Saturday Bird Spotting

Mike and I were walking along the trail this morning when I saw a bird fly from the ground up into the trees.  A BIG bird.  I was was pretty sure the bird did not clear the tree line so we stopped and began looking hard at all the branches.  There is a lot of them tangled together and you should hear all the creaking and groaning when the wind blows. I was expecting to see a hawk of some sort, but no, that wasn't what it was.

Then I spotted it.  

On a limb fairly close to us there sat a rather large OWL looking at us quizzically.  A big, bold and beautiful owl. Be still my heart.


All I had was my phone camera to take this picture.  And he would not cooperate with my picture taking. But I got one shot where he is sorta-kinda visible. Can you see him?  No?  I'll zoom in for you.

How about now? See that itty bitty owl shaped dot in the center of the photograph?  You might have to squint. 

That's him! Or her. 


Such a great start to my Saturday!

Donkey Duo

New friends of mine.

These super cute donkeys live next door to the stables where Anna rides and works.  Can you look at them and not smile? Their ears are especially appealing to me, they way they swivel around up top of their heads flopping this way and that as they move around. So entertaining!

The messy look of their fur makes them all the more adorable and just look at the face of that little one staring at me. It is full of swirly hair! And that whitish nose and extra fat tummy, both of which are so stinking cute, just makes me chuckle.    


What has you smiling today?

Simple Joys

* This past weekend we attended a low key, but very well produced marriage conference.  We stayed at a local hotel and pretended we were far from home.  It was fun and refreshing!

* Greek yogurt with honey.

* February in North Texas has seen rain, rain and more rain! Also a little sleet. Today it is sunshiny and warm. Strange weather, for sure, but I am not complaining.

* For Lent I am reading Counsel Form the Cross by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Denis E. Johnson.

* When homeschooling isn't going well I appreciate the freedom to switch gears and change things up. We are starting a study on the writings of C.S.Lewis and Ephesians. 

* I've been enjoying making new friends and enjoying getting to know them better.  Some are from our new church, some are from BSF and others, believe it or not, are from our old church. 

* A beautiful sea bird at the pond. I was feeding the ducks when a sea gull showed up and started diving for the bread. It was fascinating to watch. 

* Listening to my children's guitar playing and singing fill the house.

* Sunday lunches with the family and friends. This stage of our family life is rather busy and everyone is on a different schedule, so time together is really sweet. And it is always fun to have extras show up.

* A baby shower! It has been ages since I have been to one and it was fun. I have decided I want this cute giraffe teether for myself.  Isn't it adorable???

* Triple lemon cheesecake.  It had lemon curd spread on top. Yum.  

Squirt is the black duck front and center. Picture was taken BEFORE he got his curly tail feathers.

* Squirt is a boy after all! This makes me happy for various reasons, survival of the fittest being the main one.  He finally got that curly tail feather that only the boy ducks have.  Just look at him. Isn't he magnificent?


* Watching a fun series on television. We finished watching The Closure, which I loved for its quirky characters and not so gruesome crimes, just in time to catch the new season of Downton Abbey. Now that is over so I guess it is back to reading for me.

"The cross declares that we are loved with an intensity that defies our capacity to comprehend, not because we are intrinsically loveable but because God is intrinsically love." ~from Counsel of the Cross

Dandelions and Books

Dandelions are a theme in the books I have read this month.  First, I read Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury.  In the preface he says he has spent 12 years waking up every morning to sit down and extract memories of his childhood from his mind and put them into words on paper. I envy him his writing ability, but even more than that I envy his childhood that he found beautiful and willing returned to for so many years.  That is hard for me to fathom.  

If you like stories that meander like a river, or perhaps are a lover of summertime or happy childhoods, or are a fan of wonderful words strung together in beautiful ways you would probably enjoy this book.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes, two of which, oddly enough, are about food.

"Sandwich outdoors isn't a sandwich anymore. Tastes different than indoors, notice? Got more spice. Tastes like mint and pinesap. Does wonders for the appetite."

God bless the lawn mower, he thought. Who was the fool who made January first New Year's Day? No, they should set a man to watch the grasses across million....lawns, and on that morning when it was long enough for cutting, instead of rachets and horns and yelling, there should be a great swelling symphony of lawn mowers reaping fresh grass upon the prairie lands. Instead of confetti and serpentine, people should throw grass spray at each other on the one day each year that really represents the Beginning!

As for food? The meats were deviled, the sauces curried, the greens mounded with sweet butter, the biscuits splashed with jeweled honey; everything toothsome, luscious, and so miraculously refreshing that a gentle lowing broke out as from a pasturage of beasts gone wild in clover. One and all cried out their gratitude for their loose-fitting night clothes.

And then I read The Hunger Games series. All of my children (ages 15-22 just so you don't think I recommend these for much younger children) finished reading them which led us to decide to have a family book club to discuss them. Over the past few weeks we have been discussing the books on the way to church and back.

These books are about a childhood that is anything but beautiful, except perhaps in the smallest of spurts. These books also lack a depth of description that stood out in such a contrast after reading the rich writing of Mr. Bradbury.

The quotes below are from Mockingjay. They are the closest things I can find to any ideas of hope offered for living and healing in a book filled with violence, death, and mental anguish. One of my main motivations in my reading is to figure out what authors have to say about these deepest of human needs of healing and life.  What I find isn't always very encouraging.

At two different times in the series the main character begins keeping a book as a memorial "where we recorded those things you cannot trust to memory." "Strange bits of happiness..."

"We learn to keep busy again."

"What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again."

Are you reading anything interesting? I need another good book to read. In the meantime I'm hankerin' some "jeweled honey" splashed on a biscuit.  Yum. 

Valentine Festivities

Icing flavored and colored with strawberry jello which I thought was pretty snazzy solution to having no food coloring in the pantry.

Nothing says, "I love you," like a carbohydrate: cinnamon rolls, homemade pizza, sugar cookies, mercy, make it stop!  Well, I did get a dozen pink roses which thankfully were NOT edible. The chocolate dipped strawberries were the healthiest thing we ate.

The new washing machine is installed. Things in our house would not be much different had a beautiful woman appeared totting, let's say, some kind of cool gun. The men in our home are pretty smitten with her and all her buttons and nifty features.  No way could this machine be a guy. She is smarter and prettier than I am and I am not sure I like her.  

The Valentine Banquet at church was a huge success. This was a youth fundraiser to raise money for their summer conference trip where Frances Chan will be the speaker which makes me want to go, too.

Oh, how lovely are your chocolate chips.

This is the chocolate chip cheesecake I donated.  My children were upset not to get to eat this, but good grief, enough is enough and it isn't like we haven't had our share of treats. 30 desserts donated raised....are you ready for this?...$1700 pure profit!


At the banquet Anna and her friend beautifully sang, "Blessings" as part of the entertainment and Trey, looking spiffy, waited tables. 

Before we sat down for dinner I got the job of tossing something like 15 HUGE salads with delicious and oily salad dressing from Olive Garden.  This endeavor ended up doubling as a skin softening spa treatment for me as I got dressing all over me. I smelled delicious, too, which really made me feel like I got my money's worth out of the whole thing. 

I guess it is time I go make friends with the new washing machine.  

Doing the next thing....heron watching, walking, talking and laundry.

Hello beautiful Heron-That-I-Love. Look at you wading with the duckies. I am especially fond of your pony tail plumage. Do you know that most herons do not go this crazy-close to people?

  

We had a third heron show up the other day.  It wasn't long before THTIL (the-heron-that-I-love) chased it away.

My family thinks my skill of telling herons apart is a little bizarre.  It's a gift.  What can I say?

Would it be overly dramatic to say in the winter I feel but a shadow of myself?

I've been busy being stressed out and scattered lately with lots going on and dealing with feelings of discouragement about a few things.

I remind myself that it is pretty typical for me to feel this way after the holidays. 

The rest of our homeschooling year stretches out in what seems like eons before summer, the idealistic goals at the beginning of the school year have somehow taken a turn toward REAL life, and things need to be tweaked, but commitments and obligations compete for first place in our schedules.

Can you relate at all?

When I feel like this one of the best things to do is to encourage myself with what I think and what I read. I've been reading through 1 Corinthians the past two weeks and it has been just what I needed. The Hunger Games, while kinda depressing, was a good escape.

And then there is this poem quoted so often by Elisabeth Elliot. It is wise and helps me focus on how to get out of a funk even when I am not feeling it. Perhaps you are familiar with this little bit of it?

Many a questioning, many a fear,
many a doubt hath its quieting here.
Moment by moment, let down from heaven,
time, opportunity, guidance are given.
Fear not tomorrow, child of the King,
trust that with Jesus, do the next thing.

One of the "next things" for me to do is laundry.

Mike and I studying the complicated operating instructions.  

Because my washing machine went kaput Mike and I gathered up four baskets and 3 bags of dirty clothes and headed out to the not-so-local laundromat.  

We did 12 loads of laundry in less than two hours! It only took 9 washing machines, 4 dryers, and $16.25 in quarters. We talked, read (Catching Fire for me, Hunger Games for him), drank Coke (Zero for me, Diet for him), and then when it was all said and done we had lunch. 

Really, not a bad date. 

Happy Valentine's Day to me. Our new washer arrives on Tuesday.

The sun is starting to set here in North Texas which reminds me of another way I encourage myself: talking walks.  I better hurry up.

Simple Joys

* Finally finding the right Piece of Furniture for our new crazy huge (and absolutely FREE thanks to Mike's work) television. I am especially pleased with the drawers and doors which are perfect for storing components, remotes and what not.

* Sara is finally on the mend from a bad case of strep. She spent all day yesterday with tears sliding down her face while we waited for the meds to do something. She couldn't even swallow her own saliva part of the time. But today she woke up smiling, ravenous AND able to eat, she has showered, spent the day resting and is now receiving visitors.

Ryan's Mazda RX-8 Shinka

* My oldest son bought a new car!  It is a relief because he eeeked out every last bit of vroom out of his old car.  He has never had a/c, which is quite the  trial during Texas summers, and the old car was becoming increasingly unreliable.  

* Spotting a new-to-me bird on the trail.  I discovered that the teeny little red crowned bird was a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. (Whatbird.com is very cool!)

* Several date nights with my husband!  I guess it is because he has been off so much from work with the holidays and vacation.  Our children keep leaving us alone together, too, so that is part of it.  We even went a movie.

Favorite pen!

* Writing with my latest greatest favorite pen.  Anna likes it, too, and so when my pens go missing I know exactly where to look for them. I especially like that this one has a skinny tip great for underlining in books and my Bible. I'm an avid believer in annotating.

* Books coming in the mail! We got this book for Mike's birthday and this one came from PBS. 

* More rain!  And praying for more still.

* Trying new, yummy recipes.  I made my first ever chicken fried steak (a light version) and my first ever beef stew.  Both turned out really good!

One of my simple joys is my collection of small plastic rulers.  I have 6 or 7 of them, all different. I enjoy using them as I read to follow along words and to underline things that mean something to me.

* I made a goal that I am pleased with: to fill that little blue-green journal with words.  After reading A Circle of Quiet I decided to stop being so willy nilly with my journalling. I am trying to write at least 5 days a week.  Ever since my mom read my journal in middle school I have been partially paralyzed and slightly paranoid.  You see, she did not like what she read and what followed was not pleasant. So, I decided it was very much time to get past that. 

 * Scout campouts! My kid? He is the one eating. He is pretty much always eating. Trey would tell you he is thankful not to be a patrol leader any more. He says, "It is like being a parent."

Over 90 kids on retreat!

* Trey and Anna went on their very first retreat and they reported that it was a very encouraging time.  They had serious study of God's Word and made many new friends.  I'm a thankful mama.

* Grapefruit (usually 2 at a time I am THAT into them), Triscuits with Babybel light cheese, and afternoon coffee.  

* Two of my favorite blogs for light, healthy eating and Weight Watcher friendly recipes are Skinnytaste and Nutmeg Notebook. 


* And I quote I liked from A Circle of Quiet....

"I will also grow into maturity, where the experience which can be acquired only through chronology will teach me how to be more aware, open, unafraid to be vulnerable, involved, committed, to accept disagreement without feeling threatened (repeat and underline this one), to understand that I cannot take myself seriously until I stop taking myself seriously--to be, in fact, a true adult." ~Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet