Mrs. Day said, in the movie...

I'll never see what good a record of the spending is, after the money's already spent?

The older that I get, the more I see that Clarence Day Jr. documented the age old struggle of the marriage condition. Men have mostly a single eye to tasks. I and all the women I talk to seem to have a multitasking glut. We do things on the fly, because we have to mostly. One child on the hip and the other by hand and the pots jiggling on the stove. The correct dance of the two, seems that he should help you see when you have too many balls in the air at the same time. You are going to drop them all...And then, you drop them...Why didn't you tell me the balls were all in the air, if you saw them? Why did you throw all of the balls up in the air? I can usually catch them, but this time they fell to the floor. All of them. We are not dumb and they are not dumb. We were meant to compliment each other.

Today, they tell me it is my favorite bridge's 50th birthday!

I am so blessed to have been emotionally and spiritually groomed for life under the shadow of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Many an emotional joy and struggle was exulted or mourned with the sight of that beautiful gift of engineering in view. We played and we learned and we loved and we grew under the shadow of that great structure. Like a nana, I felt its comfort tell me I was home after a long morning journey through the canals of the underground caves that were the subway commutes.

My favorite memory was when the bridge would be partially covered in the fog and you could really imagine that, Heaven had come down for the morning and that you could reach it if you walked to the other side of the bridge. I certainly know that Brooklyn isn't Heaven and certainly Staten Island isn't Heaven, but God has made a way for us to traverse an even more impossible chasm. Halleluia, before I even knew that my estate was so dire the Bridge of His Grace had already been constructed. Thank you for being a stalwart reminder of Grace and Hope and Future, Mr. Bridge!

These are the good old days!

I did love the enchantment of Mrs. Tassie's face when she said "she's in heaven!" about her mother. There was a beauty of confidence and love of God and her mother that marked her obvious grief.

We traveled through the sad providence with that family in our prayers for them. What a beautiful and sweet Christian family. I saw them in the nursery and then later in the "kid's central" etc. As we dropped Ezra and they dropped their girls here and there. Now, we grieve with them in spirit. I am hoping that their grief is teaching us to number our days and to know that our grief of a similar kind, may it grow our faith and teach us to love God and eachother more. May we carry their hearts in ours through their grief and may they instruct us how to be confident of the condition of our loved ones hearts at their departure from us. what a delightful confidence to know "She is in heaven!" We can't know about the days to come, as Carly sings, but we can follow others who have been where we are going. Hopefully we will stay together and love oneanother into heaven.

For the beauty of the sky!

I simply love the beautiful photos of the recent sky shows we've been having this autumn. The sky seems alive with color and vibrancy in the morning, it does seem more vibrant than usual. I love the sky and these skies have looked to me as though we are making a step up toward heaven, although the providences in the news wouldn't seem to say so. When the sky shows those cloud lines that are straight across like it did these days, it reminds me of the corner of a step. It seems that we just see the side of the step as we go over the side of it. Usually we are on a level point and can't see the changes in levels, but when we get to a bumpy point, I think we are going up. I definitely wouldn't like to think we were going down. Thanks for taking the pictures of it for me.

Today is the day that I found RLS' Kidnapped reading on the Youtube.

I put it on the side of this page because I had already had the reading on the bottom of the page. So, a person can read along with the audioversion, by clicking on both of the gadgets and enjoying it. I enjoy the Kidnapped book, immensely.

It is my opinion that this book is a beautiful reproof of how family distances themselves from one-another for one reason or another. An aunt or uncle can guide your soul to heaven or to hell. God sees and defends the fatherless, here on earth and throughout eternity. Family should draw one to God and not away, if possible.

It is my imagination of this book that when Uncle sent the boy, David up to his expected demise to fall down the rickety stairs. I always imagine him having nearly fallen, fainting out and going unconscious. I see him as Ezekiel falling into the valley of drybones and Fred Hammond singing I Press to his semiconscious soul and him seeing himself marching to heaven with the true souls of the redeemed who come together in his sight. He starts to see the difference between the life, his father had carved out for him, apart from the covetousness of his natural family condition. He sees that his job is not to receive from his uncle, but to give, the only thing that he had and could give, prayer for his dear uncle's lost soul.

That poor uncle was truly the picture of the rich miser. He needed prayer and it is a question in my mind, why the name Ebenezer, seems always the contradiction of those days. The first reading was of the dear parson who gave the remembrance of a loved soul to a poor orphan. What did he give to the child? How was his remembrance always gifted to us? Chapter one we see that wonderful anticipation of living in great abundance with his rich distant family. His expectation is harshly dashed upon the rocks, as we will find out erlong. 1. Money- inheritance 2. Gifties gift money 3. the Bible 4. Medicinal Lily of the valley water-how to make infusion. Fear and second thoughts had come to him in chapter 2. He started to see the futility of his decision to attempt this change in his mean condition. Curses were upon that house. Curses were upon his distant family and he had not known of his mistake to pursue the mystery of family relations. {Perhaps the condition of the church in those days was thus. Perhaps there was no way to have money and holiness, for the deceptions of that day. Only the rich young ruler's proposal of our Lord's could draw a soul to heaven. I am sure that there must've been some rich who were saved, but RLS, warns us all of the deception of covetousness. Alexander, a Greek name and Ebenezer a Biblical name and they lived in antithesis of the expectation. Is the raising of my Ebenezer, the trusting of the law of Moses, which can never make the soul clean from your sins, only it can make you know that you are a sinner.} Will we either be part of the unity of the spirit in godly Alexander who pictured "Christian and pilgrim" in the Pilgrim's Progress or we will be part of the unsaved Ebenezer who holds to the reality of Moses and knows he is unsaved and happy to be thus.

Hither by Thy Help I'm come and I hope by thy good pleasure safely to arrive at home, Did Jesus seek us when a stranger? Were we wandering from the fold of God? Did He rescue Thee from Danger? or... Are you still in the Danger of that "Ebenezer"?

Why should we feel like working out, after we see our girlish figure escaping us?

Oh dear, baby number 2 or more is on the way and although the first baby meant only delight and accomplishment, the second baby comes with so many emotional rollercoasters.

Will he still love me in 4 or 5 months when he sees the belly protruding and taking over? Can I go through 9 whole months and labor and delivery again? Too late to rethink that decision, now isn't it? So many nurses have said that to me in my tearful estate. You should have thought about that a while ago, now shouldn't you've? Perhaps there are not those thoughts, if you are a princess and have unlimited service and assistants with baby number one. Most of our princes expect full healthy wifely attendance, even in the midst of the morning sickness. Aren't you used to this condition, yet? I hear it is all in your head. I hear that you are psychosomatic about your early morning 'sickness'. That is not true! It is certainly the sensitive husband who will know that and not expect a perky and always exuberant mothering condition. We pray for grace to become thus, but it does take some time.

I worked out, doubly on babies number 2 and 3, just to stem the tide of emotional distress that I know myself to be susceptible to. Aerobics, situps, tennis matches, a tourney or two to enter, just to prove to yourself that your competitive edge is not lost to this tiny personal space sharer. Always taking your medical professional's advice about continuing an exercise regimen is preferred. Once they say you can. Get your exercise on, baby, it is good for your emotional state!

Some girls needn't run from the fat deposits, they have inherited the slim genes. But, us "Amazon women" have to fight tooth and nail for every curve. They are worth the fight, girls. Keep those curves as long as you can.

You know what I always say...PUMP IT UP!

"Let, First Service or Do Over!"If Wimbledon is about the whiteness of my lines {floor cleaning exercises}...

I love the Craze of Tennis in New York! I love the culture that has become the US Open over the years. What used to be the elitist closed culture of Forest Hills developed into the winsome inclusiveness of the Flushing Meadow. We, elitists didn't like it at first, that is for sure. How can these "uncultured athletes" ever become civilized Tennis players? Will they ever learn to shut up and watch the game? Now that I am so far away from the New York rabble rousing life, I see why that had to be the evolution of the sport. In America it is everyone's game. We are always leveling the playing field for inclusiveness, in New York.

While it certainly is anyone's game, when we go out onto the court, it is only the best man that will come home with the trophy and in New York that includes a concentration that will allow for the participation of the crowd in the match. Shut up, already! the New York mantra but too much quiet means that someone is not keeping the customer happy. So my kitchen floor is clean from enjoying the New York tennis culture that are my roots and I am learning lessons about what America is contributing to my favorite sport. Everyone plays. The players are showing out and we are all in there with and for them. It is the dance and mystery of the bumblebee whose wings look too small to allow him to fly. Everybody brings a little bit to the hive and when we leave the match everybody's fed with a little honey and no one knows where it came from. We really "should be dancing!"

Every movie is dumb, if Mr. Morton isn't the subject of the sentence!

Cary Grant had me mesmerized as he portrayed Mr. Morton as best he could. Limited by scripts and stories the personalities that were portrayed in an earlier and simpler time are wondrous to behold. They held their morals and primitive passions in two different hands and didn't juggle them, as we do today.

I am certainly not trying to portray a character in my home, like Cary Grant or Clifton Webb, or William Powell. I am a real mother with no script to be bound with. Movies can guide us some, but a dear relationship with a real person can flesh out more than any movie. Catch my vision, Jayne, my Mr. Morton said to me. I see him. Life is the only passion to guide you through the mazes of life. Question: is this person guiding toward or away from my life's vision and passion? Let it go.

I was surprised that a cadaver was in the early scene of the movie, I watched this weekend. The only Doctor that I ever see is my dearest one and first, Lang! His memory will ever lead to life and life-giving thoughts. So even if there is a cadaver is in the first scene, it means, Jayne, may this be as close to death as you ever come. Let all killing go to the germs. I heard that in his every interaction with me. I felt that in his cold stethoscope, freshly taken from the freezer to hear my heart and lungs. His love and care was like a confirmation into life-seeking. I do pray for a real person that you will meet who will give you a sense of purpose and challenge. If we are the body, Lang is the pointer finger. Any true truth, I hang in his closet, for the purpose of opening to put the puzzle together. Did Lang not say it? It is a maybe. If He said No, it goes in the garbage. He was just that clear.

Come Saturday Morning...

It's raining and my crew is out in Chowan, learning how to launch our Evvie boat.

So, early Saturday Morning, I am going away with my friends.

This morning's friend is Auntie. I remember Auntie's devoted washing of the dishes. It seemed like a prayer. She separated the dishes, which was something I never could find myself doing in my home growing up. Dishes seemed like the worst fate in our house, growing up. 12 people all day and the pile seemed endless by the time I got home from school.

Whenever I went to Auntie's house her devotion to the dishes seemed to say, I will meet you here, when I am gone. I will be a part of God's healing process of the dish scars on your soul. She is part of my healing and the Holy Spirit, himself reminds me of her devotion to clean those dishes as a prayer. I pray, while doing mine and I separate them when I get a chance to. I don't make them a complaint and a gripe against my children, as much as I can. I pray for their mouths and bodies to enjoy my labor in good health and learning.

This morning it was 4 am. I started boiling the water. I put all of the silverwear that was dirty in the pie plate. I poured the boiling water twice over them, before I began. It is 10:30 now and all of them are not completed, but the freezer is clean and the carpet is vacuumed and I am on to other Saturday morning remembrances and prayers for the future. Thank God, He makes all things beautiful. In His Time!

Old Friends?

Joy to the Earth, The Savior Reigns, let men, their songs employ... While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains repeat...

"Peat" and repeat, said Grandma Ruth, in her humorless candor {that was her theme to the old people to watch what they said in front of the children. After that statement, we would usually be banished from the room, so they could talk more openly}. I see that we use our songs, employ our songs for building up or for tearing down. This is very important to note, with the further proliferation of them through media.

How do we weave our songs into good activity for the world around us, is the Savior reigning over us. We "peat" as it were and they repeat. The cycle is alot faster than when I was a child.

What will they have done with our songs when we are 70 as Paul Simon bid me to think in my youth? Or when I am 64 will my songs still be relevent and meaningful to the youth, says the Beatles? We've inherited their train of thinking, somewhat.

There is nowhere you could be in NY and not have been touched by the trends of the 60's and 70's. Those currents were a driving force of motion and emotion. Where will we go with what is left to us? Will we employ our songs for the Savior's Reign and see the earth follow suit?

Thoughts from Tapestry Album! Thank you Carol King for putting some "Joy Inside My Tears"

You make me feel like a natural woman?

"Her desire will be for her husband and he will rule over her?

" The road into motherhood is easy and hard. You see this wonderful specimen with whom your mind and emotions start to plan for a long-term life in unity. We grow into a covenant agreement to belong to eachother and there are children after a while. What's next? "Will you still love me tomorrow?" That is his domination point, isn't it? I have invested life and pain and my body will never return to it's former self and I still must wonder, does he still love me? Will he still love me? Isn't that often the question? Although He, too, is vulnerable, not so much as a woman.

Carol King invested in the passing along of her experiences and lessons learned to us in the Tapestry Album. Somehow, I feel like that should be a class for women, in life to take Tapestry and write their insights from it, before marriage and children and intentions for their lives as a result of having listened to it.

Christ does make a difference and the agreement to live under His authority is a real preservative of heart and mind, for the most part. But we are all humans and fallible and stumble and fall all over one another. Braun, in How Green was the most vulnerable female character, that I think that I have read about in literature. She is invisible in the movie, because her story could not be told in those days. In the book, she is tragic! She,{those kinds of stories} I think, is the reason that the woman's movement was born. The vulnerability of women in a Christian society must be seen and anticipated and defended. She gave life and body to the effort of wifing and mothering. She lost mind and life and perhaps her soul to the effort. That is the ultimate tragedy and that is the goal of Carol King's Tapestry, to prevent.

Does Jesus care, when you are crying over spilled milk? Life that has passed and opportunities untaken? Does Jesus care when family starts to minimize your role and influence, when you had been their closest confidant at one time? Does Jesus care when you are seeing the vulnerability of your condition and aging? I know He cares. I know Jesus cares about those things. He paid it all to save us from these things and we must know that he is truly touched with the feelings of even these infirmities. They are not beyond His gaze.

He wants us to be proactive about life and health. He wants us to be proactive about covenant keeping and self care. He wants us to count the cost of wherever we are in the battle, physical and spiritual. Ultimately, He wants to teach us to care for ourselves and our families.

no more germs! the significance of wimbledon to me

To everything there is a season,isn’t there? Tis the season for vanquishing germs! They are everywhere! IS YOUR SERVICE LINE WIMBLEDON READY? In lew of spring cleaning, Wimbledon cleaning is a worthy goal for me, I think. Your carpets, the grass and your bathrooms the lines. Are they ready I say? The Queen is coming with her white gloves and are they ready for her. I say they aren’t. No excuses at all are tolerated. Your part of the spiritual warfare is that against streptococci and Pneumococci. They are yours to tolerate or eliminate. What will you/

Learning to do your "Pray Do's"

Sometimes, I wake up so late that I can't really spend the time with the Lord, that I would like to. I think there was a Dutch "Godmother" somewhere who showed me that when you can't get really the time with the Lord that you would like that is when you have to do your "Pray Dos". That is not at all to replace real prayer and it is real prayer. But, it is prayer while doing the necessities that you must. I did use it much more when all of the children were little. I had little prayer lists for the laundry and for the dishes. I must've bumped my head a hundred times looking at my prayer list when I should've been looking what I was doing in the kitchen. Those are some of the pitfalls of "pray doing" but it sure beats "Not pray-doing"! eh?

Easter Sunday

Sugarduck vs. Ethan round 1

Some mornings I am Mrs. Day and some mornings I am Mr. Day. Today the discussion with Ethan was about the sugarduck and I was Mr. Day.

You know how we lost the coffeemaker. May I have a dollar? Was the question Mrs. Day was asking her husband and she used the fact that he had broken the special coffeemaker to ask for a little extra money to buy another one. At that moment he would argue her over a dollar and then a few weeks later, he would let her charge anything she wished, because she had nearly died. What a difference the familiarity of perspective causes. The hand that clenches those two pennies in it and will not spare it to the dearest wife, when faced with the brevity of life realizes the measurement rod.

Clarence Day Jr. carefully retained such dear remembrances to pass those measurement standards to us. He watched father Day, nearly lose his soul to covetousness. The children were so concerned for him it was truly made real in the catechism. Hasn’t father got a name in heaven? This was their concern as a family. It was more than folderol to them. They were all praying and interceding in their own way.

Then, after God had gotten it through their thick heads that heaven was even more important than mother’s well being{having nearly lost her}. Everybody realized that there is no amount of money to replace his soul. Church is not just a tradition. Catechism is not just a mental exercise it is a frame for correct decision making and priority. This is my covenant partner and she is asking me for a dollar, I should have much higher regard for her position than I do. Clarence Jr. couldn’t say this to Dad, but he said it to us.

I loved my sugar duck and now have replaced it with a sugarsheep which we were joking over, this morning. You know what happened to my dear sugarduck, which represented my dearly loved Long Island. Now it is gone and I have replaced it with a sugar sheep which reminds me of just a very small part of Long Island and only one dear shepherd. Until I get my sugarsheep found in some sale or other somewhere.

Thank you Louisa May Alcott for envisioning a "More Perfect Union".

Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott

I do think that Louisa May Alcott was trying to show the aptitude for forgiveness that is honed in a close knit sisterly expression. From the small things like lying and picking on oneanother to the big things like throwing away a cherished manuscript the courage to enlighten people with the riches of love that are expressed daily in such a setting was her goal and I think that she expressed it very well and I have seen the same in my sisterly experience for better and for worse.

These disciplines of soul that are a blessing to us are a treasure to be preserved. Originally the publishers rejected Louisa for having a preachy style and I couldn’t quite understand how her style would have been seen as preachy. I see this now, after having had some griefs under my belt and cleaving to the delights of the “Little Women” for comfort and help, I can truly see how God used her to preserve the reality that life is short, handle loves with care. Grief will surely come and do as much as you can not to be the source of it to the ones that you love. That cannot be too often said.

It is uncommonly a sisterly treat. Not that brothers can’t enjoy it. I have some of this with my brothers across many miles and even from here into eternity with one. But, Sisters for their catty nature press the bounds with oneanother on the right and on the left in such a way as can give a glimps of the sufferings of hell and the glories of heaven, sometimes in the same situation. We love and hate oneanother with some of the same passions.

The light in the living room that shined unusually last night from the mirror, took me back to “when the moon” days. We carried the reflection to form a spotlight for oneanother, what a delightful nighttime scene of sisterly romping and gregarity. We fought just as passionately, not as much against eachother physically, to harm too harshly, but against others on our behalf, truly we had a comradery and a love.

Loyalties were certainly forged between us. Some, have no sense of loyalty and that is a loss and that is what Louisa was trying to knead into the “American, imagination of a more perfect union”. Could we have a union where there is brotherly love that was akin to the Little Women and Men that Louisa held up the spotlight to for us?

A look at the Alcott house