Never Say Never – Old Age Revisited!

www.youtwww.youtube.com/embed/tiAZ01dkcdc?feature=player_embedded

The Black Cat

Black Cat

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:

just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.

She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once

as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Jam? Marmalade? Jelly?

The last of the oranges have been picked from our amiable orange tree which usually produces more than it’s small stature would indicate. I decided to preserve the last of season’s oranges in marmalade, however, soon discovered I didn’t have quite enough oranges so I dedicated some of my hoard of frozen cranberries to the mix. Still, not quite the amount of fruit I needed to make the effort worthwhile. An orphan red apple and three green ones joined the mix and the bubbling vat of cooking fruit and sugar smelled amazing. It didn’t taste like any one of the fruits, just a tasty combination.

As you can see, I accomplished my plan for the day and now have nineteen jars of my concoction setting up and cooling on the counter.

I don’t know why I like canning jams or marmalade but when i see the fruit pile up and start to go a bit too soft, you can find me heading out the door for sugar and canning jars.

I remember my first canning attempt. We had a bushel of apples so I decided to put up roughly chopped apple sauce. Being my very first effort, it took me all day to produce a dozen jars but seeing the line up of jars on the counter was quite thrilling. I started washing dishes when I heard one of my then small children exclaim at how good the apple sauce tasted. I turned around to see that each of the three had managed to open a jar of apple sauce and were happily spooning it into their mouths a great deal faster than it took me to make it.

Prayer For Our Times

When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard:

“Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good,’ but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.

We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and call it Pluralism.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.

We have abused power and called it politics.

We have coveted our neighbor’s possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Amen!

St. Theresa . . .

“If all the flowers wanted to be roses, nature would lose her spring time beauty, and the fields would no longer be decked out with little wild flowers.”

St. Theresa of Lisieux

Tolerance is Imposition . . .

“Tolerance is the virtue of people who do not believe in anything. ”
G. K. Chesterton

Love Adds Chocolate

A house is a house is a house – until love comes through the door. And love intuitively goes around sprinkling that special brand of angel dust that transforms a house into a very special home for very special people: your family.

Money of course, can build a charming house, but only love can furnish it with a feeling of home.

Duty can pack an adequate sack lunch but love controls it and cares enough to say no and take the guff that comes with it.

Obligation sends children to bed on time but love tucks the covers in around their necks and passes out kisses and hugs (even to teenagers).

Obligation can cook a meal, but love embellishes the table with a potted ivy trailing around slender candles.

Duty writes many letters, but love tucks a joke or a picture or a fresh stick of gum inside.

Compulsion keeps a sparkling house, but love and prayer stand a better chance of producing a happy family.

Duty gets offended quickly if it isn’t appreciated, but love learns to laugh a lot and to work for the sheer joy of doing it.

Obligation can pour a glass of milk but quite often love will add a little chocolate

Scholarly Dreams . . . and Realities!

When my children were still young and being homeschooled, the new semesters always brought hope to a mother’s heart that this was the year it would all go perfectly. Okay, if not perfectly, at least reasonably well. We often had one thought in our minds on how we dreamed the day would go and then there was how it actually went!

1. Time for school! I thought we would take it easy today but several of you little darlings sent me private notes, begging to begin with math instead of art!

This is the third time I have called you to the school table! And you used up your art time yesterday when you crayoned your new math books.

2. Are you sure you wouldn’t like some fresh cookies and milk? It has been two hours since breakfast and you must be hungry. I promise we will still work on Geography afterwards.

No, you can’t have something to eat. You should have thought about hunger when you refused to eat breakfast this morning. Yes, you have to finish Geography and no ad-libbing on the maps today. No undiscovered countries that only you know about!

3. I can’t believe how neatly you set up your insect collections for science. And to think I only assigned this term project yesterday and here you are done already!

Smashed bugs don’t count for your bug collection even if you remember what it was before you squashed it. I don’t care if you weren’t the one who mashed the bug. You shouldn’t have put it in your sister’s bed to begin with!

4. How wonderfully you combined your poster paints to make a copy of one of the great Masterpieces! And you didn’t get a drop of paint on the floor, table or mommy’s art book.

Look, it is a numbered dot-to-dot coloring page. What do you mean you don’t understand the instructions?

5. Sweet child of mine! No wonder you asked for an extra two hours of school yesterday. You were busy composing this wonderful story for English class. Double-spaced and typewritten, no less.

A three-page composition doesn’t count if written in crayon! It was supposed to be on what we did on our summer vacation. And I did not spend it torturing you! But don’t give up on the idea – there is always next year!

Pickle Relish – Make It Yourself!

Summer is coming and that means more fun food that needs the perfect pickle relish. Although it won’t taste like the jarred variety (probably much better!), this spicy version will add some zip to your picnic festivities.

HOMEMADE PICKLE RELISH

2 cups finely minced cucumber
½ cup finely chopped onion
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons powdered mustard (I like the hot Chinese variety)
1 teaspoon cornstarch dissolved in 1 teaspoon water

Toss cucumber and onion with 1 teaspoon of salt in a sieve set over a bowl and drain 3 hours. Discard liquid from bowl. Wrap cucumber and onion in a kitchen towel (not terry cloth) and squeeze out as much liquid as possible.

Bring vinegar, sugar, and 1/4 tsp salt to a boil in a small heavy saucepan, stirring until sugar has dissolved, then boil until reduced to about ½ cup. Add cucumber-onion mixture and simmer, stirring, 2 minutes. Stir in the mustard. Stir cornstarch mixture, then stir into relish. Simmer, stirring, 1 minute. Transfer relish to a jar or bowl and chill, uncovered, until cold.

Keep relish refrigerated. It should last approximately a month.