Elise-the-niece gave me a big bouquet of flowers for Mother’s Day (for being her Colorado mom-ish-type-fill-in-person) and some flower seeds and these adorable little garden markers she found in the dollar section at Target. They say you get 5 in the package, but mine had 6 – good times! They come with the marker and everything.
These are highly superior to the plastic picnic knives Gavin and I had used! Methinks we shall do some replacing…
“when — naked, soaked in sweat and blood, and a heart thumping from a marathon — you are squeezing onto your bosom ‘the whole universe wrapped in harmony with your soul’ and realize that this is the tiny body of your own baby.
Mytyr, Mana, Mater, Muter, Madre, Mother, Mamma, you are the circle of life; heaven and earth pass through you.” ~Eleftheria Mantzouka
Yep. That about says it.
I wanna be just like you when I grow up, Mama. I love you! Happy Day!
*Norma Jean (Allison) Moslander, currently residing in Springfield, Mo. Everyone should have some one like her in their lives! Truly. “Then the world would be a better place!…” Pictured: my mom beside my dad – where she has been for 51+ years, faithfully and with great love and devotion.
It was a Wednesday 05.09.79, the evening of a beautiful spring day. The mysterious baby was coming – boy or girl? I had no idea. But I was hoping for a baby girl. 30 minutes after arriving at the hospital (where I refused to go until I was having difficulty “handling” contractions), she arrived.
I see perfection for the first time in my life. She is pink and shaped perfectly and gentle. I am not alone…
Two hours later they place the little bundle in my arms in our temporary home and she looks at me as if she has always known me. I breathe in the mystery of her and know that my heart is tied to this little human being in an eternal way. I feel the love I give her come back to me. God gave me the gift of her, entrusted me with her life and I cannot fathom how life-changing it will be.
Shiny blond hair and bright blue eyes accessorize this girl’s joyous personality. Everything about life is another opportunity to laugh and be happy and to bring the same to all around her. She squeals with delight at the slightest provocation. She is fun and she is joy. She is star bright and star light.
Was it really thirty years ago that I held this beautiful stranger as close as humanly possible? Did I really start my wobbly ascent into motherhood so long ago? Hard to believe, difficult to comprehend.
Yet, more mysterious is the fact that this girl, this amazing woman of God with the angelic voice, this anointed exhorter and song writer, DP’s devoted crazy-in-love-with-him wife and Hunter’s creative and attentive mommy is that same baby I held. The fact that I had anything at all to do with this woman boggles my mind. The fact that I held her first, that I prayed over her and sang to her and got to mommy her ~ I am humbled. Because Tara? Has turned out!
I am so proud of you, Tara. I am so pleased with the choices you are making every day and the life you are living to please the Father. Happy Birthday, my firstborn, my child. Happy Birthday!
Love you babe…Mom
NOTE TO SELF: Be the driving force to get her birthday shelves built by her dad! :)
4 or 5 years ago, I decided on a chalkboard for the kitchen. I use it to write scriptures or birthday greetings, and occasionally a to-do list love note for Dave. So, I purchased one, cut the size to get a more unique-than-your-basic-office sized board and Dave put a thicker, aged wood frame on it. I have never liked it. Not only boring in looks, the board itself stunk at holding the chalk lines. It is some sort of plastic-y coating and never worked well.
Enter the sister-in-law. She buys old fake oil-paintings in interesting and pretty frames, paints over the print with chalkboard paint and voila! A nice chalk-holding surface that has some age and interest to it. You know this has been the year of the chalkboard-painted-stuff quest for me: here or here or here or even here!
One day last week I decided it was time to make the change. And, as if a sign from the heavens that yes! this is the time! – Stephanie-the-daughter brings in an old (late 50s or early 60s?) fake-oil Renoir in a very fussy (antique white with a goldish glaze) frame. Her neighbor gave it to her and she mostly took it to be kind, but it was perfect for my plan!
I took the frame and print apart and washed everything. I lightly sanded and used de-glosser on them (btw-I painted the back of the picture so that if someday, some one comes along who is mortified that I should have treated this piece so, they may switch it back around and enjoy their fake-oil-painted-fake-canvas art – I am thoughtful that way) and then dug in. I painted 2 generous coats of the chalkboard paint on the board (which Robin assures me is sufficient). Then I spray-primed the frame and painted two coats of white satin latex paint on the frame with a trim brush.
These photos make the painting look pretty brilliant, but it is actually rather subdued in color, dusty looking.
Honestly, I had trouble actually using chalk on it at first. I loved the black blackboard contrasting the white white of the frame, but you have to rub a piece of chalk over the whole thing to “prime” it for use. Once that is done, you may proceed happily. I thought the scripture appropriate for the occasion!
Meanwhile, I rubbed an engine-red coat of paint onto the frame of the old chalkboard, allowing the wood grain to still show through a bit; sanded and re-painted the actual board for better chalk-holdage and now the grand-bebes may enjoy chalking on it to their heart’s delight, as always…but better. It now looks very vintage, which I always wanted anyway. Very Pottery Barn.
The area of the new board is almost half of the last one, but what I lose in space, I have gained in something I like much better…for now. I really had a secret desire to paint the frame glossy-enamel mimosa, but that would have required re-painting the entire kitchen. Dave frowns on that sort of impetuous thinking.
This is what I did when the sun showed back up…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: make everyone I know a unique and adorable chalkboard…just kidding…maybe…or not…
pictured: some “befores,” some “afters” (including the actual print facing the back – to prove I didn’t harm the fake oil)and Hunter outside writing on the “new” old chalkboard.
I moved a twisted, decorative log aside so I could weed properly around the base of a small bush. I glanced over to find that a huge, fat, thick and hairy, black-spotted spider had crawled from her hole-in-the-log and was screaming obscenities at me. I think she was getting ready to jump on me and beat the crap out of me.
There is room for all of us in the garden.
Hmph…
When I first started gardening (1997), I checked out the BEST book EVER from the library, Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. See a 3-minute introduction in this youtube video:
The book has been updated and is better, all-new and improved they say. The early SFGs were not that great looking and are now much more attractive. But I still have the actual copy I first read – not because I stole it from the library! No, they sold it a few months later because some one had apparently watered it along with their garden. Silly person…Great sentimental value to me!
Mel, the Square Foot Gardener guru, says if you have never gardened, he can teach you all the principles of successful gardening in an hour. But if you have done “traditional” farm-style (rows and hoeing, for instance) gardening, it takes waaaaaaaay longer to teach you (can you say: hard-headed?). Luckily, I was a total novice, so I LOVE Mel! And I love all the produce I have been able to grow in very small spaces!
This year I have discovered the Square Foot Gardening website along with instructions on how to grow potatoes. Mel’s current website: http://www.squarefootgardening.com/ …F U L L of incredible gardening knowledge! Good times!
This is the method I am passing on to the grand-bebes!…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Never go another year without gardening!
pictured: my ragged copy of the first Square Foot Gardening book….still much used and greatly loved…
If ever I finish my first book, Grace from the Garden-Things You can Learn about God while Digging in the Dirt, my second book will be In Search of the Sabbath Song – about the Songs of the Lord that take you from stressed-to-rest. Lofty goals, no?
I am intrigued by those Psalms cited to be songs for the Sabbath. I will tell you this, if you do any type of ministry or have a title or volunteer in most any church in America, Sunday ain’t your Sabbath. It is another work day, albeit “for the Lord.”
But I have been meditating on Psalm 92 recently. There is verse 10, particularly, that promises a fresh-oil anointing. Fresh. That would signify green, life-giving, Holy-Spirit-flowing, a “new” thing. Sometimes I go a really long time on an old batch. And it makes me wonder what if?
What if we set aside one 24-hour period weekly for rest from our work? What if we worked 6, rested one – every single week? What if it were a day on which no other days had a hold? What if we had a day holy, blessed, from the Lord Himself for us? What if we wholeheartedly, joyously, and “relaxedly” Sabbathed? In this culture? Right here in western-culture America?
Because I know what it looks like not to live this way. I wrote about it here, recently. That – we do pretty well. Below, some thoughts I am turning over in my heart…
Verses 1 – 11 tell us what a Sabbath day looks like, how it is a blessed and special day. It is full of joyousness and remembrance, giving thanks and taking the time to just notice the faithfulness of God.
Strength and grace. That is what the wild-ox anointing is about. Oxen were tamed in ancient times by putting a heavy yoke on their necks and tying them to an already-broken, old ox. They’d do that until they were so used to it that they could take that yoke off and the ox would still behave and work like it was under that yoke, tied to that old ox.
Jesus said, “Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy-burdened (yoked) and I will give you rest…” He is saying He will lift that heaviness off us. Strength can come again – we’ll kick up our heels as if we had not been broken by that heavy yoke. The joy of the Lord will surge through our veins and our spiritual youth can be restored!
All this from Sabbath? What if…
If the first half of Ps. 92 is giving us a glimpse of how to celebrate Sabbath, the second half tells us what life looks like when you are living with a flowing, fresh-oil anointing (when you have actually set aside time to celebrate Sabbath). This, this is living!
I’d like to so learn to receive this gift for us from the Lord that weekly I will (unashamedly) enjoy a day on which I won’t be heard asking with agitation, “What time is it?!?” I’d like to have that day on which my timeframe has no hold. But rather, I’d like to awaken weekly on the day set aside and, with freedom from worry and care, with great anticipation ask, “What is this time for, today, Lord?” True adventure. And rest from the craziness.
I remain on my quest for the Sabbath Songs…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Be still. Know that He is God…I think maybe You are trying to tell me something?…
If a person is lucky, they’ll have a teacher or two along the way who will see them in the crowd and call something out in them.
If a person is lucky they’ll have a Mrs. Weiland for 2nd grade, young and pretty and very upbeat. Mrs. Weiland will say “You’re so artistic. You draw so well! Maybe someday you’ll be an artist!” And you will live your life believing you have an artistic flair.
If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll have a good Sunday School teacher like Johnny Coyne who will tell you as a young teen student that the fact that you love Language Arts is probably an indicator of how God might use your life. Maybe you have never considered that God even really had a great plan for you, but it will intrigue you to hear it. Yes, Johnny Coyne would be a blessing to have as a Sunday School teacher.
If a person is really lucky, they’ll end up in college with a creative writing teacher like Mr. McCullough. Try as that student might to hide behind her pencil after an assignment, he might see through the ruse and require her to share her work aloud. Then he’ll commission that student to write the enire program for the Mr & Miss Northwest Gala. She’ll agonize over it nervously, but will be able to pull it off because Mr. McCullough believed she was able. And so she was.
If a person is lucky, there will have been a teacher who saw past the obvious and called out the very best in you. I hope every child will experience having such a teacher. I hope every adult will be one, on purpose.
Gavin spent the morning with me the other day and we played in the dirt, or “gardened,” if you prefer. We turned over and amended the soil in one of the 4ft x 4ft raised garden beds. Then to really get the visual, we used string to divide it off into 16 squares.
We had alread planted onion sets at the back a couple of weeks ago and they are sprouting up nicely.
The poles are in place for beans to be planted directly in mid-May.
Meanwhile we planted 16 radishes in one 1ft square. We planted a square of carrots, a square of mixed gourmet lettuces and a square of butter head lettuce, with spicy mesclun mixed in around. It will be harvested so young it won’t affect the butter head.
We tucked in some nasturium seedlings here and there, which we will use in salads – both the leaf and the flower, and voila!
Gavin, who insisted on taking some pictures “so we can remember what we planted,” (how did this boy become such a genius???), kept saying to me, “This is a really good day, isn’t it, Nonna?” It sure was!
More veggie tales to come…Jeanie, aka “Nonna”
pictured: some of Gavin’s shots (you can see we planted the seed in tiny vermiculite indentations, because it acts as a sponge to water, keeping the seed constantly moist), and the ones where I was able to wrangle the camera from him. :]