The full moon was peering in my front door, this morning

The rainy couple of days that we just had, gave bloom to a beautiful, if not a little bit chilly morning, lit by the powerful beams of the full moon. I am crying, like the days past. Still the tears donn, my face, as though my emotions are connected to the weather. I am remembering Abby. I remember the way I ran to his eighth-grade graduation. I thought to myself, he won't miss me, with all of the people that are there. All of the family will be there for him. He's only been in the school for a single year, how sentimental could it be. The tears that I saw on that boys face were, like a sheet of wetness. Pull yourself together, boy? It made me cry. I see now, in my dear eighth grader, the same sensitive style soul. Always holding tears back for some reason or other. The people in that school had healed a bruised soul. Education had battered and relationships had held the soul together. Mom wrestled that boy into a learning environment that could work for him. I see that gleem of light coming through, from my boy's soul. A light that means the joy of learning is being nurtured and not snuffed out. February is a time to reminisce about my dear and departed Valentines. I miss you, Abby.

Today is an overcast and muddy day.

It certainly reminds me of the many muddy days we spent at Baisley Park. I remember, with fondness the glistening eyes of my baby brother running into my arms and full of mud, with a froggypoo in hand. Dirty days they were. I learned much about the happenings of the wildlife in Baisley park, through the eyes of the nature boy that God had blessed us with. Many days I just knocked him on the ground, just to exercise my loving authority, as I saw it. My favorite memory was that of the St. Bernard dog that caught Abby, between the trees, just outside the baseball diamond and the tennis area. We were on a hill, horrified and sure that we were about to see our baby devoured by that huge beast, only to see the dog, lovingly showering him with salivation. We showered him, thusly ourselves, I am sure. Grandma Delaphena always warned us and Grandma Ruth, to stop kissing those boys. We didn't listen and now, I am glad that we didn't. I have many a treasured memory of kissing my baby brother.

A Meal, Fit for a Queen!

There is little else that motivates, like food can.

Feasts are not an everyday occurrence for us, but when we feast, we "throw down". Yesterday, was just such an occasion. I didn't expect it to be so extravagant.

I knew that the master chef was on the case, I knew that I was craving that red rice for weeks after having it delight me as it did, but...

Anticipation is key, for sure.

We had been salivating, internally, as we heard the qualifications of this very unassuming gentleman who had made our acquaintance. Good is good and we expected good food from a "clearly qualified cuisine craftsman". There are many kinds of feasts. And, I am used to the kind where you are familiar with all of the flavors and hord up the foods in your tummy, as though they are not going to be there tomorrow. This was not that kind of feast.

I was curious at this feast, the simplicity of the food was the first element that I admired. The first pan held the macaroni. It was not decorated and then there was stringbeans and chicken, another kind of red rice and potato salad. It looked like the usual fare. I layered my plate according to my usual preferences. Always, the macaroni is my presumed preference. Not at this feast. At this feast, all of the delights tantalized the pallet. I felt an explosion of flavor, all over my mouth.

I definitely never had that happen before. I had to taste each of the elements of the meal, in unison. I couldn't load up on one or other of the flavors, to the exclusion of the other. It made me realize the buds on my tongue had been overused in one part and that the other tastebuds were hungry for flavor. I couldn't finish my macaroni, because the other flavors filled up my tummy, before I could get to, what I considered my favorite.

I liked that kind of feast. Flavor feasting. It woke me up and made me exercise, this morning, because the delight of my tongue was still singing through the night, into the next day.

What a chef and what an interesting reminder of the goodness of God!

"The goodness of God, leads to repentance"

Stuffy nose, sneezy, queezy, I am a mess!

Oh dear, the creeping crud has come upon me. I am miserable. I laid in bed, I took my tylenol, I've been drinking tea. I am still in pain. Throat and nose congested. It is not the worst thing, for sure, but it surely is a miserable cantankerous situation, when I am sick in this house. It is almost as bad as when I rent the rug doctor.

Get out of my way, I bellow. Mom's on the warpath, the children know and they duck. When they see that look of determination in my eyes, they know that the overhead is coming down upon them and they duck.

I have taken my children out to the tennis courts so that I can show them that part of my personality. I don't even have to talk when that face comes upon me. They all go, uh-oh. I rarely throw something directly at them, but they know that I want to. The drooling lust for the perfectly placed overhead to go in the court, is directed anger or passion or greed.

You don't even have to be in the lead, there is a separate lust for winning. But, just when the ball is lofty and softly coming down and you know that your grip is just right and your shoulder is itching to kill that ball. Pow! What a thrilling moment!

I want to kill these germs that are annoying me. Dreaming about the perfect lob to send into the fence is enough to comfort me and keep me from knocking these annoying children into next Tuesday. Thanks for the tools to redirect anger, from myself and others to the problem. Today the problem is these stupid germs!

One of the things that I love about NC... and {what to do with 20 bananas}

is the delightful weather. It is like having a self-cleaning precipitation. Today is a rainy, rainy day. It may rain all day, but the snow of Saturday is completely gone. No snowplows, no salting trucks, just a few days of warm weather and the ground is clear. Snow comes from the sky white and before it yellows, it is gone. I just love the weather. My lungs, especially are grateful. I never get that icy freeze in them, like I used to get, in NY.

My fine fellows, Ethan and Ezra were down with a bit of a cold yesterday and Ezra, still seems a little under the weather. I kept him home another day and we are watching him to see what is exactly wrong with him, other than the obvious sniffles and achey bones. I gave him some ibuprofen and laid him down on the couch in the living room.

My dear and very "American" children look at me cross-eyed when I bring home ginger-beer from the supermarket. The taste for this delightful brew, is obviously a vestage of my West-Indian heritage. They have not inherited a taste for the sharp drink. I love it and I have given myself permission to exhibit my delight in such a brew, inspite of the "brew-ha-ha" that happens whenever I bring it to the table. In my mind, I am seeking ways to introduce the ginger flavor to my dear children, just so they know the flavor.

I should have made banana waffles, because of the blessing that we have received from Ben's job of the many, many bananas that I am in the mind of processing for our family's. I said to myself, Uncle Robby said you can put just about any drink in your waffle mix, one day when we were reminiscing about Grandma Ruth's waffles. He gave me his recipe and left the fluid blank, because he uses anything in his waffles. I said, let me substitute my ginger-beer and see if they are acceptable to my taste-testers.

I enjoyed the gingerbeer waffles. Enoch tasted a little of it. He is no example of their goodness, though, because he is ravenous. The others could detect the slightly sharp flavor that the gingerbeer gave off. They didn't poo-poo it, but they didn't devour them, either.

Today, is the banana processing day. I hate bananas! I have made 2 banana breads for Valentines Day. What else can I do with them? I may just blend them and put them in the freezer to make cream pie, when it is a Sunday or special occasion.

Everybody has their SAT story and this is En's.

We've been intending the SAT's for years and years. From birth, we start talking into the children's ears about the perfect score that we intend for them to have. Everytime one of mine has an SAT scheduled, I cry about not having been able to discuss the test taking tips that I have learned over the years. We have baby mobile's with SAT questions and multiple choice ditdots for the baby to bop around with. We ask them vocabulary questions here and there with words that we are sure will be on the test. We've had some false starts. SAT discussions seem a Bodden delight. ie. children who got perfect scores, here and there dotted around us. Where, oh where is the smart "Bodden child" who will verify our teaching skills, by getting a great grade on the SAT's, so we can brag about it? None of our children are there, yet. {we are saving some accomplishments for Stoney to show all the rest of the grandchildren up in,LOL}

It amazes me that other families don't even talk about the SAT's till after they are over. Those are the ones who score the best, I think. Ours are all duds, we lament. They are beautiful children with no ambition for a perfect score. We will have to pay their way through college, or live working at Walmart forever. No shame in that. My children, I have found have very little test taking ability. They are smart in their sphere and test takers they are not. Me, my adrenaline lives for testtaking opportunities, none of them have inherited my lust for the perfect score.

The last time we tried for the SAT's Enoch had forgotten is i-d card. We were soooo disappointed and discouraged. How can we get this elusive test behind us? The wall seemed to grow and grow for the SAT's. The reschedule of the SAT's for us was postponed, on account of snow in January and today was the reschedule. We were holding our breath and crossing our fingers. Will he be able to take the SAT's. I tried to give him every trick that I had thought of for good test-taking. We've been talking about the SAT's from birth. He is not one of the children who takes the SAT's at 12 years old, but he is a good young man, who has dreams that seem always to grow a wall around them and the SAT's began to represent a wall around our dreams for this young man. Last year's scare and emotional time included. I simply cannot go into the cataclysm of events that nearly kept us from being able to transport him to the SAT's because of auto misfortunes. We had a blocker for that tackle and it was Ben who was in charge of the transportation dilemma. Now, we had transportation, identification...what else is coming at us, to try to keep my student from being assessed? We could only guess.

We woke this morning as we had the time before. We got ready and we could feel all of the cumulating SAT stories swirling around in our heads; with the knowledge that this day would be history in the making as all of the other's have become.

I let him make his own breakfast.{maybe my doting on him had jinxed the times before, I thought} We are not going to make a big hullabaloo about this. It will come and go. We drove out the door at 7 to be there by 7:45, making sure that he had the necessary Identification for himself and whatnots. A lunch, a mother's kiss, talking to's. Snow started falling as we got to the school. Students from around were also taking their SAT's. I don't know why I felt like crying. I didn't cry when Emily took hers or Elyse. They had their stories, but not so emotional.

The school that we go to for the SAT's has a nice little campus and darting around in the snow were a community of sundry birds who were playing in the snow. Amazing that they had no care of the SAT's and what they can mean for a person's future. They seemed to tell me not to worry. I listened. God will take care of En. With or without the SAT's he will get along, I know and I giggled to think that God is reminding us not to worry, even about our life situation and the dilemma's that we live under, in this shadow time.

I do wonder if it will stop snowing. It did stop and we left my boy, as if in the kindergarten, although he's a man. I care about him and he knows it. A humble resignation to the inevitable, seems to be the emotions that he exudes. He is really so introverted, that we really can't guess if he's nervous or not. He never wants to bother anybody, in any way. He's got this and we are here for him, either way.

My heart was in my stomach for him all day. This is not easy for a Walker fellow. They are great at design, but tests take them all to their limits. I've seen my children squirm at the thought of a vocabulary or mathematical assessment. I would spare them, but I live in the light of their difficulty in this. All day, I cast my care on Jesus, for my dear boy. I walked and prayed and hollared at anybody I could, namely Ben. He's so patient with me in these days. He must wonder why I care so much about these little things. I do.

He called and I heard the dropping of a weight in his voice. "Is someone coming to pick me up?" He's a man now. 18 and finished the SAT's applications for college need the score for him. He is definitely a hardworking student, but with no SAT score, there is little hope of any future at all, in this world, they say. We know God is in control, regardless. The heavens seemed to applaud the Walker's accomplishment of this high hurdle. The snow came down in drodes to mark the day and we are all in the excitement of a day well spent in the focus on the most unassuming and dearly delighted in, "boy of my dreams", doing the natural next thing. Taking the SAT's.

Valentine's Day is somewhat Cathartic in our house...

"I am sorry for all of the hard words I said, all year", someone aptly expressed in a card on our table. We all could say amen to that confession. Greeting everyone in the house in a loving way on Valentines Day seems more difficult than it should be. Still, we did. Everyone seemed to feel greeted and loved and there is a time warp when we try to show love to oneanother. Time seems to stand still, when we just decide to stop quarrelling for a minute and show love. Time wasn't really standing still and we found that out when we awoke to a dishevelled Friday grindstone. They should never schedule Valentine's Day on a Thursday. It is not like Thanksgiving where you can give everybody the Friday after it to recuperate. I am not recuperated yet. Love and the big family expressions of it are beautiful and gladly accepted. We had some dear neighbors come with a sentiment of Valentines. I cooked and baked and ate and ate. My tummy is grateful that "Fat Tuesday" and Valentine Thursday came in the same week, this year. :)

"Correct as usual, King Friday!"

My manly 13 year old, Ethan looks me eye to eye these days. Often he is aggressively seeking affirmation for one or more of his ideas and his manly voice is somewhat alarming and newly a source of anxiety. I mustn't reprove the manliness coming from his voice. Once again, Mr. Rogers had just the thing this morning. "Am I correct in saying that, mother!" he haunted {about some other thing or another, I can't recall for the tremulousness of my core at his insistence upon an answer}. "Correct as usual, King Friday!" I quoted my sagely delightful memory from childhood. How many times the tactics of human relations is used from the earliest memory of a Pastor to my soul, I cannot tell. How aware he was of children's ineptitudes and need for tools to learn the way to comport oneself with royalty as well as peasants. How true the world of make-believe has become in the life-skills that it has taught me. King Friday, the thirteenth was our first royal example. He kept me from whacking my loveably insistent Man in training. He was correct as usual and I am grateful that talking to him as if he were royal subdued his aggressive request for personal attention that is always in small supply. Thank God for Fred Rogers and his skill at teaching me to think before I smack.

One day a little girl knelt on the ground and made a cross out of bobby pins and asked God to bless her family...

The rest is the story of our family. We all know what happened next. So many years, parents and children and grand children and great grand children. 71 years old? Who's old? Not my mommy. She is still making bobbypin crosses in the snow and asking God to bless our family. And guess what? He still is.

Last night was the Grand Prix!

My boys begged and pleaded to enter their cars. It took a bit of time to get the money together for their entering the Grand Prix. Finally they were in. They designed and put the cars together with care and then the night of the big races. What a fun thing for boys this is. We did it with the ladies when they were children, also. It seems more exciting for boys to enter their vehicles. They didn't win, but, what fun!