Jack Lalanne passing reminds me of my Grandma Ruth!

I do miss her, in spite of myself.
I was a little girl and my grandma was running around the house with weights and talking about living to one hundred, and...Jack Lalanne.
It is really amazing what one influential man can do.
Gram bought gadgets and juicers and every healthfood item she could find. Whatever damage she had done to her body, by the time she was 45, {when I met her}; she was intent on undoing in the rest of her life. She really did, too.
I really didn't like my grandma and was determined to stay away from her, but love made me watch her. We made peace, in the end, but she was so determined to be healthy and I think that this should be her legacy in our family {along with the use of cliches}.
Healthy habits kept my parents together in the tough times and kept Gram {a single mom with 3 growing teens}sane. Thank you Jack Lalanne, I think is in order, for the fact that Gram wasn't more cranky than she was?:)

Flu symptoms and fever?

All of that play in the snow and what was the result? A sick house. 2 of the 3 boys are down with fevers. What is a mother to do?
We are remembering the fun of last week and nursing sick children, at the same time. Oh dear:).

the snowy day

Yesterday, I made my first bagel!

Scrumptuous! If I do say so myself. I took my ordinary yeast dough, which is usually gobbled up as bread sticks or rolls and decided to form it into bagels and throw it into the egg boiling water. Yuck? I wanted to see what would happen and I was just too New York homesick to care if anybody else would want it.
2 bagels came out of the water and into the oven and into my lunch bag. I was disappointed that I had told them to use the rest of the dough. I had every intention of making more, when I tasted the samples at lunch. Well, too bad. I was the only guinea pig of the tastey treats. I can live another day away from my native, NY, as long as I can recreate the taste of a fresh baked bagel, every once in a while. It was really good. I was surprised.

Five Days into the New Year 2011

I have already eaten the chocolate, forgotten to do my situps, neglected my aerobics, forgotten to pray...etc. My resolutions are always a yearning, A goal to be consistent, BUT GOD exalts His Word above all His name. He is so consistent and so real. I am coming everyday, to start over again to do right. When I look down at my feet and they are off of the beaten path, in word and in deed, I am grateful that I can do what Ethan used to do in kindergarten. "Put me back, Lord on the path so I can start over!" I stick my arms out, like the 6th child of the 13th child knows that there is always someone who can put his coat on better than he can. God is more consistent than if you had numerous older, caring sisters and brothers to depend upon. God is greater. He nurtures us to do right, but when we mess up, we can get right back up and get on the right path again. We don't have to stay on the path of wrong. God is to be praised for that. 2011 is a reminder that "everyday is a new day in the Lord."

The clouds were pink on top and greyish underneath and looked like a swirl. It looked as though God was practicing His calligraphy, like I was last night and the swirl that He made traveled from the sunrise and finished up in the distance past where we could see in the west. It was perfectly pink and grey, as far as I could see. I know that You are that much bigger, I thought to God, but so gracious of Him to do that swirl of beauty where I could see it. What a big calligraphy pen, it seemed to be. Just a thought:}

Blessed 2011!

Across the day, into a new year. We are grateful for the provisions of the old year and the comraderies strengthened and begun. We are grateful for the memory of dear ones, who are missed.

Indeed, we pray,

"teach us, Lord to number our days, that we may apply our heart unto wisdom. Satisfy us early, with thy mercies, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days."

We are all, the newest babe to the eldest person the same age in this year. We all who entered it, enter at the same point and we are all inside the time of it that everyone else is. We welcome new people into the year as they are born and we bid goodbye to those who leave it before its end.

May the beauty of the Lord, our God, be upon us and establish Thou the works of our hands, Dear Lord.