Introductions By Readers

Idea Kindly Provided By Mrs. Patty Adams and Miss Heidi Salatin

Over the past two years, I have had the privilege of getting to know some great people through my Weekly! Many faithful readers have written to me to tell me how they enjoy the Weekly, and also to tell me a little about themselves. I met my best friend in this way, and also have become friends with several people who e-mail me regularly about the Weekly. During the past few months I have asked a few of the women I have gotten to know to write a little introduction about themselves for an article. They kindly did so. As you read the following paragraphs, you will meet godly, wonderful women, wives and mothers all of them, from every corner of the U.S. (and Canada)! I hope you enjoy getting to know them as much as I did. A big thank you to all who participated!

My name is Margaret. I am one of Rachel's aunts. I was born in New Hampshire but lived all over the northeast including up in Canada for most of my growing-up years.

After high school I moved down to Texas, got married and started raising a family two years later. My husband was in the Air Force so because of that we moved all over again. I got to live in Anchorage, Alaska for three years. It was delightful!

When my husband got out of the Air Force he went to college at LeTourneau to study computer science. I stayed home with our three kids. We lived below the poverty level at that time but no one could have guessed. God took good care of us!

After college, my husband got a job in Greenville, Texas. We ended up getting "stuck" in Texas for 15 years. Neither of us liked it there. It was way too hot and we really missed the snow. I also didn't like the oodles of bugs that state has. I saw so many different kinds of bugs I am sure a kindergartener could draw a bug from his/her imagination and Texas would have it!

In 2000 we got to move up to New Hampshire when my husband applied for a job up here and they hired him. It felt like we were coming home even though we had never lived here before.

New Hampshire always held a special place in my heart because my grandparents on my mother's side lived in this state and I have many fond memories of traveling here to visit them when I was little.

By the time we moved up here we had four kids.

My oldest, a girl, Feather, is now 27 years old, married and has a little 7 month old baby of her own. My next oldest, a boy, Michael, is 26 years old, married, graduated from East Texas Baptist University Magna Cum Laude :o) (became a teacher) and has a little 4 month old of his own. Next there is Justin. He just graduated from college this past spring Cum Laude. :o) He studied computer science. He now lives in Keene, New Hampshire and works in Vermont. Our fourth is Dakota. He is 13 years old and is following in his father's and brother's footsteps in the computer field. He is teaching himself FLASH animation and other such computer things that I've long forgotten the names of because I am not computer savvy. E-mail and surfing the web are the extent of my expertise.

My mother lives nearby us and is doing quite well for being 76 years old. She lives in a senior apartment complex and has become the friend of many in her little community.

My father passed away just one month after we moved up here. He was a wonderful man and I miss him very much.

My husband and I have been through some very rough times lately. We have come through two lay-offs, two deaths in his family, many health problems and many financial woes. But God has given us many blessings intermingled with the trials.

I just read a verse today in another of Rachel's Weekly's that made me wonder if this is what God has been doing with us: Deuteronomy 8:2: Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.

Thankfully it hasn't been forty years for us and hopefully it won't be. :o]

My daughter is extremely talented creatively, my oldest son is very gifted in music, my husband is a Scrabble expert and a master of the English language. As I have already stated, my other two boys excel in computer-type stuff. I am surrounded by highly talented people. That's how it was for me growing up, too. I had a highly intelligent pastor-father, very pretty artistic mother, beautiful musical and artistic sister and fabulously handsome/musical/artistic/brilliant brothers. I have always been the plain Jane basking in the glory of those around me. :o)

I dabble in music, art and writing. I like to embroider. I enjoy knitting but only mindless things like scarves. I don't want to have to keep track of stitches etc. I am an average singer, sewer and gardener and a below average cook. (I don't like to cook. Probably because most everyone I cook for is very picky. :oP )

I love to be outdoors. God blessed us with a house that sits on a small "lake". We have a huge picture window that looks out on to the lake and one of my favorite past-times is to sit in my glider rocker by that window and look out at the wildlife and clouds as I talk to God.

Rachel asked me if I would write a "submission...telling all about [myself, my family, my hobby, and how I] came to read the Weekly." She said the submission "...does not have to be long at ALL. Just a paragraph or two..." But I obviously couldn't tell all those things in just a paragraph or two.

As far as how I started reading the Weekly: I think Rachel's mom was the first one to invite me to read it. I took her up on her offer because I seldom heard from that branch of my family tree and I figured this was one way I could keep up with their happenings. Turns out I have come to enjoy Rachel's writing style as well as getting to know my nieces and nephews and the happenings of my brother and his wife. So I look forward to getting it each week. The pictures are helping me to put names with faces since we live too far apart from each other to ever get to see each other much.

And I guess that's it in a nutshell (a coconut shell!). :o)

Mrs. Krystin Hall---Michigan

Hello from Michigan! We are the Hall family. We live on 1 ¼ acres in a country neighborhood. We are believers in Jesus and learn together at home.

There are eight members of our family. Dad works in the real estate field, as a field service consultant for Listingbook, LLC. He travels out of state for work one week a month (on average). He is also a musician and leads the family in devotions each week night he is home at 8:00 sharp! Weekend devotions are in the morning with lots of singing. Mom has all the typical interests of home schooling moms---cooking, cleaning and children! She enjoys reading, old hymns, crocheting and making up stories for the kids. We have been married almost 14 years and love spending time together.

Morgyn (11) is the oldest Hall child. She enjoys reading, cooking, playing the piano and doing crafts, especially cross-stitch and paper crafts. She has recently taken over the responsibility of making bread. Ryleigh (9) is next. Her interests include horses, reading, using her knitting knobby, and making treats from the Whole Foods for Kids to Cook cookbook. Both girls have recently taken up latch-hooking. Timothy (7) is our oldest boy. He likes sledding, making things out of wood, going to the store with Dad, and reading to his little brothers. Nathanael is 3 ½ and follows his hero, Timothy, wherever he goes. He will put on a cape and pretend he is “Super-Timmy”! He likes to draw pictures of castles and play cars. Simon is 19 months and divides his time between playing with the boys and snuggling on Mom’s lap. He isn’t sure if he wants to be a toddler or a baby, so we let him do both. The eighth member of our family is still “in secret” and is due to be born the end of June. Lord willing, this will be our third home birth.

The Hall kids on Easter morning. Photo kindly provided by Mrs. Hall.

We have been remodeling our little brown cottage for almost three years. It is hard to remember what life was like before we were in construction mode! The cosmetic projects seem to be interrupted regularly by emergencies. (Just last week, for instance, our pipes were frozen for 5 days. This happened while Dad was in sunny California on business! The kids and Mom had a “Little House on the Prairie” kind of week.) We have a beagle/shepherd mix named Arabella, and hope to have chickens on the property within a few years. This will require several projects first… ((sigh))

Since The Mother’s Companion ceased publication a few years ago, Mom has kept an eye on the website, hoping that Timothy’s Diary will become available for purchase or down load (hint, hint!). We were really excited when Rachel began her Weekly. It is like a continuation of the “At Our House” column of the newsletter---a little peek into the lives of another Christian home school family. It has been a joy and a blessing to “get to know” the Aardsma family over the years.

Mrs. Patty Adams---Texas (you can learn more about Mrs. Adams at www.sewsecret.com)

My name is Patty Adams and I am a former subscriber to The Mothers Companion and current reader of The Aardsma Weekly. I have been married 25 years this May; we have two children and live in West Texas on a family farm with cotton fields all around. Our part of the country is flat, hot and dry.

I love to sew and once had a student, (when I taught sewing classes to young girls at church) call me "old fashioned". This describes me pretty well since I like doing things from the olden days such as making butter or lye soap. I also love to cook from scratch, garden, read and bargain shop.

My son, Jonathan, turned 18 this May. He has been home schooled since Kindergarten and is the family musician. Jonathan began playing music at the age of 9 and currently plays clarinet, piano and classical guitar. He is looking forward to college and plans on majoring in Math.

My daughter, Elizabeth, is 6 and is the family toy! She has the most beautiful long hair, which has never been cut with the exception of her bangs. Elizabeth is a Mommy in Training! She loves to play with her dolls, helps me cook and clean and is anxious to learn how to sew.

My husband works from home in our family trampoline business. The kids have always had their dad near by and they love it!

As a family we all love to take walks in the evenings and listen to the coyotes in the distance. On lazy days we pack a picnic lunch and go to a small town in search of a museum or antique store. One time, on an early fall morning, we went down the road where a local farmer had just harvested peanuts. We spent the morning picking up peanuts the tractor missed and then went home and roasted some in the oven. What a delicious treat fresh peanuts are!

Mrs. Annmary Charles---Canada

We live in Georgetown, Ontario, Canada, and that is exactly where we met Helen and Gerald Aardsma many years ago. At that time, both couples attended Maple Avenue Baptist Church, and both of us were just getting started on having our families. We always enjoyed getting together, but the time came that the Aardsma's were ready to move on, and this they did, leaving Georgetown when only Jenny, Mark and Steven were on the scene, if memory serves.

Farley and I completed our family with three lovely boys, Trevor, Cameron, and Fraser, and always were interested to hear via the faithful Christmas letters, about the adventures and expansions in the Aardsma family. How lovely that we now have the Internet communication, with the added contact and opportunity to share news and photos! It was a proud mother who introduced me recently to the Weekly, written so delightfully by Rachel, and it is now my joy to follow the events on the Homestead through this means. I thoroughly enjoy the lively reports, photos, and personal thoughts, and can hardly believe that the writer is so young. (Granted- Beka has a certain big-sisterly input at times, and the other siblings definitely make their presence known!)

Farley and I met at our Church young people's group in Toronto, where we both grew up, and we both attended the U. of T. Farley studied Chemical Engineering, and went on to teach physics and chemistry at the high school level in Toronto, which he is still doing. My love was languages, and I did Modern Languages and Literatures, majoring in French and German, with many English courses as well. In teaching, though, I chose to work with young children, and so, taught Kindergarten until our own family came along. It was a joy to be home with them, and I did not return to elementary school teaching, though I am still teaching that age group in Sunday School- almost 30 years now of this pursuit at M.A.B.C.

I still am happy in the home, as I have always had meaningful creative interests, and, needless to say, with a growing family, there is plenty to do! When my time opened up somewhat, I returned to sewing, and have been able to enjoy learning more in that field. The quilting goes hand in hand with that, and I have found that the books on the market these days provide excellent instruction. It is always a pleasure, also, to join in on classes, at the fabulous Sewing Store in our area.

Our boys all were married in 2006! Now, Fraser (engineering job) and Carla (new chiropractor!) live in Vancouver; Cameron (teaching at Univ. of Utah) and Roanne (Microsoft) live in Salt Lake City; and Trevor (teaching at Bradford High School) and Jodi (law), are living in Barrie, Ontario. These last two are on the cusp of parenthood, and will make us first-time grandparents, Lord willing, in May. My sewing machine is extra busy, as this is a set of twins, boy and girl, who are expected!

There is always so much to thank God for, in blessings of home, family and friends, and I do look forward to "meeting" other readers, as well as to all future continuing issues of the Weekly! (That is a hint: do not stop writing, Rachel!)

The Weekly Bible Verse

Proverbs 19:3: A man's own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord.

Bits and Pieces

Thanks to long needed rain, I enjoyed numerous alien (to me anyway) things this week. Things like no more watering of the garden, lots of extra free time, a clean house, time to finish a few of the many books I haven't had time for, and a few other nice things! It rained on Wednesday, Thursday, and a little bit on Friday. All in all, I think we got somewhere around 2 inches, enough to keep watering in the background for a week or two. I was so happy to finally get a little time off. Our summer weeks are always so busy, except for rainy days. We spent a few hours on the first rainy day cleaning everything in sight, as Mom can only do so much on her own. Everything is, of course, back to its normal summer look, but the clean house was nice for a few hours, anyhow.

Ripening raspberries out in the garden. Photo by Mom.

Nothing very exciting has happened this week. We did a lot of work in the garden before the rain came. We finished with the strawberries a while back, for which we are all very glad. Beka and I continue getting up at five a.m., since we find we can get the most done keeping our old schedule. The two of us have been working hard to get the garden caught up, since everything sort of falls apart during strawberry season. We are mostly done with the weeding, but there is other stuff that needs doing. A complete end-of-year renovation of the strawberry patch is in order now. This includes weeding the patch, fertilizing it, and then cultivating the rows. This always takes a few days.

Me foolin' around during a rainy afternoon. Photo by Beka.

We are about half done in the garden. Potatoes, raspberries, corn, beans, and tomatoes are the remaining big crops of the year. I can hardly believe we have only two more months before we start school again! It seems like just a month or two ago that we started planting.

A Word About The Weather

We actually got some rain this week! After watering for quite a while, we were very glad. More rain continues to come, and I hope that watering of the garden will not be neccesary for several weeks now.

"Dad, The Cows Are Out!"

Part Eight

Jodi opened her eyes and found herself staring into her alarm clock. For a few seconds she tried to collect her thoughts, and then she lunged for her clock before the loud, obnoxious alarm could go off. She turned it off just seconds before the alarm sounded, and then crept to the window, shivering in the early morning cold.
"Not a sign of rain," Jodi whispered, lifting the corner of the curtains and peering out into the gray light. "So much for that prediction of rain." There had been a prediction of at least half an inch of rain for last night, and yet the world remained dry.
Jodi threw on some warm clothes before approaching Victoria's bed.
"Get up, Vic, get up!" Jodi said. Victoria pulled all the blankets over her head.
"Go away!" she said sleepily. "It can't be five o'clock yet."
"It is, it is!" Jodi replied, quite cheerfully. She managed to take an optimistic view of the early hour, having been up for a few minutes already.
It took a few minutes, but Vic was soon out of bed. The girls parted company for several minutes, and then met in the kitchen for breakfast.
"No bread for toast," Jodi complained, checking out the empty cupboards and fridge. "No cereal, and no milk to have with it. There isn't even any meat for sandwiches!"
"Don't worry," Victoria comforted, producing a bowl of instant chocolate pudding. "I found this last night."
"I guess I've eaten worse things at five o'clock in the morning," reflected Jodi, digging a spoon out of the sink and hoping the bowl that she found on the counter was clean. "I ate a sweet potato casserole at four once."
"Hey, I ate meatloaf for breakfast once," Victoria said, contemplating the pudding before them. "Pretty much anything is better than that."
"I have to agree with that."
The girls finished off their pudding in record time and, grabbing jackets from the hooks by the back door, burst out into the chilly morning grayness.
"I'm freezing!" Victoria announced, surveying the large garden and wondering just what should be done first.
"Don't you start complaining. You've got jeans on, and I'm in shorts! If anybody should be complaining, it should be me!" Jodi answered.
Victoria started talking about something Jacob had told her about people's differing body temperatures, as the girls headed for the barn.
"Find a hoe!" Vic yelled to Jodi from across the barn. "We have weeding to do."
Jodi greeted the sleepy cows and bent down to pat the numerous cats who came to meet her.
"Never mind, I found them," Victoria appeared, shaking bits of hay from her hair and carrying two hoes. "Let's go."

"It's too early to get up," Peter complained, following Robert and Jacob down the stairs half an hour after Jodi and Victoria had left the house quiet.
"It's not too early to get up," Jacob returned. "The girls have been up for hours."
"Hardly," Peter answered. "I don't think Mom and Dad are even up yet!"
"Of course they are," Robert spoke up. "I was looking out the window of our room when they left for the market about ten minutes ago."
"Well, at least the twins aren't awake yet," Peter said, trying to hop down the stairs on one foot so he could tie the loose shoe-lace on his left foot, an amazing feat that none but experts should ever even attempt.
"Yes, they are," Jacob said. "They left with Mom and Dad. Don't do that, Peter, you'll kill yourself."
Contradicted at every point, Peter fell silent as the boys entered the kitchen.
"Well, well, well. No bread, no cereal, no milk, and no meat for sandwiches," Jacob said, looking around the kitchen. "There isn't even any pudding left."
"Oh, man. I wanted some of that pudding," Rob said. "I'll lick the bowl out, anyhow."
"Do you think we have any of that sweet potato casserole left from the other day?" Peter asked, looking through the fridge that contained only a few covered dishes. "Jodi told me that sweet potato casserole is kinda good early in the morning."
Jacob looked struck.
"Sweet potato casserole? That is absolutely disgusting. Thank goodness we don't have any."
"What's in this bowl?" Robert asked, lifting the lid. "Oh, it's the meatloaf from yesterday."
"Hmm. Meatloaf. That actually sounds kind of good," Jacob said.
It was Peter's turn to look struck.
"You're kidding, aren't you?"
Jacob shook his head.
"No. Rob, you grab some plates from the cupboard while I pop this stuff in the oven."
"This is so gross," Peter said, leaning against the fridge and looking a little sick.
"Oh, and don't forget the ketchup!" Jacob yelled after Rob, as he slid the cold slices of meatloaf into the oven.
"I sure can't wait until Mom has time to make breakfast again," Peter commented. "I think I'll go get the cows to share some of their hay with me."

Note: Due to time constraints during our busy summer, this will be the last installment of "Dad, The Cows Are Out!" until perhaps the fall, when I have more time for writing.

A Word Of Humor

We enjoy keeping tabs on each presidential election from the very beginning. So, when I heard this joke the other day, I had to share it!

A young girl asked her father if all fairy tales begin with 'Once Upon A Time'? “No,” he replied. "A whole lot of them begin with 'If elected I promise…'"