Good Morning, Mr. Strawberry

Ms. Robin knows all about a bumper crop of strawberries. She and Ms Bluejay met me outside this morning. It was delightful to see how they laugh at me trying to develop a green thumb. You were getting so excited about the flower seeds, like you've never seen a strawberry before or a seed come from a flower. I hope you know, I mean it all in fun. I am laughing with you and not at you.

Prima Ballerina and the Diva!

Oh dear! I am in love again. I met these two trees, in the farm and they were personalities that I couldn't get away from. They were gifts and obviously, very loved. We walked through the farm and I wished hard looking at Prima and looking at Diva. I couldn't hope to have her. One of them was above my budget. I had just gone window shopping. My friend had blessed me! What a blessing!
Prima was a beautiful ballerina pose. I was told, she will straighten out, with a stake or two taken to her. NOooo! I would never stake her. That is her personality! She was a gift. As her pirouette, so is she. She is not crooked, she is a dancer. She is in a spin and she is beautiful.
We took them in the truck and the personality of Diva came alive as well. She was obviously, a Diva. How could you? She sighed, when we unwrapped her from the plastic. I thought that she was, just a weeping cherry tree. She was whining about her treatment. Her leaves, which were perfect, at the farm had been wind whipped and crinkled from the ride. I could hear Madeline Kahn's voice from her, when I look at her, in young Frankenstein. "Don't touch me." "I, simply do not know, if I will ever recuperate from that long ride in the back of a truck. They never treated me like that, at the farm." My leaves, my beautiful leaves..." I was weeping with her, by the time we got her into the ground. You will be all right, Maybe, she said.
Prima reminds me of Patti Labelle, she dances and is singing about a new attitude. She was, a little less delicate. She enjoys being in the spotlight most of the day, now. She is talking to the little flowers beneath her and telling them what to do. I love seeing them get acclimated to my yard. I could kiss them, they are so full of personality. "She's feeling good from her leaves to her roots, knows where she's planted and she knows she's a beaut-She's got a new attitude." (I know they are trees.)

What a great day.

Rules of Tennis, applicable to my children.

1. Walk onto the court and don't run on, "willy, nilly!"
2. Close the gate behind you!
3. Do not make loud noises on, or near the courts.
4. Do not walk past someone else's court, if the ball is in play...
5. Never touch the net!!!

Parenting, the toss! again!

The wind was contrary, as I practiced my serve this morning. My twist was, at least 2-3 inches out, on account of the wind. I was working on the calculations and the precise combination to get it in and I was thinking how much my children are just like that tennis ball. The winds are always contrary and the spins are missing the line on every point, more often than not. They have their own specific spin. I know that I didn't put the spin on them. God, or their father did that. I just have to adjust and move the ball in the direction of the court. My contribution seems to be the contact and the direction to the children. Volleys, serves, occasionally, one of them comes along that is a floater and you get to hit it right to get a winner. Most of the time they are just ralleys. The fun is in the interaction and how many times you get to hit them over the net. When they change courts and you are no longer in their sphere of influence, though you may love them. The match is over. It may be a short match or a long match. You have just a few minutes on earth to make an influence on them.
Sometimes the lighter you hit them the more they float, as I have seen in my inlaws case. The eldest child they always seem to hit so hard they pop the ball into smitherenes. If I could do it again. I would treat the eldest like the youngest and the youngest like the eldest. No attention is better than too much.

...lest they become discouraged

Thursday was my day off.

I got some fertilizer and topsoil and started some flowers and some greenery in my front yard.
I felt, a little like, "This Old House". Trying to renew the front yard of my new and precious home.
My camera woman documented everything that I did. What I am thinking about doing and how we placed the first 4 green ground cover, in their place. She was fastidious to include my every word of design desires and to put the camera right in my throat as I thought out my plan.
I want a small path of cement blocks leading from the side to the front patio. I want a simulation botanical garden in the backyard, with a path to nowhere. Elephant ears and shady areas to make preparation for the possibility of young couples being established and place for them to sneak away and show eachother secret affections. I hope that they will establish their nests, in my yard. Both, my children and young birds. Maybe, I will be able to establish an aviary and grow my own finches and such.
I do want puppies and bunnies, in a little cage, out my back door. Ginger and snap are doing well, but peachypoo, seems to have succumbed to a fever from the cold and snowfall, unexpected that we had. I do miss her. She was so beautiful and ostentatious. She had no inhibitions to show her plumes in or outdoors. I am glad we photographed her, but, I will attempt to do CPR on her, in the yard in the Springtime.

They had strawberry plants and blueberry trees, at Lowes, which I was eyeballing, desirously. Maybe, I will be able to include them in my investments to my yard. I needn't write it down, because, my understudies are listening and taping my everyword, those girls. My Evvy has the camera, in my mouth, even when there is no camera. What a great reminder that this is to me, that what I do, they will imitate. Grandma Ruth used to say "Pete and repeat". That meant, a child is in the room and they are sure to hear and reiterate the sentence in the wrong context. We were so often Pete and we were certainly repeat.
Lord, help me to say and do good things for them to imitate. I am so often forgetful of my young understudies. Amen.

I believe a daughter's place is doting on her Daddy!

You only have one daddy!
You girls are blessed with a merciful and kind daddy. Please don't miss this time, when God hasn't snatched you away to another man, to be kind to your daddy. The gleam in my fathers eyes when he opened a card that had a dollar in it, was priceless. He could put on that glance in a moment. It was addictive to hear him say, this is a good cup of coffee, or this is a great meal. "Indian burns!" was my absolute favorite. You are learning skills of love that are best groomed, nowhere else. Natural affections of real tolerance, overlooking faults and love are brewed in the kettle of the family. Learning to make his favorite, biscuits and grits or mac and cheese, is real love. Don't miss this.

Sojourner Truth

A woman of wisdom and honor and truth was Sojourner.
A Black effective abolitionist and a woman. Using her godly and god honoring influence to effect policy in America.Wikipedia article...

A woman theologian?

Poetess, encourager and woman of the Word.
Phyllis!Wikipedia article of Phyllis

reading and thinking cannot be abolished, The impossible dream of being a woman and a writer, in a day when it was against the law for slaves to be taught or to read. Amazing accomplishments, for that day,were hers.

What are we learning from the role of women in the movies, ladies?

Lessons of femininity from the women of the 1930’s and 40’s. Last night’s movie was replete with convictions of the role of women and how it has changed the world. We are in 2010 and there are so many freedoms that we enjoy, but do we allow the freedoms that we enjoy take precedence over the simplicity of relating to one another. The thought that complete strangers would talk through an entire train ride about nothing, is completely gone from our culture. Cell phones and video contraptions keep us mesmerized on such trips and we do not talk to one another or get to know one another unless absolutely necessary. What kind of community is built upon the iPod and the cell phone. We choose who to speak to on the buses and trains.
The beauty and the simplicity of admiring the creation of God in the people around us and with us as we travel outside our sphere is lost. I never see the whole movie, because it hurts to see the decline of communication. It hurts to see the decline of human consideration. It hurts to see the decrease in the skills that make it possible to go the long haul with one another. Instructing and injecting those skills of tolerance and compromise into our young people is a job and a trust. How can I learn what I have not seen? How can I instruct what I have not practiced? Lessons in the stories in the old days are helpful.
Perhaps the mans’ job of preaching and teaching is paralleled in the job of the woman to protect and preserve human graces that lead to peace and peace loving. Are we learning to be Daughters of Eve or daughters of the serpent?

Did I tell you that my mommy sewed those coats we had on.

I remember my mommy being able to work that old Singer sewing machine and making the coats that we wore for Easter, at Aunt Jackie's house. We didn't go to see Aunt Jackie, there in those days, she played second fiddle to "The Matriarch". We went to see "Mu". Mu, lived in the apartment behind Aunt Jackie and Uncle Charles. It was a family obligation to visit her, as often as possible. We did too. Easter meant that we would get a basket from her and a bat and ball. These were more looked forward to than the egg hunt, in Aunt Jackie's back yard. We had an amazing time as little people. Us and Lisa and Rene and Brian and Glenn (Lauren and David were already too grown to play with us) (It is my guess that they hid the eggs). We fought over the candy and who got the biggest basket. We all knew that Glen got the biggest basket, because he was a grandchild and we were greats. Still, that was always noticed. Grandma Hanst did alot of watching the Dodgers when we were over there and Pop was always seated in the chair in the room. We were little and the big people filled the apartment so much that, if we got a good peak at her and a peck on the cheek we were happy. Why were they all hovering around her so? Why was wherever she was 106? Love. She represented love, to all of those people. Every once in a while she yelled and there was silence. All of these people bowed to her every command and then they were gone. They bowed to love. I guess that that is the Christie Legacy in America. We may have little of anything else, but I always say that we have a monopoly on "the mothers' intuition". Everything that Eve said to her daughters was passed on to Mu!
I remember the last day. I remember late in the night being put in the car for the last time to see Mu. She fell and broke her hip. They took her from the back of Uncle Charles' house. We never saw her again. No more baskets, lovingly prepared, with names on them. No more "Mommy made" coats. The era of Mu had changed swiftly and there was much weeping over her.
Everytime the door opened by a gust of wind, Mommy would say, here comes Mu. Thank you for visiting us, Mu. We came to look forward to such occurrences and laugh. But I remember Mu, when she was really there. Beautiful and wrinkled and mine. The commander of a host of children and Grands and Greats (we were the greats).