Soon and very soon I will be getting on this:
to go here:
While I’m there I will go here:
to see
Did you get that last bit? Just in case you didn’t —- I’m going to see
I will see my two sisters and one of my four brothers. I will meet three great-neices and three great-nephews for the first time. I will spend a lot of time playing
and a lot of time
and a lot of time sipping tea.
Deo Volente.
Yesterday morning I was watching
my 18 month grandson Gavin. Gavin knows the ropes around our house, and knows
where the two big baskets which are his own territory are kept. One is overflowing
with toys, and the other is full of books for little ones.
I was “working” on
the computer when Gavin came into the kitchen from the living room with a book
in his hand and approached me with purpose in his beautiful brown eyes.
“Would
you like me to read you this book, Gavin?” I asked.
He nodded his head, and
raised his hands to be lifted into my lap. We snuggled and read The Two Sons, by Nick Butterworth and Mick Inkpen.
If it were remotely possible for my
body to do a cartwheel, I would have done five in a row across the house. I
wanted to hijack the emergency broadcast system and make an announcement:
On his
own he asked me to read him a book! All’s right with the world….
Here’s what you need:
and……………….
(Just the socks, hehe, and many of them). Here’s what you do:
1. Make the socks compact like a tennis ball. You can fold them and slip the elastic part over the rest or tie longer socks into knots several times.
2. Turn the fan on high speed.
3. Throw the socks into the fan. It will catch them and “bat” them all over. Sometimes the fan will miss the socks like a batter swinging and missing. The trajectory of the socks is unpredictable and that’s part of the fun. You can “pitch” one sock at a time or grab several and throw them at once. There are no rules and therefore no umpires.
Our family has delighted in this silliness for many years. It’s only fun with a group of people. We grab piles of clean socks, work them into balls and start throwing. It’s certainly a unique way to dust in those hard to reach corners.
Our fan doesn’t have a light and we don’t have vaulted ceilings, two factors that might change the dynamics. Please don’t ask me how this tradition got started. It must come from having boys and loving baseball.
I have a funny picture in my mind: my husband and I bent over, infirmed, arthritic, trying to muster the strength to lob a sock high enough from our rocking chairs to hit the fan, commenting in a slow, shaky voice, “look at that one go, Gertrude!”
A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart. Ecclesiastes 4:12
Update on Summer Reading Challenge:
Temperament I’m on the last chapter. This is the most challenging book I’ve read in a while. When I’m finished I’ll write a short review.
1776 Excellent book. I’m glad I read it .
Every Living Thing Halfway through, and I’ve enjoyed every page.
84, Charing Cross Road and The Legacy of Q by Helene Hanff These weren’t on my original list but, oh my!, these books are like savoring rich spoonfuls of homemade ice cream to a bibliophile. I do love English literature. I do dream about taking a literary tour of England. Someday…
Imitation of Christ Good, slow reading.
This picture is for Janie: she asked us to take of picture of a stack of books because she enjoys enlarging them and looking at them. I’m the same way. I’ve taken a magnifying glass to a picture of an author in front of books and peeked at his/her collection. When I met a new pastor in town I exlaimed “you have Owen on your shelf!” (which I gleaned from said magnifying glass and a newspaper article.)
This shelf is near our entry. It is a sort of “holding tank” for books. The bottom shelf is our daily reading. Library books and tapes often go on top so we can get them back on time. Other books are ones that are either borrowed, recently purchased, or current reads. In short, they don’t have a permanent home on another bookcase. On an organized day (read: company is coming) the middle shelf has pictures on it and the top is cleared off.
The picture on the left is a photo of a local river meandering through a canyon.
Can anyone tell me how to post a picture so it can be enlarged?
Really, I’m not bored. But as I was making beds this morning I remembered a lengthy discussion with my friend Ilene and her sister Judy when I was a girl staying at their home.
When you make a bed, do you place the sheet with the right side up or the right side down? You will tell a difference when you open the bed. If the right (finished) side is up, when you open the bed you will see the back side. If the finished side is down, when you open the bed two finished sides greet you.
It’s really about obsolete as a question, isn’t it? I mean, how many sheets have a right and a wrong side, heh-heh? The flannel sheets in our guest room do, that’s why I wondered.
I knew she was coming, but I barely recognized her when she stepped out of the car. I hadn’t seen her in several years. My friend Michelle (in the black tee) lost **110** pounds in the last 1 1/4 years. WOW! Gracious! She had gastric bypass surgery – her liver was about to give out and it was vital to her health to lose weight. She has changed her mind along with her habits: no-soda ever, yes- avocado a day, yes- lots of tomatoes, no-white flour and no-sugar, no-hamburgers. In addition she has morphed into a very, very active person: horse back riding is her passion, extreme (climbing up and down ridges) hiking is a regular activity. What is truly incomprehensible is that she was widowed halfway through the weight loss and kept losing. It’s been so good to have time with her.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Don’t you find other’s successes inspiring?
These words popped out at me on Sunday, reminding me of the grace available to me to gain victory in this daily battle:
You know, if they sold belated birthday greetings by the box, I would buy them. No I wouldn’t — because most of the time I intend to get cards to people on time. What’s wrong with me? I’m still trying to get March birthday cards and gifts mailed. So far, I’ve missed three April birthdays with my SIL’s will be here this Sunday.
Spur of the moment occasions are my forte; sadly, planning ahead has always been a deficiency. Oh bother!! I don’t want to give up and throw in the towel. I come from a big family and birthdays are a good time to affirm love and relationship. Shopping is not my strength, unless it’s finding butter for .99/lb and other grocery deals. Maybe I always feel inadequate at choosing gifts, thus I procrastinate.
Any suggestions?
I was reading in Isaiah today and came across my life verse in 12:2
Behold, God is my salvation,
I will trust and not be afraid;
For the Lord God is my strength and song,
And He has become my salvation.
You can easily line up the options:
salvation, security, strength, song ~ despair, fear, weakness, empty silence
I like the interplay between God’s work and my response: God saves me, I trust Him, but He is my salvation. The nuance between the declarative present tense is and the progressive sense of has become is another delight to me. The musical element is very precious. The chiastic nature of the verse links trusting and singing together. This verse gripped me as a young girl and has carried me through the quiet pools and the deep waters of life.
Do you have a life verse?
The year was 1993. We had two boys in 4th and 6th grade and a two year old boy. My husband had gone to a conference. I had planned to go along until our young one got sick. He came home fired up. Oh joy. “We’re going to make some changes in our family, hon,” he announced. “We need to talk.” Uh-huh. I’m writing honestly, but I’m ashamed of my attitude and behavior. I put off the talk as long as possible. Finally the moment came after the kids were in bed.
He sat at one end of the table and I at the other. With passion and concern, he outlined the problems he saw with delegating the government to teach our children. I listened, refrained from rolling my eyes, and prayed for this awkward conversation to be over. This was my life he was messing with. It was all good and well for him to say, “Let’s homeschool” when all the sacrifice was on my end. When he didn’t get much response from me he concluded the first session with these words, “Will you at least pray about it?” Overjoyed at a way to extricate myself from this discussion, I glibly said “Sure.”
1993 turned into 1994 and gently the Lord convicted me that I had not prayed about this issue. “You’re right Lord, I did say I would pray.” I thought, it can’t hurt to pray. Hah! Double hah! Before I knew what was happening my heart was changing. My sons came home with stories that chilled me. What do you mean your friend isn’t allowed to have a New Testament in his desk? Was he standing on his chair and preaching? No, just reading it during free time? I was a room mother for both boys every year they were in school. But I was soon disabused of the notion that I knew what was going on in their classrooms.
The conference that Curt went to connected us with a new church. We had been looking for a church with Reformed theology. And mirabile! there was one in our valley. We began attending and discovered that 90% of the families homeschooled their kids. And they were lovely families with engaging, polite, and delightful children. (Oh, these families have become my family and my heart aches with love for them as I write and remember.) We bonded with them; we were never once criticized for having our kids in public school. Their winsome ways won our hearts. My thoughts flipped from what all my kids would be missing if they homeschooled to what opportunities my children would miss if they were in public school.
Soon I was asking for books, magazines, anything to educate myself. My husband started to smile as I chirped away, talking constantly about the options, the decisions, the changes. We were committed. We let the kids finish that year in school and made our plans for the fall.
A Living Pencil 