Saturday, November 26, 2016

Juicy!

Juicy, where's my goosy? In the fridge cold and loosy
Way down in the bottom of the fridge sat a wonderful bag of apples, a bag of carrots and a bag of celery that didn't make the cut for the Thanksgiving feast that we are chewing on throughout this long weekend. Nothing seems to last as long as I expect it to. I thought this was a month long volume of food that my girls and I had prepared. The lasagna is half gone, the macaroni and the turkey and roast are all whittling down into nothingness. Wow! These kids can eat.

This means it is juicing day, today. Elyse and I made it a part of our prayer meeting this morning to dust out the juicer and prepare the remaining raw veggies and fruit for juicing. Lord, make these vegetables a cleansing agent for all the intestines in our care, we pray, Amen. And off we went into juicing land.

OUt of the juicer came a wonderful brew of juice that is the sweetest juice we've made together. Usually there is ginger and spinach and bok choy to dull the sweetness of the many apples. Not this time.We toasted to our common bond of maternal/daughter love and we drank a half cup to test its goodness.
It was the best! Now to pawn it off on the unbelievers in our juicy cleanse. :)

Friday, November 25, 2016

Yesterday's moment's in the cook pot weren't a waste.

We enjoyed a wonderful meal at the Leader's house. Busily running to sit in front of the tv and talk about the wonder of time and how we have spent it so far. We had far too much food and too much sitting.

I was totally expecting to gather my chicks in the morning for somesort of aerobic activity. Gravity has set in. I talked myself out of that sentiment, saying that I spend far too much time outdoors with my babies and I don't need to pay my body anything for the gluttonous feast that I indulged in.

I spent the day putting a book together for my "apple-dumpling gang". I gathered prewriting sheets and covered them in plastic and tried to punch holes and use my machineless binding system. It was to no avail and it was a futile endeavor to comb those things into the plastic. I would have thrown the whole idea out of the window, in my anger. Patience prevailed and I got something together with tape and pinching. Not what I wanted, but it was, at least a monument of the level of effort that I put into the process. I do hope that the children will use it and I hope that I can figure out a better way and quicker way to put these items together for them.

My Ari motivated me by her perserverance trying to complete those Cc's. She just kept at it, over and over, with such little progress and so much determination that I had to complete my book, if only for her.

I also was working on some Christmas crafts, just for my own entertainment. This is a luxury that I hardly get to do. Christmas trees was the theme. I did some plain ones and I am working on a Christmas tree maze decoration. It is all in my mind and I am using a stencil to guide my completion. I got 85% done and took a break and now I can't find the exacto knife that I was using. {Isn't that always the way?}

Intermittently, I picked on some turkey and lasagna and rice and macaroni, etc. My breakfast was a delicious sandwich of turkey and cranberry on pumpernickle. I don't know why I don't cook like that every week to free myself up to do more crafting?

Who knew that an adult Thanksgiving, could be such fun?
Not to mention, catching up on my blogs and new photo above...

Thursday, November 24, 2016

If you are not watching the Macy's Day Parade right now...You should!

They have a 360 view of it on Youtube! I am so excited about it! Please watch while you cook!

Thankful for God's Faithfulness!

Saturday, November 5, 2016

A False alarm for the SAT. TODAY?

We woke early and I gathered all of my peptalk words and calming influence for, what we thought, was the day of Ethan's SAT. I always get sentimental on the SAT day. I always go back to my SAT moment and then flood in all of the stories of my experiences with the SAT's. Perhaps the compilation of our family stories is a book brewing. The years have stolen much of the details of many of the stories, so it won't be a book of mine; still, they flood my mind on the day that I am praying for my student in their SAT ambitions.

My husband and I always find some conflict in terms of preparation. Which is the most important thing to say and to bring and to do and to eat? We always discover something new that we differ on in our family traditions on such things. We are not from a test-taking emphasized culture. We have grown to become a family that lets the test come upon us, unawares. We can't say that this is unintentional, because this is the 5th time we have taken the test with our children. It is a tradition to forget, perhaps. We never mean it to be, it just is.

Today was no different. One thing we had forgotten or neglected or didn't really understand. {Only Heaven can discern the difference in our intentionality} I gave my peptalk, Ben gave his. We prayed and sat in the car and Ethan said, I haven't any identification. The steam from my head was filling the car and my silence was to keep from yelling. Ben never yells about such things. He preaches. And that he did. We had our family drill for Ethan's SAT test. It comes around on Dec. 3rd. We do hope we are able to acquire an identification card by then. Disappointment and sad unfulfilled expectations fill our hearts and our homes and we are trying to distract ourselves from just kicking the wall and expressing the interjections that fill our minds. Well, our eyes now look to the next attempt. I take back my peptalk!

Title- The Studious One!

Title-  The Studious One!
artwork by Elyse

Of biscuits and syrup

Of biscuits and syrup
tasty treats

Happy Saturday!

Happy Saturday!
a day at the Raptor Center.

Widdle Emmie in outer space school

Emmie jumped on the bus and off it flew out into the atmosphere. There was a set of clouds with turbulence right above the house and it took a few minutes for my Emmie to buckle her seatbelt. They hit the bump hard and it knocked my Emmie out of her seat and she bumped her head. The video camera came on and the monitor looked through and stated, Ms. Emmie, where are you? You are not in your seat. Where are you? I am alright I fell because I hadn’t buckled correctly. Well jump up Emmie we have a long way to go and you have to be buckled there is entirely too much turbulence in the stratosphere for you to unbuckle now. As soon as we are through this weather system there will be straight sailing but right now you must buckle. Emmie scrambled into the seat with intensity and purpose now. She watched every cloud pass her window and her nose was pressed to the window trying to see the top of the house as it drifted slowly out of sight. Soon they were not only out of sight of the house, the sun came out brightly and just as quickly they were putting on the atmospherical breathing apparatus and the outerspherical lights. The ABA and the OL. These precautions were to make them appear to be satellites to the radar as they were out in the ionosphere. Emmie knew all about this now. She had gone to the orientation and had a good breakfast and it took them 20 minutes for her to get out past the atmospherical pull and to feel the zero gravity. It would be 15 minutes before the gravity simulators would take effect, a glitch in the system which was being worked on. Until then, they enjoyed the couple of minutes of floatation, while being connected to the seats by belt. The first thing they saw everyday was the strataflotsam. The items which had been dumped into the atmosphere by earlier generations. What would their generation do about this ecological waste area that remained floating above their heads? This was a question for the generations. For now it was the area that they had to guide through on the way to school.

Midnight at the OASIS

Midnight at the OASIS
Sunset in Huntersville

My little Emmie

ran to the bus on the first day of the last year of school. 2 buns on the side of her head. She kissed me and ran at dawn to the bus. She was starting the adventure of a lifetime. I would never see that little girl again, she was going to woman school!

My Father and I 1989

My Father and I 1989

to the tune of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

A VISIT TO PAPA











Are you going to Mary Immaculate?

Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



Remember me to the one who lived there,



He once was a true love of mine,



Tell him to buy me an acre of land,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



Between the muddy Hudson in Jamaica Bay,



Then, He’ll be a true love of mine,

Tell him to sow in it seeds of pure cream,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



And build Ice cream mountains and buildings of whipped cream,

Then, He’ll be a true love of mine,



Tell him to reap them with sickles of M&M’s,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



And chew bubble gum and eat till we’re done,



Then, He’ll be a true love of mine.



Tell him to run it off down the motor parkway,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



After your done 50 pushups



and jog down the West Side Highway,



Then he’ll be a true love of mine…

(Don’t wait for me today dad, The kids are sick again, My tummy’s bulging again, My heart is aching again, And now there’s no love there…)





He once was, a true love of mine….So, Girls, I do beg you don't miss your Daddy,Apricots, Chocolate cherries and Pie,You have one short chance to see him on this side, Go visit him and let your light shine.