Seeing Beauty in Hard Places, part 3

Long hours on the road this summer were brightened by a vase of flowers from our garden!

By the way, Elsa and I trained our way into more driving over the past two months than we had been able to do in the previous decade combined! This is another part of our major "rehab" from years of chronic illness. 

Garden flowers also brightened up our hotel room for part of Dad's month at Mayo.

And the first tomatoes from our garden came along to ripen in the window.

Sunsets and a couple of ponds were another bit of beauty we looked for each day.

Did you notice my “garden” in the photo behind the orange juice*? Probably not. It’s all in one’s perspective!

That little patch of wildflowers between a highway and a hotel parking lot was a bright spot in an otherwise ugly setting. Especially compared to our lush flowerbeds back home with rarely the sound of a vehicle on our gravel roads and fresh air blowing across the prairies… that month in an airless hotel room on the edge of a city was not a restful or healing place.

And yet God turned it into a time of healing the nervous system at deeper levels, just because it was so far from peaceful or natural. What mattered was that He had called me to these new challenges, and He was there to meet my needs. By wiring in the truth through brain rewiring (neuroplasticity) methods, my nervous system learned that even there, I was safe with Him!

*The orange juice itself was a brain rewiring win after more than a decade without! I enjoyed it most days at the hotel as well as training with some more "firsts" of a bagel, corn flakes, conventional ice-cream, and a waffle cone! Plus walking up to 3 miles at a time on the paths and sidewalks of our community.

Seeing Beauty in Hard Places, part 2

When able, we got Dad out of the city altogether during his month of treatments at Mayo. On what turned out to be his best day in several months, we explored a state park that was new to us. Moss, bogs and wildflowers lined a pleasant path to the main feature of the park...

...a waterfall! So refreshing!

Mom even managed the hike between her two knee replacements!

And Elsa and I had to check out the fun playground make of logs and lumber! Reviving a childlike curiosity and spontaneity adds joy to life (as well as making fun pictures to send to nephews and neice)!

A Year of Rehab

My sister Elsa and I have realized that we are in a major "rehab regimen" in many areas of life after chronic illness. The most recognizable of those areas would be rebuilding strength and balance in our muscles and joints.

After years of chronic fatigue and debilitating pain, my body needs careful training out of harmful, weak postures into healthy and strong positions.

Just as the daily practice of brain rewiring to heal the nervous system is a slow but steady process of forming new, healthy pathways which we want to become automatic, so regular exercise with WholyFit trains the body out of unhealthy patterns and into those that benefit all of life!

Why I Choose WholyFit

I love how WholyFit is a Christ-centered stretching based system built on scientific principles that equips us with holistic practices for wholeness and healing. It even strengthens 5 times faster than other exercise modalities! 

Plus it is a safe way to get back into movement and fitness after years of inactivity and weakness, as proved by the fact that my sister got certified to teach WholyFit last year and has since been helping women through online classes.

NOTE: WholyFit has nothing to do with Yoga beliefs or practices. God created movement and the ways our bodies can strengthen and stretch. WholyFit methods and routines are carefully developed based on safety and effectiveness (unlike some traditional Yoga poses). They are also built to help us memorize and meditate on the word of God as we do our best to take care of this "temple" of our bodies He has given us.

For more info, hear from WholyFit founder Laura Monica: “Why I Quit Yoga and Started WholyFit” 

Does a moderately paced workout for all fitness levels - done on your own schedule from the comfort of your own home - sound interesting to you? If so, read on!

Current Class Details

• On-demand workout video access: September 1 - December 31, 2025

• Includes 16 workouts safe for pregnancy and diastasis recti (20-30 minutes each)

PLUS 6 workouts safe for the general population (1 hour each)

• $60 USD for 4 months total (Sept. - Dec.)

Have more questions? Want to sign up? Or can't make this class work, but want to know of future class offerings? 

Learn more and sign up for email updates on Elsa's webpage HERE.

Or email Elsa at elsa.wholyfit@gmail.com

Seeing Beauty in Hard Places, Part 1

As mentioned in my last post, we spent a month of this summer at Mayo clinic. Since Dad had less than an hour of treatments per day, we looked for ways to get out of the city/clinic atmosphere as much as possible. At least as much as Dad was able to handle.

Even in the middle of the downtown roar of traffic and construction/demolition, we enjoyed a stroll to this park with a fountain one afternoon.

Then God had a beautiful surprise planned for us on the day we drove up to enjoy the Mississippi River. We always like to stop at the Lake City marina where the river widens to a lake up to 3 miles across. This particular Saturday we were surprised to see so many sails out... until we found out that local sailors were giving rides for a donation to a fundraiser.

And that is how we got out sailing in a year where our own Weta stayed parked in the shed! This Catalina 310 was the biggest sailboat we've gotten to try yet, and our captain and first mate were a good fit for us.

It is just so good to get out in God's creation!

• Viewing the Mississippi from Frontenac State Park (and trying to stay cool in intensely humid heat!)

Making Beauty in Hard Places... Stitch by Stitch

Mom just got her biggest crochet project ironed up and on the table last night! I always love the morning light in this space, and now it is more amazing than ever!

This tablecloth project has traveled many miles, and since it was not a straight-through effort but picked up for occasional seasons, it has been growing for several years. Much of the work was done in family evenings to the accompaniment of audiobooks.

Some of it grew through the painful recovery from knee replacement. And the final stitches were put in while walking through a month of treatments with Dad at Mayo clinic. 

Faithfulness in the hard places. One stitch at a time. It all adds up to something beautiful!

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven...
 I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 
He has made everything beautiful in its time. "
Ecclesiastes 3:1, 10

Sawing and Shedding Old Shells

Photos 1&2: After a chainsaw workout.

3: Before. A painful place to mow.

Yes, muscles that have hardly been used in over a decade put up a fuss for a while. But I still count it a "win" to be able to do something like this! (And thanks to Dad for picking up most of the branches as I had to run to town after sawing and mowing.)

Meanwhile, I got to see a cicada crawl out of its old shell and change those little green ripples into wings! So amazing! A first for me.

A strange shape and slight movement caught my eye at the base of a tree. The legs moved so slowly and looked so weak for the immense job at hand. But I was watching when the old, worthless exoskeleton dropped away and the tender body began to expand and harden! Then I checked back in an hour or so and found delicate wings!

Sometimes healing the limbic system / nervous system and connected physical issues can feel like that painfully slow and weak crawl out of an old, dead shell of a life. And then you break free in one area only to be held back in another. 

But God is at work, bringing new life. Eventually the wings unfurl and harden, and it will be time to fly and sing for joy again! (Yes, I like to think of the shrill sound of a cicada as its God-given song which glorifies Him.)

So, keep persevering on your way out of whatever exuviae God wants to set you free from! It's time to molt and grow!

~ Hannah

Remembering: Beethoven, Muscle Memory and Happiness

Here's a win that surprised me tonight. Despite struggling with new glasses for the past month*, I have recently enjoyed pulling out some of my old piano music from as far back as high school. 

Tonight, I moved past the eye issues and other things weighing on the day and tried a Beethoven Sonata. In fact, I had avoided it for 19 years, thinking I could never enjoy casually playing what I had spent two years perfecting and memorizing for part of my final recital and exam. I had completely forgotten what it looked and sounded like... until I started playing. 

Here's the utterly amazing thing about our brains. I still had muscle-memory to play some parts easily! And what struck me was that the parts I remembered best were the sections that made me happiest all those years ago! They gave me the old thrill again, and I'm pretty sure I was smiling through them tonight.

This reminded me how happiness is powerful in our brains!!

TIP: Try take time to purposely remember some happy things in your past... whether years ago or days ago.  Knowing what we do about the neuroplasticity of the brain, this simple act will do more for your health than you can imagine!

Intentionally remembering - especially in light of God's goodness, provision, love... positively affects many parts of the brain, including the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and amygdala. It even helps our brain release dopamine, positively impacting far more than just mood!

No wonder God told us throughout His word to "remember" as well as to think about whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. [Philippians 4:8] Science is finally catching up to some more of what God has told us all along. 

*Yep, it was time for bifocals along with the double whammy of a prism to pull my left eye into alignment. The combination of a sledding injury 24 years ago along with the neurological complications of Lyme, mold, toxic levels of mercury, etc. these past years, made my optometrist give this a try. 

Coffee in the Flower Garden

It was time for a break in a full, check-list sort of day.

So I brewed coffee, splashed in whole milk, and headed out to the garden.

Delphinium are getting lovely, lilies are starting late, and so many more flowers are getting ready to enjoy the summer sunshine!

I also took time to sit on the swing while finishing my coffee, enjoying Annabelle hydrangeas turning white and a pink thunbergia climbing a trellis. Restful minutes!

Book Report: Father to Nobody's Children

"Father to Nobody's Children" by David E. Fessenden is a short book about the life and work of Thomas J. Barnardo among the homeless boys in London.

With plenty of direct quotes and first-hand accounts, this book pulled together the threads of comments and themes in others I have read.

Readers of "Anne of Green Gables" by Lucy Maud Montgomery may remember how Marilla had declared she would only adopt a Canadian born boy. "At first Matthew suggested getting a Barnado boy. But I said ‘no’ flat to that. ‘They may be all right—I’m not saying they’re not—but no London street Arabs for me."

And "Dusty Diamonds, Cut and Polished" by R. M. Ballantyne highlights a couple of street boys who ended up taking the opportunity to move to Canada, which Barnardo gave to the boys he saw would do well building a new life out of the city.

Overlapping the latter half of the life of the famed father to orphans, George Muller, you can notice some similarities in Barnardo's work, as well as some clear differences. God leads each of His children to do His work in unique ways!

Keep reading...

~ Hannah

Food Reintroduction Win: Black-Bottom Birthday Cake!

Huge Win! I enjoyed my first Black-Bottom Cake [my long-time standard] in about a dozen years!

While I am getting back to gluten by way of whole grain rye and einkorn sourdough and the occasional pasta away from home, we chose to use a gluten-free cake mix when adding back cream cheese for now.

But lake time comes before cake on my birthday... despite cold water!

Garden: Before & After

We got a little late start on the raised gardens this year, but they are coming along nicely!

First Step: Weeding. Before (above) and After (below):

Before... and After

Next Step: Digging and Amending Soil

Finally: Planting

Now: Watering and Growing!

Meanwhile: The asparagus patch has been feeding us and our friends well. We will stop picking any day now to let the plants store up strength for another year.