Ageless Beauty walking gently upon the Narrow Path
She runs, she glides, she rests, she makes the journey her home
Eyes roam in search of hidden truths to hold, to grasp and adorn
In never-ending pursuit of the knowledge that evades the apathetic
A solid foundation rooted in love, she unites her family
Her green touch hails life in the dead garden, now fresh and new
With tasks at hand to nurture, to provide, to advise
She shifts in form to embody the need of the moment
Watch on, watch long, wholehearted devotion you will observe
She has an audience in me, I listen and absorb
May I sit beside you, Seasoned Wisdom, on the narrow path?
What will you share? What must I know? What knowledge do I lack?
Speak the words that breathe life in the graveyards of my being
Then, permit the Undeserving to leave you with a wish
Hold no more the woes from seasons Time has now retired
Ageless Beauty, age in grace, grow in love, lie down in peace.
From Tredessa Christine Rhoades, (a very wonderful daughter) in watercolor and ink, on the occasion of my 5oth birthday. At this point in life, you enjoy being described as ageless and timeless. *smile…
youtube.com: “Snow” from the movie White Christmas; daughter Stephanie quoted this song on Facebook the other day and reminded me how hilarious the words are.
“I wanna wash my hands, my face and hair in snow.”
Thank-you, Jesus, the snow has finally subsided and the meltdown begins. By 4 pm today huge sheets of thick, heavy, wet snow were sliding off the roof in loud splats, scaring my big-fat-chicken dog. The sun re-emerged and made me very happy.
I never heard the official numbers for my city, but my own {highly scientific, I am certain} measuring says we got 13 1/2″. I know this partly because I left my 12″ ruler in place at 10 pm the first night where the measurement said 9.25″ and the next morning, it had disappeared. I had to pull out a yard stick. Dessa’s neighborhood got more than a foot and a half of snow.
If some one really is excited, as the song says, “to see a great big man entirely made of snow,” now would be the time.
pictured: snow measurement first thing Thursday morning; a huge pot of chicken and dumplings which Jovan had fortuitously requested for her family birthday party meal, as well as a balloon snowman Tredessa fashioned and Averi enjoying a piece of the very moist and dense triple-layered pumpkin spice cake with that cream cheese icing you could just die for. Hot comfort food on cold days: good!
BTW-Gavin’s grandpa bought him a leaf-blower, an apparatus I have always spurned in favor of an old-fashioned rake. But maybe I’ll end up actually liking it. I know Gavin does.
This is the same yard today.
Pictured: left, from the front door (inside the house!); right, out the back sliding glass door (from inside the house!)
Early afternoon update: looks like we have about 6″ and they are saying it will double before it is over. Other areas of the city already have 12″ or more.
Schools are closed. Wal-Mart is full of frantic people buying milk and toilet paper. I called Tredessa to make sure she had everything she needed to be snowed in for 2 days (which is what they are “promising,”) and her reply was, “Yes. I just got some movies.” I laughed because I was more worried about food and she just wanted to be sure she had enough entertainment to get her through. FYI, The Westword published a list of the best snowy movies to watch on a snowy day, which you can view here.
My main complaint.
Pictured: out the back door.
The weather guys are telling us to anticipate a crazy, snowy winter during this El Nino year. Which is fine, but I am going to complain ahead of time that today is a beautiful, snowy-Christmasy-type-day and on Christmas, it will probably be 63-degrees and sunny, as it so often is in Denver in December. I don’t have to like that.
My secondary complaint.
I just got back from 8 rainy days in Missouri. I needed my Colorado sunshine!
I should just shut up about it.
Pictured: from the front porch (I actually stepped outside!)
I know. I know. Everyone else in the snowy-universe is thrilled. Tredessa has her movies. Everybody is making chili and Tara is baking her very first ever pumpkin pie from scratch (even baking her own pumpkins!). So, the world is joyfully on hold, the kids are out of school, the snow continues and I will live.
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” ~George Eliot
I am visiting my parents in Springfield.
Two days ago I watched my backyard Aspens flutter dark green to yellow in one day. I swear it. The leaves were turning that fast, hourly lighter and brighter in color. Today it is snowing in Denver, really snowing, they say. By next week the naked branches, up to their knees in brown crunchiness, will glare at me as I attempt to rake up the once-glorious leafery.
But I?
I have chased autumn into a Missouri mood that lingers like musk on my skin. I have escaped to turning-leaves on proud trees and the deep intensity of autumn colors that hold both the memory of exuberant youth with its’ fresh, green-spring growth, and the exploding red-to-the-core ripeness of the late summer tomato, now seasoned to a complex beauty, indisputably richer and wiser for the aging. The blazing urgency of the season, so much to experience before it all passes into winter, is salty on my tongue. I inhale the cinnamon-scented air, and taste the pungent, spicy and intangible gift of the equinox while the crickets sing that haunting song I have always loved.
Burnt sienna and ochre rustle restlessly as autumn falls and the cool night air sprinkles wet diamonds onto my keyboard and into my mouth filling my lungs with cool, brisk air and enduring toasted warmth at once. Haley’s Comet spilled burning meteor fragments in the wee hours, punctuating the night sky with light, a spectacle for late-night lovers young and old.
What is it about fall? Not just nostalgia, so much sweeter. Faded, yet more glorious. Softer, yet stronger. The taste? Lingering, commemorative, a celebration of all that has ever been with a watchful eye for all to come. Delicious.
I always hate to see summer end, yet the autumn is my life’s palette, the colors of my heart. Even the heading at the top of this page gives ode to the falling leaf…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Grab the season with gusto, hold it close until the last leaf flies away.
pictured: a google image of Missouri and what I am surrounded by
My mom and I were drinking coffee on the deck this morning and enjoying the rustling leaves in their fall coat-of-many-colors. Autumn is romantic. This is from my mama’s heart and mind:
“The butterflies are taking one last dance across the meadow.
Last year I said October is Orange. And it still is. My church turned orange last fall, too. I do love my house-of-worship-advertising sweatshirt with the bum logo (thank-you, sweet Katie!).
This October is craaaaaazy-busy-fun and occasion-filled!
Like, we have three family birthdays in October (mine, Hunter’s and still-to-come: Jovan’s!). I turned 50 (shhh…there is no need to think about this, nor mention it aloud) with dinner at Cinzzetti’s~
Pictured: Me and my baby, Stormie; Patrice is telling me right at this very second that she is pregnant with their 3rd child! Me, Pearl and Marilyn. I screamed immediately following…
DP nearly ate Cinzzetti’s out of mussels; me and the 5 grandbebes who were well-contained in our private room.
I have sweet friends (almost every single one of whom is younger than me, I noticed), and a lovely family. Thank-you, everybody for celebrating my life even if I could have gone without noticing the new decade. I am blessed.
Hunter and the wheels-in-motion cake and fun-on-wheels party for himself and 25 of his closest friends:
Hunter turned “The Garage” into a speedway. There were trikes and bikes and skateboards and more. Kids zoomed one way and then the next. It was crazy loud and speedy. Hunter got the chocolate fudge cake he wanted in the shape of a “5” and when, the other day, he reminded he really, really, really wanted some lightening bolts, too, in honor of his current favorite movie, Bolt, I whipped up a strawberry cake at the last second to cut out and ice some lightening bolt shapes for flanking the main cake.
But, oh my goodness, it is what I did with the cut-off-cake crumbs that needs to be mentioned. Into a bowl: leftover chocolate-fudge cake, the rest of the fudge filling, a block of cream cheese, a can of cherry pie filling. Mixed well. Cookie-scooped onto baking sheets and thrown into the freezer until they were just firm enough to coat with melted white chocolate. Chocolate-Cherry Cake Bites, o yeah! To. die. for. Yum. Seriously!
Poor Magoo ended up very, very sick at his own party. He conked out, but the fun held up.
There was a Worship and the Word Movement PSTeam (prayer-support team) potluck at the MadCap Theater (a great improv place-you should totally go!)
Last night there was a Seek and Soak with TOM EWING (a man DP called a general in worship ministry). Here is the kick-off song featuring Tom, Sing to the King
In the video, left to right: Rocky Rhoades on guitar, Tom Ewing, Tristan on drums, Stormie on bass, DP on lead guitar (and leading the whole Seek and Soak), Lewis Brown (a.k.a. Proxy), and Lewis Brown, Sr. on sax. It was an amazing night. Musical worship, the Word of God, 3+ hours of encounter-worship, about 100 people entering the Presence, even Baptists! :) Smile, Emily! That was for you!
Let’s see…what else?
Jovan and Rocky will find out if it is a boy or a girl at their next appointment. Goody!
There is the celebration of Amy Jo’s baby-to-be this Thursday night.
And Saturday night I get to go see the final Delirious concert in Colorado ever as they are on their farewell tour. This band changed everything in the 90s and they are still such a class act, men of integrity who love Jesus and are soooo talented. They changed the sound of worship and people around the world go deeper worship via the songs of the Lord they introduced. Got to see them at Ichthus and now here. I love them and how they have influenced my own children to become History Makers.
Also ~ Dave will play the lead in the Platte Valley Player’s community theaters’ presentation of “Suspenders,” a musical comedy, as part of the grand opening celebration of Brighton’s newly restored/renovated armory as a community arts center/theater in Brighton’s “downtown.” He’ll be performing in it over the next few weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. I’ll be attending the very first performance on Monday the 19th (an event for which I bought a dress!!). I am somewhat divided in my joy about the fact that Dave is also painting the backdrop for the show and there are 6 giant 8′ x 4′ canvases in my living room at this time.
Family Time!
I will be going to spend a week with my mama et papa in Springfield, MO, where they wrongfully and stubbornly retired a year and a half ago and now wish to leave to be closer to any of us that they know (do you know of anyone house-hunting in Springfield?? Help!). They will spoil me rotten and my brother Joe is meeting me there, too. We will visit Branson, about a half hour from them, for the express purpose of giving my mother her dream-come-true in visiting the Roy Rogers/Dale Evans Museum before it closes its’ doors for good this December.
I am already working on church Christmas decor. In October!
Upon my return, I will enjoy the grandbebes playing dress-up for the church’s annual Harvest Fest and then, as they have all requested (informing me that it is a tradition, one I must have started unknowingly), all will gather at our home for broccoli-cheese soup (because I make incredible zuppa).
Life. It can wear you out!
Dave is sick and they are checking him for H1N1 tomorrow morning, though they have already started him on antibiotics. What in the world?? Who has time for this?
Just trying to keep up…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Loosen up some time in November and December. Right.
“Tea! thou soft, thou sober, sage, and venerable liquid…thou female tongue-running, smile-smoothing, heart-opening, wind-tippling cordial, to whose glorious insipidity I owe the happiest moment of my life, let me fall prostrate.” ~Colley Cibber, Lady’s Last Stake (I first read it on the invitation my daughters, Stephanie and Stormie, extended inviting me to tea.)
“Bread and water can so easily be toast and tea.” ~Author Unknown
The Tea, as I understand its’ purpose to be, was merely the opportunity for Stephanie and Stormie to try out as many rapturous recipes on us as possible. Things such as Blackberry Napoleans on shortbread and scones with raspberry preserves or fresh Devonshire Cream, finger sandwiches, and fancy tea cakes were among the wondrous offerings. Then there were the perfectly-brewed teas: Earl Grey, Peach and Chai Spice, to choose from. Luscious chocolate truffles and handcrafted candies awaited us as well. They just cooked and baked and created and delighted us all.
Stormie and Stephanie also took the opportunity to use the mix-and-match dishes and serving pieces they both collect. There was China as old as the 1930’s and pieces from the 40’s and 50’s as well as “vintage” linens from the 70’s mixed with things from Anthropologie’s vintage modern and oh-so-hip wares.
“If you are cold, tea will warm you. If you are too heated, it will cool you. If you are depressed, it will cheer you. If you are excited, it will calm you.” ~Gladstone, 1865
Pennants and garlands were sewn from papier and sprinkled about for color and fun. The effect was timeless and frolicsome and playful ~ grown women enjoying a tea party like little girls.
“Another novelty is the tea-party, an extraordinary meal in that, being offered to persons that have already dined well, it supposes neither appetite nor thirst, and has no object but distraction, no basis but delicate enjoyment.” ~Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste
All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes. ~George Orwell, “A Nice Cup of Tea”
“Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. And whoever this ‘Earl Grey’ fellow is, I’d like to have a word with him… ” -Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek, The Next Generation
The Earl Grey was smooth and sweet (without sugar, thank-you very much) and I have enjoyed the Earl on several occasions since the tea. Yes, he was that good.
“Tea with lemon please” ~Jerry Seinfeld
Sandy-the-Dog takes her Tea with two lumps of sugar, if you please.
They just did a great job and we all felt so polite and honored and classy and well-fed.
Thank-you Stephanie and Stormie. I am available for recipe-testing anytime. It was magnificent!…Mom
Guinivere and Gemma show up on a crisp autumn morn to hang out with Nonna. Gemma runs to me, squealing with joy, “It’s Nonna! I found Nonna!” I pick her up and twirl her around and she squeezes her face to mine. Guini sneaks by to head straight for the toys and snacks.
Outside there is a fairly strong wind, and though the sun is the brightest bright, we determine quickly that something warm to drink will be in order. I supply my sweet-petites with hot chocolate. They add a crystally sugar cube (because Nonna is out of marshamallows and you must add something) and begin happily stirring and sipping. I join them on the patio with my piping hot coffee.
We discuss all manner of fun topics as we watch Sandy-the-Dog chase birds, and bees are drawn to the pink, sparkly shoes they are wearing. Our steamy hot beverage party moves from under the canopy on cushioned chairs to the stairs to the antique bed/couch (temporarily not in its’ rightful patio space due to a social function held here recently). At some point Gemma divines that if she has a blanket, she can just sprawl on the patio concrete and be quite content.
Suddenly the grandbebes are hungry. I grab a bag of tortilla chips and, for myself, some homemade salsa (the hot stuff). Grown men were unable to eat it the other night, yet Guini devours salsa’d chip after chip saying, “It isn’t too bad. It’s not too spicy.” That’s my girl!
“Nonna, can we watch Sprout?” Yes.
5 minutes later, “Nonna, can we have lunch?” Seriously? Well, maybe a snack, I decide, and as we go through the list of everything we have in the house, they settle on hot dogs. They each have 2. With mustard AND ketchup (ick). Did I not train their mother correctly on acceptable hot dog condiments??!?
Energized by food, they make quick work of the family room, grabbing every pillow and couch cushion, making a circle around the coffee table. Now it is time to run like banchees and scream at the top of our lungs. Round and round the table we go, running on top of the pillows, which, is actually pretty dangerous, let me tell you.
After they tire of it (and I am nearly dead), they pull out the play cell phones and it seems that everyone who calls them wants also to talk to me. I do my best to have believeable conversations into dead phones, as Guini and Gemma follow the chatter quite closely, nodding their heads as if they knew exactly what the phantom-person on the other end wanted to discuss with me. Tara and Tredessa “called” a lot. That is all I am saying.
“Nonna, I have to go pottie,” Gemma would excitedly exclaim. This happened at least 17 un-event-filled times (and did not happen twice when it should have), but we did have quite the chatter-filled bonding time. Guini-the-Flower girl informed me that cameras were not welcomed. And even though I tried to tell her it would warm my heart to have memories of this beautiful, crisp, fine, fall morning together, she was resolute. Softly, yet without apology she said, “I told you no pictures today.”
But it is captured in my heart and my mind’s eye. And I did sneak a couple of shots. Think she’ll forgive me?
Two of my sweet, wildly-creative daughters have invited me to tea. The above invitation was mounted on deep purple cardstock and tucked into an envelope and hand-delivered when I returned from Puerto Rico. They’d been devising their festivities. So polite and formal.
Lisa Bierer and I, when we had a little shop in a small city in Nebraska, used to be called upon to lecture on the Victorian custom of Tea and were a resource for those seeking the “finer things.” It may have had some impact upon my young and impressionable daughters for they have been at work collecting vintage linens and old China and planning a lovely tea for a few of us.
I love my girls. I love tea. With great pleasure I accept this invitation. A delightful time is in store, I think.
