Tag: work

Our Daily Bread

Season of Uncertainty: struggles over finances and worry for me. Learning to trust in daily provision.

September 14, 2018

Our Daily Bread

Have you ever thought about the line in the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread?”

I always believed it meant to trust God for provision.

I never really lived the “daily” part.

Our life is broken into seasons and in this season, there is no weekly or monthly guaranteed income.  We work daily.  We get paid daily.  Of course, we understand that bills are monthly, so we have to save the money we make in order to pay for monthly provisions.  For the last few months, when we pray that prayer, I understand the “daily bread” part literally.

Our service work is different than a “regular job” in that we don’t have sick days or PTO to pull from when we’re sick.  When I got sick with the mold garbage was a huge cut on our family’s finances.  Our income has even changed from what we had a few years ago: From startup to two years ago our business had several streams of “weekly” or “monthly” income from operating, but times change.  We could take a day off then and it didn’t come with worrying if rent or electric would get behind over it.

God always provides, though.  God makes sure we get enough calls to keep our provisions met (we have been on time for rent & electric in this season).  We get blessed in unexpected ways too.  Unexpected ways are like this past Sunday when a sister from church gave us two boxes of fruit popsicles – the kids LOVE those things!

Radio preachers always say stuff like, “just give what your family would spend eating out.”  It makes me feel so sad.  (We do pay $200 a month to help another – plus anything God tells us to give.  But that is between God and us.) We don’t eat out.  We used to.  If I mention a restaurant we’ve tried “the other day,” it was likely over two years ago.  I don’t tell other people our financial situation.  I don’t like to “bother others” because God does always provide and as long as we have rent, I’m not going to ask anyone for help.  Outside of Louis buying a $20 box from the new Bojangles to try it out for a birthday lunch, we haven’t eaten out in ages.  We understand that good stewardship in our family right now means spending less than $8 for each dinner meal for all of us – and one item each from the dollar menu still breaks that budget.  Honestly, beans and rice (the most common) or spaghetti/zoodles with marinara (2nd most common) cost $2.80 and $3.30 each, respectively.  Most of our family dinners cost us less than $8 a meal.  Breakfast (thank you, God, for eggs!) is under $2 and lunch is usually about $4 since we save full meat and good veggies for dinners.  Since we make feed money off our chickens and eggs, eggs are practically “free.”  We go to a local produce market a mile from us and pick lots of veggies from the $0.50/lb “scratch and dent” box.  I like to think I’m pretty good at stretching money.

For us, this season has taught us to depend on God daily.  That was very hard for me at first.  I am a planner.  I am a saver.  I am very good at saying “no, that’s not on the list,” and not allowing money to be spent on something I consider unnecessary.  But I find it an extreme challenge to not have the full month’s bills sitting in the bank – we used to have six months of bills in the savings account and one in the checking!  I hate the uncertainty of depending on God to give us calls every day.  I look at our reservations and my stomach churns.  There’s usually nothing for me to plan on.  Fifty-three stories online and I made zero in August, so I can’t plan on that just yet.  I’m so unsure that I’m applying for every job that I can possibly pretend my skill sets fit only to be rejected by everything in the last two years.  (Obviously, God doesn’t want me there.)  If I get a job, it will be because God wants me there.  (Maybe God wants me in this season of uncertainty because He’s teaching me to depend on Him more and worry less?)

Do I love working from home?  YES!  (I drive when there are calls, wait at home in-between.) Do I love being able to homeschool, write more stories, tend my garden and tiny farm, and be present as my children grow?  YES!  YES!  YES!  YES!

What is hard for me is accepting uncertainty.

Frankly, though, life is totally uncertain!  A “steady job” is just as uncertain as the “daily bread” season we are in!  It only appears more secure.

Only God is truly certain.  Why would I want to trust in anything else?

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

Amazing Live Music: Evan D Music

(photo from Evan D Music’s Facebook page)

May 29, 2018

Amazing Live Music: Evan D Music

Our weeks are pretty full of stuff.  Between our crossing driver shifts, taxiing children to and from college classes and groups, and just general life – it is awesome to have a mostly-weekly couple getaway afternoon on Mondays.  (THANK YOU! Shout to my amazing sister, Becca, who is brave and possibly just as crazy as me to sometimes text, “Pick them up by 8am tomorrow.”)

That is what we had this week.

The adventure of just Louis and me began with dropping off 7 children at 4pm (Anastasia had “sleptover” Sunday and Christina’s Monday class was canceled because the college was closed) to 6:30am the next day.  Only one cab ride to take someone home before the night was ours.

We had worked in the morning (all 3 cab calls) and ferried Christina to Marine Street for her Civil Air Patrol volunteer time, then spent almost 4 hours playing yard and board games with the girls (I even got to conquer an Age of Empires map with Rebeccah!) so when our time started it was like, “okay, what now?”

I wanted to walk on the beach and surf… wrong tide, and I don’t do baiting-shark surfing (aka night surfing).

Louis said, “I remember hearing some really good music downtown two weeks ago at the Tavern.” (He means the new Taberna del Caballo.)  Oh my! You should go there on Mondays from 4pm to 8pm – trust me, your ears are in for a very special treat!

So down we went.

And there, I was transported backwards to the very skillful, amazing raw guitar sounds that I heard my minstrel-of-the-dawn Daddy playing when I was a child and the awesome worship jams with Louis and his team and I first met.  Clean music, inspiring riffs (…you know, the things where a string musician picks the strings with his fingers so fast the fingers blur all together and you sit in awe with your mouth open…) and timeless songs.

We were listening to the sounds of Evan D Music.  (This guy is about to release a record too… yep, I’m not that old, but projects are records of time and passion, even if they are downloaded on a smart device in snippets.)  He plays around town almost every night but at the Taberna del Caballo Mondays from 4pm to 8pm.

One lady at another table had the best stadium whistle I’d ever heard (right through her fingers, no device!)  I’m sure people at the Oasis on the beach heard it.  You should have seen the two adorable kids dancing along with most of the patrons when one particularly moving song was performed.  (Louis doesn’t dance, so I’m not going to dance without him… but had the girls been there, we would have been dancing around too.)

I love live passionate music.  You can tell when an artist puts their heart and soul into their work – and Evan surely does.  I grew up listening to my Daddy play “story” songs from Phil Collins to Gordon Lightfoot to Jackson Browne, Moody Blues, Beach Boys, and all in between.  (We sat down to hear Evan playing “Kokomo” which was way cooler live with a riff-master on guitar – and he can sing the higher harmonies – I hadn’t heard that since my little brothers’ voices changed!)  My Daddy’s eyes would light up like he had stars in them when he strummed the tunes.  For years, I thought Lightfoot’s “Minstrel of the Dawn” was the story of my Daddy.  I loved just listening to the guys play when Louis and I first met; they’d be crammed in Grandpa’s attic room and wailing away and I’d hide on the stairs or they’d be practicing in the empty auditorium and I would slide off to the dark side entryway and dance.  I still love it when Louis (who claims he’s really rusty) plays guitar or Christina or Becca play piano.

Real music is the love of my heart.  It lifts my soul, engages my mind, heart, memories, and emotions, and spins a relaxing web of tranquility through the air.  This is what I felt listening to the talented Evan D Music; and this wonderful little place on St. George Street will be a regular haunt for us from 4pm to 8pm as long as we have Mondays off and Evan is playing there!

Check Evan D Music out on Facebook and YouTube and come be in his audience before he makes it to the Amphitheatre!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

Family Fun Fest 2018

May 4, 2018

Family Fun Fest 2018!

We spent all day on April 28, 2018, a beautiful Saturday in Saint Augustine, at the Family Fun Fest.  This annual event at Francis Field supports the community work of Alpha Omega Maternity Home and their related outreaches.

Alpha Omega has been a vital community resource in Saint Augustine for a long time.  They are a wonderful organization to support – and we love the all-day fun!

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I set up a vendor booth to sell my printed books, DVD books, audio CDs, some of the girls’ assorted crafts, and my mom and dad’s beautiful prints.  We had a spot for children to make free bookmarks with fun yarn tassels.  (This was on the bright teal table & was Kimberly and Jaquline’s idea. Lots of kids stopped to color!)

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Christina and Rebeccah volunteered all day!  Didn’t they look sharp in their aprons?

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Kimberly, Jaquline, Jillian, and Anastasia were ambassadors for the face painting booth.  The artist did such an amazing job transforming their faces into bright works of art!

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Lucas wanted to be a tiger, but after watching his sisters and cousin sit still, he decided running was the life for him and no face paint was needed. Notice the big blow-up fun things behind the sister-cousins?  Once those went up, Lucas didn’t want to sit still!

Kimberly’s face paint scared some little ones.  (It almost scared me when she closed her eyes and had snake eyes on her eyelids!)

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Lucas almost never stopped dancing.  But then, the DJ was great so there was fun non-stop music.

We bought wristbands for the kiddies and they became “pros” at the various obstacles by the end of the day. (The lady at the Boy Scout’s obstacle said Anastasia and Jillian kept challenging each other to “new heights” like “tightroping with eyes closed” or “doing ballet across the bar.”)

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This event started at 10am and ended at 8pm.  We were there setting up at 7:30am and left the field just before 9pm.  (I did have to wait on my volunteers to finish assisting with some break-downs and you know; we like to chat!)

Local performers from dance schools to martial arts schools to youth groups and bands filled up the stage.  (Christina’s vantage point for this was perfect: she saw every act and relayed amazing reviews to our booth later.)  There were plenty of games for little ones.  Rebeccah got to play with them for hours!

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Jillian and Anastasia were so excited to meet Princess Cinderella!  Lucas was beside himself – he came back repeating, “Mommy, Cinderella is here!”

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The team obstacle course was fun to watch!  We clapped and encouraged each one – Kimberly’s commentary should have been shared over a loudspeaker for everyone else to laugh at!  (She has some Aunt Katy & Aunt Becca MC skills in there.)

Lucas finally took a 30 minute nap under my table (the “campout zone”) about 5pm.  He came to get a banana, but didn’t quite finish it!

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None of the little girls wanted a break – but they all fell asleep in the van on the way home!

Although it wasn’t a great “sale” day (we sold one book, one bracelet, and one set of clips), it was an amazing “fun” day and we’ll definitely be there again next year!

Come join us!  Follow Alpha Omega for updates and opportunities to volunteer at this event or at the campus.  Together, we can help our community grow stronger!  And, yes, have some amazing fun along the way!

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Oh yes, just this last picture of Anastasia snuggling with Grandma.  (No, she wans’t asleep, she was pretending so she could snuggle!)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

The Demon – (aka jab test)

March 2, 2018

The Demon (aka jab test)

Well, it ended up that the evening of the day someone broke into our van and I got sick, it wasn’t just a fever and go thing.  The fever didn’t want to go away (all my life low fever & cough might take a while, but rest, food, and a few days and it’s usually gone) and the cough felt deep and odd.  I have a sneaky feeling I’ve fought this off before (as a kid, when “sleep, hot potato soup, and pink medicine” made it disappear in a week) but at this stage in my life the distant memory of a thing called “sleep” and the vibrant energy of my work and home was not working in my favor.  Nine days and low fever, I wasn’t doing a good enough job – I needed antibiotics.

I didn’t want to go to the clinic because, although Louis thinks we have a “plan” nothing ever works in my family’s favor financially when I get hurt/sick.  So I was worried about the cost of clinic plus antibiotics.   Louis is like, the clinic is free.  (no, it was $75)  Then when I see a doctor, she’s like “we can’t help you because your O2 (oxygen) levels are too low, you have to go to the ER.” (2 pts, just 2pts!)

Really?  I was so frustrated and totally wanted another clinician’s opinion as hopefully someone would just give me the antibiotic I needed and send me home.  I did not want thousands of dollars of garbage so I could get a bottle of pills.  (I knew it was pneumonia: why couldn’t I just call old man Gower’s Drugs and get a prescription delivered to my house?  I don’t care how many release of liability forms I have to sign.)

Instead, Louis has my mom on the phone when he picks me up – and instead of trying Healing Arts for a second opinion (where I wanted to go in the first place) – it’s just ER.  (Oh, side note?  I think the O2 machine at the clinic was straight-up-kooky-dooks because my O2 levels at the ER?  94.)  Supposedly way higher than at the clinic.  No wonder the physician looked at me like I was hissing words. And have you ever done a flu “jab” test?  (I will 100% avoid the hospital FOREVER simply because of that demon – I now have a fear worse than needles! this makes my white-coat-phobia totally valid!)  After that assault, my perfectly healthy nose was bleeding, swollen, running, and the next CNA to enter asked if I had been like this for 9 days?  (HAHA, no, some dude jabbed a stick up my nose, and this eyes watering and burning, nose running, bloody discharge, is brand new.  Want to know how afraid of this place I was before this?  Now you won’t get me in IF I’m really dying.)

At least these two came in to do the one thing needed that I guess a clinic can’t do.  XRay.  Bingo, with that picture, even a laymen could see junk in half of my left lung.  Great.  The blood guy (who used to work with Louis – everyone in this town knows Louis) asks if I know why I’m here.  I’m like, yes, pretty sure what I thought was a normal cold with a cough is pneumonia.  He asks about pain.  Only in my nose.  Supposedly there’s great chest pain associated with pneumonia that I had lacked to mention (guess my body is just a unique biological specimen – maybe that’s why taking Benadryl for a few bites turns my entire body into a solid rash worse than chicken pox for a week).  Louis says I have a huge pain tolerance.

Becca, Mom, and Anastasia show up (I’m sure Becca is here just to remind me of children.) By this time they know its pneumonia the only guess is am I staying?  Another nurse does a breathing treatment, during which Becca is constantly asking me questions and I’m giving her eyes.  Anastasia sits with her Ipad and Minnie Mouse and is smiling.  Louis still looked worried.  Then we’re told, “oh, you can go home, we’re just waiting on paperwork.”  A pill for 10 days with orders to sleep and not work.  (WHO am I kidding??  That isn’t going to happen.  But I will try my best.)

So I’m home, trying to rest playing a weird game with my girls.  The perfect question pops up (this is some teen personality game for “what faction would you be in Divergent” so I do not know why this question is there) it reads “you are trapped on an island with your crush: you do… a) b) c) d) or e) relax and enjoy! You finally have some alone time!  (And this is making me laugh the entire evening away – because I’d totally be YIPPPEEEE NO PHONES because I could totally go all Swiss Family Robinson and LOVE it forever as long as my family was there.)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

 

Yard Work Day

June 30, 2017

Yard Work Day

Today was a yard work day.

I love yard work day because I love to mow grass.  With our push mower, it’s a walking workout where you can sing your lungs out and no one can hear you.  Today I was interviewing Ethan while I mowed instead of singing.

The girls love yard work day because after we spend hours yanking stumps and sticks and dead wood out of the ground (this yard was Florida brushland 8 months ago, so it was loaded with hidden spikes where bush stumps stick out of the ground), we can burn them in our fire pit (8 concrete blocks set in the dirt off the backyard in the middle of the dirt pit – I like to pretend that’s the summer kitchen; it might be, someday).

The dogs love yard work day.  Primrose likes it because she gets to be outside with us.  Sheba gets the whole house to herself – and we’ll come in to find her stretched out on top of the couch with a nest made out of her blanket.

But the critters who make the absolute best of yard work day are the chickens.  They follow the mower like rats following the Pied Piper, each hoping to snatch more dislodged bugs and fresh, juicy greens than every other chicken.  They race to whoever is raking and scratch the hay all over finding bugs. (10 adult chickens can smooth a leaf pile flat in less than a minute!)  They spy a child toting the full hay bucket toward their henhouse – Crow Cackle Cackle! – they call all other foraging chickens as they race back to the henhouse to inspect and rearrange their new hay immediately.  Soft grass cuttings make hay.  Thicker, brush-type cuttings make the hen yard mulch.  We fill this “hen yard mulch” about 6 to 10 inches deep and the chickens continually scratch and add nitrogen to it for a few weeks.  We use this finished, fertilizer-infiltrated, shredded indigestible plant material to mulch our bulb beds and for our future garden.

The bonus of yard work day is that everyone feels like we’ve accomplished much, we all clean up, eat dinner, and sleep.  The children all go to sleep as soon as they are out of the bath.  Even Mom is tired, but after the last outside chore (herding the reluctant chicken flock back into the hen yard for the night), I breathe in the sweet smell of cut grass, fresh earth, and wood smoke.  And we finish our yard work day with sticky, gooey roasted marshmallows over the dying fire’s embers.

Working outside always relaxes me.  I totally love how when God made us and put us in the perfect environment; perfection was a garden!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

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