More Summer of the Flowers

                               

    These pictures are of Jenny's wedding flower project. I'm longing for green grass and flowers! Can you tell? 

 

The Summer of the Flowers

What a flood of memories this picture brings. I remember trying to stop time for this one day. Too many changes were happening too fast.  Lisl was about to leave for Thailand. She and Charlotte are both wearing the stars of newlyweds in their eyes.  Melinda was reaching that summer for happiness and has found it. 

Lisl's face has changed so much since she is a mommy.  I watch her face closely on our web cam connections and hope that she doesn't get any thinner.  But the glow and happiness is so apparent that I can't worry long.

Tonight I am feeling a bit nostalgic.  Jenny is on the very brink of becoming a mother for the first time.  I look at this picture and see her girlhood blooming and I just look and look thinking about her face changing now too.

Memories are such happy-teary-precious-fleeting things.  Dear God, please bless these girls-turned-to-women wherever they are today. In Jesus name, Amen.

To Grow Faith

Lee Strobel says in his book The Case For Faith, that in order to gain faith you need to be where faith grows. I have been thinking about that this week.

I believe a functioning quiet time is a good place to grow faith. There ought to be something happening there...some kind of interchange between my heart and God's heart. Staying in the raw Word will most likely produce the right soil for faith to grow.

The truth is you can't grow faith as well where doubt lives.

There's another statement that I heard this week that keeps ringing in my mind. "They've taken stupid to another level!" I guess that's what happens where doubt grows, where the raw Word is placed below the latest religious fad.

Lee Strobel told about a man named Chuck Templeton who at one time was a friend and helper to Billy Graham in his early days of ministry. One day Mr. Templeton lost his faith and he chose a road of doubt to build his doubt more solidly. The last book that Templeton wrote is entitled Goodbye To God.
Where do you live your life? Next door to doubt or in the good soil, plowed and ready for more of Him everyday?

Here, Have a Cookie

I said in my last post that life isn't all roses and pontificated accordingly. Most of the comments on that post were by phone from people sincerely worried about me. :) One thing I learned was that I must be at least partially effective as a writer.  

We are doing well here and it truly was just one of those hurdles in life that you all probably handle with much more grace than I do.  Sharon thanked me for posting the good along with the bad, though... I wish I could have left it in place.  

So hey, have a cookie and a good day.  amg

First, The Happy Things

                              The Happy Things

~The smell of line dried laundry.

~ The electric bill has dropped below a hundred dollars!

~ We ate supper out on the patio last night.

~ School is closer to done for the year.

More Spring Is Here...

...Frances is suffering from "hay fever".

...the robins are back.

...the fire wood mess by the boiler is begging to be raked up.

...I'm hanging laundry on the clothesline.

...Elv's not logging right now.

...I have a ticket to fly to Idaho and visit our family there.

More later about lost train trips and hay fever.  And about the happy things, too. 

Spring Cleaning

   We cleaned the "jar room" yesterday.  That little place under the basement steps has been nagging me for a long time. I warned the girls last week that spring cleaning was about to begin and we'd do the worst first. 

   The girls didn't seem to mind the idea, so even with several phone interruptions we were able to settle in to start organizing. We had canned goods, extra dishes and kitchen things, too many dead boxes, empty jars fronting all the canned goods, just plain trash, an old fridge, and the usual unmentionables found in unsealed jars. 

   While we were cleaning, boxing, vacuuming up huge cobwebs, and clearing out the empty jars; we were all eyeballing that fridge.  The fridge was a wedding gift from Elv's folks, used at that point, and had served us for 25 years.  Last fall when I decided to freeze the cider in there because it liked to freeze everything inside anyway; it didn't. That is, the whole stack of buckets and jugs of fresh cider had to be moved to other precious freezer space both in my freezer and in the travel trailer freezer.  What a mess! The shelving brackets have been broken out for ages so this one last recalcitrance finalized the end of the old fridge for me. 

   The girls and I were visualizing what we'd do with the huge space the old thing was hogging while we cleaned, so when Lance happened to show up from work we came to the only obvious conclusion.  Telling Lance proved to become a discussion wherein he informed us of the folly of spring cleaning, stupid places for fridges, and the wisdom of waiting till Elv came home.  All of which excuses we quietly listened to and ignored.  While I was trying to loosen the screws to take off the door myself; he took over. 

   The hand rail had to come off the stairs, and everything between the pantry and the door had to be cleared away.  Afterward Lance told Elv it really wasn't that bad to take out.  But you wouldn't have been able to tell that for racket he made doing it. The unwieldy beast now rests in pieces on the patio waiting for disposal. 

   Now you can walk into the pantry and see what's what from any place in the room. Frances and I are making plans to paint the whole room, walls, shelves, floor and stairway this summer.  We'll use Elv's air painter and spray the walls and shelves in snowy white and then brush a barn red onto the floor and stairs. 

   The wash room is next on my list. As far as I know there are no dead appliances in that room, but you never know what the girls and I will notice and dream up while we clean. I am thinking of moving the freezer out of that corner though and putting it where the boot cupboard is...

  Quote of the Day:   Lance had to vent with someone so when Geneva came home he asked her, "Does your mom turn into a terror for cleaning every spring?"  

Living Colonial History

Here is what Sugar On Snow is all about.  Plan to come and see for yourself next February.  If you bring something to barter for a basket, a barrel,  or a broom you will be even better pleased.  Bring all the children with you.  If you are the proud possessor of a colonial trade skill, then bring that with you to share with everyone, as well.   Sugar On Snow still needs a glass blower, a printer, a ship builder, candle makers, and many other interpreters. 

Of Smiles and Giggles for Marmee on Webcam

Yesterday I was able to enjoy Jube's smiles on a web cam connection.  At five months old, this little guy is being introduced to his Marmee electronically.  I wondered with sorrow if he would know me when he's two years old and lands in America for the first time in  his born life.  Well now I believe I have the answer.  Don't you think that if I can, on my own, get him to see and smile on web cam that he might recognize me on that distant day in 2011 when his parents bring him home? It was the most amazing pleasure when he responded like he did!

This picture was taken while they were in Loas doing visa work and celebrating their second wedding anniversary.  I know, they shouldn't be letting him chew on the restaurant table, but evidently it didn't hurt him. 

 

The Power of Props

We're just home from Sugar On Snow.  I've been trying to see pictures of the event and am  frustrated.  Either the photographers needed to do better angles on the interpreters or the lack of props is a serious problem.At any rate I wish that we could provide back drops, props, and hitching posts for our interpreters. On the other hand, why do they not create and provide for themselves along these lines?  How hard would it be to build a cardboard back drop of the corner of a colonial house or cabin for the spinner of wool to set up her wheel? What an impression it would make to have the whole perspective!  Imagine walking up to the black smith shop walls hung full of the tools of his trade, to have a horse (even a cardboard horse) waiting for a shoe repair. 

This picture of the miller is good.  He has a bit of a setting and the real thing that grinds corn.  We made some of his corn meal into corn bread for supper.  Delicious.

By the way, how well do we interpret the Gospel of Jesus Christ?  When someone walks up to my door, do they see the real interpretation?  Do they go away saying, "I wish I could have spent more time there." ?

 

Home

We've been gone for a few days doing a living history event in Beaver Bay, MN.  Getting home was wonderful.  Being home today reminds me of all our blessings.  I have the laundry going and the luggage sitting here is getting limp while we work at putting things away. We have all day to regroup, drink coffee, sort, and enjoy the quiet.

Home is where if the dishes don't get all done till later, nobody cares. I can take all day to put things away and dig out the Cricut and do scrapbooking between wash loads and spelling tests. 

Doing a living history event where a thousand people come through to see, keeps the cooks for volunteers very busy. The hub-bub is incredible.  So today the quiet and peace of our home seems extra special.