LadyCordeliaFitzgerald

Posted on by
6

You must  go over to my neice’s new blog and check out the pictures she took of her PA farm.  They are stunning.  Her artist’s eye has captured the countryside.  Does anyone get the literary reference to her  blog title?  (Hint: she loves all things gabled and green).   If  I’m allowed to brag, she is a  beautiful  young woman, whose loveliness goes very deep.  

Our prayer group has expanded and just about doubled in size to 35 people.  We’re meeting at our house tonight and I’m providing the meal.  Yikes! The menu is Company Mashed Potatoes (the kind that keeps in the oven), Hamburger Gravy (two crock pots), Green Salad, another veggie I haven’t decided, fresh rolls (my DIL makes these and they are perfection) and Apple Pie for Dessert.  I’m always afraid that we’ll run out of food and I’m not used to cooking for this number.  It’s a tweener number, ya know?  It’s not 20 and it’s not 100.  We set up long tables in our large garage and it’s like a big banquet.

The best part of prayer group is praying.  We pray around the circle and I love to listen in on the kids’ prayers.  While some have learned formulaic prayers, others pray straight from their soul, i.e. “Thank you for getting our family through this divorce.” 

Bountiful Booty

Posted on by
7

I love being the baby of the family.  With six older siblings, I am the happy recipient of  hand-me-downs.  Don’t think clothing here.  Think cookbooks, piano music, and most recently, Teaching Company Tapes.  Oh yeah!  My  PA brother has a plethora of  these tapes.  I bought a suitcase,  filled it with tapes and brought them home. 

This afternoon my son and I are making applesauce while we listen to Robert Greenburg’s How to  Listen to and Understand Great Music. We laughed aloud when he explained the difference between  German language songs and Italian  songs.   Greenburg plays music on the piano and from CDs to illustrate his points.  My heart  jumps as I hear  my 15-yr old son hum along.  He knows this music!  He likes this music!  Sigh.  But then, who can help but liking Bach?

Explaining the history of music inevitably includes the history of the world.  I am so thankful for the past 12 years of homeschooling.  I can follow and correlate, synthesize if you will, the lectures in a way that I can’t imagine doing had I not had the learning that comes with teaching.  It is so satisfying to build upon previous learning; to add a room or a story to the edifice which is our life.  

Isn’t this the most exciting thing?  Bring on the long nights; bring on bathrooms that need cleaning; bring on shirts which need ironing; bring on dough which needs kneading; bring it on, baby!  I. am. ready. 

Monday Marriage Musings

Posted on by
1

A few years ago three young men in our small church left home to go to college in Washington, Kentucky and Florida.  Last Christmas each brought home his “beloved”  to our valley for a visit.  The three couples spent one day snowboarding together. This Christmas, within a space of three weeks,  these three young couples will be getting married in three different states.  It is such a joy to see how God has blessed these ones we’ve  known and loved and watched since they were young boys.  I’ve had each of them as students and one of these dear boys is my own son.  

In my daily reading, any sentences appropos to marriage get my attention like a flashing light in a rear view mirror.  I would enjoy sharing my gleanings on a weekly basis, as time allows. 

Funny story:  When my beloved and I were engaged we were given a list of books on marriage to read.  One of the books was Elisabeth Elliot’s Let Me Be a Woman.   Curt was told to read this book even though it was written for women.  At the time he was binding cardboard boxes at the dump for City Garbage when he wasn’t  taking classes.  His co-workers were rough, crusty, unpolished…..raw.  His lunch hour was prime reading time but he knew there was no way he would survive in that job if he were caught reading that title.  He removed the dust jacket and was always careful to hold the book so the spine didn’t show!

Surely it is impossible to love “too much,” for love is from God, who is Love.  Usually we love
too little and too sentimentally.  Our love, God-given though it be, is usually mixed up with
possessiveness and selfishness.  It needs strengthening and purifying.  Human love is often
inordinate, which means disorderly, unregulated, unrestrained, not limited to the usual bounds. 
If we love someone more than we love God, it is worse than inordinate – it is idolatry.  When
God is first in our hearts, all other loves are in order and find their rightful place.  If God is not
first, other loves, even those which are in no sense sexual, easily turn into self-gratification and
therefore destroy both the lover and the beloved.    Elisabeth Elliot in Loneliness


Oh, joy! Oh, delight! My new socks!

Posted on by
2


You have to imagine me dancing; it’s hard to catch on camera.  I won these socks on my birthday the day after Donna’s birthday.  She picked a name from her comments section that day.  I’ve been gone and came home
to this lovely package.  Thank you, Donna!  Femina bona es.

Nights we all will dance,
To the harp and fiddle,
Waltz and jig and prance,
“Cast off down the middle.”

I’ve heard tell that warm feet promote the rapid onset of sleep. Do you struggle with getting to sleep?  Studies show that wearing socks to bed is a good idea.  I’ve done that for years, but I’ve never had fancy socks. There you have it! See what comes from commenting on blogs? Better dancing, better sleeping, better living. 

Pace Yourselves

Posted on by
2
It is difficult to find people who know how to pace themselves
in getting the job done in the amount of time they have.
To me this is one of the most important things to learn.

Franz Mohr  in My Life with the Great Pianists

I’m bursting with stuff to write: more about my trip to PA, some of the delightful things I brought home, quotes from reading on the five hour layover, new artist discoveries, a very nice new CD, a picture of the socks I won from Donna’s birthday drawing.  BUT I’ve really looked forward to a good teaching day today; that’s my plan and I’m sticking to it!  I didn’t get to read my blog sistahs so I’m looking forward to catching up on that.  Sigh.  It’s a good life, so abundant and full.

Fall Foliage – Pennsylvania

Posted on by
7

 

The colors down at the farm in PA have been spectacular.  Spec. Ta. Cu. Lar. A camera lens can never quite capture what the eye sees.  Every conversation in the car was interrupted by the words, “Look at *that* tree!”

Tonight is my last night of a lovely lingering; by Wednesday I’ll  be back to the books, back to teaching my son and back to real life in Oregon.  This has been an incredible time with my oldest brother’s family.  I feel like now I know my neices. In truth, now I know my brother and SIL! My husband and son were deer hunting while I was gone. They were both successful and we have organic, range-fed meat in our freezer (*wink* to our earth muffin friends). 

Enjoy the pictures, my friend. Enjoy your family.  Pick up the phone and make a call.  You’ll be glad you did.

 

My day as a Penn State Fan

Posted on by
6

          

Last Saturday we went to a Penn State football game.  I donned a borrowed sweatshirt and slipped into the life of a Penn State fan.  I learned the liturgy of PSU football, tutored by my beloved niece Anne.  First off, Joe Paterno is “Joepa”.  One of the chants is “JoePa” with the other side responding “Terno”. There is an abiding affection for this man that permeates everything within a 100 mile radius. 

 

 

 

 

This wall has a quote: “They ask me what I’d like to be written about me when I’m gone. I hope they write I made Penn State a better place, not just that I was a good football coach.”

 The stadium holds 100,000 + people.  By the time the band comes onto the field, the stadium is packed with people.  The drum major wuns out and does a flip on the field.  He jumps high enough to make the flip without the plumes on his hat touching the ground.  The tradition is that if he makes the flip without muffing it, PSU will win the game.

The players do not have their names on the backs of their jerseys to emphasize that they play as a team.  My brother’s extended family is very closely connected to PSU; consequently we had great seats on the 45 yd line, 15 rows up.  Sometimes I look straight ahead at the line of scrimmage.

 

 

 

 My brother’s family are friends with two of the players.  They’ve had them down to the farm, fed them, and encouraged them.  It was fun to cheer for specific players and to follow them.  The final score was PSU 33 Northwestern 7.  Hooray!! 

Simply Books

Posted on by
7

I had a delightful experience in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport.  I discovered a lovely bookstore: tasteful displays, no magazines, a few deep chairs, and, best of all, book quotes posted all around the store.  After some pleasant, light  book talk with the employee, I took out my journal, settled into the deep chair and started copying quotes.  Here are just a few:

A book is like a garden carried in a pocket.    Chinese Proverb

What is reading but quiet conversation.     Walter Savage Landor

Literature is the memory of humanity.     Isaac Bashevis Singer

What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.     Logan Pearsall Smith

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.      Joseph Addison

‘Tis the good reader that makes the good book.     Ralph Waldo Emerson

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.              Tennyson

I bought a book:  Good Poems for Hard Times edited by Garrison Keillor.  Several are already flagged for repeat readings. 

Coming as soon as I can figure how to upload pictures here in PA: My day as a Penn State football fan.  With, WITH, my friend, shots of the great coach Joe Paterno.  He is affectionately called JoePa by the fans here.

Yesterday we spent a lovely, sunny day going to Johnstown and seeing the two flood museums.  With David McCullough’s The Johnstown Flood fresh in my mind, it was absorbing, but sobering.  My brother and I have already spent several nights up beyond midnight talking, talking, talking.  I am soaking up the girl time with his wife, three daughters and granddaughter.  It’s so different from my male dominated environment at home, such a lovely change! 

A Prayer on One’s Birthday

Posted on by
10

        It’s My Birthday Today!

One thing about me:  it’s very hard to be brief when I’m excited.  And excited I am!  I’m leaving on a jet plane, taking a long overdue trip to see my oldest brother and his family in Pennsylvania.  This is David, who taught at my high school while I was a student there.  David the teacher, David the pastor, David the dairy farmer, David…you see, I digress. 

I’m excited because the phone keeps ringing with birthday greetings and well wishes. 

I’m excited because I won a beautiful pair of socks from Donna‘s birthday drawing yesterday.  Woohoo!  And when do I win anything?  Never! Except on my birthday!  Thank you Donna.  I love soaking up some of your afterglow.  And I’m gonna love those socks.  Bring on the winter, man, I’ll be ready! 

Take a breath…try to settle. down. 

I wanted to post this prayer, On One’s Birthday, today from a Lutheran Prayer Book I picked up at a book sale.  Then I have to finish the salsa, pack up, return books to the library, hug and kiss my men, and take off.  Thank you for the many ways you, dear readers, have enriched my life. 


Gracious Lord, Thou hast brought me to the threshold of another year.  The year has been rich in goodness and blessings coming from Thy bountiful hand of love.  Thou didst not turn from me but daily hast protected me and safely seen me through the many trials and temptations of life.  I am not worthy of all this goodness and grace.  Often I have sinned against Thee and offended Thee with my transgressions.  Forgive me, Lord, for Jesus’ sake.  Let me start life anew, led by Thee throughout this coming year.


O Lord, graciously keep me in Thy grace.  Give me the strength to dedicate myself, my entire life, to Thee. Let my greatest joy be found in Thy Word and in doing Thy will.