Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

fun stuff with kids

Graceful Summer: On Hiatus

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In keeping with my promise to my sister to take a real, true blogging hiatus during our trip, I don’t exactly have a fresh Graceful Summer post for you today. In fact, these photos were taken two years ago, during our last summer visit to Massachusetts. But be assured, right now, I am doing this:

Floating in my sister’s pool…

Building sand castles at Rocky Neck Beach…

Cracking up with my sis and my BFF…

Sipping Chardonnay on the back porch, indulging in fresh New England seafood, cuddling my newborn cousin Casey and generally soaking up as much of my family as I possibly can.

As Mary Oliver says in her poem “Sometimes”:

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

So I’m doing exactly that this week.

I’ll be back on Monday — thanks for the Graceful hiatus!

What are your favorite summer vacation memories or moments from this year?  

Welcome to Graceful Summer, a link-up community here on Fridays through the end of August. We’re sharing stories about the smaller, quieter moments of summer – will you share yours, too?

1. Write a post about a quiet summer moment and link it up here on Fridays.
2. Visit someone else and leave a little comment love – you might get a new creatively quiet idea!
3. Please include the Graceful Summer button or a link in your post, so people can find us if they want to join in.

Click here to get Graceful in your email in-box. Click here to “like” my Facebook Writer page. Thank you!

Doing

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“So are we actually going to do something on spring break?” he asks, as we sit on sun-warmed concrete.

“What do you mean, ‘Are we going to do something?’ We aredoing something; this is something,” I reply as I dislodge a pebble with my foot and watch it roll down the embankment into the culvert stream below.

“No, I mean do something exciting, like go somewhere,” Noah persists. ‘We’re not really doing anything fun.”

“Yeah,” Rowan chimes in. “We’re not doing anything fun!”

I admit, my kids are more than a little entitled. They are used to adventure, to being on the go. They fly to destinations like the Florida Keys; they spend weeks on the North Shore of Lake Superior. They swim in my sister’s pool and build sand castles on the beach of Long Island Sound. They aren’t accustomed to a vacation at home, in Nebraska, in March.

We sit on the concrete culvert on a warmer-than-usual March afternoon. It’s a favorite spot, below the bike path and just before the stream widens, trickling beneath the A Street bridge. Earlier this winter I had to drag them away from this very spot, so content were they in their “job” of breaking up ice chunks in the frigid water.
But now they are restless and agitated.

“Come here,” I call to Rowan, “I want to tell you guys something,” and he climbs the hill to stand next to me, squinting in the bright sun.

“We don’t always have to do big, exciting things, you know,” I begin to explain. “Sometimes it’s fun to find joy in the small things, too.”

“Is this some kind of prayer or something?” Rowan interrupts.

“No, it’s not a prayer, I’m just saying,” I laugh. “I’m just saying that it’s a beautiful day, and we’re at your favorite spot, and the sun’s out and there are rocks to roll into the stream, so why don’t we just enjoy the moment for what it is, instead of wishing for something else.”

The kids don’t say much in response. Rowan looks at me skeptically, still leery that this might be a prayer masquerading as a speech.

I lean back on the steeply angled pavement, the crook of my elbow over my eyes. I hear Noah get up, and a few minutes later, the boys’ voices echo off the concrete over the din of the traffic. Opening one eye, I turn my head and look down at the stream. They are piling rocks next to the water, deep in conversation. It looks like they are building a dam.
Do you find you have this same restlessness, too – the need to always be doing something big or important, exciting or productive? I admit, I do.

Wrapping My Heart around Christmas

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Over the years my family has carved out a number of holiday traditions, from baking mini pumpkin chocolate-chip loaves for the kids’ teachers to belting Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer ad nauseum. By far, though, my favorite tradition is wrapping gifts for City Impact.
Each year in December, City Impact organizes what’s called the Gifts of Love Store in the basement of First Baptist Church in downtown Lincoln. They collect hundreds of donated items, dramatically mark down the retail price, and then open the store to allow low-income families to shop for the holidays. My husband, two boys and I volunteer one night every December to help the kids wrap the gifts they’ve chosen for their parents, grandparents and siblings.
We roll up our sleeves, lay out scissors, paper, ribbon, bows, gift bags and tags at each wrapping station, and not long after, they start to come.

…I’m delighted to be writing about one of my family’s holiday traditions over at Chelsey’s place, as part of her 25 Days of Christmas Traditions series. Will you click over to read about our wrapping adventure?

And while you’re here, tell me: what’s your favorite holiday tradition?  [oh, and be sure to come back here Friday for a giveaway!]

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: Christmas Every Day

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I tend to think of the four weeks of Advent as a preparation for the arrival of Jesus on Christmas Day. And there’s nothing wrong with that, of course. But my pastor made a good point yesterday morning when he mentioned that perhaps Advent should be a time in which we prepare ourselves not just for one day, December 25, but for the entire year. He suggested that we use these Advent weeks as a time to prepare for the arrival of Emmanuel and to ask ourselves how we will celebrate God with us, not just on one day, but on the remaining 364 days as well.
The word Christmas originally meant, literally, “Christ’s mass.” It is derived from the Middle English, Christemasse, and Old English, Cristes mæsse. “Cristes” is from the Greek Christos and “mæsse” is from Latin missa, meaning “holy mass.” That’s a complicated way of saying that Christmas means worship of Christ.
We don’t know for sure which day Jesus was actually born. During the 4th century Christians chose December 25 as the day to formally celebrate Christ’s birth, but the truth is, December 25 is just a day, one in 365. It’s wonderful that we celebrate Jesus’ birth on December 25, but it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t offer him a Christmas – a “Christ’s mass,” a holy worship –every day, all year long.
When I think about what it might look like to celebrate Christmas every single day of the year I feel a bit weary – but that’s largely because I associate Christmas with extra work (read: baking, decorating, shopping, wrapping, envelope-licking, socializing). Stripped of its commercialized trappings – all the obligations we tell ourselves we must fulfill in order celebrate Christmas –what’s left?
Love. Joy. Worship. Serving. Rest.
Stripped to its essence, Christmas doesn’t sound as overwhelming, does it?
So yesterday, with the sermon lingering in the back of my mind, I decided to embrace a little Christmas. Real Christmas.
Despite the fact that I had one hundred million things to do (read: laundry, snow shoveling, writing, baking, dusting, vacuuming – on Saturday Rowan had made a peanut-butter and birdseed sandwich for the birds…on the sunroom floor. Enough said?), the kids and I donned hats, mittens, winter jackets and snow pants, grabbed the sled and stepped into the glittering neighborhood to revel in winter’s first snowfall.
I grabbed my camera, too, and as we walked up our street and down the alley, I stopped to photograph glinting icicles, snow-draped berries and frosted evergreens.
I suspect God delighted in the fact that I took the time to admire his majestic creation and slowed down long enough to gaze in astonishment at a single icicle forming drip by drip from a yellow leaf.
I suspect he delighted in the sight of an over-40 mom and her two squealing boys as we careened down a snowy alley on a plastic red sled.

I suspect God delighted in the fact that we celebrated his presence around us, with us and in us as we offered him a holy worship, three weeks to the day before Christmas.
“Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming! Clear the road for him!” (Mark 1:3)

This year, how might you prepare for Christmas, not just on December 25 but all the year through?

::

Counting gifts with Ann Voskamp…

795. Playing Uno with Pepe, Meme and Rowan
796. Rowan waving from the top of the school stairs
797. New snail pets
798. Scent of vanilla Advent candles
799. New socks! (this is Brad’s)
800. Icicles
801. First snow
802. The luxury of spending a sick day in bed
803. Alley sledding
804. Paint-by-numbers
805. Christmas every day

Playing with God at Laura’s place:

 
 

Celebrating with the Soli Deo Gloria sisters at Jen’s:

 

And Unwrapping with Emily at Chatting at the Sky.

Oh! And it’s not too late for you to link up an Advent post over at Charity’s place — she’s hosting a writing community for The High Calling!

Welcome to the “Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday” community, a place where we share what we are hearing from God and his Word. 
If you’re here for the first time, click here for more information. And if you are a new participant, would you leave me a comment or send me an email to tell me it’s your first time, so I can be sure to stop by and say hello at your place?
Please include the Hear It, Use It button (grab the code over in the sidebar) or a link in your post, so your readers know where to find the community if they want to join in — thank you!
And if you want to tweet about the community, please use the #HearItUseIt hashtag.


Sweet Autumn Acorns

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I’m departing from the typical theme here today because I’m at the Relevant conference in Pennsylvania (and hopefully meeting some of you online friends in person!). I saw this quick and easy recipe at Six in the Suburbs (I found the link at Ann Voskamp’s Weekend links — she finds such great stuff!), and it was simply too fun not to try. Plus I’m hoping that with enough time in the kitchen, my kids will grow up to be phenomenal cooks, just like their dad!

Rowan and I whipped together these cute acorns last week when the boys had a day off from school. They’d make the perfect autumn or Halloween party snack (just make sure no one has a peanut allergy if you plan to bring them to school).

Here’s the recipe (if you can even call it that!):

1. Melt 1/2 bag mini chocolate chips in a bowl.

2. Dip flat end of Hershey Kiss into melted chocolate and top with a bite-sized half of Nutter Butter.

3. Dip flat end of mini-chip into melted chocolate and stick onto other side of Nutter Butter.

4. Pop into mouth! (Rowan will gladly demonstrate how it’s done)