1.23.2012

An Icy Situation


It was icy out this weekend.
 No one got to miss out on school because of it, and only one of us went out to enjoy it. 

And one of us went out to try to remedy the situation for guests.


I'll be taking a break from blogging for a while. 
Enjoy the life He's given you!


1.20.2012

Truthful Rudeness


I'm not good with houseplants, since they require watering. That is asking a little too much, I think! But every year, I drag a few plants in from the outside - those I can't stand to watch go down in the first killing frost. They might go in the greenhouse for a little while, but eventually they die a lingering and miserably slow death indoors. Where lots of folks are around to give sympathy - 
"Ooohhh!" and "Ooooo-oouucchh!"
I used to keep a huge Boston fern in the right front window of our home. 
If you thought I might be able to name the direction the window faces, you don't know me very well. That would be cool, though - "In the northwest facing window..." 
It did cast LOTS of leaves though, due to that nagging water issue. 
 The Cable Guy was here one day, a few years back, and I had to move 
the giant fern for him. Of course it dropped about 35,621 leaves at that immediate point. He laughed at my Oh Shoot! comment, and said that HIS wife would never put up with this sort of mess in her house. 
Really! Really? Really.
Well, that big dose of truthful rudeness just sort of pointed out the obvious to me. And suddenly, I was happy to get rid of it! 
That big Boston went on the Freecycle list and someone rushed over,  delighted to get it for herself. What a relief!
This tiny one is much more manageable, and I haven't been sorry that it came indoors even one time! I love its verdant green-ness in contrast to the bleak outside views.
But I have been watering it. 
So far, so good! 
It is only January, though.

1.18.2012

Words Change


We give our boys lumps of coal in their Christmas stockings. 
From clever candy makers, the lumps are made of (cheap) crispy chocolate. 
lump of coal
funny stocking stuffer
lump under covers
an exciting game of  boo just about to happen
lump of sugar
those crystalline, sweet squares for tea time
"take your lumps"
a common saying in a household of surging testosterone, like mine
Lumps in the gravy!
 teasingly crowed by my family

Before our lives were touched by cancer, the word LUMP was an innocent one. How quickly a simple, one-syllable word can change from light to dark! 

"I found a lump."
"He says there's a lump."
"The results show a lump."

There are lots of nicer, maybe easier to hear, words than lump, that tiny but mighty word no one wants to hear a doctor say, see next to a diagnostic code, or even think when it's not in reference to sugar, blankets or gravy. Medical personnel who do not wish to see their patient burst into tears might use lump in disguise: nodule, cyst, growth, mass. All words which have their own technical nuances, I'm sure, which distinguish it from lump, but still mean the same thing to most of us, who find themselves uncomfortably seated on long sheets of white paper.

I'm praying today for all those whose lives have been impacted by that word. That truth will seep into the confusion of their frightened knowing. The perfect truth of 
that is infinitely greater than the tiny word, 
lump


1.13.2012

Sparrow Post


Tasha Tudor's Letters and Valentines for dolls arriving via the Sparrow Post. 
From what I can understand, Ms. Tudor had the
letters going back and forth between her own dolls using this imaginary post office.


What a fun idea! It would be easy enough to make tiny, tiny letters or cards, and 'post' them
near the bird feeder for kindly birds to deliver. 
Finding the letters gone, the children would certainly believe them to be on the way to 
whomever they had been addressed. 

But who could be posting back???
A storybook character?
A far-away grandparent?
The birds themselves?

I can imagine their excitement when they find an answering eensy letter waiting for them 
by the bird feeder!

(Tolkien's Letters From Father Christmas - Tolkien writing letters from Santa to his children.)



1.06.2012

SNOW!


Come on, snow!
Last year we had enjoyed inches and inches by now.
 We have a snow tradition - on the first big snow, we cast our homeschooling stacks aside, put on our Forever Lazys, and and cut paper snowflakes. 
 They're suspended carefully from the ceilings, all around the first floor.
It seems like the house needs some frivolous decoration, now that the Christmas things  have been packed up.
SNOW!

By the way, is packing Christmas decorations away emotional for anybody else? As I box it all up, I find myself reciting ages - aloud - every year.
"Hey, Wonderful Man, you'll be 49 when I get these out again!"
snicker  He's waaayyy older than me - I'll only be 46.    (!)
"You'll be 20 ... you'll be 17 ... you'll be 13 when we hang your stockings again!"
How did we get this far? Where did the years go? 
It really does slide by before you know it! 
I hope you're savoring the goodness of whatever today He's given to you, and enjoying the sights of wherever He's brought you in your journey. It may not seem like where you are is such a great place right now, but just hold on, and before you know it, you'll be in another. Maybe looking back and thinking, "That was a nice spot, and I didn't even know it!" 

*Just kidding about the Forever Lazys. But, wait a minute! It might be a nice idea! Maybe Hanky Panky Fuchsia for me, and Asleep on the Job Gray for my one and only, youngest student.