Post-Easter Thoughts

#1 - Having both yours and your husband's church volunteering responsibilities converge on one day, and that day being Easter, will not serve to make for a calm and peaceful holiday.  It might, indeed, result in your husband and the older kids eating at Ruby Tuesday's while you and your younger child serve in the church nursery, entertaining 2 year-olds who had too much candy before coming to the 3rd service.

#2 - Hiding Easter eggs inside the house is a sure way to find all the nooks and crannies of the house that have not been cleaned in the last year . . . or two.

#3 - This may be the last year for this particular child to hunt for his Easter basket.  He's 12.  I know how the eagerness pales with each progressive march into the teen years.  ::sniff::  As you grow up, things change!  But for this year, he was still eager!

(No, Youngest Son, you do not need to look through the clean 

laundry sitting on the living room couch to find your Easter eggs!)

#4 - I am very happy that I still have a little one that gets positively ecstatic about Easter.  There is definitely joy to be had in having babies after 40!!

(Wait . . . a tattoo on this child's arm?  At Easter?  How did that clear morning inspection?)

#5 - Apparently the brilliant engineer who designs Christmas lights so that the wiring disintegrates as the lights are stored in the attic over the summer and subsequently brings millions of Americans to tears of frustration approximately one month before Christmas has now been assigned to designing Easter eggs.  

Easter eggs with a little plastic hinge that joins top and bottom.  Easter eggs that cannot be snapped closed except by holding down one's left thumbnail against the egg's bottom lip, squeezing the egg top together while inserting into the egg bottom at a 45 degree angle, bumping the rounded egg bottom with one's right knee, and pressing at exactly 11 pounds of pressure both upward and downward on egg top and bottom with the heels of both hands. 

Youngest daughter and I worked hard to fill the eggs for the baskets and the hunt.  The teens of the house may have acted like they weren't interested in Easter goodies, but they all waited like famished lions pacing outside a wildebeest lair as we worked on filling, sequestered inside the large master bathroom.

We had about 10 kinds of candy, split into even piles of 5 (1 pile per kid) and we filled the appropriate color of each uncooperative egg for each child.

As we filled, we thought mean thoughts about the Easter egg engineer and muttered mild epitaphs at him/her under our breath.

Or at least I did.

Of course, buying 220 made-in-China eggs for $10 at Wal-Mart the night before Easter may have also been part of the problem.  Sometimes you just get what you pay for.

Morning Walks in a Safe Place of Grace

Easter morning started out with a glorious walk.  

Best place in the world to start?  Lying under my drippy, drapey zelcovia tree, 

sunlight flickering through the leaves.

Happy, dreamy place.

Can't lie there long if I'm going to go walking . . . 

and get back to get everyone up for church . . . 

and get the ironing done (that would be wise to have had done last night.)

Morning walks . . . best time of the day.

God wants me to spend time with Him.

To talk with Him.

I'm learning to do that.

I'm not a talker.

I'm a listener.

And a stuffer of my own thoughts.

Way deep down.

God is teaching me to open up and talk to Him.

That He won't be bored . . .

or rushed . . .

or irritated.

That talking to Him in an atmosphere of unconditional love and acceptance is healing.  

That letting Him know my deepest thoughts draws us close . . . 

just like any other healthy relationship.

He says, "Come close to me, and I will come close to you."  

(James 4:8)

And I have.

And He has.

And I'm beginning to see . . .

. . . that opening myself up in an atmosphere of perfect grace

can be the safest place in the world . . .

. . . and make these walks the best time of the day.

In March???

Can you imagine the delight . . .

Of two girls . . . 

That can play in the sprinklers . . .

In March???

Sharing Our Gifts

My friend Shay and I have an understanding.  She gets overwhelmed thinking about decorating her house, picking out fabrics, matching trims, finding accessories, etc.  So,  I help her.

Actually, I have no idea what I'm doing, but she makes me feel like I do, acting as if I have saved her decor, listening wide-eyed to my sage advice.

I don't have the heart to tell her I'm playing it by ear as we go.  I just bluff and pray hard that I don't waste her money . . . destroy her room . . . ruin her life.  It's a big responsibility.

And my gift to her.

I, on the other hand, get overwhelmed by anything non-human that grows.  Well . . . maybe not easy things like mold or mildew, but hard things like plants!!

This spring after I helped Shay pick out fabrics for her guest room; she reciprocated by determining to assist me in filling some planters for my back porch.

She's great at planters and ferns and perennial beds . . . basically anything rooted into soil.  This is her window box after planting.  Just wait until the end of the summer.  It will blow your socks off!!

I become a blubbering fool when walking in to a nursery and beginning to consider seasons of bloom, charting the light, matching up plants with similar water needs, dead-heading, fertilizing, and drainage.  Good grief, I haven't had to put that much thought into raising my children!!

She helps me pick out flowers.  She checks out the little plastic how-to-care-for tags.  She consults the sales assistants.  She talks me through my breathing when I begin to hyperventilate with the minutiae of it all.

She even taught me about the "thriller," "filler," and "spiller" principle of planting.  I thought she was a flat-out genius.  Until I learned that it's such a common concept that the plant companies have started tagging their plants with those designations.

She arranged my planters, trying to remain calm as I bumbled my way through planting.

Here it is . . . one of my two finished planters.  Dracena, lantana, upright geraniums, cascading geraniums, ivy, and asparagus fern.  Positively dreamy!

Now if all planets align, the sun rays come in at the right angle, and no one shakes the container, maybe they will actually survive and thrive.

And there is also the matter of remembering to water it! Children tell you when they're thirsty.  With plants, I'm somehow supposed to remember to do this on my own.

This summer, I must now keep me hydrated, keep children hydrated, keep pets hydrated, and now, somehow, keep these plants hydrated.  (More deep and slow breathing.)

Shay is confident I can do it.  She's like that.

I believe the dusty blue of the bedspread will go with the blue in her oriental rug . . . and that the lamp looks right . . . and that using antique kitchen scales as an accessory really is "in."

Sharing our gifts, believing in each other, cheering each other on.  It's the blessing of friendship.

Yellow Daisies and Flea Market Finds

I love daisies.  They are such a very comfortable flower.  They can be stuffed in a broken crock or Mason jar and look quite at home.  They demand neither a fancy home nor artful arranging.

(vintage iron garden art from Shinola)

They look cheerful and accepting, never snooty or bored.

And when other more sophisticated flowers have begun to shed their regal beauty, the commonplace daisy is still smugly fresh and youthful.

Those same adjectives can be applied to flea market finds . . . comfortable, cheerful accepting, fresh.

(small silver pitcher from Pickens Flea Market)

When a little silver pitcher is already colored with the patina of irreversible tarnish or a milk crate is rough, worn  and its handle split, it lets me know I don't have to sit taller or keep my legs crossed at the ankles when it comes in to my home.

(vintage milk crate with original pint milk bottles from Barnyard Flea Market)

So, what better than to combine a big bunch of laid back daisies with several new comfortable flea market finds?

Ah, dreamy!

(passed down from My Mom)

And I think these little chippy, place-card-holding children from Germany, grasping their own imperfect but cheerful and unassuming flowers would agree.

Another Reason to Love the Internet

A sweet friend was having her 70th birthday.  And what, oh what, does one get a 70 year-old for their birthday?  This is the stage of life where people are unloading their "stuff," not seeking more.  This is the stage of life where a person is long past thinking some "thing" they can acquire will make them happy.  The present had to have significance.

Gift-giving is just not my thing.    Things just do not come to mind.  Right about this time, however, she acquired an old book from a friend's library.  A book called God's Candlelights by Mable Shaw . . . long out of print but a delightful telling of her time teaching in Africa.  My friend was inspired and enchanted.

Which set me to thinking . . . could it be Mabel Shaw had written other books that could delight my friend?  Enter the internet.  In a flash I had found that Mabel Shaw had, indeed, written at least 3 other books, all out of print.  Next step, searching rare book sites.  One was found here in America, two were found in England, Mabel Shaw's home country.  In several weeks, all 3 books were on my dining room table, wrapped in string and ready to celebrate with my friend on her 70th.

Dawn in Africa was only to be found in one location, a dusty little shop in a small village in England.  It came smelling like a dusty little shop in a small village in England.

Thirty years ago, I could not have brought a smile to a friend's face with rare books garnered from places far away.  Today, because of the internet, I could bring them home.

Finish Line

The scrumptious Prairie Fire Throw is done.  It was done just in time for the weather to turn a sweating 85 degrees.  Who wants to cuddle up in wool yumminess in that?  Maybe one of the kids will cuddle with it to protect themselves from the blast of the air conditioner!!

The throw turned out to be around 42" x 53".  Can someone please tell me how you can knit your head off and still not come up with a large and generous throw?

It's a little skimpy in my mind, but I knit up all the beautiful wool that I had bought and then that was it.  Done.

It sits, looking all cuddly and full of texture and softness on the couch in My Husband's office.  This is probably the only time you will see it folded.  The rest of the time it will be scrunched up on the couch or in a heap on the floor or stuffed into the corner of the recliner.  This will, undoubtedly, drive My Husband crazy!!

We like to do that around here!