So a ___________ and a ___________ walk into a bar…
How many _________ does it take to ________________?
Pondering all possible combinations. Just because. And I like words.
Category Archives: Stuff I Actually Think
October Skies
l (a leaf falls) one li ness e.e. cummings
My “leaf-is-falling-but-not-really” photoshoot in the backyard. ;p
It had actually already fallen. I was just replicating it a little {camera in my right hand, leaf stem in my left}.
I quit watering the veggies when I went to Montana over a month ago. I have been gathering regularly ever since, as the vegetable garden seeks to proliferate madly before the end. Then the rainy nights came and they thought they had been asked to stay a while longer. It pains me to tell them no, but I must. Until the spring, my sweet veggies – just until the spring…
“Well, it’s a marvelous night for a Moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
‘Neath the cover of October skies
And all the leaves on the trees are falling
To the sound of the breezes that blow
And I’m trying to please to the calling
Of your heart-strings that play soft and low
And all the night’s magic seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush.”
– Van Morrison, Moondance
FULL MOON on the 23rd!
Three-thirty-six in the morning
And the last of the Third Thursday Supper Club, my prayer partners and very faithful friends have just gone.
Pearly-Q, Heather, Candi, Patrice, Amy Jo, Marilyn, me
Me, Marilyn, Pearl, Heather (seated in the middle), Amy Jo, Candi, Patrice
I will only say this, because it is late (early??) and I should go to bed, but having life-giving sister/friends is essential. It is good. And to be one is a great vocation. I am working towards it.
Beer bread toast for breakfast…yum.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Tredessa; STYLING AND COUNSEL: Stephanie and Stormie (aka MayDae!) ALL OF US COORDINATING AND MATCHING SO MUCH? Sheer coincidence and happy strangeness. Words and effects by Jeanie
Growing Season
“Gardening imparts an organic perspective on the passage of time.”
– William Cowper , yes, the writer of one of my all-time favorite hymns, “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood” He and I are soulmates, I am certain of it now (though he has been with Jesus, lo these 210 years or so)…
This morning I am watching the burning bushes turn to blazing red minute by minute. Overnight the neighbor’s Maple tree went orange, a bright, baby pumpkin -ish orange. Gold leaves adorn the lower branches of the Aspens like a 14k necklace. A steady rain all-day one day last weeks signaled the turn. The sun has shone in joyous celebration since, spotlighting the color’s arrival. Bright yellow spagetti squash, dotting the yard and garden from the various locations echo back with sunny resound.
NOTE TO THE ZUCCHINI: Enough already. Time to stop. I have run out of room. And recipes.
True AND a great tip:
“Fall is not the end of the gardening year; it is the start of next year’s growing season. The mulch you lay down will protect your perennial plants during the winter and feed the soil as it decays, while the cleaned up flower bed will give you a huge head start on either planting seeds or setting out small plants.” – Thalassa Cruso
Today for breakfast
Really good, reeeeallly good bacon and sliced red red red tomatoes from the garden, sweet and juicy, tangy and true to God’s original intent. O yes.
You plant a “dead” seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don’t look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different. 1 Cor. 15 The Message
Drmatically and wonderfully different! Viva la garden tomato!
After-school snack last week with the grand~bebes (the first five): graham crackers and buttercream
Gavin, Hunter, Gemma, Averi and Guini
Graham Cracker Decorating 101, everybody gets an “A” for the day!
“You Jack-wagon!”
It isn’t the sentiment that it is ok to be mean to some one who needs a shoulder, who carries the pain of the past like a heavy, sorrowful blanket over their shoulders and they have sought professional help – because that isn’t nice. But I really like the technically-non-cussing rant by the drill seargent which I may be able to use sometime myself. Yes, I am certain there will be occasion.
Good Songs with Suggestions for Living
A list of good tunes that offer tips for life.
Songs can make you feel energized and happy or melancholy and sad. They can remind you of your best times in life or where you were when you got your first heartbreak. There are songs for everything, for every mood and emotion, for every season and reason. And then there are songs that are just jam-packed with good advice for living. I jotted these titles in my notebook today while I waited parked in the driveway as Averi was snoozing in her car seat.
The Cat’s in the Cradle by Harry Chapin
You WILL reap what you sow, so – spend time with your kids. As they say, “They’ll be picking your nursing home for you someday.”
And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon Little boy blue and the man on the moon When you comin’ home dad? I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then son You know we’ll have a good time then…
Maybe this song isn’t so much good advice as it is a great reminder about how not to waste your life.
Daughters by John Mayer
On behalf of every man looking out for every girl You are the guide and the weight of her world So fathers, be good to your daughters Daughters will love like you do Girls become lovers who turn into mothers So mothers, be good to your daughters too
Totally true! A girl’s choices in love are so shaped by her dad. Even when she doesn’t realize how much, a dad’s approval and acceptance, his loving and wise words mean everything!
Teach Your Children Well by Crosby, Stills and Nash
Can you hear and do you care and Cant you see we must be free to Teach your children what you believe in. Make a world that we can live in.
Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman by Bryan Adams
LINK TO VIDEO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeEFHJFUbEg
When you love a woman you tell her that she’s really wanted When you love a woman you tell her that she’s the one She needs somebody to tell her that it’s gonna last forever So tell me have you ever really, really really ever loved a woman? To really love a woman Let her hold you – ‘Til you know how she needs to be touched You’ve gotta breathe her – really taste her Til you can feel her in your blood And when you can see your unborn children in her eyes You know you really love a woman
I love every lyric of this song (even though I couldn’t put them all here) and believe this song should be sung during Promise Keepers meetings. Seriously. They wouldn’t let me embed but there are a couple of great videos, the live version I have put the link to above, and the actual video in a Spanish Casino when the song was used for Johnny Depp’s movie, “Don Juan DiMarco.” Click here, but be warned, it is probably a PG-13 rating http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq2KgzKETBw
I Hope You Dance by Lee Ann Womak
And this one may be some of the best advice of all, especially for me, a girl who was forbidden the dance, but always knew deep down the Creator loved to see her twirl and dance with joy. I need this reminder constantly to break the unholy chains wrongly attributed to the Holy One. {NOTE: Please pardon LeAnn’s extraneous use of the newly acquired mammilla, which frankly, in my humble-o, seem a little out of place for the sentiment and style of this video. }
I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance Never settle for the path of least resistance Living might mean taking chances But they’re worth taking Lovin’ might be a mistake But it’s worth making I hope you still feel small
When you stand by the ocean
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens
Give the heavens above More than just a passing glance And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance I hope you dance
What other songs have great advice for me to sing to myself? List, please.
And please, brother Joe – do NOT say “Put Another Log on the Fire.” Or else.
never take one breath for granted…
Gas ‘er up
Refuel.
I cannot help the fact that I have an innate distaste for the Kum & Go gas station chains. It is the name. Ew. No, it does not work for me. They were strewn all over Nebraska and I hated them then, but now we have not one, but two of them in Brighton, flanking the east and west sides of the city. Every time I go anywhere, there they are: two Kum & Go stores. I pass them leaving the house, I pass them coming home.
Refresh.
But they also have the best gas deals near my house and if I run out of my morning blend, they are the closest place to get a really good cup of coffee fast – a really good, BIG cup of coffee.
Uh-huh. The ones in Brighton look exactly just like this…only with a city and neighborhoods around them. Why can’t they just have a better name? Like Refresh and Refuel?
Pumpkin Spice.
This morning Dave “surprised” me with the Kum & Go version of a Pumpkin Spice Latte, my drink of cold-weather choice from Starbucks every year over which I mourn longingly when it is gone for the season. Ok, thank-you, honey…yeah right. But guess what? It is pretty stinking delicious. I had my own whipped cream and for half the price and double the volume? Oh my. I do feel somewhat like a cheater, but Starbucks-darling, watch out for the Kum & Go. Now when they add nice comfy chairs and wi-fi….
NOTE TO SELF: Check out the Kum & Go career possibilities and see if I can be vice-president of re-naming the chain. How about Come Here & then Leave ?
Blue
Keeping an eye out
I have always wanted blue contact lenses – really blue…knock-your-socks-off blue. Well not always just blue. For a long time I wanted one blue and one slightly turquoise so that when people looked at me, they would not know what they were seeing, they’d just know something was different, that I had a “unique quality.” My eye doctor (also in a Sunday morning Bible class I was leading) said, “You want THAT to be what people think is unique about you?”
Yes. I was {am??} that shallow.
The weak-eyed one.
Once my mom started using color film exclusively in the early 60s and beyond, I was always the one with red eyes. Then as a young teen, every. single. picture. caught me with my eyes closed. I think it was backlash about hearing my poor mom bemoan the red eyes, or “weak eyes” as they were sometimes explained. I was just trying to spare 2 red dots from ruining otherwise good pictures. She did not like those either. Nevertheless, almost every photo between 1972 and 1978 were with my eyes wide shut!
I felt a great connection to and affinity for Leah, the weak-eyed one in the Bible.*
Enter Ellie.
Months ago Ellie mentioned wanting to take my picture. I resisted with every imaginable excuse (the hair fiasco, the knee – you name it), but alas, finally, I ran out. Do you know what she said to me a couple of weeks ago? She said, “So many people love you and think you are beautiful. I just want to capture what they see.” Really?, I thought. How can you resist that?
And what did she capture, what did she bring me exactly, but my very own deep-heart’s desire? Blue, blue eyes, opened appropriately. So pretty. And though I bear in my body “the [brand] marks of the Lord Jesus [the wounds, scars and other outward evidence of persecutions–these testify to His ownership of me!] (Galatians 6.17 Amplified), though heartbreak has caused lines on my face and etched creases caused by grimace near the corners of my eyes for the things that have sent a deep reverberating ache throughout, though I carry the weight of things left unresolved for far too long and walk with the limp that wrestling with the Angel of the Lord and my very faith causes, and even though I have abused myself in overwork, performance orientation and unyielded anxieties and caused actual deterioration of my health and well-being as the Lord Himself relentlessly pursues and loves me and calls me His own, He still sees the me He created me to be, the one He knitted in the secret place. He sees past the war-wounds and the scar-tissue I could have avoided, and sees? me.
El Roi – You are the God who sees…
*“Then [Jacob] gave them these instructions: ‘I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre in Canaan, which Abraham bought as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite, along with the field. There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried, there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried, and there I buried Leah.’ … When Jacob had finished giving instructions to his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed, breathed his last and was gathered to his people. Gen. 49.28-33 NIV*
Somehow, in the end, Leah won her heart’s desire and was redeemed from the curse. Jacob asks to be buried there, where he buried his wife, Leah.
www.lilacphotography.com Ellie is amazing. She sees things, too. She sees them very beautifully. Thank-you, Ellie.
Remembering
“How we remember is as important as what we remember.” -Brent Curtis and John Eldredge in The Sacred Romance
“We view the present through the pasts glasses,” -P. Arnold
Viewing the past through the chosen treasure of my heart rather than making a list, checking it twice just so I can remember who was naughty or nice…
I don’t have room in my head for everything. For most of my life I had a “continuing -calendar” in my head. You could name a date in my history and I could scroll backwards and tell you, because I could actually “see it” in my mind, what day on which that date occurred, as well as related events and things that stood out from the time surrounding it. I remembered every telephone number I’d ever had, addresses including zip codes (and if you know my moving history, you know this was quite a feat) and remembered birthdays and anniversaries for every relative we had, even “in-laws.”
Then I crashed. I had a system blow-out. The hard-drive in my brain fried. My RAM was so full it exploded. 2006. I became an unwilling recipient of a brain-erase, kinda like “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” but also sort of an emotional lobotomy. It wasn’t pretty. I didn’t want it.
I couldn’t keep it all, so I had to choose.
I started a trek to retrieve my lost memories: the good ones, the treasures, the fine times, the blessings. Because keeping a record of absolutely-everything had caused me to melt-down, lose my way, hurt people and feel sick – literally sick. I have to remember to remember blessing sometimes. I have to be reminded to recall the good things, the rich, the treasure.
The ways I want choose to remember:
1.
I HAVE TO REMEMBER With my eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of my faith. He endured and I can endure, too {all things}, for the joy set before me. For all the ways I have failed and sabotaged His call on my life, He has a plan to bring me out and set me right. He is my Story-Writer, my Author. He knows the whole plot-line of my life and it isn’t finished until He says so. He will finish my story – I can’t wait to turn the page!
2.
I CHOOSE TO REMEMBER For the joy set before me. There is life ahead (as there has been so much to be thankful for already!), there is laughter to be shared. If I look back in sorrow I will miss the present. The present is a gift. So, I look back long enough to catch glimpses of the people who still matter and see that we have so much more ahead for us. I joy in the God of my salvation and thank Him for all He has done and I go forward in that strength.
3.
I HAVE TO REMEMBER LIKE A GROWN-UP… because when I was a child, I thought and acted like a child…but now that I have put away childish things, I can see and understand the past more clearly, with the wisdom of years, with understanding and a heck of a lot more grace. I can see that my reactions to some things of the past had some immaturity and needed to be readjusted in my heart. I can, as a grown-up, let some people off the hook, now. It frees both them and me.
4.
I WILL REMEMBER Redemptively – as part of the good work God started in us, which He is being faithful to complete. There is a whole love story being played out. I love seeing how God is able to use the sometimes-shattered fragments of my broken life to create a whole, cool thing. Redemption is awesome.
5.
I WANT TO REMEMBER Aware of the accuser’s distortions of truth, careful to hear the Voice ( “My sheep know my voice”). Some memories are torment. I am asking the Lord to give me clear vision to see when the Accuser has used the past to cripple my present. And to show me what He was seeing when all seemed lost…
6.
I AM COMMITTED TO REMEMBER so that the LORD might be glorified {the prayer God always answers}! He is all, everything and I want my life and my memories to bring Him glory. May He be glorified in my story…
NOTE TO SELF: Choose to remember the faithfulness of God, the love, the people I can’t live without, the blessings, the miracles, and see even the pain and disappointments with gratefulness for their part in my redemptive story. And remember, too, that He is the Author and the Finisher of my faith-story. We’re just somewhere in the middle. The ending is going to be fabulous! (Make this a repetitive reminder on my life’s calendar from now until….let’s see…I get to heaven!)
~oooooo~
“…It’s the laughter we will remember, whenever we remember, the way we were…”
Ten.Ten.Ten
10.10.10
Little Obi-Wan arrives
Darth-daddy and the Light-Saber Family
Ten G R E A T things about today~
- Rainy. Cool and rainy. Finally like fall. Gentle and sweet.
- Burning my Yankee “Autumn Festival” Candle (a birthday gift).
- Baking 10 loaves of zucchini bread with extra cinnamon and a little bit of butter-rum oil in that batter. Buttered and sweet cream to top it off – too much heaven!
- R2-D2, the cake for Hunter Magoo’s 6th birthday party. Dark chocolate fudge with buttercream. I doubt I shall ever use a shaped Wilton pan again, but thus, it was baked, iced and eaten.
- With ice cream!
- Party for me.
- Wrex singing a birthday song for me to the tune of the Partridge Family’s “C’mon Get Happy.” Lots o’ music and memories!
- Broccoli Cheese soup (super cheesy and made from scratch! almost 5 pounds of broccoli, 4 pounds of cheese, chicken broth, cream, fresh onions and garlic, just the hint of nutmeg…soooooo good!)…tomato soup…bread…goldfish (cracker fish) to swim about in hot steamy bowls of kid-soup.
- The grand-fish (real fish) have been visiting for a few days (and I forgot to feed them almost everyday they were here, mea culpa little goldfish). The house loud, music and song, food flying, the grandbebes swinging from the chandeliers…having fish on the mantle makes it feel like we are living in a Dr. Suess book! ;p
- Time with people I adore: Dave and the Powers and Kelleys. Rocky & familia and the Phipps’. Tredessa and Stormie. The grandbebes and my mangy dog.
Little Jedis; the R2-D2 cake