some New Year glimpses

My first opportunity to handwrite out the new year in my list-making notebook and I wrote it wrong. Of course, it took me a few minutes to look over my list and see that I had casually written ‘Week of January 1, 2024’ and all my great plans written out on Thursday listed underneath. I always write in pencil so it was easy to change the 4 to 5 to read 2025. But it doesn’t seem like a new year yet, since I’m still catching up on posting about 2024. 
But this morning I wrote down Laura’s Term 2 Week 15, Ambleside Online Year 10 Readings and our Morning Time plans for next Monday. 
And I spent time researching ideas and then talking to Seth (as we plan for his university completion and graduation this spring) about refining his job search to help him know where to apply for work. So I’m actually working toward plans for the coming days but still feel the need to process activities and ideas from 2024. So I’m adding posts to 2024 this weekend even though it’s the new year. It’s my way of preserving my record-keeping even if it’s a bit artificial. 
What’s not artificial is the flavor and smell of this perfectly ripe pear that I splurged on earlier this week at the grocery store. Years ago, a hostess shared small pears from her brother’s pear tree paired with delicious cheese and freshly made muffins. It is one of those food memories that stays with you forever. It also went a long way to helping me cultivate a love of good food served with beauty and style.

Soon after becoming a mother for the first time, I found a used copy of A Mother’s Heart by Jean Fleming. I read that book carefully, took notes, reread it, wrote several blog posts about her writings and ideas, recommended it to friends and found another loaner copy to lend out. It was one book that stood out for me as a book on mothering that was practical but theologically strong. Years later, I discovered Sally Clarkson and enjoyed her ideas as well. But it was Jean Fleming who first held my hand as mother looking to understand the needs of her children. I also was the mother who found a used book on playing with children and read carefully through that one. So maybe I’m just a special kind of stunned mother.
In researching new books to add to our local homeschooling group’s library, I found out that Jean Fleming had written a newer book and it looked very good. I kept it on my wish list and while I was ordering Christmas gifts, I took the plunge and ordered it for myself. I haven’t been able to spend much time with it yet; I’m just a few pages in so I’ll reserve my ideas for now. But the topic is how to spend your later years as a faithful Christian and I thought it fitting that she should have been of such help to me as a young mother and now again as an older woman. I found some recordings of various talks she gave on a Discipleship Library, a vintage website and am enjoying hearing her voice and her thoughts.