A Mary Poppins sky?

I probably do spend more attention looking at the wrapping of the day, than the day itself. My days are so full of people, children, Husband, needs. I take a little time to unwrap the day, in the morning and my children know that I do. Yesterday's sliver moon reminded me of the inside circle of a perfectly tied bow, with the colors of bluegray that matched the paper, so perfectly that all you could see was the light of the reflection on the shimmer of the paper. It was beautiful.
Mom, come upstairs and see the Mary Poppins sky. Uh oh, they caught it from me. I went and sure enough my Evvy was talking about the view from her window, in the morning. Because it is cold and clear, every house has the perfect swirls coming from the chimneys and then the sunrise was in the distance. We stood there for a minute admiring the sight and then, rushed off. The blessing of sight and imagination allows us this breathtaking comfort of seeing London from our back, upstairs window. The Wonder of It All...

Did God give my "Praise Dance" to Paula Abdul?

Not this morning! He is worthy of the glory and Fred Hammond translates the scriptures into my language so much that all I can do is praise Him in the dance. Mom, are you gonna dance before the Lord this morning? Did He wake you up this morning? Sometimes, I try to act like the sidity people, but it doesn't work. I end up embarrassing myself, even when I am being restrained.
I love what King David says to his wife, when she rebuked him for dancing before the Lord. (2 Samuel 6:13) He was used to glorifying God with no one watching, in the fields. He said, so to speak, that is my "sidity praise", you ain't seen what I do when I am really praising God, for what He has done in my life! I love that about King David. He said when my mother and my father forsake me then the Lord will lift me up. I don't care who you are, I dance before the Lord, because He has been good to me.

Other people may forget where God has brought me from, but don't let me forget that God has lifted me up from a horrible pit and set my feet upon a rock? Amen?
Don't give my praise dance away dear Lord, let me keep it and praise you in the dance! (Even if, in private...)shhhh! don't tell anybody.

It is Monday

The sun has not yet risen and I am preparing for the day, at hand. When we first came down here, I was, nearly, religious about the regimens of my day. I wanted the children to enjoy a nicely made table and all the fixn's in the morning before they went to school.
The beauty of the morning sky, outside my kitchen sliding doors reminded me that God sets such a beautiful table of the sky for us, most mornings and evenings in the sunrises and sunsets. I tried to find a tablecloth for the children with colors that matched my beautiful sky.
Now, that I am working and alot of overtime this week, it has disintegrated into a relative free for all. Everybody eats something. I don't know where that old table cloth went to. I can't find a clean spoon most mornings. People are getting yelled at for not doing the dishes. The normal routine. We still enjoy the beauty of the God's tablecloth on the sky, every morning and it is comforting to know that although our intentions for the years past and the years to come changes and is affected by the vicissitudes, God never changes.
Everyday is a beautifully wrapped present from him. The gray days are wrapped in the gray paper. The sunny days have all of the colors of the rainbow on them. All of the presents under His tree are for me. Each day's gift has something new in store. I am determined to open this new day with relish and throw the paper all over the floor like a child. That is why I blog. It is the paper from my present that I am tossing on the floor.
Happy Monday!

I knew all that volleyball practice would come in handy...

Mom! Pass me the roll of bath tissue. What? do you mean all the way upstairs?
I tossed that roll right up to her in the loft area. Not a second look. Wow, Mom that came right to me. All that volleyball practice has come in handy at just the right minute. I am not competing, for sure, but there is a time and a season for everything. This is the season for making sure there is bath tissue in all 3 baths and not for standing on lines in the house, waiting to go...LOL.
We can hardly believe ourselves in this mansion that we are blessed with. In other days, had I thrown the roll that hard, the ceiling would have fallen down.LOL.
It is Sunday so, I am saving steps. That is an excuse for not running up the stairs to give it to her.
In the movie National Velvet, the mother gives a peptalk to her daughter and tells her, be sure that if you are going to be number one and compete with all of your strength you have to let it satisfy you throughout your whole life. There is a time for being number one and time for being a "has been" and moving over and letting the other people have their day. As I lunge into this new Lords Day, I am remembering my hayday and admiring the hay of the future at the same time. Have a good day!

Last Monday!

We were ready for the new year and the new school year and everybody was up and adam, early. Enoch, of course, had waited until the last minute, to study for tests and projects which were due. We were with him on these struggles into maturity. I rose early to escort him through the morning preps, not a usual thing. He is the first one to leave the house and sometimes misses breakfast. Not today, I said to myself. He will not blame the passing or failing today's test on not having had a good breakfast.
I made a big pot of cream of wheat which he nearly ate the whole thing and an omelet of 2 eggs and cheese. Thanks mom, he said as he ran out the door into the freezing new year. He was nutrified and he was headed to school and I felt like it had been a successful morning.
I go to work at 8:30 and at 7 we got a call from the school. Enoch is complaining of chest pains? Oh no! What now? Everyone else was prepared by the tremendous helpers that are on duty when Mom and Dad are frazzled. Frazzled, was not the word? I said, take me to work first and then pick up Enoch. No, we will go to the school together was the answer of my level headed husband. Okay.
The nurse was very kind. She had checked him from head to toe and said that there may be a muscular pain in his chest. He had sat silently in the nurses office and didn't tell them he had chest pains. When they heard that it was chest pains they said, why didn't you tell us. They called us immediately. I was impressed with their care for my boy.
He was not crying or out of sorts in any way, just a small complaint. This tall slim, distinguished young man is rarely out of sorts, just a delicate lad. I think it was gas. He did have a bruise on his chest from a wrestling session with the little guys and of course there was "the test". Well, his dad took him to the doctor and the one thing we learned is that he is not 6 feet yet, but 5'10" and 136 pounds. Wow! What I wouldn't do to be 136 pounds? and 5'10"?
He's better now.

3 Kings Day!

I do wish I could do a series with my children about the 3 Kings and what I have seen in Scripture. Some things they will have to search out for themselves. Great men who followed the elements and the light of the stars to reach the King Eternal, born in Bethlehem. We celebrate that today, by taking down the Christmas ornaments and putting them away. It may take us more than one day to do it, since there is overtime at work.
I am enjoying the overtime, but it keeps me from my children and the stories that I must tell them. 6 is the best age to impress the reality of what Christ has done for our souls. The plethora of scripture to support His mighty acts on our behalf and the season of gifts truly softens the hearts to receive Him.

So many times...

I would go to my mommy's house and we would take out our spiritual magnifying glasses to decifer some old correspondence from Fr. Tom. We had such fun trying to figure out the references to scripture and the meaning that he had for us in these. It was just a gem of delights in our interactions.
One day Ezra was laying on the ground while we were doing this and there was classical music on. He kicked the radio and it changed to family radio. We laughed and laughed that he was sick of the classical music and wanted some Christian music. the good old days.

A decade into the new millenium?

The first decade that I remember was the 60's. I remember vividly the horror of the loss of President Kennedy. I remember where I was in the livingroom at 113 when that happened. I remember the silence and the change in my parents when these civil rights events hit them so hard.
I remember the 1970's and the gaslines and sometimes singing with dad as we sat on the lines to get gas.
I remember the 80's and Lady Dianna. All of us who married in that decade were impressed by the beauty and the glory of that royal wedding and the royal couple's aid for us to recoup some of the beauty of having royalty to mimic.
I remember the 90's and the fun that we had at Grandma Ruth's 80th birthday party. Ju called me after and said that Elyse had stepped on her foot, which we argue about to this day, in fun.
The Turn of the millenium is a blurr of difficult memories starting with 9/11 and then it seems like you blink your eyes and here we are starting the second decade of the millenium. How do you make resolutions for such a time? Where do you start to change and grow here for the next 10 years?
2 of my children are grown and still helping at home. Elyse is working as a nanny. Emily is helping out at home. 2 are teens and 2 are still in grammar school. We have so much to be grateful for.

First it was me and my mommy!

look at that cute blister on her thumb?

As I look at it, every year my mommy went to the storks house and brought me home a present of a playmate. The first playmate she brought me was Ju. We were a dynamic duo, for that 18 months that it was just the 2 of us. I do remember very early being resourseful with our limitations. We played very hard and we did alot of what we wanted to do. Mommy was tired and sick with Jackie toward the end and we got into loads of messes. ie. the orange juice incident. Ju was a social butterfly. She was born with showbusiness on her mind. Dad would say, "Ju, do the twist"; she couldn't even stand up and she could do the twist. She had little memory for the words of the song. I harped on her incessantly about that.
Mom and Dad were very aware of the differences between us. Ju, was friendly and outgoing and quite a show off in her own way. Not, that I am jealous. LOL Of course, I was jealous and it wasn't long before I used all of my big sister powers to manipulate Ju as often as I could.
I was certainly none of those things. I could read and I could sing, but I had no intention of befriending outside people. When I lived with Aunt Jessie, she reminded me of that part of myself, when we were little. Aunt Jessie said that Julia was so special. Everybody always said, That Julia is so outgoing and friendly. I don't remember you. I know. I said, Ju, you are so fake, you make everybody think that you love them. I do love them, she said.
The light downstairs in the hallway was our limitation that kept us from going downstairs and getting into trouble. We couldn't turn on the light. I remember the day that we decided to try standing on eachother's backs to reach the light to go downstairs for something. Shhhhh! if Mommy hears us, we will be in big trouble. There was nothing in the house that was out of our reach when we learned to turn on the light. That was when Ms. Newsome came to help us out. I didn't like Ms. Newsome. Ju liked everybody!
During the blackout, I said Ju, bet you can't stick your head in the chair like this. She was shorter than I, so her head went into the chair at the narrowest part. She got it into the chair and couldn't get it out. We started screaming and it was dark and mommy and daddy were out. We were being watched by Ms. Newsome. Ms Newsome got some soap and some vaseline and got Ju's head out of the chair. I remember being so amazed that Ms. Newsome could use soap to get Ju's head out of the chair. We were quiet after that.

One New Years I came to Queens and

Grandma Ruth and Elijah











Grandma Ruth was playing the memory game with Muffy. I could not believe the change in this woman from the grandchildren to the great-grands. She and Muff were giggling and playing. Grandma Ruth enjoyed them to the utmost. She kept saying Muffy you are too smart for me. Elyse you are so smart showing me your math facts. Nettie you are such a sweet and smart girl and so on and so on. I said, where was that woman when I was growing up. She knew that I was surprised at her change with the little children.
They can be in the room, when I am talking to you. Pete and repeat, she would say, if there were something that she didn't want the children to hear.
It was a delight to see her grow old and become a really adorable great-grandmother to our children. She and I giggled that there had been many days that I would never darken her doorsteps because of her...(you know what). Meanness?
I bet Mom is just as sweet with her greats now. What a splendor to see 2010 and have generations following you, I bet?

When Ethan was born and she was on her way "home to glory". The smile on her face was amazing. Aunt Gail said that is the biggest smile I have seen on her in a long time. I thought I wouldn't live through that birth and the season that followed with sicknesses and death. Grandma kept saying how do you stand that all of these children look like Rosalee? How do you see that Grandma? She always looked underneath things. Things were never just on the surface with her.
Ben was talking with Uncle Charles one day and reminiscing of his fondness for Grandma Ruth. I was rolling my eyes still at his remembrances, even though I missed her. I didn't miss her lima beans. I had never tasted them, like he did. Uncle said, Ruth was trying to show the girls in her nonverbal way what it meant to take care of a man. I said Thank you Uncle for translating Grandma's sometimes crass endeavors to mold her grandchildren. When I think about it, that was what all of that cantankerosity was about?
I was a very mean second grader. Mrs. Peterson stood in front of the class, for religion and said to us. "Think of the meanest person you know?" She said if you keep practicing you are going to be just like that person. You have to pray and stop practicing being so mean. In those days, I used to kick the boys in the shins to make them chase me. I was really convicted and said, I am going to try to be nice and not as mean anymore. I will never forget that challenge. Well, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.





Who remembers the New Years Tourneys at Rykers Island?