published MOMYS cookbook.

Chicken Pot Pie

2 Pie Crusts (your own or purchased), unbaked
2 T. Butter
2 T. Flour
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. thyme
¼ tsp. pepper
1 c. chicken broth
¼ c. milk
2 cups chicken, cooked and cubed
1 ½ cups vegetables (I use fresh potatoes and carrots, frozen peas)
Dash of minced onion

Preheat oven to 425. Line pie plate with one crust. Melt butter in a large skillet over low heat and stir in flour, salt, thyme, and pepper. Cook until smooth and bubbly. Remove from heat. Stir in milk and broth. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly for one minute. Stir in chicken and veggies. Pout into pie crust. Top with the second pie crust. Seal edges, cut fancy slits for airing. Bake on cookie sheet 30-40 minutes or until crust is golden brown.

This is for one pie. You have to do fancy math to make eight.

The response from the “Life With Three Under Three” posts this week has been great. My email box is jammed. The only thing that would’ve generated more traffic is a post on birth control. Thanks for making me not have to go there. I have a theory on why the subject of living with lots of littles is interesting to so many. Let me explain, but first I have to back up.

Like the rest of the evangelical world, I picked up my prescription a few months before my wedding. We would wait the prerequisite 3-5 years, and then I’d have 2.1 kids. If I was lucky, I’d get a boy and a girl—in that order. The problem was that the low-dose pill made me throw up. I remember sitting on the floor with my hands over my knees in the bathroom two weeks before my wedding thinking that this was so unnatural.

Fast forward to last month. I’m in the church choir room directing a rehearsal. (I direct an 18-member children’s choir.) We’re finishing up, and on a whim, a young and free 20-something says that she wishes that she had my life. Say what. She didn’t say this in a Fatal Attraction sort-of-way, just matter-of-factly. I dismissed the children and went home in a hazy daze, only because I function with half my brain tied behind my back as a matter of routine.

A week or so later, my husband gets stuck in the Atlanta airport the day the Anna Nicole Smith saga broke. He couldn’t find a TV not carrying the story. When he called to tell me that he’d been bumped, he moaned, “Didn’t anything else happen in the world today?” Unsure of what the oogle factor was, I scanned news feeds for clues. Passing over all the speculation, I quickly zeroed in a friend of the family who quoted Anna Nicole Smith as saying, “If I had to do it all over again, I’d be back at the chicken store having lots of babies.”

It’s maternal instinct to desire and nurture babies. We’re created for it; it’s basic biology. The problem is that our culture suppresses the natural urge and calls it unnatural. This is why I messed with nature, took synthetic hormones, and hung over a toilet for months. If I said, “I’m getting married and hope raise a family soon,” I’d likely be labeled “irresponsible” by my evangelical brethren; for the more fortunate, it’s possible to escape with just being weird.

But there is a resurgence of women (that I’ve never noticed before—maybe I had my eyes closed or maybe the internet made it possible for them to band together) who are now saying, “Yes, I want to raise a family. I’ll agree that babies are good and can glorify God….but how?”

After a few babies, reality sets in and the Christian mom begins to think that maybe everyone had a good point. This is really hard. She is knee-deep in Cheerios. The laundry has an unnatural smell to it. She’s knows the theme song to every show in the PBS morning lineup. Her husband gets to talk to people that are taller than his waist during the day and she feels jealous. The kids are crying, but when it’s quiet she is left with the thought, “How does doing THIS glorify God? And how in the world do I do this?!”

Our 21st-century homes do not have front porches. Quilting circles are only found in books. And the hospital nurse at your last delivery? She was 20. Her coaching consisted of asking every few minutes if you were ready for an epidural.

Has it really come to this? And if so, is it OK?

I don’t think it’s OK. I also think many women agree with me. We weren’t meant to do it alone. We weren’t meant to take our cues from the broader culture. We want to know that it’s OK to cross-the-line and have Baby #3 (on purpose). We want to raise them to love Jesus and not lose our minds at the same time. We want to know that our sacrifice means something, and at the end of the day, our pursuit of God’s glory made a difference.

One of the things about having a houseful of babies is that you have to learn to be flexible. A lot of things can’t be helped, like this:

But there are some things you can control, like your reaction to things. Don’t freak out, don’t go nuclear, and don’t do this:

There’s a cartoon by Todd Wilson where the Dad opens the closet door and finds Mom crouched down inside. The dad is asking something like, “So how did it go today?” The caption reads, “A really dumb question.” I love it.

Moms of little ones believe in the doctrine of original sin, which is the sinful nature we inherited from Adam (Romans 5:12-21). Dealing with this sin nature –both theirs and our own—can be difficult. Some trouble arises just because of circumstances, like the leaking baby on your way out the door to church. Good planning can help with the logistics of raising a family, and sometimes you just have to flex a little.

As for the stuff that makes moms hide in the closet—fighting siblings, whining, and bad attitudes—my third unorthodox confession comes into play. When something isn’t working, we put life on hold. That is, I stop laundry, decent dinners, and the daily routine in order to get a handle on it. My husband brings home takeout, and we jump in the pool for our baths. Develop a plan of attack for the stuff that isn’t working (e.g. lazy listeners). Lack of consistency is usually the reason stuff falls apart, and so a day or two spent on putting us back on track is a lot better than hiding in the closet every other day.

I need to confess. When I began journaling about Life With Three Under Three, I wrote this sentence, “By the fall of 2001, I had a two-year-old, a one-year-old, a miscarriage, a newborn, and a new move.”

Those numbers were wrong. What’s worse is that I actually did the math on my fingers as I typed. I counted out my children’s ages in months and arrived with the answer above. But it was wrong. My oldest was already three-years-old by the time #3 arrived.

I can blame it on my mental fogginess or I can take responsibility for perpetrating a fraud on everyone. I guess this is a fitting and humble end to my series.

Signed,
Amy the Humble(d)