Mosaic Momma

I know you are horrified by the recent attacks in Paris. I'm horrified too. I know you are fearful of something similar happening in your country (and maybe not for the first time). I have that fear too. I know that many people are experiencing the gut-reaction of being emotionally kicked in the stomach. You want to curl into a ball and ward off the pain. You want to hold out your hands in protest to make it stop. To cease. To go back to the way things were. I know that feeling too. And yes, I have seen the posts and blogs and "news reports" that are angry, up-in-arms, full of national kick-butt-ary:  "heck no, you can't come here and no one wants you so just go back to your own country and get what you deserve for being born into your cultural group." In the natural, I have felt that way too. But I'm not called to live in the natural. I'm called to live out of the nature of Christ. And I feel this rising up in that sup...

Coffee is one of my best friends. Being a homeschool mom of 4 and trying to keep up with them, their schoolwork and our new farmhouse keeps me on my toes. And it keeps me coming back to the coffee pot. Every morning, making some coffee is usually one of my first waking thoughts. I must have been especially tired the other day. I staggered into the kitchen and filled the carafe with water and cleaned up the sink area while it brewed. I added some cream and caramel-flavored syrup to my favorite yellow cup. I poured in some delicious brown elixir distractedly and then sipped. Something was wrong. It didn't taste right. It tasted like milky caramelly water. And then I realized I forgot one crucial and important step. I forgot to change out the coffee grounds and I had brewed a "fresh pot" with yesterday's filter and grounds. It was not what I had eagerly anticipated. It was a disappointment, frankly. I poured the watery stuff down the sink and...

Harmony can be an elusive ideal we spend a lifetime chasing. But, for me, Harmony is only a mere two and a half hour drive to the California coast. A nice leisurely meandering through farmland and rolling hills will deposit me in a small town consisting of exactly one street. The city of Harmony, CA was founded by Swiss immigrants in 1869 who started dairy farms and a dairy processing operation. There was much infighting and rivalries that led to the operation changing many hands and even caused a death. In the early 1900's, parties involved agreed to call a truce and changed the name of their town to Harmony as a symbolic gesture of that decision. Unfortunately, the harmony did not last and the town eventually died out almost completely. There were a few swells in population with the largest occurring in the 1970s by craftsman who had "found" the little town and wanted to create a place that would foster artistry and simple living. Today Harmony sits all b...

It's June on the farm, and it's been amazing to live here during the slide from spring into summer and enjoy some literal fruits of the season. Last year at this time, we had just closed on the sale of our former home and were starting a rent-back period of one month. On June 1st of last year, we had been out to this lovely farmhouse, but had not decided to make the leap. That would come a few days later. When we did make the offer and were in escrow and came out for inspections and visits, we enjoyed some of the fruit off the trees. However, by the time we moved into the house in late July, we had lost much of the grape and stone fruit harvest to the birds. Baby birds nesting in one of our citrus trees But not this year! This year we pruned trees and hung CDs from branches and watered and watered and the other night I had my very first apricot from our trees. And it was pure heaven! I hope I never lose the joy and wonder about being able to...