In The Refiner's Fire

 Camping dinner from a few weeks ago - hot water for tea (and washing up later), hot dogs and bratwurst, served with buns and fruit.  Happy end of July! After a rough start to summer, things are starting to settle back into rhythm here.  I'm so very grateful. We are harvesting a few things from the garden, collecting our weekly CSA box, and have kept the shopping to a minimum these last two weeks - first with a camping trip which we had already stocked up for, and, second, we had so much food in the house, particularly produce, that we needed to eat.  This last Saturday we did a $61 and change shop and stocked up on a few things that we were either low or out on - ground beef and canned corn are the two that come to mind right now. We did buy some fruit and dairy products too.  I'm loving the garden produce - Buddy picked another two cherry tomatoes today and they went right into his mouth - and we've been averaging a handful of strawberries each day (ev...

Our purple dwarf iris - unfortunately I don't know the name, it was  hand me down from a family member. It’s been a long time since I posted.   So, if you’re still here, thanks for hanging on with me.   We’ve had an… eventful? Full?... summer so far.   I’m not quite sure of the right word. Very shortly after I last posted, my laptop met an entire cup of coffee.   It did end up being salvageable but the keyboard and track pad needed to be replaced (way cheaper than buying a new one) but, of course, that took a while. I taught summer session.   John had 12% of our congregation in the hospital, 4 funerals, and a wedding.   The children had sleep away church camp and then we’ve had to juggle childcare.   There was a major, very stressful, not good, and quite unexpected happening at my work and John had to handle a major thing with the property at church too.   All in all, by the time I got done with summer session, I was s...