I’ve been a little quieter on here lately, but I’m hoping to get back to a more regular posting schedule now. I ran into an issue: I maxed out my free disc storage for my WordPress site. I guess I like posting photos too much. I had the option to delete old posts or to upgrade to a paid plan, and I chose to upgrade. It took me a while to figure out exactly how to do that. So things might look a little different now: but to me, it’s worth the investment. I truly delight in making this humble chronicle of our lives. I hope you enjoy it too.

I’ve been continue to work on being more purposeful with my time. It seems to be my project of 2023: taking ownership of the minutes, hours, and days I’ve been given, and contemplating what it means to be a good steward of them.

Another way I’ve been looking at it is cutting back on my mindless consumption. I spent so much time consuming media, when really what I enjoy is making. I felt myself turning into Tantalus: always consuming, never satisfied.

And so, I took a step back. This has meant being on an Instagram hiatus (again), given my tendency to fall down the rabbit hole and not realize it until hours have passed. I now visit my Instagram only once every few days with a strict time limit, to check messages and see what my close friends are up to. But gone are the days of falling asleep to flashing screens.

And strangely enough, it’s been a relief. I’ve felt better, more focused; more rested. More myself. It’s hard to explain, and I feel like I’ve talked a lot about my complex relationship with social media lately. So I’ll just leave it at that, and an encouragement to try fasting from screens on a regular basis.

July has been passing at a breakneck pace. After our wonderful trip to the Midwest, Bishop John visited our church to celebrate the retirement of priest, Fr Stephen. It was a beautiful time celebrating a wonderful man and his selfless ministry. My in-laws came to stay with us a few days so they could also celebrate the retirement, and Michael loved having extra time with Oma and Opa.

Summer is definitely in full swing, so our outdoor time has been limited (much to Michael’s chagrin). I am not a fan of summer: I much prefer the chilly temperatures of autumn and winter. I miss my handknits! We had a scorching week of 100-110 degree weather, and thankfully now we’re back in the more reasonable 90s. My garden is soaking up the heat and producing faster than I can keep up. I have a bunch of tomatoes, and I’m on the hunt for a good canned tomato soup recipe to try to preserve some for winter. I was able to make a simple ratatouille with nearly all homegrown ingredients (except for the onion: mine aren’t quite ready for harvesting).

There’s something so satisfying about eating food you’ve grown yourself. I’m pretty proud of this little garden of mine: it’s my first attempt, and though I’ve got much to learn and have made many mistakes, I love my imperfect unpruned tomatoes, tiny peppers, and overgrown zucchini.

Because it’s summer, I’ve been focusing more on cooking and preserving the bounty before us. My current obsession is kombucha flavored with herbs from our garden and honey from our bees. So far, I’ve made a raspberry honey mint, a lavender, and a blueberry honey mint. The raspberry is my favorite.

Speaking of our bees, they’re doing very well! Our largest hive split and swarmed, and my dad managed to catch it before it left, so now we have three robust hives. We’re hoping to have quite the honey harvest this year.

The next big project for us is to finish the north side of our front garden. We need to finish clearing the weeds, put down some landscape fabric, and lay the mulch. It’ll give Michael a nicer, less dusty place to play, and it’ll also give us a nice place to grill this summer.

I’ve been continuing to knit and spin in my spare time — usually evenings and nap times. I’ve made a few skeins of 2 ply, DK/light worsted weight yarn. I’m looking forward to giving updates on the projects I plan to knit with them! I also finished one pair of socks and started on another. I’m leaning more into spinning right now, over knitting. With all that’s going on, I relax more into the mindless rhythm of spinning, and I don’t have to count or pay as much attention.

I’ve been reading more books, especially right before bed. On our recent trip to the Midwest I brought a copy of That Hideous Strength by CS Lewis and just finished it a few days ago. It’s a copy from 1970 that I picked up at our local used bookstore, and it smells fantastic. Anyone else feel like they could stick their nose in an old paperback and inhale forever?

I’ve finished three more books since, and I’m finally catching up on my Goodreads goal of 50 books this year. I missed reading. And reading has been nurturing my love of writing. I’ve been dipping back into writing fiction of my own, and it’s been beautiful and nostalgic and difficult.

I used to write fiction daily, seriously editing my work for submission and throwing my entire being into the craft. But since becoming a mother, my fiction writing has fallen to the side: shelved, but not thrown away. Writing fiction takes many of the same resources for me as nurturing a growing soul — and doing both at once wasn’t quite feasible for me. Slowly, I’ve been jotting down ideas and stories in tiny increments of time and words. And it’s strange to revisit a part of me that’s grown so dusty, that I loved so dearly. Strange to see how much I’ve changed. Strange, but also beautiful. I’ve reread some of my old work, remembering the person I was when I wrote it. I look forward to seeing the things I create as the person I am now.

I also credit my social media hiatus for my renewed love of reading and fiction writing. There’s are so many moments I used to brush off as “the meantime”. The moments after something important, and before the next important thing. I used to fill them with mindless scrolling, and even during my hiatus, I found myself looking only towards the next thing instead of being present in the meantime.

Now, I see them as opportunities to read another chapter of my book, or knit another row, or jot down another story idea. I’ve grown to cherish the meantime, instead of tolerating it. I’ve come to learn that meantime is fruitful, not fallow.

Over on my Substack, I wrote an essay on the importance of memorization. If you’d like to read it, you can find it here.

And here’s a quote to give a brief preview:

Often, we ask the wrong questions. We look for what a thing can do for us, instead of asking what it does to us.

It feels like June passed by in a minute while none of us were paying attention. I can hardly believe July is upon us and summer is in full swing.

Time has felt strange, like that goop that’s neither liquid nor solid. Some days feel eternal, because of their beauty or because of their difficulties. Some weeks feel like seconds.

It’s been a beautiful and bright few weeks. My great aunt moved into the mother-in-law suite that Jake and I lived in while we waited for our house to be finished. Another family member joins the commune! She’s always been like a grandmother to me, and we are so happy to have her here with us.

We had dear friends visit for a weekend, and it was a delight. I have very few pictures (which shows how much fun we had) but it was a beautiful time. Praise God for good food, good wine, and good conversation.

My garden has been soaking up the recent heat, and I’ve loved watching the whole process of growing things. I recently listened to a podcast by Tsh Oxenreider, and I can’t remember the exact quote, but she said something to the effect of: I garden because of the person it makes me, not merely for the practicality of growing food. And the more I garden, the more I agree with her.

This is another way time has felt strange this month: every morning I walked among my tomatoes and peppers and zucchini as I watered, yet I was always surprised to see bright red jewels among the leaves, or a ridiculously huge zucchini growing on the edge of the garden box.

It reminds me of watching Michael grow: I nourish and cherish him daily, yet still am surprised by how much he’s changed month by month.

My finger has been healing, slowly but surely. It’s been a process — the tip is still numb all around the wound/scar. For a good week, I wasn’t able to do any of my regular hobbies. I coped by reading a lot. However, I figured out a way to knit with my middle finger held out of the way, and was able to finish some projects that way.

We recently returned from a delightful trip in the Sequoia National Forest/Kings Canyon National Park. It was Michael’s first time camping, and he loved it. It was basically his dream vacation: being outside every minute of every day and playing with rocks and sticks and flowers and dirt.

Unfortunately, Jake couldn’t get the time off, so he took care of the homestead while my family, Michael, and I met up with dear friends. We spent four days talking, sitting around campfires, laughing, and enjoying the glorious creation all around us.

I think this national park and national forest is my favorite place in the entire world. I can’t find the words to describe the peace I feel in the chilled mountain air, surrounded by giant trees that have seen centuries pass, with the snow-capped peaks in the distance.

I feel like time moves differently there, too. Outside of the reach of technology and most of civilization, things are slower. Quieter.

For most of the trip, I didn’t have my phone on me and didn’t wear a watch. At first, I found myself starting to reach for my empty pocket, antsy or feeling phantom notifications. Then I finally started to relax. I stopped thinking about my email, or what I might be missing on the Internet. I guessed the passage of time by the sun and my body. I filled my time with knitting or reading or conversation or walks or naps. I woke up to and fell asleep with the sun.

How much has technology changed our perception of time? We’re so used to instant gratification: from being able to look up answers in the moment, to talking to people across the globe in seconds, to cooking on stoves and using flush toilets.

Camping in the mountains really these strips away and forces slowness and forethought. While not all technology is bad (I, for one, am quite grateful for showers) I do think we should be mindful that while it relieves us of inconvenience, it can also relieve us of virtues like patience and prudence.

So if there’s anything I want to hold near and dear to my heart from this month, it’s this appreciation of wild mountain time. I want it to permeate the rest of my life. I want my perception of life to be in rhythm with the natural world. To look for ways to cultivate patience by choosing to do things slowly and intentionally even if a quicker and easier way may exist. To focus less on the fleeting, instant gratification of notifications and more on the slowly ripening tomato on the vine, or the new tooth in my toddler’s grin, or the simple joy of a glass of wine with a friend.