delayed postcards

My life needs to catch up and it needs to be soon too. The holidays are quickly dissipating and routine is cranking up. My last, hopefully,  time to share a bit of our days of Christmas.

* What kept us extremely busy was Charlotte's part of Clara in her ballet troupe's annual performance of the Nutcracker. Ways to put lasting curls into her hair was a daily quest.

*My sister and I took a day trip to Virginia to visit the aunts, my Daddy's sisters, and a basket of gifts accompanied us

*One evening my husband and I were sitting in the sunroom and the reflection of lights were too beautiful for words, SNAP

*Eli and Charlotte spent one entire morning constructing a gingerbread house

*We hosted a Widow Luncheon at our house on the Friday before Christmas. My family served these precious ladies and we had loads of fun playing games too.

* Christmas cookie baking has become sparser at my house. But we still managed to bake something fun. This year Charlotte chose Gingerbread cookies and decorated them with white icing. This icing is simple to make and I love the shine.

*Claire's mother, Nancy, invited us to their home for lunch and then we made a trip to town and toured a dry good store with a long line of history

*Homemade Nativity in sunlight

*the last performance of the Nutcracker

much to ponder

It was Christmas after all.

And even though it is days later when I am in the throes of wrapping paper and Christmas sweets and leftovers of the feasting kind, still...I am immersed in Christmas goodness.

Which is very evident as I download my photos and smile.

"But Mary kept all these thing, and pondered them in her heart." Luke 2:19

This verse has been one of my favorites of all the Christmas verses read and reread in the Bible. A woman and a mother, roles she was given by her Creator. Yet He chose her, Mary, to be the mother of the Savior, her Savior too. She had  much to ponder.

But as women and mothers, we without doubt have much to ponder too. And I shall spend some of these slower days before the New Year pondering, getting my heartfilled.

Christmas morning, afternoon, and evening

"A jumble of impressions, bright fragments of the last twenty-four hours, jostled together in her tired mind like the tiny pieces of colored glass in a child's kaleidoscope."

Miss Read

The Christmas Mouse

Up early with Claire and Witt arriving just as they said they would.  Hot coffee poured into Christmas mugs. Then Charlotte found Baby Jesus and placed him in the manger. Christmas morning began.


In the afternoon, I took a walk with my second son. The one who is planning on leaving the first of the year to go to North Vietnam to teach English. So glad for the times we are able to spend together.

We dressed for dinner. I wore a  black velvet skirt and black swooped-neck top. A vintage silver watch,  a gift from my husband this Christmas, cupped my wrist. All seven of us gathered around the dining room table with candles glowing in glass globes. We ate a delicious meal of prime rib and yorkshire pudding with brussel sprouts, carrots, and spicy french green beans.

A quiet moment

A yarn of steel-blue wool being knitted into fingerless mitts for Charlotte's violin teacher who ventures out into chilly winter mornings to milk her Alpine goats.

A much favored Christmas book filled with short stories of coziness and warmth by Miss Read.

And a cup of hot tea, all being enjoyed before the twinkling lights.

Knitting and reading with Ginny's Yarn along .

Memories must take time, 

and the choice of a memory always means

 that a negative choice is made not to use the time another way. 

We are finite, and in our finiteness and limitedness 

we can never choose to do something without choosing not to do something else.  

There is usually the need to put aside ten other things to do one special thing.

Edith Schaeffer

What Is A Family

violin lessons

Ever since Charlotte was very young I would whisper in her ear,

"Some day you will play a string instrument...a cello, or a violin perhaps."

The day finally arrived, along with the teacher...at my house.

The plan was that I  might possibly learn how to play some too. I did learn. I learned that I did not prefer the violin as my instrument of choice. Something about the neck position, and even though I could read the music, getting my fingers to cooperate on those strings was another matter altogether.

On Thursday mornings you will find me blissful as I observe my daughter learning to play this beautiful instrument. 

But I feel somewhat like I must look into the camera and make a disparaging statement,

"I am a violin student dropout."

"Not to give way, in moments of fatigue or sadness, to the temptation to slacken my efforts; to remain valiant at whatever sacrifice...Never may any soul hold back discouraged from mine because agitations and worldly complications have hidden the way; may my soul be as smiling as my lips toward all and may Thy Word, O GOD, inspire my humble word and make it fruitful."

Elisabeth Leseur

Who would have guessed or even imagined? A myriad of emotions due to very real events have seasoned my days this month of October. I want to think of them as salt that seasons well, but salt stings...no downright hurts...at first. The  fruit must ripen over time, unfurl gradually.

I traverse amongst the quotidian loveliness of: school, learning along with my children; householding, cleaning, cooking, laundry; personal maintenance, daily stretching exercises and walks and maintaining good nutrition options; extracurricula activities filling my "extra" spaces everywhere I turn. 

Prayer, reading and meditation in His Word, along with scripture memory are vital, the necessary food and water to nourish every inch of my life.

I found this draft as I was doing a little housekeeping on my blog. I remember those October days and decided I would publish this post, however late. 

knitting and reading

*violet fingerless mitts for Charlotte
*biography on loan from a friend
*both good

And also joining up with Ginny's yarnalong...it has been too long.

 Feels good.

tear drops

We buried one of my best friend's daughter yesterday. She was twenty-eight years old.

 Last Saturday afternoon I received a phone call on my cell phone as I was on my way home from grocery shopping that she had been admitted to ICU in another town. Sunday morning the phone rang and I knew, even though my brain was screaming I did not want to believe it was true. I hurriedly got dressed and rode the one hour and forty minutes to be with my friend. My heart was hurting so bad, I could not even begin to grasp the level and degree of her pain and anguish, or imagine that I ever could. But I knew that there was a dire need to put my arms around my friend and just hold on tight.

Six days we gathered with family and friends at the small country church with beautiful stained-glass windows to remember this young woman with the contagious smile, as she once had been before the troubles came and ripped her away.

We walked through grass that was damp and stuck to our shoes, just as if it was charged with static electricity, and we made our way to the far corner of the country cemetery. Another song was sung, more scripture was read and one last prayer was given.

Then after a meal set out in the fellowship hall by the ladies in the church, my friend and I arrived home to my house.

A florist shop appeal awaited us in the sun room. We sat down with mugs of Constant Comment tea and each other's company. It was the best we could do at the moment.

stacks of books

I can read just about anywhere. And at some time or another in a variety of places, I probably have held a book in my hand lost in the written word while the world turns around me. Consequently, a stack of books being currently read resides in my life at all times.

Here is my present stack.

  Within a week's time each of these books will be picked up so that I might read a portion or a chapter. Slow and steady work at times, but rich and serving a purpose. All but two of these books I am revisiting this fall. I have no problem rereading certain books. I find I need the reminders, the jewels of wisdom, the positive influence of a good story in my days. My mind is stretched to claim new territory in areas I have gathered little, but perhaps need further plantings or at least a little weeding. Inspiration drives me forward with the new knowledge gained through a book read for the first time or it might just happen to be a piece of fiction read with the whole purpose being to simply entertain.

This is Charlotte's stack. 

 She enjoys taking her bath, donning a nightgown and listening to me read 100 Cupboards to her almost ever night. The other two she will either read alone, I will listen to her read aloud or she will chose for me to read aloud to her while she sits contently by my side. 

All good.

What books are currently in your hand or on your stacks?

home educated

"I enjoy doing housework, ironing, washing, cooking, dishwashing. Whenever I get one of those questionnaires that ask what is your profession, I always put down housewife. It's an admirable profession, why apologize for it. You aren't stupid because you are a housewife. When you are stirring the jam you can read Shakespeare."     ~Tasha Tudor~


I love this quote by Tasha Tudor. One evening for supper I was cooking what I consider a very tasty and humble meal of salmon cakes along side a pot of crowder peas. It wasn't Shakespeare that I was reading that particular time, but an excellent record of Roman History that precedes the ongoing Latin lessons.