Tag Archives: simplepleasures

Simple Pleasures in September

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“Come to the table” – four beautiful words

California Quail – picture snapped by Curt

Donna’s 50th Birthday Celebration over at Quiet Life
Her comments section is the funnest place to have a party.

A new year of school, more great stuff ahead.

Phrases from the prayer book:
~ Give me unselfishness in all my striving
~ Remind me again that my life, my speech, my faith is nothing without love
~Let Thy gospel call me with new sweetness
~Lord, fasten my heart…


Gavin (my grandson) with his Aunt Maddy (my DIL’s youngest sister)

What has brought you joy this month?

Simple Pleasures on a Saturday in August

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~  The colors in my garden

I love the deep purple of eggplant.  Aubergine.  What a delicious word.

~  The Railway Children DVD, based on E. Nesbit’s book.
Superb viewing for the whole family. 
Edwardian England, Bobbie, Phil and Peter, and the Sussex countryside.
I loved the book and it follows it quite faithfully.
C.S. Lewis read and was influenced by Nesbit. 
She was quite unorthodox in her personal life,
but she wrote warm books rich in family life. 
The Treasure Seekers and The Wouldbegoods are my two favorites.

~  The absence of back to school shopping. 
Y’all enjoy the malls and box stores. 
I’m home in the garden with my music and books.

~  A clear phone and DSL connection.
After months of calls to DSL technical support,
a friend suggested we call the regular phone company.
They came out and the phone line had been
chewed almost in two by squirrels.  Rodents!

~  Sunrise over the mountains.  It’s opening day of archery season
and I woke up to say goodbye to my hunters.
I’m remembering a sunrise we experienced 23 years ago today.
I watched that sunrise holding this bundle of a boy in my arms.


Happy Birthday Carson!

What simple pleasures are you enjoying this day?

Simple Pleasures in July

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~   One cool cowboy down to the essentials of life

~ A faithful son who keeps all green spots , including plants in pots, watered

~ A clean desk.  It’s really not that Simple, but the Pleasure’s great

~ PaperBackSwap – I joined Friday and I’ve already mailed out four books.
My all time favorite “cotton candy” book, Penny Plain by O. Douglas,
(the sister of John Buchan) is on its way to me through PBS.
I just saved $25!!
Color me happy.

You pay the shipping to mail a book.
You get a credit for a free book.
Someone mails you a book (free!).
1,345,634 books to choose from.
Essentially you get books you want for ~ $2.13 a book.
PS – there are A LOT of homeschool materials

~ A new trick for an old dog.
Did you know that you can layer postage stamps?
Only the denomination needs to show.
Cleaning my desk gleaned many old stamps.
They are almost all used.
Hooray!

Unload

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   God will not guide us
   into an intolerable scramble
   of panting feverishness.

   ~    Thomas Kelly

   Some people can’t say no.
   They enroll in too many courses,
   volunteer for too many tasks,
   make too many appointments,
   serve on too many committees,
   have too many friends.
   They are trying to be all things
   to all people all at once
   all by themselves.

   ~   Dr. J. Grant Howard

   as quoted in Overload
   by Richard A. Swenson

Simple Pleasures in June

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~ Curves
For two decades we lived with strict symmetry,
straight lines and angles,
and lots of green grass.

~ We decided to steal some space from the straight-angled grass
and put in a flower garden.
I wanted curves.
The picture below is from four (or five?) years ago. 
I think the spot looks the the state of Illinois with an extra hump.
I started with flowers you would always find at WalMart.

Then my son became interested in a floral-designer girl.
She steered me towards perrenials and introduced me to new plants.

~ Bellfowers (Campanula)

~ Lavender, I discovered, is really easy to grow.

~ Living next door to a Master Gardener is one of the bonuses of my life.
Shelly grows roses on the border of our property.

~ First Fruits
Last evening I harvested our first strawberries.
I be jammin’ today, baby!

Please understand: I am not a natural green thumb. 
Flowers and gardens
were not interesting to me until about ten years ago.
I saw what some friends had,
which was a little piece of paradise,
a paradise I wanted to transplant  to my property.

It has been a slow transition.
The berry plants (straw and rasp) have come from the gardens of friends.

I’m still learning.

But I’m reaping the rewards
of a tiny rural-suburban-agrarian lifestyle.
Truth, beauty and goodness.
The good life.
Thank you, Lord.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful,
we must carry it with us or we find it not.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

May’s Simple Pleasures

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~ Homemade hamburger buns. 
My mom made the best. 
I wish I had lessons from her.
Do you see the baby’s breath and greenery in the pitcher? 
They are lovely remnants of my Mother’s Day bouquet;
I’m eager to use the pitcher as a pitcher!

~ Pansies.  They grow where other plants die.
This box at the foot of our driveway lives
under our neighbor’s pine tree.
My SIL Val laughs that every space needs a ‘little splash of yellow.’

~After years of waiting, the hostas have filled in the north side of the house.

~ My girlfriend’s 12 year old son, whose last day of school was last Friday.
He showed up on my doorstep and said,
“I have a critical, desperately important question. 
Do you have any books on ancient history,
particularly on the Romans?”
I gave him Genevieve Foster’s Augustus Caesar’s World.
He’s also reading through my collection of Oxford
and Cambridge edition Shakespeare plays.

~ A new poet: Edward Taylor.  Come back tomorrow for a taste!

Fifty Reasons to Give Thanks

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1.                  
We know Whom to
thank.

2.                  
The sun rose again this
morning.

3.                  
The opportunity to pray for people
facing crises this day.

4.                  
Clean clothes to
wear.

5.                  
Food in the cupboard – Kashi Go Lean
is my choice today.

6.                  
The milk is cold.  It would be sooo
hard to be thankful for warm milk.

7.                  
Job security – I love being a mom
and a teacher and a very part-time accountant.

8.                  
Almost instant communication with
those I love through email.

9.                  
Asparagus, fresh from the
farm.

10.              
Morel mushrooms, fresh from the
forest.

11.              
Indoor
plumbing.

12.              
Plants that refuse to die –
impatiens and petunias.

13.              
A gentle
breeze.

14.              
The Lord is
near.

15.              
The Portable
Dante – arrived from Amazon
yesterday.

16.              
A clean silverware
drawer.

17.              
The reappearance of old friends in
our lives – lately, at the rate of about one a
week!

18.              
Upcoming graduations and the
celebration of work completed.

19.              
Upcoming weddings and the
celebration of God’s goodness and provision.

20.              
The haunting beauty of Eva Cassidy’s
music.

21.              
Compost.

22.              
Chainsaws and those who operate
them.

23.              
Red bell peppers, Walla Walla sweet onions
and sugar snap peas.

24.              
A friend who forgave me when I
blanked out her birthday.

25.              
A good paring
knife.

26.              
Fresh water, fresh lemon and good
tea.

27.              
Singing the psalms – my current
favorite is 116.

28.              
Dirt under the fingernails and weeds
in the trash – I’ve never been a glovey person.

29.              
A table to rest your elbows on; a
table to gather around; a table to set and clear.

30.              
Friends who ask penetrating
questions and expect to be answered.

31.              
Electric light — by which to read
at night.

32.              
A stack of Wendell Berry and Anthony
Trollope books waiting to be read.

33.              
Sons who make me smile; sons who
make me laugh; sons who make me cry.

34.              
Shaking the dustmop outside and
saying goodbye to dustbunnies.

35.              
A piano in the house – available to
play anytime.

36.              
The Decalogue (fancy way of saying
Ten Commandments).

37.              
A friend with a persevering spirit
in strife-torn Zimbabwe.

38.              
The joy of sharing a lovely loaf of
bread with friends.

39.              
A brisk walk in the brisk
air.

40.              
“Strength for today and bright hope
for tomorrow” – from my mom’s favorite hymn.

41.              
Continuing forgiveness for repeated
sins.

42.              
Becoming friends with my curly/wavy
hair with streaks of gray.

43.              
Cabernet
Sauvignon.

44.              
Another book filled with quotes and
notes and pictures.

45.              
A husband who enjoys hugging
me.

46.              
Fidelity expressed in both married
and single people.

47.              
A laughing, coy, happy, expressive,
running, talking grandson.

48.              
Daughters-in-law who bless me in
multiple ways.

49.              
The blessed Lord who gives all these
things and will take what He sees fit to take.

50.              
Bach’s organ music, Bach’s cello
music, Bach’s violin music, Bach’s vocal music.

Happy Helps on a Hopeful Day

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I only have minutes before my piano students arrive.  Here are three things I’ve learned which also may be helpful to you:

Alt Codes:  I have a young friend named Änna (pronounced AH-na); the umlaut is essential to her name.  If you press down (hold it down) on the Alt key and then type 142 –  voilà! – you get Ä. Yesterday, when I was typing Søren Kierkegaard’s name my handy little chart didn’t have ø.  So I went here and found it.  Here is a chart (it’s a good idea to print it out and have it handy), but it’s not as cool as the one my sweet Katie gave me.

Cache:  This is so basic, but if it was new to me, maybe there is someone else it might help.  Do you ever conduct a google search, click on the page, and scroll into next Tuesday looking for your word or phrase?  On the last line each search result, you see the site address highlighted, the size, and sometimes the date.  Next to the date or size (i.e. 67k) is Cached.  If you click on that instead of the site address you will see your phrase highlighted on the page.  It’s very clever, and I never knew…. 

Frozen Sugar Snap Peas:  Safeway sells sugar snap peas in the frozen veggie section.  They keep until you need them (does anyone else end up discarding rotten produce from the bin in the fridge?) and they are the ingredient that makes a difference in stir-fries.  This week I’ve become addicted to a mixture:  sliced red onions, red bell peppers, garlic, sugar snap peas, broccoli and artichoke hearts.  The bold colors are as scrumptious as the fragrant aroma and the delicious flavor.