Bigger or Better: Life outside of Texas

When I was in elementary school, my parents bought a book illustrated by James Christensen that told a fantasy story where the main characters go on adventures on a ship under the banner "Believing Is Seeing." It was a nice story, emphasizing, essentially, that faith precedes the miracle.  I don't think I absorbed the moral very well, because I interpreted that phrase to mean that faith is the admission price of the miracle, the prerequisite to having amazing things happen in your life. I think it's actually because you need a believing state of mind to see miracles, because hints of divinity are around everywhere. For example, whenever I make muffins and the batter produces more than the recipe's listed quantity, I think of the miracle of Elijah and the widow. Now could this event be explained by other means? Probably...but in that moment I am in the state of mind to see abundance. Another example: I'm on a walk with my toddler, and I need to convince him to ...

For work reasons, Mark is not available, which means Nathan and I have been having a lot of bonding time. Sunday night we made applesauce muffins. Which means I made applesauce muffins, and Nathan measured dry beans onto the floor--because I preferred him playing in that than with flour or rolled oats. He also got to lick the maple syrup measuring cup, which he was a big fan of, and got offended when it ran out. Honestly, I made the applesauce muffins because I didn't want to go outside [which he wanted to do, which I knew because he kept showing me his shoes and jacket] and figured he would get distracted with muffins. That's also why I put away laundry--because he loves laundry--and why we went to the library. Maybe even why we went to church. Basically we had a bunch of side quests to distract him from his Main Quest. I'm beginning to suspect that all of his childhood will be me coming up with side quests, filling up his days with Things To Do so that he doesn't rea...

 Nathan recently gave us colds, and because there is very little I can give him medicinally for his cough and ear pressure, we've been spending a lot of time every day in a steamy shower. The first couple of times he was pretty chill about hanging out in the tub, but after that he became quite wiggly and wanted to escape. What can I do to keep him in this homemade sauna? I know! We'll do science experiments. I let the tub fill with water, then collected various things--his newborn tub, a balloon, a massage ball, an empty water bottle--so that we could see which ones float and which ones sink. The balloon is big--do you think it will sink? Nope! It floats! The massage ball is small--do you think it will float? Nope! It sinks! Etc. Nathan really got into it, and grabbed a package of toilet paper to bring over to the tub. That's really cute, kiddo, and I appreciate your enthusiasm, but no. It's been several days since that "science experiment", but he continues t...