Scribblings

    I looked high and low this morning for the new bag of coffee beans that I had fortified myself with Tuesday when Frank and I were in town. Never did find that little bag of beans. Not in the freezer or in the pantry, nor even in the refrigerator. It simply wasn't...anywhere. Brad ran out to the van to look for a stray bag of groceries. Not there, either.
   I really love my morning coffee.  I had already indulged in a late sleeping in for a change, so fresh coffee and my Bible by the fire were all my dreams come true on a winter's snowy morning. Alas, no coffee. None.
  Hot chocolate made with real milk and plenty of mix, hot out of the microwave was hardly compensation, but I made it do. Yuck. It was way too much like food or something, definitely not coffee. It wasn't even close to coffee.
    So I tried English Breakfast Tea by Twinnings. Hot black tea with a droplet of Thai honey to sweeten it. I put it in the mug that Brad gave to me for Christmas. It didn't help much. Still tea, and not coffee.
   The picture even looks pathetic, doesn't it?   Coffee mug sits on a china saucer, the tea bag string dangling. Nice steam though. So I took a picture.
   In other news. Elv was sent to the doctor today by his wife who is very tired of his being sick and grouchy.  The doctor said he looked like something we won't say here. I agree. He was prescribed antibiotics and cough syrup with codeine to get healthy again. We hope it works. It's not pneumonia, just a bad case of bronchitis. He has been about as friendly as a teased rattle snake, to quote Elv himself. This has been a "doozy" of a flu.
    The children are getting well without antibiotics, so far. They'll probably cough till Easter, though.
    AND! Elv just got a call from his mechanic that the pickup is not even close to broken down. Electrical connection re-established and it runs fine. Elv's relief overrides his sheepishness almost entirely although he commented that this will be hard on his mechanic reputation.  No it won't. It's a wonderful break through in a long chain of frustrations for us since I don't know when.
    Found out today that to get a simple x-ray done on a damaged shoulder will only cost you $500.00. I find that to be startlingly amazing. I'm gonna buy a machine and do x-rays for people at half price and retire in luxury!
   Last of all, it is supposed to get very cold by Sunday night. Thirty below zero. Take that! you old flu bugs!
 
 

Mid Winter Dreams

 There shall be a row or two of bachelor's buttons in the garden next summer. Nothing wakes up a table bouquet quite as nicely as the feathery blue of this flower. Some people call them corn flowers. I don't know why.
Does this picture take your mind far away from the nasty Influenza? I hope so.

 If you see a garden tea in this, you will have observed correctly. I have dreams of being able to supply a large garden tea with bouquets of summer blooms like we did the day we took this picture. Ah! such memories are a lovely on a cold winter's day in January.

 The only way to see this flower that I know of is to canoe down the channel through a swampy flowage and keep your eye on the shore line. You will also see cotton flowers and flags of blue, white and yellow. The flags (water iris) are absolutely amazing making drifts of blue along the edge and mirrored in the water they stand in. This flower is a swamp laurel. And this picture does not do it's perfection justice at all.

Maybe it's time to browse through the seed catalogs.

January Days At Home

 Long, quiet January days are here, along with the flu.  We have a puzzle out on the coffee table that Carolyn started Sunday afternoon. Brad is a very organized puzzle piecer. Amy is working on  it now and then while she is sick just because she is too miserable to even read.
   A chickadee finally found the feeder this morning weeks after I had given up entirely on having birds this winter. Ordered another feeder from my dad today. He said it would cost me 35 dollars, but I reminded him that I have a birthday coming up sometime this year...:)
   Maybe next winter we will get deep snows and have flocks of birds gracing our feeders and windowsill.

   Cleaning surfaces and doing dishes is about all I get done these days. I am back to how it was during toddler days, getting next to nothing but basics done with my teen-aged girls sick with the flu.
Last night we put on two pots of water with rosemary to steam and two electric steamers, as well. From now on the smell/taste of rosemary will be associated with sickness, unfortunately, and should not be used in food we eat. But Elv and Amy both slept better.
  Busier, healthier days are ahead. I'm tanking up on the slower pace just now and enjoying the opportunity for together time, despite the coughing. There is a  pharmacy littering my kitchen, too , but that will go away as soon as does the flu.

                                  Three new frames of the married children on our piano.

The one extra project that I tackled today was getting all those Christmas family photos hung. No more taping pictures over the entire white board. We'll see how the new fad works.

"God's Gonna Listen to God"

"Information, an Idea, and a Verse that came to me in the course of this day pulled themselves together into a New Years resolution/prayer for the year. I don't usually like to make resolutions, just like I don't like to follow goal charts. They are both made to be broken or failed.

In passing her desk this morning, I spotted a verse at the top of Frank's quiet time journal.  She had it written like this: May I Be...Perfect(ed), establish(ed), strengthen(ed) and settle(ed) you! I Peter 5:10. Corrections are mine. 

Then there was the chocolate cake dialogue between four-year-old Olivia and her mom posted on FB this morning about how God decides to bless our picnics with sunshine and to give us chocolate cake. At the end of our discussion with us about this, April said, "my philosophy is that we must have a firm belief in Gods sovereignty and His complete goodness. I believe He ALWAYS has our best interest in mind. Someone who is long over due for their chocolate cake will be the best off believing that. I think that God is sometimes allowing us to suffer when he would rather not, because he knows we can take it, and because our suffering is working a good work in someone else. He wants everybody! I believe this, but it doesn't mean my heart doesn't ache for someone who really needs chocolate cake." 

My question about how to get in line for our piece of chocolate cake came from reading an email from a niece whose baby has cancer in her eye and their choices of treatment include removing the eye. It could seem to someone who didn't know better, that God must not be keeping track of these people. They really, really need His attention. 

And from... Elv's agonizing over his dead diesel pickup. He is needing some cake just now, in my estimation. He is perplexed and frustrated and strenuously working in his head on a solution. He is also making some resolutions about how to best use that pickup once it is up and running. I am praying that he is going to see in the end that it really is a rather large serving of chocolate cake even though just now it feels like rain on his picnic. 

It all adds up to taking four words as my personal inspiration for the year: perfected, established, strengthened, and settled. Letting life's experiences and the circumstances beyond my control be part of God's effort at doing just that.Nothing happens outside of His knowledge and good judgment.I can rest and trust because, as Olivia declared, "God's gonna listen to God." 

Christmas Coasters

 

This year's home made project for Christmas gifts was fun. The idea came from a friend's sister who was making them for her family. 

 When I was a child, I had an aunt who helped her children create gifts every Christmas at home with their own tools and talents. I was amazed and jealous and intimidated all at once. These coasters are not perfect but they are a howling success in regards to my own sense of accomplishment what with using personal photographs and quarter inch plywood and Mod Podge. 

Mod Podge is nicely fitted to the brainstorms of a home crafter. It is glue, clear finish, and texture all at once. I used it to glue the picture to the board and then painted three coats of it on top the picture for sealing. An added delight was the depth that it gave to the picture itself. 

 
I think I made four of these Loons and Lilies sets. I am waiting to hear how they will hold up to hot coffee cups and spills. 

Christmas Scenes For My Mom

                      

Mom, this is just to let you see in for glimpse of us and ours at Christmastime. 

         

Actually, this was taken the week before Christmas. 

Benny's first time of making Christmas cookies.

                              

Gwen holding Madelhyde and Luci

 When you read to Gwen you must not leave any fingers between the pages you've just turned on the left side of the book.I don't know why? That's just the way it is. 

Twenty Toes

All the girls on Christmas Day

We had look alike skirts for Christmas day, just for fun. 

Monopoly

The day/year started out at 21 below zero this morning. The wage earners around here rolled out of bed and went to work in spite of the cold. We girls put Christmas stuff away and swept up a lot of wood stove dust.  It's a typical after Christmas, beginning of the new year day.  Some of us are fighting a stomach flu.  

A game of Monopoly is being played all day long on the new area rug in the living room by the fire. The children started the games early in the afternoon and when Elv came home early from work, (It is New Year's Day, after all) he joined the game.  The game of Monopoly has a history/saga all of its own in this family.  Elv and Steve whiled away hours of their boyhood playing it.  They cultivated and honed their own sense of business ethics/fairness over this game. 
     When they married, Nell and I, their respective wives, were expected to join the game. We did. It turned out that their sense of fairness came off as heartlessness to the two of us green and tender girls. We had to quickly buck up and fight back or gang up on them.  Which we did. By and by we had little toddlers playing under the table while we pored over the latest game, table top.  It wasn't long until the toddlers were noisy children bringing down the rafters with laughter and running and playing while we continued to dicker for Boardwalk and Park Place game by game. 
    Nell and I did pretty well putting up with the two boys that would show up at the game board in place of our loving husbands... for at least ten years. I would tease Elv that if he could make money in real life like he did in Monopoly we'd be rich. But I was openly grateful that he didn't run/boss/lecture his associates in real life like he did us in the game. Actually I hated that part of the game. Steve and Elv had worked out the ethics part of the game when they were 12 and 16 and try as they might they couldn't get it across to Nell and I even after ten years of married life. But boy did they try! There were certain things you just didn't DO! Trouble is, we never figured out what those things were, for sure. 
    In the end, it was Nell and I who finally bowed out of the game.  Let the older children play with those two noisy, heartless man/boys. We breathed us a big sigh and moved on to quiet chatting in the kitchen over dishes and women talk. But, it didn't go so well for the guys.  The heart went out of the game for them. The children who were invited to square out the game just got their feelings hurt, which entirely baffled the guys. 
   So today when Elv joined the three children in the game I watched with interest. It turns out they are up to the rules and ethics that Elv enforces to make the game work properly. They're up to the lawyering and grousing and griping and yelling and rudeness that is "okay" in this game. They actually argue back and hold his feet to the fire. I am getting a huge kick out of it! The snow is still falling gently and a ham bakes in the oven filling the house with a warm supper aroma. Let the game live on. I'll watch...and laugh, listening to all Elv's echoes coming back to him in perfect harmony from his children. 
  
Elv says that I have portrayed him and Steve as ogres and that it isn't quite fair, but he enjoyed this piece and said I could post it. 

Christmas Lace

A fresh snow is falling this morning. Just in time for a lovely white Christmas.

A Christmas gift of lace and new family calenders came to my door from Mom. 

Table Lace

Mom crocheted this lace over 25 years ago. The note in the package said, "I don't use this anymore." Imagine my delight! 

Frances is home. Can you tell? Here is my newest elephant from Thailand. This one is teak. It feels wonderfully smooth and elegant cupped in one's hand.

Have a nice Christmas.

Mennonites and Movies

You can pass this off as just another one of stonehousescribblings’ little rants or not as you wish. I am not writing this to impress you with anything about me. I am just attempting, from my own small and sheltered world view, to blow the whistle on something that I happen to think is important.
Les Miserables and The Hobbit both hit the theatres this month. It is a Christmas traditions to have new  movies or shows come out this time of year. I haven’t seen either of these shows, to be perfectly honest. I heard some of the buzz about them and ran into previews or reviews of them. Why would I notice or be interested?
Actually, I am not interested. Initially, when I would hear about the new movie or show coming out; I would be mildly curious because I like literature and don’t like to miss out on something worthwhile.  But in listening well and looking into this stuff I find mine fields and pit falls galore.
I am worried sick about the values taught or presented in movies to our not-quite-so-sheltered children today.  Why is it now ok to view violence, immodesty, immorality, rebellion, and the occult? And the  standard answer, “Oh, yeah we had to skip over that part.” Really! Do we Mennonite parents really know what our children are watching? The proof of this watching will be in tomorrow’s pudding.
We don’t need to use movies to be informed or well adjusted people in our world.  Some of us made it all the way to responsible, mature adulthood without them. And I would like to have done that again for our children. Since it’s too late for that, I just want to say here that there are a few parents left out here who are unashamedly creating some lines in the sand and providing some push-back about movie selections.
So, Les Miserables has a great story line. If to know that particular good story line is important to you; I’d recommend reading the book, although I believe it will be a bit of wading and maybe even through a slough now and then, at that. As far as Tolkien’s yarn goes, you can read that, too; although you might find it dark, wearisome and somewhat boring. Better yet, read something to “grow your soul”, this Christmas, aloud to the family around the hearth and skip movie night altogether. 

The Short Days

      They say that time flies when you’re having fun. We ARE enjoying these short winter days. I looked it up and verified that in Northern Wisconsin we are having our shortest days. About 8 1/2 hours a day from actual sunrise to sunset. So morning coffee is by lamplight and the soft glow of Christmas lights and evening supper with the whole house lit like a hotel and  fires on deep coals in the stoves.
                                              Counting Our Blessings
1. The big pile of firewood. Three hungry stoves, too.
2. Plenty to eat. “There’s more down cellar in a teacup.” – Pa Ingalls ( I always wonder what he meant, exactly.)
3. Projects. For Christmas and for occupation.
4. Work. The men pull on warm togs, grab lunches and phones heading off to work before daylight and returning dirty and hungry after dark. But they're contented and happy to do it... every day. 
5. Beauty. Of snow, and winter scenery, and indoor comforts.

Christmas Songs For You

      Christmas music and song is everywhere.  I listened in on VCY for a few minutes in the car yesterday. That’s about how long I can last on VCY America, but that is beside the point here. VCY carols run along the same lines as our Mennonite Christmas songs: carols with lyrics telling the story of Jesus birth and Salvation to a sinful world. This is what a good carol ought to do. Back in the day, at church, we sang the Christmas songs from the Christian Hymnal.  There are about six or ten of them.  Joy to the World, Silent Night, Hark, the Harold Angels Sing, To Us a Child of Hope is Born, Oh, Beautiful Star of Bethlehem, Oh Come All Ye Faithful, and Room for Thee are the songs we sang over and over at church for all the 20 years I attended, come Christmastime.  At school we learned “new” Christmas songs, if we had an ambitious teacher; thus we learned: Silver Star, From Lands of the East, Drummer Boy, Fear Not Oh Ye Shepherds, and other children’s songs for Christmas. Little did I know that ours was a rather narrow repertoire of Christmas songs. 
     Then we attended Bible School. There we had a large group of young people who loved to sing together, so we tackled O Holy Night, and the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah. Handel would have turned over in his grave at our rendition; but we loved it. It took a whole five minutes for us to get through it because Urie or was it, Dan, could NOT get us to speed it up. But guess what, when it is sung anywhere now; I can still sing along.                                                  
     Then there is Schubert's Ave Maria thing.  It has to be a Catholic favorite of all Christmas music. And people have been conditioned to thinking it belongs in the list. Frankly, I have my doubts. The lyrics are in Latin and have little meaning to most ordinary folks. That’s just my opinion. Another list of songs for Christmas include War Is Over, and I’ll Be Home For Christmas. These songs are sentimental songs surrounding the holiday more than the real meaning of Christmas. I still enjoy hearing them, now and then, because they are reminders of  Peace and Goodwill.  And of family gathering traditions. Then there are the songs like Do You Hear What I Hear and  Welcome To Our World that retell the same old story  from a more modern perspective. If you are singing Rockin Around the Christmas Tree, and Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer, you have totally missed the point. Listen again to the lyrics of the carols this year.