At Home With Dot

My husband and I decided our front walk-way would look fabulous lined with brick to create a matchy matchy with the brick on our house. We started by hiring professionals to lay a solid cement foundation to keep the bricks from moving. We researched how to lay brick, what mortar to use and shopped several locations before deciding on what brick would line our walkway. In s pring 2019, we marked out several weekends for working on the project. We never anticipated the projecting dragging on a year later. Yet, there we were, trying to complete the hardest home project to date in spring 2020. As we ventured into this unknown, there were mistakes made, problems to resolve and solutions to find. What seemed like a doable home project quickly became overwhelming.  As we sit here during quarantine, a time that seems to be dragging on like our brick project, I'm asking myself, "what is the Lord trying to show me during this time?" This event in our lives brought us all home, s

When much is stripped away  It creates a cleansing of sorts. It strips you down to the basics.  Letting you see what you've been missing.  Where your priorities have been off  Its where the Lord meets the heart  because you're finally still enough to listen.  In this simpler time. And you wait. The dust dissipates.  You settle into a new normal. Looking around, you see.  The most important things are still there.   Peaking through.   You realize, the loss of the last months of middle school and kindergarten the canceled family birthday party weekend away, Michael Bublé concert and daughter's first sleepover... All pale in comparison to what really matters.  Your people.  Your family.  Your friends.  You've been given time with no agenda.  The pace of your mind slows to your schedule. And your heart leans into a simpler time.  Other Articles to Support Your Time at Home: Cellphones and Children PART 2 Family Time Sharing the days of childhood to display the importance o

 See part one of this post by clicking here: Children and Cell Phones The warmth of a nice firepit can be so inviting. You gather around with family and friends ready for conversation and maybe a roasted marshmallow or two...or 20. This last summer, while gathered around such a fire, we thought it would be fun to create an illusion that we were roasting our son over the flames (photo taken several feet behind the BBQ). No one was hurt and it was hilarious. Silliness aside, it got me thinking: "where in our son's life are there situations when he is close to something that can consume like a fire?" What is something thats really inviting and beneficial these days but can also be dangerous? About two years ago, an incident occurred in our home that illustrates this danger real well.  I had just walked in the door from upgrading our phones from the iPhone 5 to an iPhone 8. It was almost 1.5 years ago and I remember the afternoon vividly. B efore I even set my purs