Wholehearted living somewhere in the middle of all my years.
Aging parents, grown kids, and grandbebes everywhere!
Married to my love and lifelong best friend, Dave for 33 years now. We raised 5 kids and lived to tell about it.
My life's mission is to declare the great faithfulness of God to the next generations, especially those in mi familia!
View all posts by Jeanie →
Amelie Belle is three years, 3 months and almost 3 weeks old. And she is a little worshipping, praise-dancer. I love how she loves this little purple and peach, pleated dress because when it goes on, the joy-dancing starts!
This is a video of her at the big Dare2Share Conference in Lakewood this week while her daddy was leading some late-night worship. The room is big and dark, but the skirt is unmistakably neon! :)
Hey, btw – Amelie’s Auntie Stormie is rocking it on the bass!
This is a daylight look at the dress (she had gone to bed with wet hair and her cousin and sister fixed her up in ponies and flowers in the morning) at our house 2 days ago. AsAmelie often says: see??? This dress personifies the colorful, energetic, playful, happy, ornery, sugar and spice, super-sweetie-pie, girly-girl little Amelie is at this exact moment in her life.
I love the dress. I adore the darling Amelie Belle!
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has lately been talking about micro-gardens as critical way to help the urban poor get more food on the table. The FAO defines micro-gardens as intensively cultivated small spaces — such as balconies, small yards, patios and rooftops. Many rely on containers such as plastic-lined wooden boxes, trash cans and even old car tires.
While it’s probably tough to sustain a family on a micro-garden, FAO research shows that a well-tended micro-garden of 11 square feet can produce as much as 200 tomatoes a year, 36 heads of lettuce every 60 days, 10 cabbages every 90 days, and 100 onions every 120 days.
During WWII, Americans planted Victory Gardensto be able to provide their own food and supplies during a time when our national resources and reserves were going toward the cause. I am still amazed when I read about the unity in which most Americans participated in this. I don’t think it could or would happen that way at all these days, as self-focus reigns. But I sure think you better know how to plant a garden to get your own fresh food in case something unthinkable happens where you live – because we have been seeing that happen all over in very recent history!
What if the crazy weather our nation has had the past few years that took out power grids in whole cities and towns for several days became even more commonplace? What if you couldn’t run to WalMart or the grocery store and get what you needed when you needed it? I have friends who had no power in their homes for a week last fall due to extreme weather. And guess what: the stores didn’t have power, either. So that didn’t help. Our nation no longers gives the farmers the support they need to provide our food on the scale in which we need it. Major droughts and dwindling farmlands have us going to nations with lower food safety standards for the “pretty” produce we see lining the aisles in our big, air-conditioned stores.
Enter the Mel…
He taught us THIS using the square-foot-gardening system (and he is an engineer and has the data to prove this stuff)
As compared to a traditional row garden, a SFG produces 100% of the harvest:
~With only 40% of the cost That’s a 60% savings
~In only 20% of the space That’s an 80% savings
~With only 10% of the water That’s a 90% savings (I did that bold because that is just plain amazing!)
1. Get everyone in the world to eat one meal per day of fresh vegetables.
2. To grow those vegetables in their own garden.
3. To use the SFG method for that garden.
But seriously? If a major crisis happened, I worry that most people in the United States would be sunk – never having had to learn how to produce the food they need to survive, never having planted a simple seed…
Be not afraid of sudden terror and panic, nor of the stormy blast or the storm and ruin of the wicked when it comes…Prov. 3.25 Amp
This truly is NOT about living in fear. It isn’t. We have a God who sees us and attends to us. He provides.
BUT – I am SO committed to teaching my grandchildren how to plant a seed and nurture it and work for the food they eat. That is wisdom. Look at the rest of the world and the difficulties faced daily in so many nations and be smart. Be wise. And be a blessing to others, too!
Start small, but start. Plant something (a seed in a windowsill, even) and attend to it and eat of the fruit of it. Be ready in case, because my garden is too small to feed everyone I know.
Although I am open to running a food farm if everyone wants to chip in. ;)
Averi & Amelie are here for a few days while mommy and daddy & baby Bailey are doing ministry at a Dare2Share Conference in Lakewood at Colorado Christian University.
We were talking about how many days it was until Averi would be starting Kindergarten. She asked me how many days it was since I was in Kindergarten. Thousands, Averikins. Thousands and thousands of days.
Then I said, “Hey-do you want to see a picture of me on my first day of kindergarten when I was 5 just like you?”
“Yes!” she was excited. “Do you have a video of it?”
“No,” I explained. “Some people did have old movie cameras when I was little, but back then nobody could do videos like now. There wasn’t even YouTube or anything.”
Her eyes widened, she shook her head and became incredulous? “What?! How did your mom do videos of you then? That is so weird, Nonna.” Her eyebrows were drawn together, her jaw dropped open in shock.
I am the antique, vintage, old-model relic to her. But she loves me anyway. I guess I recall having that same reaction to my Grandma Allison telling me her grandfather was a circuit preacher who went town to town by horseback. No car??! I thought. Amazing. Hard to believe people could live like that.
Meanwhile, my grandkids cannot comprehend not having smart phones. Gavin is going to teach me how to do special movie effects soon, a little trick he mastered on his iPod. They are speeding right past me.
Averi wanted to look at her baby pictures on my computer today after looking at the vintage Jeanie-in-Kindergarten pic. She wanted to use www.picmonkey.com to make one “so cute.” I showed her a few things and then she took over. At 5, she is able to navigate re-sizing the images and even changing the colors. She did this herself with just a little prompting from me, then finished it and said, “Please put this on my mom’s Facebook and tell her ‘This is my picture and this is my blog.'” I didn’t even know she had a blog. :)
Averi – the soon-to-be Kindergartener…Oh yes. I took this gorgeous picture…but I mean, the subject is divine!
When we hit save on the baby picture she had filled with birds and animals, she exclaimed, “Now THAT’S what I’M talking about!”
I stumbled across this image at www.keep.com, which is a lot of stuff I don’t need, but so visually appealing I start to think, just for a second, that I do. Nonetheless, very fun to look at.
This t-shirt made me actually lol. Really. Totally laughed-ol!
Then I wondered about the designer. What little ping of pain might have brought this out? Because very often you will ask some one how they are doing and they will say, “Fine,” and you’ll find out later they were not fine at all but bleeding internally, agonizing in pain over a very difficult situation in their life, but they apparently didn’t want to alarm you.
Have you ever felt like this shirt, but said you were fine, anyway?
There is a traveling museum exhibition I just got wind of—
Lists: To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts, and Other Artists’ Enumerations from the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art see a slide show of a few examples & {clickity-click right here to read all about it}
Wow – I want to see this! Because~
I love lists.
Seeing some one else’s lists inspires me in my list-making.
Lists feel organized to me, so even when the topic is heavy and huge, numbering the points down a page make it all manageable.
I love that lists are important to other people, too, and important enough to create a museum exhibition for them.
I hope someday my lists will be in an exhibition. :)
Johnny Cash’s to-do list sold at auction on Dec. 5, 2010 for $6,250
Karen Carpenter would be 63 if she were alive today. Oh wow-she was THE voice. When I first started diving into the pop music scene, I was ten, and I’d sneak my dad’s little leather-encased transitior radio outside and turn the buttons just so until I found the station and there it was: Close to You, and Bless the Beasts and the Children, both charting at that time. I’d hold it my ear as I sat in the tire swing as evening fell and her smooth voice just enchanted me, took me to a magical, romantic place.
I found this image of a transistor that was already sold on ebay. I think my dad won his in a contest at work and I am almost positive it was this exact model!
The Carpenters had such a mellow, beautiful, soft sound, it is almost a miracle, during the changing times then, with Woodstock, drugs and the 70s, that they’d be so successful. But Karen’s voice was like butter, so smooth, so low….I LOVED that because I was an alto. She became my hero, so easy to sing with.
Honestly, it would be harder for me to list 5 of their songs that I don’t care for, because I can’t think of any. But I decided that if I was going to make a list of 10, I’d just have to let the songs that come to mind first be the ones I list. Because on a different day – the list could be considerably changed and still be true, still be my top ten favorites.
For I love the first song I ever heard them sing (“Close to You”) the best, because it was the first. But I also find their cover of the Beatle’s “Ticket to Ride” just hauntingly beautiful. How did they have the nerve to do a Beatles song so soon and how was it able to be fully theirs and so amazing? And “It’s Gonna Take Some Time This Time,” was so picturesque, so beautiful in words, bending trees and wisdom on living through hard stuff and how you can learn something from everything, even the heartbreaks.
“Touch Me While We’re Dancing,” and “I Know I Need to be in Love” are also wonderful-wonderful-wonderful!
Oh-oh-oh-oh – as you know, one of my all-time ever fav songs is “Merry Christmas, Darling,” but I am not adding it here. Because it is a Christmas song. And a song about home and it has made other lists. But you know I LOVE it!
There were even post-humous releases, after Karen’s shocking death in 1983. “Make Believe it’s Your First Time,” and “Now,” among others. Richard has released more material as recently as 2001, including the much-recorded, “The Rainbow Connection,” and, as if no one else had ever recorded it, it is pure Karen. Just beautiful.
SO MUCH good music. I have taught my kids to appreciate the Carpenters. Sometimes we still play the vinyl albums.
Here is my list. Ten of my favorite Carpenter’s songs {not necessarily in order}, out of so many more favorites:
Hey-I finally got on Spotify and it is awesome! {The first track doesn’t work, but it is listed again later. Ignore it and listen to these amazing songs!} IF YOU ONLY LISTEN TO ONE, listen to “Good-Bye to Love.” Her voice is just UH-mazzzzzzzzing!
Close to You // “Why do birds suddenly appear everytime you are near? Just like me they long to be close to you.” This is a happy song of the general sense of well-being we get when we are loved and in love. Bright. Joyful. So sweet. The song just skips down the sunlit street of happiness. Hear the birds chirping, figuratively, anyway?
Good-Bye to Love // I was 11 and just loved (and sang along with great fervor) the dip-scoop of the melody, “I’ll say good-bye to love…no one ever cared if I should live or die...” Haha. It also appealed to the deep drama in the heart of a prepubescent girl – already longing for the love of her life to appear.
Superstar // The funnest lyrics to sing ever: “Baby-baby-baby-baby-oh-baby…” :) Actually, this song is so haunting and full of longing, “Long ago and oh so far away, I fell in love with you before the second show. Your guitar, it sounds so sweet and clear, but you’re not really here, it’s just the radio...” See? Doesn’t this work in a way it almost couldn’t now? Because it would be “You’re not really here, it’s just Pandora or Spotify or live steaming or an online station or YouTube or iTunes or…? “Come back to me again and play your sad guitar…” *sigh*
Hurting Each Other // “Closer than the leaves on a weeping willow, baby, we are…” I mean – songs that have lyrics that can create a picture like this in your mind just stand the test of time!
Rainy Days and Mondays //“…always get me down.” Melancholy at its’ absolute finest. And if it’s Monday AND it’s raining, then I probably will be found, “Talking to myself and feelin’ old,” but don’t worry – “…we know what it’s all about…”
Yesterday Once More // Sweet. “When I was young I’d listen to the radio waitin’ for my favorite songs. When they played I’d sing along, it made me smile…” For me, this is a true story. Music is everywhere now, you don’t have to wait for your favorite songs on commercial radio. But as this song goes, when I hear an old song from past times, “Those old melodies still sound so good to me as they melt the years away. Every sha-la-la-la, Every wo-o-wo-o, still shines…” Memories in music are the deepest and sweetest.
I Won’t Last a Day Without You // Dave sang this to me at our wedding. Before that, it was just another in a long line of beautiful Carpenter’s songs, in the hit-after-hit line-up they had going. But Steve Hellwig played, and Dave sang, holding my hands and looking straight into my eyes. That was 32 years ago (in 8 days). “It’s nice to know that you’ll be there if I need you, and you’ll always smile, it’s all worthwhile...” I hope he still thinks that. :)
Bless the Beasts and the Children // This is a universal song about just being nice, about covering and caring for little children and helpless animals. Just be nice. Live here and protect the world God created. “Give them love, let it shine all around them…”
For All We Know // I wonder if there was a wedding between 1971 and 1985 that didn’t have this played or sung? Quintessential wedding song!
We’ve Only Just Begun // Rolling Stone Magazine included this as one of their top 500 songs of all time. Ok-if there was a wedding between 1971 and 1985 that didn’t include #9, I bet they used this song! “We’ve only just begun to live, white lace and promises. A kiss for luck and we’re on our way. We’ve only begun…”
Karen was the {most amazing} voice, Richard, the genius behind the production and arrangements, the lyrics and the clear-cut direction they had musically. Smooth, clear, timeless songs, a sound that flows like a clear mountain stream through the 70s soundtrack of my heart and soul, their deeply felt and beautifully communicated music will always be important and very high on the songlist of my life. From a transistor radio to 45s and LPs, to 8-tracks to boom boxes and stereos, to digital, I love the Carpenters! Always have, always will.
I was scrolling through my past Tweets the other day and I liked this one. It was a silly thought, but still, I liked my own Tweet. There. I admitted it. :)
Meaning: things in our lives that have brought us so much satisfaction and joy and fulfillment as people often get pushed aside for something we think (or have been told) is more important. I mean, really: in Kindergarten, was there a better day than the one in which it was your turn to use the easel and the paints? Of course there wasn’t.
I bought some big packages of that grainy, yellowish-gold manilla paper. I have wonderful paints for the grandbebes. But I got out of Kindergarten and let it go. Why?
Other things I wish I’d done more with ~
being more artistsic in whatever fashion I took a fancy to: painting or learning to draw well or lettering or papier mache (please say it the way the French do) or graphics or collage…I really did always love collage.
reading more, for the love of reading
studying more – there is just so much to learn about so many things, but I only reward myself with delving in to a topic when “everything else” is done
but mostly singing…I wish I hadn’t let singing go. I used to sing.
TV show that aired from 1968 to 1970. I came in at the end when we got a TV the fall of ’70. And I loved him. I loved “Alexander Mundy” with my whole heart. Until the night my dad said we were going to watch a new show and I cried my eyes out, but he made sit there and watch “The Partridge Family.” And then, I gave my heart to David Cassidy.
My first observations after the trip to see the parentals…
Dave had added lots of deli meats (ham!) and cheeses and condiments (spreads and dips) to his food collection.
Most of the fresh produce I left was still in the fridge…but no longer fresh.
This rather self-congratulatory piece of mail arrived in the mailbox.
Meanwhile – all Brighton residents were on a water ban for 3 or 4 days! There was e-coli in some of the testings and all chaos broke loose. All the grocery stores were out of water. Restaurants had to close. Everyone had to boil their water for anything consumable (including doing dishes!)…it was crazy. But I missed all the excitement, hallelujah!
Dave took his garden-watering instructions quite seriously and my garden…well, it’s a jungle out there, e-coli be darned!
The basil has already delighted in some fresh bruschetta and slow-simmered marinara.
The hollyhocks have taken over the universe. But since they are in full bloom, I cannot bring myself to declare war on them.
The lettuce could feed an army. The cilantro, did indeed, bolt. I told Dave it could not be trusted. But alas. I am home to whip him back into compliance (the cilantro plant, not Dave)!
The purple petunias – well, they were all crowded and fully-bloomed waiting to welcome me home and are quite lovely, thank-you very much.
Dave put in the first 1/3 of a long meandering sidewalk which shall stretch from the back patio around to the back garage door then around the garage to the front yard to meet the south area of the drive.
Plus, the K’s have been in St. Louis all week and we are babysitting Tuppy-the-Puppy. Everywhere I go I am in a sea of doggie feet (because if Tuppy is going to go with me, Sandy is too!). Picture Pigpen, the kid who moved in a cloud of dirt and dust in the Peanuts comic strip. That is me with these two doglettes!
I am home. I miss my mom and dad and the sibs. But this is my place in the universe.My mom, my little sister, Tami, my dad and the baby of the family, Danny.
My mom and I laugh so much. She loves to be silly and torment me and it just cracks me up because she is really the kindest, most loving person in the whole world!
Danny was practicing taking pics with the iPhone and there I was, flanked by beauty and beauty.
Finally: success! We are all there. Danny-the-history-teacher, my strong and commanding dad, my selfless and generous sister, me and my sweet mamala!
