Tag Archives: dailylife

Inventory

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What we brought to church:
   

A 2-disc recording of Handel’s Messiah, Neville Mariner conducting (to lend to a young couple looking for recommendations on which Messiah to purchase)

What we brought home:

December 19th issue of World magazine (passed to us after original recipients are finished)

Franck’s The Complete Masterworks for Organ and Composers in Person CD with four French organists playing their own works on organ, mostly in the 1930s.  The composers are Charles-Marie Widor, Olivier Messiaen, Marcel Dupré and Louis Vierne.  (unsolicited loan of organ CDs to help my education in organ music along – imagine! Last week I’d never heard of Marcel Dupré and now I’m listening to a recording of him!)

Compilation of blues music (solicited loan to help my education in the blues along – favorite so far: I Want Jesus Over Me)

A box of Henty and Landmark books (returned to us after loan last summer)

Quote to ponder:  “We chew many pills God intended us to swallow.”

Gladdened hearts.



New Year’s Eve Connections & Better Posture

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We departed from the usual home-with-a-DVD style and celebrated New Year’s Eve at a party.  This morning my husband told me that we were the oldest ones there.  !!!!!  My, my, my.  We joined several families and took over a lovely restaurant which is closed during the winter season.   A local young man invited a score of  NSA (New Saint Andrews) students and grads to join in the festivities.  Musicians, good ones, abounded and we had a great time of listening and singing, chatting, and game playing.  Nourishing soups and crusty breads took the chill off the evening.

I met a young lady whose father is famous.  Instead of the potentially wearisome question, “Are you so and so’s daughter?” I delighted in mentioning ever-so-casually, “Your aunt is my friend.”  Her jaw dropped.  It was the niece of  Dana at Hidden Art.   Now, I’m easily amused; but this is the closest I’ve gotten to meeting one of my online friends in real life (is IRL an acronym?).  I know, a niece in Oregon in not the same as the aunt in Georgia.  But it was a delightful connection and it was fun to be fans together of a lovely lady who, in my mind, is the hallmark of the modern gracious southern lady. 

One of my resolutions this year is to improve my posture.  Slumping is so unattractive; I tend to slump, especially at the computer.  I recently learned a great tip from an intern choir director.  Lift both hands straight above your head.  Lower your arms but keep your shoulders and chest in the same position.  It is a great posture refresher.  A dear lady named Precious, who employed me to clean her house when I was in the 8th grade, used to admonish me, “Look at the third story, Carol!  Keep your shoulders back and your chin up.”  Can you recommend any other exercises for good posture?

A Bookish Life

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I’m quite excited about A Natural History of Latin.  It seems an essential book for a homeschool parent wanting to know more about Latin.  The intended audience is those not familiar with Latin; it’s very accessible. I’ll read more soon and give y’all some quotes.

The upright book to the left is Andrée Seu’s latest book, Normal Kingdom Business.  If you’ve read her incredible writing in World magazine, you will enjoy Mindy Withrow’s interview of Andrée here.  The upright book to the right is an unparalleled delight, Quotable Quotes,The Book Lover.  At the lower bottom is Cordelia Underwood by Van Reid.  If ever there was a modern day Charles Dickens with more humor than pathos, it would be Van Reid.  I consider him one of the best kept secrets in modern fiction.  The two oversized books, Italy, A Beautiful Cookbook and France, A Beautiful Cookbook are part of the “Beautiful Cookbook” series put out by Borders.  These books are just stunning.  I must show you more:

My husband is just like Alsace-Lorraine: solid, rugged, joyful!
 

There’s a good selection of Wendell Berry and Anthony Trollope.  Scarlet Music is a historical novel about Hildegard of Blingen.  George Grant wrote one line about Isaac and His Devils and that was incentive enough for me to order it! Tucked next to Wendell Berry is Dorothy Sayer’s The Mind of the Maker. Out in front is Kristin Lanvansdatter, George MacDonald’s Phantastes and two Dover books full of quotations.  

The photo of my grandson Gavin deserves a close-up don’t ya think?  It was a Christmas gift from my dear friend Katie.

These are garage sale bargains.  My daughter in-law spied them, nudged me and pointed.  There was no price indicated.  I asked the owner and tears came to her eyes.  “If you would like them, you can have them. None of my children wants them.”  I gave her a token bill and took them. The blue set is the works of Dumas; the green set is Dickens.  They aren’t the complete works but the type is readable and large enough for my eyes.

Finally, discoveries from our small, rural, local library.  An unabridged reading of Jane Austen’s Emma on CD. And a lovely book discovered while walking the stacks.  I’m a sucker for any book that begins with “Oxford Book of”.  The Oxford Book of Ages is a collection of quotes for all the ages of our life.  It would be a marvelous resource to have close by when you are sending birthday greetings.  

I’m ready to start putting together my reading list for 2007 which I’ll post in the next few days.

I’d rather be shut up in a very modest cottage,
with my books,
my family and a few old friends,
dining on simple bacon,
and letting the world roll on as it liked,
than to occupy the most splendid post which any human power can give.  
Thomas Jefferson

Recipe for a Sweet Smelling House

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3 cinnamon sticks
1/4 cup whole cloves
sprinkle (or grind) of nutmeg
3 bay leaves
1/2 orange sliced
1/2 lemon sliced
1 quart water

Combine in saucepan and bring to boil.
Reduce heat and simmer.
Add water as needed.

Mixture may be reused for several days.
Please don’t consume this: it’s all about aroma.

This recipe was posted on a blog last year and I failed to note the source.  I’d love to give credit to the one who posted this.   I surely enjoyed it.

Off Schedule, Perfect Timing

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Officially, we are behind in school.  Wedding preparations and other life events have crowded our schedule.  But! In the glorious timing of our behindness we get to read Athanasius’s On the Incarnation during Advent.  How awesome (a word I very seldom use) is that? 

Athanasius is a great Trinitarian hero.  I get tingly and throat-lumpy whenever I sing or hear this verse in O Come All Ye Faithful:

God of God, Light of Light;
Lo, he abhors not the Virgin’s womb:
Very God, begotten, not created;

I usually whisper a quick prayer, “Thank you, Lord, for Athanasius.”  If not for him, we would not sing that verse.

Short version of a great story:  Athanasius Contra Mundum (Athanasius against the world) is a well known phrase from early church history.  A controversy boiled over in the fourth century.  A man named Arian had persuaded most of the bishops that Christ was just a man.  Athanasius strove for the doctrine of the deity of Christ. Someone said to the Great A. “Athanasius, the whole world is against you.”  His reply was, “Then Athanasius is against the world.”

A bonus is the Introduction by C.S. Lewis.  Can I tempt you with some Lewis quotes?

There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books.

~     ~     ~

It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.  If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.

~     ~     ~

The only palliative [for chronological blindness] is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books.

So what do you think of those quotes?  Do you agree or disagree?  Are you like me, who agrees in theory, but has not put it into practice?

We’re reading Athanasius – yessssssss!

Rambling about Poetry When I Should Be Making Pies

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I just had an Aha! moment:  the daily email from Writer’s Almanac ended with this George Eliot quote:

“If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life,
it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat,
and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.”
~ George Eliot


So that’s where she got the title of her book!  She is Suzanne U. Clark and her book is entitled The Roar on the Other Side, A Guide for Student Poets.  And it’s one of those wonderful books that I dipped into when it first arrived and one of those wonderful books which eventually was left languishing on my shelf.  [Janie, we’re doing a Winter Reading Challenge, right?  This book will be on my list.]

How do you feel about poetry?  My father loved poetry, absolutely adored it.  When he was dying of pancreatic cancer, one of his students visited him in the hospital and they exchanged lines of poetry in the fashion of Marianne and Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility.  

I’ve been lukewarm about poetry until about ten years ago.  Now the reading of a poem is part of our daily morning routine.  We’ve read our way through a few anthologies and have several poetry collections in our queue.  One of the bennies of a modest familiarity of general poetry is that when an allusion or outright reference to a poem is dropped in literature, we usually catch it.   Additionally, I think the daily drip, drip of words crafted together will infuse into us a sense of their beauty. 

Please! Some days the poems are dogs.  My son and I both roll our eyes and mumble what-ev-er.  Some days I’m delighted and my son is tolerant. On occasion, however, the words hit their mark and arrest us both. 

A Minor Rant

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Picture by deviantART.

We have lost a sense of reverence and respect in our culture.
Silence is an endangered species.
People seem to be allergic to quiet.

Friday evening my husband and I went to the symphony and sat in front of folks who talked through large portions of the music.  They did not whisper.  They did not pass a note.  They talked in normal conversational tones.  Their need to comment on the music overrode any sense of respect for the musicians and the fellow patrons.  How rude!

Saturday afternoon I attended the funeral of a lovely 96-year old woman.   Sitting in the sanctuary, listening to the organ prelude could have been a lovely time of reflection and prayer, were it not for the two women near the back who conversed in loud voices that carried across the room.  They were oblivious to the turned heads, the furrowed brows, the hairy eyeballs, the multiple mute pleas to be quiet.  What would have been appropriate for the grocery aisle was so wrong before a gathering to honor the deceased.  It wasn’t fitting.  It was a time to keep silence, a time to bow the head, a time to contemplate our own mortality.

“The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.”
 ~  Baruch Spinoza

End of rant.

Great Calibrators of Faith

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Our family has an “unknown” in our life today.  

It’s one of those situations where you have to wait and see, hold your emotions in check, wait some more, take a breath and wait again.  

We focus on the unknown when it’s really time to review what we know.  God is good.  The Lord reigns.  He is able. Lord, have mercy.  Those three-word sentences pack a powerful punch, don’t they? 

I’m thankful for unknowns, not because they make me happy, but because they can be great calibrators of faith.

Unknowns bring our vision into focus and remind us that our help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

We all subscribe in some measure to the myth of personal sovereignty; we all like to be in charge; we all have plans.  We plan for a straight road ahead and all of a sudden there is a curve!  

My husband’s words:  “As you know, the Lord sometimes draws straight with crooked lines.”