The Ways of Her Home

Embracing the homeward call

Spring 2020: Counting Every Blessing

Spring 2020 was a doozy. These days just the mention of 2020 comes with sighs and eye-rolls. Covid-19 has brought hardships, stress, and loss to many. Our family has dealt with the heaviness as well in a number of ways, but the Lord has also showered blessing upon blessing on us. I love the song "Counting Every Blessing" by Rend Collective and have had that song in my head since The Rona hit. So today I'm counting every blessing of Spring 2020! And because there were so many, this is an incredibly long post, but mostly photos. Blessing 1: The Great Outdoors Not a single day passed during all of isolation where the sun did not rise! And with each sunrise came new mercies and ... Read more

Looking Back: Winter 2019/2020

Hello again! Yesterday I posted some highlights of FALL 2019. Today I'm moving on to WINTER 2019/2020! As soon as Thanksgiving was over and the fall decorations were packed away, we went straight into Christmas festivities. My tea ladies and I kicked off the season the last weekend in November with a tea lunch at a beautiful tea room, all decorated for the holidays! This leisurely tea time was our calm before the holiday storm. The first weekend in December, our family went to cut down our Christmas tree at a tree farm we've been going to since our oldest was a baby. I took a lot of family photos, and won't post those here, but it was a lovely, sunny day on the tree farm! It's ... Read more

Looking Back: Fall 2019

Hello, friends! This week I'm going to play a little catch up here on the blog. I'd like to begin with some highlights of our past school year, but even just the highlights would be too much for one post, so I'm going to do this in three posts: fall, winter, and spring. Today I'll share FALL 2019! We started our twelfth year of homeschooling in late August 2019. The chalkboard below was our photo prop for first-day-of-school pictures. One of our favorite ways to end the summer season and start a new school year is with an outdoor performance by our city’s symphony! My oldest daughter and her friend invited some of their college friends who were new to the area as a way of ... Read more

Homemade Yogurt and Granola

We are a household of yogurt eaters which can quickly add up on the grocery bill. With this recipe, I can make FIVE quarts of organic yogurt for less than $10! If you don't care about using organic milk, it's even cheaper. I originally found the recipe on the Titus2 blog, and I can't remember exactly how long I've been making it, but I know we were living in our previous house when I started so that was at least 7 years ago.  I always seem to measure time according to the which house we lived in or how old my children were at the time, ha! Anyone else? We love this yogurt! If you’ve never made yogurt, you’re going to be surprised at how simple it is! Homemade ... Read more

Papa Melvin’s Workshop

It's really hard to know where to start a post when a loved has passed from this earth to go home to heaven. I could brush over it and keep posting about cooking, cleaning, and other aspects of daily life. However, I would be remiss to not stop and pay tribute to a truly great man. My father-in-law was hardworking, honest, and devoted. He lived a life committed to the Lord through years of providing for his family, adoring his wife, raising his kids, and serving his church and community. Later in life he enjoyed the fruit of his labor with a retirement that offered almost a decade of cruise vacations with his bride and woodworking in the shop just behind their house. Melvin was quite ... Read more

A Very Random Tuesday Hello

I’ve not posted much in the last few months so I just want to pop in and say HELLO! We’ve been busy finishing the school year and that has needed to come first. I love homeschooling and I don’t want to let my kids down by putting other things ahead of their education. This is our first full week of summer break, yippee! Now, we do keep up some very light schooling throughout the summer months just to keep our minds sharp, but it’s at a very, verrrry leisurely pace. And we give ourselves at least one or two full weeks off just to unwind and decompress first! The photo above is from a walk my younger two kids and I took this morning at our neighborhood pond. After walking a while, we ... Read more

Easter Eats 2020

Hello again! I'm back today with the Easter menu I prepared this year. So, from breakfast to dessert, here goes! I'd been saving this recipe for Strawberry Bread since last spring and decided to make it for breakfast. Definitely making this again! It was so good and moist, and more like a poundcake than a bread. I put out a bowl of chocolate eggs to go with it. After breakfast we had a meaningful time of worship and then finished up lunch preparations.***** Easter Menu Brown Sugar Glazed Ham (recipe below) Cheesiest Mac and Cheese Bacon and Pea Summer Salad (With one change: I cooked and crumbled the bacon because I didn’t have packaged bacon ... Read more

Birds and Bunnies Easter Table

Easter this year was definitely different from our norm, wasn't it? Considering there would be no new Easter outfits, no neighborhood egg hunts, no gatherings with extended family, and no full pews at the church building for Easter service, I delighted in all the encouraging posts and messages about the TRUE meaning of Easter NOT changing. JESUS IS RISEN! In that regard, our Easter was very much the same and just as meaningful as always! Everything else is just fluff. Speaking of fluff, I did still try to fluff up our table for Easter lunch! It wasn't at all what I'd planned earlier on with ideas of fresh flowers and pretty pastels. As for the fresh flowers, this past year we ... Read more