Life Goals

December 28, 2022

Life Goals

I continually reevaluate my “life goals,” if you want to call them that.  

Core has always been to love Jesus, pass that on to everyone I can touch, and show love when I can.  The additions have changed a little:

Pre-twenties, I wanted to be a wife, mother, and teacher.  Did that.  Am living that.

Twenties to mid-thirty: The only earthly thing I wanted for my children was a home they all grew up in and family roots.  I failed at that. Life teaches you lessons and you hope to pass on the results so they don’t fall into the same trap.

Thirty-three and beyond, I only want my children to love Jesus in a true life-long relationship; I’ve learned that everything in life beyond relationships is just temporary.  

Lately, my older children have made comments in passing that really cut to my heart.  The first year I didn’t unwrap a gift from you.  (Her gifts were too large to wrap & smaller things were in her stocking.)  Wow, they’ve lived there like 12 years, that would never be us.  (We did have a home for 14 years, just moved to two different places during that ownership to help other people for seasons.)  You don’t give me stuff like the other girls’ moms.  (No, I can’t give anyone a brand new car as they get their license, a new laptop, the latest phone, gaming systems, etc.  I provide you with opportunities to save for those things and decide their value yourself.)

Those things and other assorted in passing comments have made me delve into self-examination for the past couple of months.  I can’t talk to my Daddy about it, praying feels one-way, a memory pops up of Louis’ accident last year and the days of challenges and miracles, I feel like I’ll never dig us out into property that is our home (though I keep reminding my doubt that I left that in God’s hands, the doubt keeps trying to come in), people I know whose children I know are dying from poison, I pray daily for those I know who are affected: my life feels useless as I feel like I can’t do much for anyone.

This morning I saw the evidence of a life well lived.  My entire perspective changed. 

There was a young woman in a beautiful wedding dress beaming a smile holding onto the arm of an elegant man in a suit.  Their faces shone with love.  The photo was a portrait size and in black and white; aged scores of years. You could feel their love.  Two candles on either side of the little table below the portrait.  Mementos and memories on the table; he had passed away before her.  It reminded me of my mother’s tribute shadowbox for my Daddy.  Her home was full of framed pictures: children and grandchildren in various smiles and grins.  A few in the midst of laughter – those cherished candid photos that you keep even if they aren’t the best quality.  Worn rocker.  Stockings.  A Christmas tree.  An open Bible.  Her faith and the relationships she had cultivated radiated from each well-worn book, devotional, and study guide on that little bookshelf. My writer’s brain wondered how many of those books she or her husband had bought and then passed around. How many grandchildren had heard stories from that Children’s Bible with the bent binding?  Children told her goodbye: that they loved her, they didn’t want her to leave, that they would see her later in heaven, one told her to give daddy a kiss from her.  

That is a life well-lived.  

Her children loved her enough to keep taking care of her at home; like Mom did for Grandma Jeanette.  Don’t ever put me in a nursing home.  Because of love, they sacrificed and made it happen that they cared for mom at her home so she could die in peace.  Her face showed that peace.  

That is a life well-lived. 

I was so overwhelmed with emotion for that wonderful woman I didn’t know.  Grandma Jeanette told me once to “live with no regrets” which I also remember from the lady who gave me my first cookbook.  She’d been married four times and raised five boys.  Her life story was how to gather things and make stews and build add-ons to her house and save people from storms on the lake.  Her sons all passed on her faith; I played with her grandchildren and they were the first group of children I’d met who talked about Jesus like a close friend like my family did.  She wrote “God will bless your life, let Him lead,” in my cookbook cover (I was 7 years old).  She died shortly after at 90-something.  

That is a life well-lived. 

Live with no regrets.  Love without reservation.  

My goal is to allow my children to see Jesus through me, to trust Him in everything, to do my absolute best to shine His love wherever I can.  

Life doesn’t have to be long to be well-lived.  I consider the life I’ve already lived to be amazing.  I thank God for each day He’s given me.  For the challenges we’ve overcome as a family, for the health miracles which are the reason my babies and I are here, for the protection over my daughters’ hearts as they allow it, for the relationships we have with each other.  Those I’ve known for seasons who are friends like sisters and brothers in my heart.  Growing those relationships as best I can even when life is “too busy” and time is challenging; that is a goal. 

Live with no regrets.  Love without reservation. 

I was 12, she was a beautiful frail girl with a rapturous joy of life and Jesus and family when we met her.  She shared her love with everyone without caring what they thought.  If someone stared at her bald head, she would approach them and say, hi, how are you today? And try to show them love and happiness.  She came to our house probably because we treated her and her sister just like we treated anyone else; we played with them, swang with them, took them for canoe rides, fished on the shore while she braided flowers, played with our chickens and dogs together, told stories to each other, and otherwise enjoyed life.  She lost her battle with cancer shortly afterward, but I couldn’t cry.  She was home with Jesus like she talked about all the time.  She told us we had to still play with Danielle.  As long as we lived there, we did.  I still love Erica and Danielle like they were my own sisters; since we were sisters in the faith, we are sisters. 

That is a life well-lived. 

He was his sisters’ baby doll.  He protected everyone.  He was loved by everyone.  He knew who needed to hear and in turns shared his faith and struggles and love with them.  His smile told you everything you needed to know; he was genuine.  He died protecting those he cared about.  His legacy is the love and relationships left in the hearts of those he loved and who loved him; and the relationships they created when coming to celebrate his life.  He was my brother’s friend.  His family and mine were intertwined in so many relationships through many seasons of our lives.  

That is a life well-lived. 

My perspective shifted.  It set me back on the track that my brain keeps trying to veer me off of.  My true life goal is to shine with Jesus’ light: to make strong relationships, to build into people, to share my faith, to encourage others, to help when I can, to do my very best to love as Jesus does.  And in Jesus’ time, when my story on Earth is finished, I will go home and those I love will see a life well-lived. 

Right now, I’m living my life well-lived!

Thank you for reading!

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

Uncle Buddy Hair

Nephew wants to be like Uncle.

December 9, 2022

Uncle Buddy Hair

Lucas has had some interesting hair escapades.  Like the one week when Louis played “gel up the boys hair” with Isaac, Lucas, and JJ.  

There was the first time I gave him a “big boy” haircut like Daddy’s when he discovered the do-everything-like-Daddy mode. 

Over Thanksgiving this year, my brother came down.  Instead of his always-growing-out hair that he only cut for donating, my little brother was sporting a military crew almost shaved cut.  Lucas loved it.  Lucas spent most of the time trying to climb on Buddy, so it really was only a little surprise when I came home to Lucas without any hair.

Louis had been trimming his & Lucas said, “Dad, I want an Uncle Buddy Haircut!” 

Mom would have tried to talk him out of total shaved, but Daddy was like, “oh yeah!” and buzz clippers made very short work of Lucas’ hair – that he had been “growing out” the last time we did haircuts.

Lucas seems to like it.  One of the afterschool friends pets his head and says “good dog” – but Lucas just barks and laughs.  Louis said, “maybe I should have left a little hair,” but it grows back.  

The girls and Louis called him Aang (from the Last Airbender series) and I’ve got to laugh because there is a bit of a resemblance when he’s goofing off…

At least we are facing a Florida winter!  I tease him that beanies will be his best friend! 

Thank you for reading!

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

The Coldest Day

When you’ve worked almost two years to get a harvest and a deep freeze threatens; you save the navel oranges! Jaquline’s Birthday Story

January 4, 2019

The Coldest Day

This is story of the coldest day for us in winter 2009-2010:

It was the second winter in the farm house.  We loved that house because there were twelve citrus trees, a huge ancient fig tree, an Asian pear tree, tons of mulberry, pecan, and oak trees, an old neglected trio of muscadine grape vines on the arbor, and blackberry vines in thickets around the perimeter fence.

We had worked feeding and tending each of the trees for almost two years.  Most had given us hearty thanks in the form of yummy, sweet fruit.  Well, the pecans actually were eaten by the over abundant squirrel population and one of the orange trees was sour so when we wanted lemonade we actually just popped off six of those giant sour oranges and made orangeade instead.  It was light yellow in color and except for a slight orange flavor; the girls thought it was lemonade!

There were two tangerines, one pink grapefruit, three yellow grapefruit, one tangelo, two small orange, one lime, and one sour orange tree that had given us fruit after the first winter.  Since it had been a mild winter with no deep freezes, the fruit was sweet and had set on the trees over spring as we harvested it in perfectly manageable sets.

Only the navel orange hadn’t yielded fruit.  Until this year.  It was so loaded we had to support the weaker limbs with stilts despite heavy pruning during the summer!  We were so excited because we’d been told it was the sweetest fruit but almost never had a crop.  It looked like we had accomplished our goal!

But this winter had only just started.

We’d already had almost a week of mild freezes – just enough for frost, but not enough to freeze the fruit.  Grandma Jeanette had called them “sugar freezes.”  Now I knew that was because citrus fruit needs five to seven days of light freezes to sweeten.  However, the one deep freeze could destroy the whole crop as it would freeze the fruit through the skins and rot them.  We had watered down each tree carefully just before sunrise after each of the light freezes, but the forecast said tomorrow, January 7, 2010, we would wake to temperatures below 28 degrees.  In our little area, we sunk two to four degrees below what the news said every time.

This would be a fruit-killing deep freeze.

And of all our citrus, the navel orange had the thinnest skin so would be the most affected.

I determined we would harvest all that fruit today.

We didn’t do school lessons, but immediately after milking the cow and feeding the chickens, we tugged the blue fruit bucket (a giant plastic washtub that held about 12 bushels) over to the tree and started picking.  I sent Christina and Rebeccah into the tree.  At 6 and 4 they were already experts at climbing through citrus trees avoiding the horridly sharp thorns.  They scrambled up and out to get the highest fruit.  We worked on for hours, singing and laughing.  And my belly contracted.  I was 41 weeks pregnant.

After her work was over, Grandma Joanne showed up.  Seems there’s this old wives tale that if you reach up a lot while you’re pregnant, your baby will be all wrapped up in their cord.  (Maybe so, as 2-year-old Kimberly, who was racing around tossing fruit her sisters plopped on the ground into the bucket, had been born with her cord around her neck.  I hung clothes out on a line her whole pregnancy.)  I told her I wasn’t wasting this fruit.  I offered her a bag.  She didn’t think that was funny.  We were almost done.  We were on our third bucket and there were only a few scattered edge pickings left.  Rebeccah had decided they were unreachable.  That was why I was on the ladder to get them.  Christina was busy, putting the last bucket’s goodies into some of the fruit boxes in the garage.

Using the ladder and 4-prong rake (the girls call it the hand-tiller or the fruit-grabber depending on which use we were employing), we managed to get all of the succulent fruit off of that beautiful tree.

That night, I couldn’t sleep.  For the first time I watched all three “Lord of the Rings” extended editions back to back in the bed as I tried to sleep.  Baby was coming.

Early morning on the coldest day of our winter of 2009-2010, Jaquline Ellouise Tart was born.

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Jaquline and Grandma Joanne – Jaquline is less than an hour old.

Christina and Louis made us sweet, fresh orange juice for celebration drinks!  (And yes, Jaquline was born with a cord so long the midwife and her assistant measured it to confirm it was the longest they’d ever seen – and it was wrapped around her neck “like a winter scarf,” according to our midwife but was too long to pose a risk.)

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Jaquline and Lucas with leaves!

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Jaquline with Daddy at a football game!

Jaquline will be nine in a few days… and the story of the navel oranges picked the day before her birth is one of her favorites!   She also loves the part about how she chose to be born on the coldest day that hit our house that winter.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

My Civil Air Patrol Cadet

July 12, 2018

My Civil Air Patrol Cadet

One day Louis was driving past the Saint Augustine Civil Air Patrol building and saw cadets marching around in uniform.  He stopped, asked them what they were, and raced home to tell Christina that he found the perfect activity for her.

She is my flying nut.  She loves planes.  Just like Lucas loves anything with wheels – she loves anything that flies (except mosquitoes and no-see-ums).  Better said; Christina loves anything mechanical that flies.

She’d studied famous flying people, physics, beat her way through math, and taken a helicopter tour for her birthday.  She’d talked with pilots as Louis shuttled them to the airport from their hotels.

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She had the time of her life when some friends took her to the Jacksonville Air Show! (Photo credit above & below – Hannah Clark & crew)

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The poster from that day was the first one tacked to her wall.

So, she “visited” the CAP meetings with Louis for three weeks – but Wednesday morning after her first meeting, she was like, “Mom, I’m going to join Civil Air Patrol.”  Of course, Christina’s decisions are never small – “I’m going to get to officer rank and they have all these things I can learn so I can get into programs to help me learn to fly…” and she continued talking me through the book and information someone had given her.

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She is a scrimping saver and refused any help with CAP dues, fees, or for her first uniform.  (This is a point of pride for her – to be able to cover all her own expenses.  She saw God’s love in action, though, when she thought she wouldn’t be able to go to winter encampment but our amazing church family gave her enough money for the trip and the extra items needed!)

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CAP gave her a grant to go toward buying her first blues uniform though – something about earning a certain rank.  (These are my borrowed shoes for her first day wearing blues.  Her real ones have a one inch heel and no decoration.)

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Lucas loves Christina’s uniform – especially the caps (aka, covers).

Thanks to CAP, Christina has matured greatly in social interaction (you can order younger siblings around all day, but it is different ordering someone else around!).  She is more confident, more physically active, emotionally and physically stronger, and enjoying the company of respectful, goal-driven, encouraging fellow cadets.

Our family has learned some new terms: water is hydration, anything not a uniform is civies, a funny backpack with a water bag inside and a fishtank-hose looking straw hanging around the cadet’s neck is a camelback, among others.

 

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We’ve swelled with pride watching our cadet march in parades (even if we only get a picture of her back half hidden behind another cadet)…

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…assist veterans in her blues…

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…and attend encampment as a student…

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…and staff.

She’s constantly challenging herself to new higher limits – one day, I’m sure, she’ll touch the sky!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

 

 

 

 

Garden Lesson

February 16, 2018

Garden Lesson

Cold, actually cool (we’re in Florida, “cold” means less than 50 degrees), breezes attacked us.  Winter means pruning roses, repotting figs, starting seeds in pots, and refreshing the soil in beds for spring sowing, all to prepare the garden for a new crop.

Newness.

Even though spring is several weeks away, we are preparing for it.  We break ground in the old soil, turn it, remove the weeds, add new fertilizer, repair containers, and get everything ready for new life.  Taking a deep breath, I wonder at how our lives revolve in seasons.  Being broken, removing old things, repairing ourselves, adding fresh knowledge to keep us alive; to be healthy we are continually renewing our minds and hearts.

Gardens teach us so much about patience, care, and investing in the future with uncertainty as our only guarantee.  I can perfectly prepare the soil, make a perfect bed, and give my seeds the best chance at life – sometimes they grow and flower beautifully, but sometimes life happens; a storm, flooding, foraging animals, tramping children, drought, pests.  Sometimes the crop fails, but I patiently restart for the next season.  This reminds me how I love my children; I do my best, pray, and trust in God to guide their hearts to Him.  It’s also the same way God loves us – patiently repairing us time and again and starting us anew each time.

Gardens teach us so much of life.

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

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