Green

I found this poem in a collection of poetry for children.....thought it was quite appropriate as we're waking up to white this morning!!

Wearing of the Green

It ought to come in April,
or, better yet, in May
when everything is green as green--
I mean St. Patrick's Day.

With still a week of winter
this wearing of the green
seems rather out of season--
it's rushing things, I mean.

But maybe March is better
when all is done and said:
St. Patrick brings a promise, 
a four-leaf-clover promise,
a green-all-over promise
of springtime just ahead!

-Aileen Fisher

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

It had been at LEAST two years since I've walked through the doors and into this small fitness club.  Like Proust and his spoonful of tea and Madeleine crumbs, a flood of memories hit me the moment I opened the door.  The smell was unchanged, not a nasty gym smell, just a unique, indescribable smell that flooded my senses and my brain with images and memories.  I opened the gym membership in 2006, six months before my husband was to come home from an 18 month deployment.  My sister had encouraged me, ok, pushed me to join so I would feel good about myself when he came home.   Two years later he and I were empty nesters and so began going to the gym together!  Elliptical side by side, treadmill, trying some free weights with his coaching.  We would end each session seeing who could do the most of three sets of 10 or more on the Roman chair.  One late November in the dim hours of dawn, we spotted a fox on the hill across the road, running zig-zag through the tall dead grass.  Life became incredibly busier, empty nest filled up, another deployment, a new job with a much longer commute, gas prices soared, and there just seems to be no time for this.  The membership has been sitting idle though faithfully paid for two years so I finally dragged myself to the parking lot and through the doors . . . and broke up.

A Bright and Giddy Star

Whew!  Only four months to work up the courage to cut into this intense stack of fabric....

or maybe to just carve out a few hours of quiet to focus.  I think I spent an hour rearranging to get a good mix of the colors in each ray of the star.

  How long now before I find the time and quiet to begin to sew?....and rip out and sew again??

Soundtrack

I haven't had much room in my head lately to think about blogging.  If you look in my sidebar under Incredible Families, check out Amber's Adventure.  My granddaughter has been through much this past week, and taken us on quite the roller coaster ride.  Leaving the hospital last Thursday, the two Grammies and Amber's home care nurse had a very quiet, teary ride home.  Thursday, however, is Choir night and this Grammy is the choir's accompanist!  It is very difficult to read music if I'm crying, so I thought it would be good for me to go and give my eyes a much needed break.  It was a good idea in theory, except we were doing a first read through of our Easter cantata!  The week before we read through the first two pieces and ended with a Palm Sunday-themed, very joyful "Hail, Hail, Lion of Judah" which left this week's practice with three mournful songs in a row.  THREE IN A ROW!  I could not find the image of Snoopy that perfectly conveyed what was happening to me.  Can you picture it?  He's dancing and joyful and then Schroeder changes the music and the dancing slows a bit, then the ears droop, the eyes get big, the chin quivers, then the sniffing and finally the sobbing and howl.  (wish I could have found the image).  By the time we hit the third piece, my ears were drooping and it was getting very difficult to read the music.  Thankfully we launched into "He is Risen" just in the nick of time.  Each day God gives me a new song, and I am so very grateful for this precious baby girl and so very grateful that He carries us through this and each step of her life in the palm of His hand....or better yet, under His wings.

Reflectively Christmas

How has it taken 50 years to click?

Sometime in late October, the question being asked in our house is "Where's your list?"  We pester until a list appears, put on the fridge so everybody can see it, with wants, needs, suggestions for Christmas.  This year my daughter reluctantly put up a list, saying she didn't want to know what she was getting.  I was a bit taken aback at first.  From the age she could hold a pencil and scribble, she would produce Christmas lists.  I've saved a few over the years, mostly because the misspellings made us all howl.  Not wanting to come up with a list??  It dawned on me that what she was really saying was that the people who love her should know her well enough to know what she needs or wants, what would make her feel loved by opening. So, I diverged from her list and put a few things in a bag that I thought might be special to her and I think she was pleased and surprised.

I find myself overcome on Christmas, usually tearing up over gifts.  I don't deserve any of it.  I am not a great housekeeper, not a great cook, I forget to stay caught up on ironing, often I forget to keep enough groceries in the house to make a decent dinner.....and yet, Christmas comes and I am blessed by things I didn't ask for yet suit me to a T.   Someone loves me.

How amazing this demonstration of grace and love on a small scale.  How AMAZING that God sent his only son to live here and DIE in my place!