Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

Her View from Home

Expecting: How to be a Host and Keep Your Sanity, Too

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It used to be that when I was expecting guests I’d work myself into a frothy frenzy. I swept dust bunnies, scrubbed toilets, planned meals, grocery shopped, baked brownies from scratch, washed sheets, straightened crooked pictures, Windexed windows, pruned dead leaves off house plants.

I even tackled projects I’d been putting off for weeks, like touching up the scuff marks on the stairway walls. I actually did this once when I was expecting out-of-town guests. Except you know what happened? The touch-up paint I used, the paint that was supposed to blend seamlessly into the walls, was the wrong shade, so I ended up having to paint the entire wall…all just hours before my house guests arrived.

…I’m writing over at Her View from Home about how my approach to hospitality has changed in recent years. Will you join me over there for the rest of the story?

*This is actually an edited repost from a series I did called Blogging Benedict a few years ago, based on the book St. Benedict’s Toolbox: The Nuts and Bolts of Everyday Benedictine Living by Jane Tomaine. I may have to revisit this book and this series in the coming weeks!
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The 20-Minute Sabbath

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Recently I launched a new initiative to “Honor the Sabbath.” It’s a commandment after all, one of the big ten, so I figured it must be pretty important. Plus it sounded really good in theory; honoring the Sabbath sounded relaxing. Peaceful. Quiet.

The trouble is, I have children. Two young boys.

Boys who require prepared meals, clean dishes, folded tee shirts, lettuce chopped for the pet lizard and scattered beta fish food vacuumed from the bedroom floor.

Boys who need help with long division and book reports, kitchen cabinets stocked with snacks and peanut butter and raspberry jelly sandwiches sealed into plastic baggies for school tomorrow.  

Boys who are decidedly unquiet.

…I’m writing over at Her View from Home. Join me over there for a 20-minute (or maybe two-minute) Sabbath?

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Striding, Awkwardly

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You sure have a unique stride there,” he says, pulling up beside me on the path, low-to-the ground on his three-wheel, aerodynamic bike. “It’s neat though, real neat.”

“Yeah, it’s not the most efficient,” I agree, pushing a sweaty strand away from my face. “But it still gets me where I need to go.”

He’s right. My running stride is awkward and graceless. I galumph. Like Bullwinkle in a tank top and Nikes. Rather than kicking straight up and back, my feet swing out to either side. It looks a little like I’m swinging an invisible lemon loop round and round my right ankle while I run. I nick my ankles so often with my own sneakers they bleed, sometimes right through my socks.

I’ve tried on occasion to correct my gait, concentrating on keeping my body long and lean, my feet in line with my hips instead of flinging wildly from side to side. But I always give up. I figure I’m not out to break any speed records. I simply want to burn the maximum number of calories in the shortest time possible. And like I told the cyclist on the trail: my stride, flawed and funky as it is, gets me where I need to go.

…I’m over at Her View From Home today…meet over there for the rest of this story?

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My Place on the Great Plains

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What better time to change things up around here than the first week of September? Just a wee tweak to my blogging schedule — as of today, I’m adding Sundays to the mix. Twice each month I’ll be linking over to Her View from Home, a great new website based right here in Nebraska. 

The other two Sundays each month you’ll find a slice of quiet here, a photo and verse with Sandra’s and Deidra’s communities.

So my posting schedule will be Monday-Wednesday-Friday-Sunday. How’s that work for you? Okay, good, I was hoping so!

Here’s today’s post: My Place on the Great Plains


“What’s your absolute favorite place, Mommy?” he asks, as we sit at the kitchen counter with our toasted bagels and sliced strawberries. When I tell my seven-year-old son that I don’t think I have one absolute favorite place, he’s nothing short of horrified.

“What? Not even the cabin? The cabin’s my absolute favorite place,” says Rowan, referring to our family cabin on the North Shore of Lake Superior. “You need to find your favorite place.”
…Will you join me over at Her View from Home, where I am writing about faith and place today?

 
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