Links - the year, the time, and the wine

"The Year of Not Putting Up With Things":

Maybe we should blame it on the practice of frugality that seems to have come with my German heritage, but I've put up with a lot of minor inconveniences over the course of my life...little things being not quite right, particularly in my home or in my wardrobe. A belt doesn't fit quite right. A dress rides up funny on one side. A shirt feels a tiny bit too short. The trusty black pumps I've owned and worn for years have started to separate from their strap on one shoe. The toilet in the guest bathroom splashes the lid when you flush. The rug in our living room is too small for the space. Our air conditioning has never worked.

"The Best Wine in the History of the World":

He was about to perform his first public miracle. Let me frame that a different way. He was about to formally and publicly introduce himself to his bride—the church—for the first time. I wonder if Mary’s request sounded to him something like, “Go on, son. Ask that girl to dance.”

"Routine Life":

Some mornings I wake up feeling ready to do it all again. Ready to get out of bed (after drinking coffee, of course), face the day, clean, prep meals, homeschool, do laundry, break up fights, nurse the baby. But some days, I just feel do not feel it. I do not feel like getting up and doing it all. Those days generally do not go well. But sometimes, something happens to arrest me mid-day and change everything.

 Usually, that thing is . . . work.

"how do I Run a Micro business and homeschool?": this whole thing was interesting, but I love, love, love Christine's observation about her home:

 I don’t decorate the house – it’s the lab for making projects in, it isn’t itself a project. 

Hey, I've got one of those project-lab houses, too! :D

"I love this bar (and a recipe)":

Houston, we have a problem. Even though I know that I can make something akin to a Larabar in my food processor and have a great granola bar recipe that most of our family will eat, even though I no longer buy boxes of granola bars or nutri grain bars for the children I cannot resist the lure of the bar.

There is something about the presentation, the bright colors, the many flavors, that seems to beckon. Eat me! They cry. I am interesting and fun and come in my own individual wrapper. I have as much protein as a chicken breast but taste like fake cookie dough coated in fake chocolate. Eat me and you can skip taking your multivitamin! I can make you happy!

"Op-Ed: An Ode to Ordinary Time": I'm not quoting from this one, because the fun is in the scroll-down reveal.

"Guinevere and Julia: The Platypus Reads Part CCX":

. . . it's a necessary part of all romance and adventure that we not be allowed to weasel out every time our beliefs land us in hard places. 

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell