Wednesday, September 26, 2012

I'm Stealing.

From Sarah and from Kate - what they each found from Tolkien and from Tim Keller and from C.S. Lewis.



Fairytales move us in a way that realistic fiction does not (and can not). Because fairy tales speak to us of several deep human longings that we are almost afraid to admit and that we can never discard. We long to survey the depths of time and space. We long to get outside of time altogether and escape death. We long to hold communion with other living things, like angels. We long to find a love which perfectly heals and from which we can never depart. And we long to triumph over evil finally and totally. When you are in the middle of a great fairy tale, the fairy tale lets you live even briefly with the dream that love without parting, escape from death, triumph over evil are real and realizable. That’s why the stories stir us so deeply. And why we will go on reading and writing them no matter what the critics may say.  Tolkien on Fairytales

     and then Tim Keller writes,
But the gospel is better. For the truth of Jesus is this... the gospel’s message is that, through Jesus Christ, every single one of these things that the fairy tales talk about is true and will come to pass. We will hang out with angels. We will have loves from which we are never parted. We will see an absolute triumph over evil. There is a beauty who will kiss you in all your beastliness and transform you. There is a prince who will save us, forever. The reality leaves me breathless, and astonished!

"The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back."- C.S. Lewis 


Tuesday, September 25, 2012

What Recycling Used to Look Like, This Is True, I'm Not Making This Up, Seriously....

And it was simpler and I wish, sometimes, we could all agree to be that way again - but not always.

Okay, what made me think of this - today - when I was emptying my small trash cans and I began to think -   Is everyone that way - activities lead you to thoughts about other things, other times, other places - things people have said.....?

Emptying small trash cans in individual rooms always makes me think of a conversation I had with a college roommate - actually, we shared an apartment  - my friend, Martha - and we were both from our small town of Evergreen and our moms were friends and same agish....  so we were discussing, way back then, the task of emptying small trash cans - and how we didn't get it done until they were full to overflowing - at which point Martha talked about how her mother had done the task daily when Martha was living at home - how her mom, Addy, would never let the trash cans get out of hand - or so it seemed.  I remarked, with a smile, my mom either!!!  What a difference in their generation and ours... what's happened to us, we wondered - and continued to let the trash cans fill up.  I have no clue what we did about the larger "kitchen garbage can".

So I'm 61 now and my mind aimlessly goes back, on cue, to that conversation each time I empty my small trash cans - only.... today I thought more about it and how I think about it on cue - but I also thought about how we didn't have the small trash can liners back then.  No one had the liners when our mothers were doing that daily task nor when Martha and I were doing that in 1973 and 1974.  And.... on top of that they didn't have the liners for the kitchen garbage cans.

So here we come to my comments on recyclling and how it was done.

1.  Before Milk Cartons there were Glass Milk Bottles and the full bottles were left at our side door - to be returned, empty, on the requested schedule.  Replaced by more full bottles of milk.  We did the same with glass coke bottles.  Returning them wasn't required, as the cokes were not left at our door, but we didn't drink so much coke - only on special occasions - and - the motivation was that if we returned them to the designated location - usually the local grocery store - we'd get 2 cents per empty bottle.  You better believe my mother returned our glass coke bottles - as well as saving her S&H Green stamps which she got from the grocery store - to be redeemed for selected products at the S&H Green Stamp Store.

2.  Some innovative someone thought of the milk cartons and soon, no more glass milk bottles.  Then, of course, there were no plastic grocery bags, only the large brown paper bags which Mother definitely saved from her Thursday trips to the grocery store, doing her weekly grocery shopping - Thursday afternoons, coming in from school, were wonderful - I knew definitely that Mom had been to the grocery store and couldn't wait to see what I would have to snack on after school.  Okay - back to the brown bags.  Those were mother's garbage can liners - with a layer of saved newspapers beneath the brown bag to catch any yukky moisture - BUT - to cut down on yukky moisture - and we did not have garbage disposals yet - not in our house - Mother saved her cartons, opened them up to a square opening and she put her food scraps and coffee grinds in the empty milk carton.  If she'd had a garden, she could have composted that - but she didn't have a garden.  I'm small town, but I wasn't raised on a  farm, nor were Mom or Dad garden oriented.  Mother got fresh vegetables from curb markets and the local A&P.  Or from friends who gifted her with their overflow.  I definitely grew up eating fresh vegetables.  My grandmother didn't even grow her own garden - but there were always fresh vegetables to eat at her house.

That's really all I have to say about recycling.  We just had less to throw out, I think.  I like liners.  I love liners.  I do not like yukky garbage which leads to yukky garbage cans.  Let's keep that liner up and over the can.

Still - I have a fondness for brown grocery bags.  I prefer them, actually, but I don't request them.  I just always take the plastic bags which are not at all aesthetically pleasing.  Not at all.  Yet, with babies back in my world, the plastic grocery bags are perfect for dirty diapers - but when I had babies, I disposed of my dirty diapers in all of my saved bread bags.

Which takes us to cloth diapers vs. disposable - now there's a whole other way to recycle.  I totally went with disposable diapers.  Completely.

I succumb to all the conveniences, but if we could all agree to go back - all of us - I would, maybe.

Monday, September 24, 2012

BOOM! FALL IS HERE!

We're all loving it, aren't we?  Thank you, Lord, for this season!!!!  How can one love a particular season so much? - when, actually, it feels like I love Spring and Summer equally as much - and then comes Fall.  Sorry, Mr. Winter, you have your place, too - just not the same feeling.  You are our rest - our repose - our calm before the wild burst of life and living and energy which abounds in the other 3 seasons.

So - this is all I have.  Pictures of 3 wreaths I've made and my display of pumpkins and mums.  Not very original, and I had planned not to succumb to the temptation of all those gorgeous pumpkins at the Market across from Calvary Baptist Church in Scottsboro, AL - but I did.  Yesterday was too perfect in temperature and sky and air and so I headed down to get my pumpkins.  Charlie went with me, and Ellie and Luke, and Sarah and Ann - and I loaded up.  We loaded up.  Charlie and I.  For me, it's a lot.  I don't usually buy so many all at once.  But they keep all the way through Thanksgiving.  They do, usually.

And so follows my parade of pictures of my hand-crafted wreaths and my display of pumpkins and chrysanthemums:



















Happy Fall 2012.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Just saying....




This is true, it's too exhausting - so I don't even pretend at this.

I'm 61 and I've long ago passed that aha moment in a woman's life where she exclaims, 
"Oh my gosh! I'm my mother!"

I'm now one of those women who sighs and says,
"Dear God, please let me be my mother..."

How did Mother do 61 so great?  She did 61 great. She was great at 61.
Great, great, great.

Let's see, I was 29 when Mother was 61....
and expecting my first baby.

But I did see the above ecard on another blog which I discovered last night.


I recommend it.

I got it off another blog which I also recommend.


Both are good reading.

There are some intense stories behind both ladies which make their blogs so good.
You have to read the About part of their blogs.  

Meet Glennon  is how it reads on Momastery

That's it.