The last time I looked down and couldn't see my feet I was pregnant with a boy. This time I am not pregnant. I am a middle-aged, biscuit guzzling mother of two boys and daughter of two parents who works five days a week- school hours and term-time only- and who is hungry all the time. The disappearing feet were nonetheless a disconcerting discovery one morning this week in the shower.

For a few Lents I have deactivated my Facebook account. This is very easy and very, very effective. That is time you can tangibly retrieve and put to prayer or Bible reading. For another few Lents I have tried to deactivate my gorging on junk food to get me through the next chunk of the day. This has never been successful! I suppose endeavouring to put a spiritual slant on the fact that your clothes don't fit anymore is just not the right motivation.

I wish it was though. Those of us born into first world places and kind families push through into our earthly life with all good things on our side. And what do I end up doing? Bemoaning the first world problem that too much food in my belly means that none of the many clothes hanging in my wardrobe hang on me quite as roomily as they did two years ago. Clearly the fact that I now drive everywhere around my five square miles existence burning significantly more fossil fuels than I do bodily energy is not helping.

Before I went back to working five days I walked to and from their school with the boys, and cycled or walked to my evening library job. I did a little bit of housework everyday instead of collapsing onto the sofa at any given opportunity. I did spend some mornings praying and Bible reading too. I used to say that I didn't believe in exercise, but in an active lifestyle. It all seems very halcyon now!

I clearly need to practise some self-discipline. It makes me think of the verse in Hebrews, which I'd only ever considered as a rebuke to children or wrong-doers:

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:11)

I think that the way I'm living now is a form of wrong-doing. I am not respecting the body God has given me; I am not respecting the privileged position I am in with first world abundance of food and fuel. I think that if I lived more gratitude and generosity I certainly wouldn't eat my way through the biscuit tin every afternoon after school, and I would get us out of the car a bit more. 

I just think that I'd manage that if I was more worried about the world, than about my girth. And I'm not sure I'd deserve any righteousness and peace that came out of dropping a dress size!

The Chronicles of Thrifty Thursday: Chapter 2

It did not begin well as Thrifty set forth on the second week. Cycling down to The School for Sun 2 in stormy windy weather, she was blown from her bike! Hurt, beginning with damage of least importance, was sustained to her ankle, her trousers and her pride! The huge hole in her only pair of jeans remains a challenge to the rules of Thriftiness...

She was, however, highly successful in following the previous week's suggestion that no food should be bought until all existing food was used. This led to fabulously innovative meals, and an evening of hilarious entertainment- banana buns by Mum, cloud scraping decoration by Jo. She even began her Waste Not Exchange project with Ms Efficiency Everyday and handed over the half of a butter milk carton that remained from the baking of said banana buns.

Thrifty had been much impressed by blogtales of chutneys and jams and preservings of all wondrous imaginings. She knew, however, that rushing out to buy ingredients, not to mention a technical thermometer thing, would not at all be in keeping with The Year of Living Small.

But wondrous Nedboy of the country manoir has supplied another harvest, and Thrifty can feel a little bit thrifty after all!

Les Incontournables 2

I think I must have decided sometime in the last fortnight that a time of illness could herald the ideal opportunity for an identity crisis. So you may have to ignore another few days of sifting through my quotidien fabric for the essential threads. Disconcertingly, food seems thus far to be the main focus...

Monday's Greatitudes 221-232

So, our apple blossom weekend started with our apple pie under our single, solitary single apple bearing apple tree. And bloomed mightily on Saturday as we drove into the blossom heaven around Loughgall. Imagine fields and hills and stretching vistas of apple blossom. "It's like the vineyards in France," smiled PC, who doesn't compare anything easily to vineyards in France!

This Northern Land is really one to love. I've been to many places, but wanted to stay in none. Nowhere is further than two hours away, but all of life and landscape is here! It's like my favourite quote on wisdom from The Christmas Mystery- travel everywhere and see everything, or stay in one place and watch it all go past!

I'm also grateful that this week I finished my now named "Apple Blossom" blanket. I feel the title justifies the profusion of pink! And the blanket means that I can blog with confidence, having actually crafted something and not just talked about it!

We had a youth service yesterday morning led by fine, fledling folk! Obviously the choice of PC to play my very, very muchly favourite song was also good. This reminds me that there is one week left to Pentecost Sunday and I am still inspired by Lenten times to pray that this house will be a House of the Spirit. And in this house this week I have some unsettling thinking to do, which is good for the mind. All of which only brings strongly to bear just what a fabulous three years I have had living a life of Mrs Riley.

And lastly gratitude for the highly exciting Ardress House where you can feed chickens and be chased by them all in one cobbled courtyard! (And ride your bikes, eat your picnic, practise your reading with tricky signs like fowl and threshing, and play in a park too...)

Return to the Beach

Monday's greatitudes 199-209

I was tired and entrenched in my bed and I knew that there was no milk for porridge, no jam for toast. And then I remembered my new bike basket! "You're still in your pyjamas!"shrieked Jo on my return from the hill-top shop. "They look just like sports clothes," I managed to pant through my smiles.

Eventually we made it to the Coast. Where the impossibly blue sky stretched wide above us and the impossibly high sand dunes dissolved under our surfing feet. Where I sat like a mad Queen Canute on my blue deck chair, huddling against the wind, while strawberries dug moats that our Prince made to work. Where it struck me that last time we were there I was full of dread at what the school year would hold for us. But we have nearly survived, and our sanity is mostly in tact!

On the way home we even managed to stop at a supermarket and actually buy some real provisions, so that now we have our daily bread and then some, although I am quite pleased with the meals we have thrown together/I have thrown together over the weekend. I may even allow myself to feel like a proper mother!

But mostly what I'm thankful for right now are the clearest answers to specific prayers that I have known since 2008, our year of living in Job 1-2. Yet, in the spirit of Ann Voskamp's lead, I'm going to give thanks for 2008 anyway. The worst of years, and the best in eternal ways.

So tomorrow morning I'll be cycling (with my new bike basket) up past the hill-top shop and on to the hill-top churches where we pray on Tuesday mornings. And say thanks.

Friday Cake Bake on a Saturday

First blow all cobwebs far out to the Irish Sea as you watch the sun go down on Friday.

Get up early on Saturday and have your first batch of cupcakes on the cooling rack by 9am!

Third take cupcakes to the Finale of Niqi's birthday celebrations chez Catherine and Miss Bennett.

Then cycle home in true Miss Marple fashion to the scene of the crime! This is as close as I have yet come to Simone's great example, and it's probably as close as I will get! But I like it!

For the real Friday Cake Bake visit the boulangerie/patisserie that is Linden Grove!