Life

My Goals for This Week

June 6, 2016 by Esther Filbrun · Leave a Comment

Planning has always been a sore point for me. I love the idea; love the feel of paper under my fingers and seeing plans take shape before me. I can easily spend hours reading productivity blogs about how one could go about making a plan for what you want to do in a year, broken down into quarters, months, weeks, and finally days. I love it, I really do.

Yet this morning, as I was mulling over the words from Proverbs: “The hand of the diligent shall bear rule…” (12:24), I realized how very lazy I have been about my work lately. How little I’ve accomplished, and how much I’ve let the important things slip.

Grape Harvest

May 30, 2016 by Esther Filbrun · Leave a Comment

Well, I wrote this post a couple weeks ago and intended to add more to it later…but time has slipped away and I’ve finally decided to go ahead and publish it, even if it is a bit late. Nothing much has changed since then anyway.

During the school holidays the last week of April, we got a call saying that it was time to begin grape harvest. I first helped with the harvest five years ago, when friends of ours were managing the vineyard, and have every year since then. It hasn’t always been the easiest or most enjoyable work ever, but over the years—and the last two, especially—I think I’ve learned to enjoy it more.

The Mystery Object: Can You Help?

April 20, 2016 by Esther Filbrun · 3 Comments

One evening this week, my ten year old brother was searching through my sixteen year old brother’s things, trying to find a lost wallet. I don’t know if he ended up finding the wallet or not, but he did discover something fascinating—an old metal thing, with the name “Nat” inscribed on the outside, and a tiny picture of a man on the inside. It is about 15 mm in diameter, so pretty tiny!

There is nothing on the outside edge that would have made it possible to put on a necklace (no little loops or anything), and it wasn’t made to snap onto clothing as a button—we tried that out, and it didn’t work.

Hello, Winter! (and Giveaway Winners)

April 15, 2016 by Esther Filbrun · 1 Comment

Hello, winter, what a surprise!
Icicles blooming before our eyes!

Well, not quite like that. But the heavy frost did come as a surprise to me yesterday morning.

We’ve had skirmishes with frost the last couple weeks, little touches announcing that the hard one is on the way, but up until now we haven’t had anything serious. It’s been chilly, yes, but not quite to the point of freezing.