Should Old Acquaintance' be forgot

I wish that my old forgotten acquaintance would be the fat that I put on over this holiday binge season. It is aweful, just aweful. Never comes to mind when I am putting that piece of pie into my mouth for the umpteenth time that this acquaintanceship will be with you for the rest of your life. It should though!
I am as large as ever I was in delivery of my children... A bad example of moderation this season. There ought not to be that much feasting in the world. I am ashamed of myself and I pledge to myself to put off the binge habit for at least another few months.
My new simple pleasure will be sunflower seeds and raisins, to replace Chocolate with almonds. Jello and yogurt instead of ice cream and at least 30 minutes per day on the stationary bike. No excuses! I hope that next years Auld Lang Syne shall find me in better status with my body. I am not a spring chicken anymore...
Happy New Year!

Sunny and 61 degrees again

I am sure that I am used to these pleasant temperatures and wonderful beauty of the landscape around here. My city lights hunger and my chilly coat wearing days have paled into the enjoyment of a walk through University City in the holiday season. My bursitis (nonexistent) doesn't bother me. My lungs can hack the warmth and the air. No pretty snow, but no dirty snow either to clean up. I woke up and put on the heat which we really don't need because the house had chilled to a cold 65 through the night. That make us shiver, now. No chains on our tires to get out of the snow piles. No big snowplows blocking our cars in their spaces on the streets. No icey falling on our bottoms from not walking correctly in the snow. Halleluia, this is the Promised land today. Thank you God for the gracious providence of moderate weather!

Of Springerle and Chocolate kisses

Annise, a delightful scent and a spring on the tongue. My tongue is aglow, but not from mint and not as sweet as chocolate. Someone said try the Springerle. I would not have tried it unless they had. Sundayschool is a time for bible study and fellowship and during the holiday season feasting is rampant. Joy to the world, is always good enough reason to feast. Christ has brought us joy.
Our brethren shared their precious recipe of German delight. Thank God that we live in a place where we are exposed to the pleasures of every culture. Who can beat the taste of a Springerle for the first time delighting the tastebuds.
I took a bunch home, with the blessings of the baker; fully intending to have at least one a day for a long time.
I enjoyed 2 on the way home,the children hadn't grown into the taste yet. Good, I said, more for me. We left them on the side board, while we went to evening service and came home to the sad sight of my dog, Emma having eaten, 5 of them.
I am still planning to indulge in one a day for a while... 5 days fewer now. At least my dog Emma has better taste in food than my children. :)

We all got booties for Christmas!

Today is the day we shake the feeties, to dislodge the huge meal we enjoyed on Christmas day.
I lived so many years with little baby booties, that we affectionately call the day after Christmas, "Shake your "baby" booties Day". The day that we attempt to recoup the lost ground in last years New Years resolution and grow into a new person for the New Year coming. It is our last dieting challenge to go into the New Year at another level of health. It hasn't worked yet. :{ Still we try.
This year my aim and goal is to try to accomplish my very first marathon. There, I said it. I have spent too many Marches under the covers in pain and heart ache. I will take up my brokenness! I have a goal to overcome the broken pieces of my emotions and I think a marathon training, just might help me. I saw one in Concord set for March 21 and I am aiming for it. Not today, of coarse, I must go to work. I will start training in the New Year 2009. "Feeling Fine, in 2009!"

Walking?

Not even the smell of a white Christmas, down here in NC. Not even the hint of a frosty snow covered lawn on Christmas day. It is still the most wonderland Wintery with my family!
I spent the morning walking through the frosty aisles of the supermarket with my most respected woman of God who is in my life. We giggled and pontificated and came up with all sorts of dreams for now and tomorrow and it is truly beyond what we both could've thought or imagined except there is no son in law yet to dote over. We are enjoying the love of wondering and wishing and sour grapes, sometimes:)
My dad would've joked at us that we both are so much like Aunt Lorraine, and she, more than I have never spent more than an hour or so with Aunt Lorraine. So I guess, in heaven, we will, the three of us; sit down and talk about what made us who we are. How could we three be so identical?
Dad would talk about the way she grabbed him by the wrist and the strength that she had and Tony-boy and Abby would have similar stories about me. It is a joy to live with a kindred spirit, sometimes:{.
I came in from my Christmas eve saunter with my Elyse(Suzie homemaker) and Emily and I were doing the shimmy shake and imitating Grandma Ruth in my living room to James Brown. We cannot figure out how Grandma Ruth was able to do that shimmy shake well into her latter years. I am achy from imitating her. I better get into shape to keep up with Ms. Emily. Then, we put on Thriller and my bumble bee big boy taught us how to do the Thriller dance in the living room. We pretended that the sugarplum fairies died and came back as the Thriller dancers and we danced around the living room as the sugarplum fairies reincarnated in a Thriller. What fun!
Ethan, the wolf man came into the room anticipating boredom. He didn't want to join the dance and he hasn't figured out how to incorporate his wolf story into the Christmas pleasantries, so he just barks at us all. Ezra is waiting for us to pull out the baking items to make the linzer tarts. Dad in his cap and I in my kerchief and nothing at all is quiet as a mouse...

We got invited to our neighbor's Christmas Party.

What a great time we had with the neighbors. Tom had set up his train set and I could've spent the entire night there in the room, just looking at the trains. There was an entire room of memories and beauty. Remembering the days when neighborhoods used to be full of little businesses and the people that make those businesses run. I enjoyed the company of neighbors and chatting about fun stuff. They are always great for decorating the neighborhood with life. Thank you so much Tom and Marian. There were a collection of movable Christmas Disney figures in the corner. It is a small world after all!

On the Fourth Day of Christmas my true love...

Gave to me Four Calling Birds.
The four most efficient women I ever met became my sister-in-laws on June 11, 1983. Ever since, they have been calling to me to come up higher. They have little tolerance for inefficiency and ineptitudes. They are practiced and honed by a wonderful mother to be effective and efficient, these are not my best qualities, by any means. Still, I watch them through life and try as I might inculcate as many of the qualities that I can catch or borrow or emulate. They are a wonderful team of women and I am grateful to know them and have them call me to come up higher.
God bless, Gwen and Audrey and Lee and Yvonne!

5 Golden Rings!

On the 5th Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me---5 golden rings---

Nobody knows the joy of the 5 or 6 golden rings in my life. I have 4 sisters and 2 precious cousins and that makes 6 ladies that grew up with me and evoke the joys of youth like no one else can.
I got to see Karla-Gail this year and it was delightful to see her newest bundle of joy. I am truly a rich woman with 6 golden rings of love on my heart like Julia, Jacqueline, Joanne, Amy, Allyson, and Karla-Gail! Miss you guys!

Two Turtle Doves!

On my birthday this year, my brother-in-law and my husband gave to me freshly painted rooms. A brand new house with freshly painted walls and a partridge in a pear tree.
My pear tree is still blooming, but the leaves are scarce and I don't know whether it is over watering or the smallness of the pot.
Ben and Eli were my two turtledoves painting and caring for the house things that have caused me distress throughout the year.
Take no thought... Don't worry... God cares... I know he cares but sometimes I do forget that.

I love to spend time on my carpets and today I got some of that luxury. Not with an empty house, but still there are at least 500 square ft of cleaner carpet for my wear. There is only another 2500 to go before I sleep. I think I will quit at the halfway mark. I fell while emptying a batch of water and my bottom is sore, so now I am too tired to go the whole way through. Thank God for the Rug Doctor. With so many footsies trampling a carpet there is hope on earth for some cleaner rugs. Just give me one week and a rug doctor and I will be happy with my carpets again.

Fidelia, L'amore

Good King Wenceslaus, Hark the Herald...This Christmas my little fidelia became a woman. Decked in her skirt and white shirt, she sat erect, like never in church; and put flute to mouth and breathed out beautiful music through the instrumentation of a flute. I wished and wished and wished and wished and music lessons are a privilege and they are beautiful. It is precious to see and precious to experience. She is a part of the band. She is a beautiful girl and learning to breathe in unison.
Thank God!

A Happy Birthday was mine

My family was altogether for my birthday this year. I got roses and chocolate from my beloved and I got a Santa Claus candle from Ethan and a wonderful couple of cards and well wishes and gifts from everybody. I had been sick earlier in the week and was still recuperating and there were tests for most of them the next day. We enjoyed a delicious meal cooked by my live in chef extraordinair-Elyse. It was a day of precious enjoyments and reminiscing about my life in my mind.
I am counting the precious blessings and awesome providence to have made it to this age in life and to have so much to enjoy and be encouraged by. Good friends, good family and a precious church and community to enjoy. Thank God.

What did I learn from being 46?

a halloween story, sillyface.
enjoyments sharing some time with other children was fun and amusing this year.
It seems a short year end and I can't say that I am any more intelligent or amiable than I was at 45, to my shame.
Some lessons have been learned, I hope. I had a wonderful 45th year, though I was sick and sour. It seems, the womanly wierdnesses have lessened and I am not as grumpy as I once was. I still can't find the balance of work and home and church in correct proportions. Although the speed of light improves communication, unfortunately it increases people's expectations of a person's communication and I am still a one person at a time communicator for the most part. I do hate the fact that the internet and the email systems and cyberstuff keep us all jumping from conversation to conversation at a breakneck. I miss the days of sweet sit downs and the days of real face to face heart to heart chats with time to ponder what was said and what was thought, as well as time between chats anticipating. I rarely have that kind of thinking time.
My motto for 46 has been, "I blog, therefore I am". Little else incites my animation like the thought placed on my blog with no editor to censor it but me.
I expect I will blog less in 47 so that I will concentrate on organization of my home and family. This is always my new years resolution and it has never gotten me much closer to my goal. I will get some more books and plan out my strategem and get back to the drawing board as soon as my celebratory day is over...

Proverbs 5:18

Fountains blessed,
If I were a rich man, ya da, da, From Fiddler on the Roof all day long, I'd piddy, piddy pum? The fountain of riches, marked out in Proverbs 5 is acted out in Fiddler. A loving family working through the real struggles of the society which is given them is the richest blessing a society can have.
When we put them out of our culture by making it difficult for them to survive, it is a judgement of delugiounous proportions. Our preservation as a nation and a culture, has been that we have made provisions for the different economic levels and the different people groups to survive in this land. Every time that we, in the world and throughout history have devalued the reality of love and walking humbly with God we have lost sight of the real riches and God, in his mercy shakes us up to bring us to our senses. I can site so many historical examples that I don't feel that I need to. I have told you children about the earthquake in Jamaica that Grandma Del and Auntie told us about. God does shake things up we have lived through 9/11 and that horrible tsunami. We all are to blame, when one area of the world is shaken up. Jesus said to those people who were asking about the tower at Siloam, "You will also be destroyed, if you repent not." He was pointing us to the purposes of suffering for us and for those around us. To call us to repentance and to cleanse us from our wickedness so that we can have greater access to God, personally, corporately, nationally and globally.
When we are aware of what He values, our fountains are blessed. Our barns may not be filled, but our hearts are.

Where is the blessing? God tells us in Proverbs 5 through Solomon.
I imagine, poor Solomon looking through the keyhole, out into the humble humanity and stating the truth that he was never able to attain and that was that the real riches come in attempting to be monogamous and sufficed with life. He who could, by his own confession, never find satisfaction, no matter how many women or meals or beautiful sights he could own or have; was the writer of Proverbs 5. Be blessed and be focused and don't look away, because in the looking away from the happy home is a hook, which, once it is imbibed; brings weights and sins and continuous disaffection, resulting in God's ultimate judgement, if left unrepentant.
When we repent, we have a fresh and new relationship with God. When we are in Christ and cleansed, we are a new creature and He (as it were) runs to embrace us and draw us from the love of our sins into deeper communion with Himself. There is no greater gift that God has given us than the gift of HIMSELF.

Proverbs 5:18. Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Like a Hug to my soul!

The heavenly Father knows what things you have need of, before you ask Him. Hugs and kisses on Thanksgiving mean more than anything and we had some friends love into us and breath a new life into our souls, which were wallowing in the slough of dispond. Thank you God for good friends and a good God who sent them.

Snap lost all of his leaves

This wonderful rainfall which we were enjoying has caused all of the leaves to fall off of my Snap and Ginger is holding intently to the last 10 of her leaves. My Peachtree is blooming again in the house and I am hoping that I can keep her leaves on her. It is beautiful to see the good gifts that God has given us all around us. The rainfall, though rare down here are a reminder of the showers of blessings and of His Spirit which God pours upon us daily. History does have some interesting people but, even the little daily wonders God bestows pales history by miles. :)