Sunday, May 19, 2013

Tulips Picture Post for The Children and Grandbabies Far Away In Thailand and Nebraska.


Especially for Jube, because he asked about them. 









 Well it paid off wonderfully, to plant those bulbs while it was snowing last fall.
Last fall when we planted them, I had high hopes for this show. Six months is a long time to wait for results, but well worth it.






Thursday, May 16, 2013

Protein for Breakfast


                                   Things I Have Learned By Experience

    1. To eat protein for breakfast. All that health hoopla we have been reading and hearing about is true. Protein keeps us alert. Wakes up the metabolism properly for the day.  Protein and morning coffee go together like bread and jam, or peanut butter and apples slices.
    2. To pray for my husband first everyday.  Who else is going to do it? He needs to be remembered before the Father.  Husbands do a lot of important things every day. He needs wisdom and patience and grace. I have time to pray.
    3. To have quiet time everyday. I have so much to do today; I cannot afford to skip my quiet time. A bit of Bible reading, journaling, and praying.
    4. To do the daily clean-up everyday. (Was that redundant?) Dishes become harder to wash each hour after the first hour proportionately to the amount of time you don't have to do them later. Trust me. It is much easier to do the dishes and floors once a day at least, than once a week. Besides, you get the added benefit of living in a clean home all the time as opposed to one half a day a week or whenever you do decide to tackle the housework.
    5. To begin! Stop procrastinating. I figured out that the best way to begin is to pray up and then go! It works for dieting AND the nasty dreaded job I have been putting off.
    6. To take a brisk 2 mile walk. Skip asking yourself if you feel like it. You don't, usually. Afterward, you'll feel like having a hero party (I like Pooh-isms) on yourself. Besides it changes the scenery for an hour or so, which is kind of neat for us moms who stay at home most of the time.
    7. To get out of bed in decent time. It isn't quite like swallowing your daily frog, but almost.  This changed for me when I hit 30. No explanation for this. But finally, I knew what my dad meant when he told us we were going to get rotten lying there too long. I totally agree now.
    8. To work beside the children when you want them to learn how to work. Show them! What this does is lets them in on the wonderful sense of accomplishment. They get just as proud of themselves as you are of them and of what got done. Work was created for us...not part of the curse, you know. Who says work can't be fun?
    9. To remember the mirror principle. Our children are reflections of us parents. Stop trying to deny it. Ok, so the very faults that are showing up in the children need to be disciplined out of me, by me living in God's grace, for me and for them, and most of all to bring Glory to God. Why is this so hard to do?


    And just about the time I think I have these things down pat; I discover I need to renew them and redo them and keep on keeping on. Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—

 Notice what the tulips are doing now, Jube. Next time I post a picture, they will have flowers for you.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

The Colors of Spring

     I think the family gets a little in a hurry to go over to Crex Meadows each spring. It was cold and windy again.  But if we wait till the wild flowers are blooming, it is harder to see any wild life (water fowl).  So it is a trade off.     We listened to the cacophony of a yellow headed blackbird and got his picture to boot. There are far too many geese in Wisconsin these days. And we see swans often now...on Lake Hayward, up by Solon Springs, and at Crex Meadows. The huddle of little grey looking ducks are coots. They were trying to keep out of the wind.


   Elv had a fire training class up in the little town of Washburn, WI.  I rode up with him in the Bass Lake Fire Department brush truck. While he was in his three hour class; I hiked on the lovely trail along the shore.
   Lance has loaned me his camera to use, lately. It has far too many "bells and whistles", but now and then I accidentally get a good one.
    Summer plans for our family are developing. Not what I had in mind, but evidently what God knew all along. More on that later.
     

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Spring Days At Home

 Graber boys and their treehouse. I found this in Elv's mother's photo album last weekend. This picture conjures summer memories.  There are three boys here. You'll easily see two of them.  The third is opposite the leaning boy standing in the leaves there.

 Jen, Frank, Brad, and Amy with Grandma Graber.  The children will look back one day and thank me for making them stand here and get this with a camera. Time flies and life is full of swift transition. There, we pinned down one tiny moment. Ha!

We have been sitting on the banks of The Channel now of evenings to watch the beavers, ducks, and whatever else we can notice.


The children have grown up understanding the value of stillness and quiet if we expect to see anything.  Yesterday when I was walking in from the clothesline, Brad spoke softly from above me out of the ash tree, "Mom, a nuthatch just landed on my leg a minute ago."  Only patient quietness would garner such a thrill.

 Fish were spawning near the banks of the channel.  Elv thought they could have been walleye. They were coming into shallow water swimming above the grasses just under the surface, so that we could see them sticking out of the water briefly. I had never seen such a thing before. They fled with a splash when they saw us standing right there.



 Tea by the hearth after dark. The perfect way to celebrate a good day's work outside doing spring clean up.







HOME


Slightly reduced in size but renewed for a another few years. What a lot of hard work is a patio made of red brick. Elv has had just about enough of maintaining this patio.  So I consider this renewal very valuable. When this one crumbles it will be replaced with boring concrete.  Deck chairs, a small table, potted herbs, and geranium will not look the same on concrete. We will get in as many teas, sunnings, book reads, and visits as we can for two or three more summers on this patio.


Thursday, May 2, 2013

Just For The Record

Yesterday

Today, May 2,2013
      So far, we have a foot or more of snow. Yesterday afternoon when it started to snow we had bare ground, hints of green grass, happy robins, and even some flowers up. The flowers are still up, I guess, under that snow. Maybe we can have spring/summer next week.                                                        

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