::: created :::

The sunbeams were so gorgeous yesterday that they filled me with a strange sense of nostalgia. It helped immensely that one of them made itself at home in my bedroom, that it chose to highlight something I had completed--washing and folding linens. From my desk, the basket of thrift-store embroidered napkins, cotton tablecloths and quilt-pieced aprons just about drove me to distraction. I loved the look of those freshly-laundered things, and all I had done was wash them and place them in a basket. I hadn't even created them, yet they filled me with a sense of accomplishment. That's no small feat these days.

So often, what the sun brings to light, or at least what I see, are my shortcomings. The smudges on the windows, the dust on the bookcase, the handprints on the walls. Is everyone's tendency toward seeing that which is undone? Why can I not focus on those things I've accomplished? Why can I not give thanks for the good things? Why can I not be at peace?

My daughters have been working on a care package for their brother who is going through discipleship training before leaving for Africa the first week of December. I haven't had the patience or taken the time to teach them needlecrafts. I was never interested in learning to sew, though my mother sewed wonderful things for me and for our home. I don't really recall that she ever tried to teach me; the only recollection I have of my experience with the old metal Singer was a duffle bag for Brownies and a broken needle which brought about my mother's wrath. Sweetheart in particular is so drawn towards needlecrafts of all kinds, whether it's sewing, knitting or anything else that involves needle and thread, and I feel guilty for not having the skills or even the interest to teach her.

Thankfully, my mother-in-law spent time showing her how to cross-stitch and that has sent Sweetheart's finger flying. She has even taken to teaching her little sister a few simple stitches.

A few years ago, a friend of mine was sharing how her eldest daughter grew up and left home before she realized that she'd never shared with her daughter her passion for preserving. She'd always been so caught up in the actual process that she 
never taught her daughter how to put up beans or make jam or can applesauce. Her daughter was now in college, living on the other side of the country, and the realization that she'd "failed" her left my friend weepy and grief-filled.

Shortly after the realization, her daughter called home to give a life update. After some chatting about this and that, the daughter shared offhandedly, "Oh, and guess what, Mom! There was a group of grandmothers who got together to can jelly, so guess what I learned to do!" My friend's shoulders lifted from the relief of that weight. Education never ends! Learning comes from everywhere! Teachers are all around us!

For today, I want to focus on our accomplishments. I want to wander through the day and dip our toes into our interests. I want to trust that my gaps will be filled, that should I forget or skip or run out of time to share some passion of mine with my children, that they'll find it along the way, if that's what they need.

For today, I want to see the beautiful things that the sunbeams illuminate, no matter how small or seemingly inconsequential they might be.

::: thrift store find :::

After finishing my shift at My Favorite Thrift Store on Friday, this pretty bedspread was hanging on the wall rack. It was marked "8.00, as is," no size given. I pulled it down and gave it a quick inspection but could only see a small yellow spot, which didn't seem to reduce the value to $8. I got it home, washed it up, and the yellow spot was gone. It turns out that it's a queen-size "Ret Rac" Chenille bedspread from Carter Bros. Unfortunately, it's not all soft and comfy like I think Chenille should be, but it looks pretty and will give my Amish quilt a break once in a while.

::: little things mean a lot :::

Blow me a kiss from across the room
Say I look nice when I'm not
Touch my hair as you pass my chair
Little things mean a lot.

Do you ever find yourself so tickled by some simple thing that you stop to look at it, to admire it, to see if it's just as gorgeous as you remembered it was, over and over again? Sometimes it's the perfect pumpkin pie you crafted with your own hands, complete with little cutout crust pumpkins and leaves dotting its deliciously orange-brown surface. Sometimes it's a small oak writing desk that you didn't think you could afford but you bought (and still use today) when your mother-in-law gave you money from the bonus check she hadn't been expecting. Sometimes it's a stack of vintage school books--Halliburton and Herriot and Hillyer--that came in the mail and you placed just so on your little white nightstand. Sometimes it's your children sleeping while the eastern sun streams through their windows, which is no simple thing, but still, it can make you stop and take a second peek. And a third.

Give me your arm as we cross the street
Call me at six on the dot
A line a day when you're far away
Little things mean a lot

And sometimes it's that gorgeous yellow glass lamp with the faux oil-rubbed brass feet that you saw at Your Favorite Thrift Store last week but were too strapped for cash to pay the six dollars that was stamped on the sticky yellow price tag. But, oh happy day, when you went back on half-price day, the half-price tag just happened to be yellow, and the lamp with the yellow tag just happened to still be there!

Don't have to buy me diamonds or pearls
Champagne, sables, and such
I never cared much for diamonds and pearls
'cause honestly, honey, they just cost money

But even for three dollars, you stood and deliberated, "Do I really *need* another lamp?" and "Where will I put it?" even though you knew that it matched the colors of your piano room so well. So, with some encouragement from your young daughter, you bought it, and you found just the right lampshade for it, and you took it home. And you immediately saw where it should live out the rest of its bright lampy days. Oh, yes. On the dry-brushed green thrift store stand right by the front door. And when you plug it in, OH JOY! you find that it has a little bulb in the yellow glass base, too, and it makes the perfect hall nightlight when the base is lit all alone, which you can do, which is another special little surprise.

Give me a hand when I've lost the way
Give me your shoulder to cry on
Whether the day is bright or gray
Give me your heart to rely on

And you find yourself returning to it, just to admire it again, and asking family members how they like it. And they tell you. Again. That they still like it. And you even find yourself taking photos of it. And posting them on your blog. And writing about it. You actually sit at your little oak writing desk at 12:36 AM and write about your yellow glass lamp.

Send me the warmth of a secret smile

To show me you haven't forgot
For now and forever, that's always and ever
Honey, little things mean a lot

It's those little things, though, isn't it? Those little things, doggone it, are the things that help us through the big things, like financial worry and boys in high school and family problems and sons going to Africa and health concerns and that big, scary thing called The Future. If it weren't for those little things, life would get pretty darn hard to handle sometimes.

Thank you, God for that lamp, and for all things, both big and little.

But, today, especially for the little things.

Honey, little things mean a lot.

Go to Bed

Life is too short to sleep on low thread-count sheets. ~Leah Stussy

My younger kids might as well not even have beds. Somewhere in the course of their lives, they've decided that bedrooms are overrated and every night, I find that they have migrated from their respective rooms, their respective comfy lofts or bunks, to the couches in what we call our Big Room. I can make whatever pleas, threats, bargains I like, but they somehow still end up here, all three of them.

And while you can't see it very well in this photo, they will also all end up on the same couch. See The Baby and Sweetheart on one end? See Monet's jeans jutting out from the other direction (that's the other thing. Why can't he wear pajamas like the rest of us? Do all fourteen-year-old boys wear the same clothes for days at a time unless they are pried from their kicking, screaming bodies?) We have two couches down there, see, a long one and a love seat, both scored at My Favorite Thrift Store for a song, and they're in pretty good shape (much better shape than the white one we'd picked up from freecycle which started out fine but ended up with us sitting on the floor), but I'm afraid these children are going to wear the fabric off of this one before I can even think about looking for another set.

And, as you can see, Pippin the cat must be wherever the girls are sleeping, If they happen to shut the door to wherever they choose to lay their heads, Pip will howl like the wind and cry like a rainstorm until I allow her communion with her children once again.

As for me, I'll take my own bed, thank you, and I'm so cruel as to not allow any animals to sleep with me.

Do your children sleep in weird places?

On Earth As It Is In Heaven

I canned ten quarts of peaches today. Not because I am or want to be Martha Stewart. Not because I have anything against the peaches you buy in cans at the local Stuff*Mart (actually, The Baby declared that she likes those better, though she has yet to taste the home-canned goods). Not because I grew my own peaches, because I didn't--my peach tree died last year after finally producing a heavy crop of almost-ripe fruit which calcified before it was time to harvest, just before all of the leaves turned a crisp peach-tree-death brown and fell to the ground.

I canned ten quarts of peaches today because I like the way they look, floating around in that fragile yet sturdy transparent jar, fleshy and buoyant and preserved. I like the way they look, and I like that I like the way they look. Some people like beer. Some people like cigarettes. Some people like hunting. I like canning peaches, okay?

Yesterday, while I was picking up a few canning supplies at my local necessary evil Stuff*Mart, I dropped my hodgepodge of shopping bags onto the conveyor. The young man at the counter, always up for a bit of controversial yet lighthearted conversation, grabbed the bags with mock begrudgery and sneered, "Thanks for ruining my day."

"Ruining your day? Oh...because one of my bags is torn?"
"No," he huffed, "for using them at all."
"Well, just look at it this way; I'm helping you in the long run."
"Ha! If you really think you're powerful enough to save the planet by not using a few plastic bags..."
"A little corner of it, yes..."
"...then, Al Gore certainly has brainwashed you."
"I've never even spoken to Al Gore."

A further conversation ensued about Al Gore's electricity usage and the size of his carbon footprint.

But that's not what I was thinking about.

I was thinking about my shopping bags. I was thinking that I like them. Not because I'm an Al Gore fanatic. Not because I'm trying to save the entire world. Just because I like them. I like how useful they are. I like that my daughter used them to move to her college dorm. I like how I can throw them in the washing machine and they come out nice and clean. I like the red ones and the green ones that are stamped with the words, "Speak Softly and Carry a Bag of Books" that I bought at the Better World Books store in Goshen, Indiana, a business that collects and sells books to fund literacy initiatives worldwide, with more than two million new and used titles in stock, operating as a self-sustaining company that creates social, economic and environmental value for all our stakeholders. Better World offers free shipping to any location within the United States or 3.97 worldwide, and every order is shipped carbon neutral with offsets from Carbonfund.org. And while I like my shopping bags, I also like that I'm not contributing to the consumption of 500,000,000,000 (yes, that's BILLION) plastic bags per year. I don't like to see them floating around in the trees. You don't either. Even Wal*Mart doesn't like it. That's why they stopped producing those trademark blue smiley-face bags that could be easily identified on roadsides and dangling from trees everywhere and went with the more generic white bags, added trash cans to their parking lots, and introduced their own line of reusable shopping bags. Watching a sea turtle choke on that blue plastic smiley face is a PR nightmare.

I was thinking about how I stopped buying paper towels about a year ago, and how I pick up cloth napkins and hand towels from my favorite thrift store, and how the money I spend there goes to help provide basic human needs internationally while the store also does their part to help people recycle things that they might otherwise have thrown away. I was thinking about the fact that I love that thrift store so much that I drag my sorry butt out of bed three Friday mornings per month to volunteer at the cash register.

I was also thinking about the furniture in my house, how almost all of it, with some very minor exceptions, came from that thrift store, or from Freecycle, or from dumpster diving.

And I was thinking about the local farmers I support, buying produce and deliciously smoky maple syrup and vases of gladiolas from that wonderful little stand called Blessing Acres run by a hard-working Amish woman whose husband died of cancer two years ago.

I might even have had time to squeeze in a few thoughts about the lack of chemicals on my lawn, how I bend down to pop a dandelion or broadleaf plantain out of my lawn and either eat it or toss it to the sheep, or how I let the milkweed, thistle and blackberries grow to provide food for the monarchs, goldfinches and other birds. How I didn't till my garden this year, but instead heaped it with all kinds of manure, both animal and green, and spent a few more hours this summer hunched over yanking bits of purslane out of the soil and popping them into my mouth, just so I wouldn't chop up the worms I've been trying so hard to encourage to live in my garden.

Because you can have a lot of thoughts in those few seconds after someone says, "Thanks for ruining my day."

I guess I just figure that God gave me this amazing planet and all of the absolutely incredible creatures that inhabit it (yes, humans included) to enjoy and be a good steward of. The way I look at it, in relation to heaven, this big ball of dirt must be pretty small, and if I'm faithful with it, I might get something bigger some day. That'd be cool.

So, now, I probably won't save the whole planet with my canned peaches, or my cloth shopping bags, or my thrift store napkins, or the redworms in my garden. But really. What's it gonna hurt?

And besides, I *like* them.

A Day Hijacked

My day was hijacked. I boarded it this morning with a plan, a destination, and before I knew it, it was changing course and there was nothing I could do about it.

It wasn't a bad thing. Actually, it was quite a wonderful day, but it just wasn't what I had planned. I had intended to take Sweetheart for a walk before her piano lesson, but it turned out that I had to hit the pharmacy for my dad's prescriptions instead. That was okay. While we were there, we realized that it was St. Patty's day, and, being woefully without any wearin' of the green, we bought a pair of obnoxious green light-up rings, and Sweetheart bought the fabulous wig you see our lovely models Rejoice, Sweetheart, Bo and me wearing. Sweetheart sported her new do for piano lessons, giving her piano teacher a chuckle.

Rejoice is taking piano lessons, too, for the first time in his life. When I went to pick him up, the thrift store manager told me that the volunteer who was supposed to run the register that morning was sick and asked if I'd be willing to work. While we didn't get to take our walk after the lesson, either, Sweetheart and I enjoyed our time working at our favorite thrift store.

We left there and headed for home where my dad and Monet were waiting to go for a bike ride. Ohioans, can you believe how absolutely GORGEOUS it was today? I spent the rest of the afternoon working in my gardens. It was such a thrill to see little green shoots on the lilac I planted last year, and the hydrangea, and the bulbs that are coming up (my first bulbs, planted in the fall!). I spent a good amount of time clearing the dead stuff out of the perennial garden, where I found columbine leaves, fragrant catmint, the beginnings of lilies and irises, some brave lupine shoots, a tidy line of salvia, and little clumps of lamb's ear. The herb garden so generously cared for my chives, but also a clump of hyssop and some other green piles of something or other. We'll know them when we see them. Bard's garden is so full of good stuff it's almost hard to believe. And when I ventured into my veggie garden to check on the garlic and clear away last year's dead asparagus stalks, I found this year's shoots poking out of the ground. Asparagus! Soon!!! The line of garlic marching along beside the asparagus is reaching up even higher into the upper world than it was last I checked. Houdin spread the manure that was deposited there over the winter by a dear man from church who generously brought me a truckload of the black, strawy gold. I was surprised by how far across the garden the manure reached once it was spread. This garden is going to be the bestest ever yet, I tell you. The very bestest ever yet.

The Baby had ballet class, and I hoofed it over to a church lady's house to deposit Houdin, who spent several hours there raking fallen pine cones. He's trying to earn money to go to Honduras in TWELVE DAYS! It will be his first major trip, and he's very excited about it, but isn't anywhere near his financial goal. He and a group of men from the community are going for a little less than two weeks to build a home for a poor single homeless mom there. The land has been purchased and the money for the home is being donated. These nine or ten guys will go and do the rough work and then locals will finish the interior. Houdin is pretty stoked about the opportunity but still needs to come up with about $1000 to pay the group leader back for the ticket. The passport is in processing. Pray that it gets here in time! His plane ticket is already purchased!

After a great St. Patty's day dinner of reubens and potato chips, I read aloud at the dinner table from Sailing Acts, a book by Linford Stutzman about taking his sabbatical to sail the routes of the Apostle Paul. The kids don't know it yet, but Stutzman is going to be a guest speaker at our church soon. When I was finished with the chapter, Rejoice and I had a very good discussion about his family's history, the difficulty he had in making the decision and arrangements to come to the United States for this learning opportunity, his hopes for the future, and his plans for the remainder of his stay. He shared with me how difficult it is to get books in Swaziland, how the library is hot and inadequate, and how getting a library card is not an easy task, and I started cooking up a plan for him to be able to start his own personal library that he'll be able to share with others in his community. So many of the young men are having a struggle with depression due to idleness that comes from the very high unemployment rate and so many other battles. Rejoice really wants to be a leader, wants to make a difference in these young men's lives. I so wish I could do much more. Rejoice is such a giving and tender person, and I can see that he could truly make a difference in his community. Please pray for him as he thinks about his return to his home in just a few short months that he can be the change he really hopes to be.

And now, here I am, practically falling asleep at the keyboard, but I wanted to write about today, even if it was in snippets. While it didn't help my laundry situation, or my cluttered bedroom, I'm glad that today didn't go according to plan.

Not my plan, anyway.

Farenheit 451

Of course I read fabulous classics when I was younger. My literature teachers were my favorite teachers of all. Mrs. Wise read A Wrinkle in Time aloud to the class and I was forever smitten. Mrs. Berry was in love with Natty Bumpo, so I was, too. Mrs. Hunt introduced me to Chaucer and Beowulf. My American Humor professor showed me Dorothy Parker, Langston Hughes, James Thurber and Ring Lardner. As an English major and wannabe writer, I immersed myself in a Vonnegut phase, passing that same obsession on to my daughter, who is now an English major herself. As an adult, I've read Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, E.M. Forster and C.S. Lewis.

Even so, I've missed a lot of great books and am just now beginning to discover writers I should have discovered years ago. Where has Thomas Hardy been all my life? Why didn't I know about Wordsworth? And for the love of Pete, why am I just now discovering Ray Bradbury?!?

I picked up a copy of The Illustrated Man at my favorite thrift store and read it nonstop with increasing fascination. The Veldt was eerily creepy and too terribly close to the truth. The Man was about how we miss Jesus even when we're really looking for him. The Rocket was heartbreaking and touching. Bradbury's irony and spot-on assessment of the direction in which we're heading is eye-opening. Why did it take me so long to read this stuff?

I've just finished Farenheit 451, a book written in the 50's but set in the 90's, telling the tale of an America where books are illegal and firemen start fires instead of putting them out. I found myself nodding and even agreeing aloud as I listened to the passages about Montag's wife's disconnect from personal relationships which had been replaced by her seashells (think earbuds), and her family (think plasma televisions on all the walls of your living room and reality t.v. that can interact with you). Only two people that Montag meets seems to understand what real experiences are; Clarisse, a young girl who describes herself as "seventeen and crazy," and Professor Faber. In one passage, Professor Faber tells why certain books, in this case The Bible which Montag, a fireman, has stolen from a house he was about to help burn, are so irreplaceable.

"Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me, it means texture. This book has pores. It has features. This book can go under the microscope. You'd find life under the glass, streaming past in infinite profusion. The more pores, the more truthfully recorded details of life per square inch you can get on a sheet of paper, the more 'literary' you are. That's my definition anyway. Telling detail. Fresh detail. The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.

"So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the faces of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless. We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam. Even fireworks, for all their prettiness, come from the chemistry of the earth. Yet somehow we think we can grow, feeding on flowers, and fireworks, without completing the cycle back to reality."

If you haven't read anything by Ray Bradbury, now is the time. Our country is beginning to make choices about how our children communicate with the world, what has real meaning, and it seems that we're heading down the wrong path. We're in danger of losing quality, of replacing real experiences with very sorry placebos in the forms of mediocre television shows, meaningless or, worse, harmful, violent video games, chatspeak and text messaging, movies that speak pseudo-wisdom in hushed, reverent tones. With our cell phones and blackberries and iPods and laptops, we're always available, yet always wanting to be somewhere else, talking to someone else, listening to something else. And even though we're entertained every day, almost the whole day long, we're still not satisfied. As Montag says to Faber, "We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's missing." What's missing? God created us to have fellowship with him and with his people, and we're trying to replace that desire with any quick fix we can find.

It's time to get back to quality, don't you think? To real experiences. To real relationships. To actual communication, conversation, faith, art, music, literature.

To the pores in the faces of life.

::: of god and gas cans :::

My friend Catherine reminded me that I hadn't told my sappy, almost-unbelievable miracle story. Actually, she and her mom have reminded me repeatedly. And on Tuesday, I promised her that I'd have it up the next day.

Guess what I didn't do?

Better really, really late than never ever.

So here's my tale...

In early November, a silly mother named Thicket Dweller was fighting with her checkbook. It seemed that no matter how she counted her pennies, there wasn't enough to go around. There was always a washing machine breaking down, or a car tire going flat, or a surprise expense of some sort that would zap her budget. But she knew that she needed to get very busy thanking God for what she did have, because there was always food available, and her children were healthy, and she lived in a beautiful farmhouse on the top of the loveliest hill in all the county. But, even so, she was feeling sad because Thanksgiving was coming, and she had just used all of her spendable money on real estate taxes. That was another reason to thank God! Just a month before, she had been certain that they would not be able to pay those taxes, but through the intervention of God and the kindness of others, that bill had been paid. Even still, as is the nature of Thicket Dweller, she was a pitiful soul, feeling sorry for herself because she knew that her kids were really looking forward to a Thanksgiving feast, and, as we all know, Christmas comes right on the heels of November.

Thicket Dweller knew that her regular grocery budget would never cover the extra groceries that her family's traditional Thanksgiving would require, and it certainly wouldn't cover the upcoming Christmas tradition. Even if she did what she'd done in past years, which was scour the thrift and used bookstores for appropriate gifts for her children, buy nothing for her husband and extended family, and make cookies or candies for neighbors, she knew that she wouldn't be able to stretch this budget far enough to buy a real tree or purchase the new Christmas Eve pajamas her children had become accustomed to opening. She might not even be able to hit the thrift stores.

It was Wednesday morning when her husband told her that the decision for the week would be to pay the mortgage or buy groceries. She knew that paying the mortgage was the right thing to do, the necessary thing, but she didn't feel like baking bread and eating rice all week. What's more, she had volunteered to teach a women's history class for her local homeschool group on Wednesday, and the needle on her gas tank was teetering just below the "empty" line. The gas for her vehicle usually came from the grocery budget. If she could scrounge up enough change, she might be able to make it to the closest gas station. So, with her syllabus in hand and her head hanging a bit lower than usual, she made her way to the car, knowing that just having a vehicle was a privilege.

Thicket Dweller's the sort who always runs herself short of time. One more phone call. One more load of laundry. One more check of the e-mail. And then there would be something she couldn't have expected. A flat tire. A broken tie rod. A sick or inconsolable child. And then, she would find herself panicked and hurried, certain that someone would be waiting for her angrily, deeming her irresponsible or thoughtless. This Wednesday was no exception, for she had taken the phone call of a friend who was feeling very down. They talked for a while, and Thicket Dweller tried hard not to watch the clock as her friend told her that she had a box for her waiting in her garage. Could she pick it up today? While Thicket Dweller loved her friend dearly and so wanted to stop and see her, she knew that she wouldn't have time. But she said she'd try, hurriedly hung up the phone, and raced to the car, cringing as she watched the gas needle barely quiver forward as she started the engine. She found herself fighting against the temptation to go just a teensy weensy bit above the speed limit. But knowing that she had only a handful of change, and knowing that the faster she would drive, the more gas her car would consume, she had just enough incentive to keep her commitment to driving the speed limit.

As she rolled into the parking lot of the closest station, she couldn't believe her eyes. All of the guns were covered with ghostly white plastic bags, and the sign above the station stood void of numbers. No gas. Now what? The closest station from here was beyond the history class site! And she surely didn't have enough gas to get to that station, anyway!

With no cell phone to call home, she decided she would just make her way to class and pray that God would see her there safely. Once there, maybe she could find someone to run her to a station to fill up a gas can. And so, she eased out of the parking lot and crept along the road towards the classes.

As she climbed the hill a half-mile before the class site, she remembered the conversation she'd had that morning with her friend who had asked her to please stop by. She had a box of things for Thicket Dweller that she would leave in the garage, some garden seeds and books she no longer needed. The house was right there, directly on her route to classes. Thicket Dweller knew that she should stop, but she was feeling rushed and stressed, so she told herself she'd stop later. This decision just didn't settle with her, and she tried to justify why she should keep moving. She would be late for class. If she ran out of gas, and her friend wasn't home, she'd be stuck there with no phone and no way to let her students or husband know she was stranded. If her friend was home, she might get into a meaningful conversation and run herself even later.

But no matter what she told herself, she couldn't agree. Reluctantly, she found herself turning the steering wheel and swinging into the friend's drive; her only comfort was believing that she was obeying something she couldn't see. What she could see was that there were no cars sitting there; her friend was not home.

Just as her car pulled fully into the drive, it sputtered. Out of gas. She was able to coax the car just a few more feet before it refused to move another inch. She let her head drop back against the seat and closed her eyes in disbelief and defeat.

Not knowing what else to do, she opened the door of the car and swung her feet out. There, beside her feet, was a five-gallon gas can. She could hardly believe her eyes. She rushed to the can and lifted it. Yes! It was heavy with gas! Knowing that her friend would offer her the gas if she were home, Thicket Dweller put some of it in her tank, listening with amazement to the glug, glug, glug that the fluid made as it left the can.

Oh yeah, she thought, I need to get that box she has for me. There it was, in front of the garage, a box full of beautiful books, a gift for her soul. Here was one on Tasha Tudor's garden, and here was another on herbs, and yet another on edible flowers. It was like her friend knew that she needed a bit of spoiling, that he heart was dragging a bit and needed to be lifted. On the top sat a bundle of garden seeds that she would gladly plant the following Spring, and, on top of that, an envelope. Likely a card or a note explaining what the seeds were, why she was giving her the books.

Thicket Dweller carried the box to the car and climbed in. How good God is, she thought, that He knew just what I needed today! Even as she said it, she knew how sappy it sounded. But it was so true!

Starting the car, she coasted to the bottom of the drive. The traffic was heavy, so she sat waiting, knowing that even though her class would be starting very soon, it would all be okay. She could be patient. She could wait.

The envelope sat on the top of the box, inviting her to open it, so she put the car in park and ran her finger along the inside seam of the flap, exposing the note inside.

Along with a bundle of cash.

Thicket Dweller could not believe her eyes. She checked the front of the envelope. Yes, it had her name on it. Tearing open the card, she read the note from her friend, explaining that she had found this money in a dresser drawer while doing some cleaning, money she had forgotten was there, and felt compelled to give it to Thicket Dweller. A Christmas gift, she wrote. Buy some nice dishes, the note said. Buy something nice for yourself and a gift for each of the kids, it said. Pulling the money from the envelope, she counted.

There was enough there for the mortgage. There was enough for groceries. There was enough for a tankful of gas.

Thicket threw her head back and cried out loud. "God, why? What have I done to deserve this?" Tears sprung from her eyes, and soon she was sobbing uncontrollably, crying out, "I don't deserve you! I don't deserve this!"

And she was right. She had done nothing to deserve it.

The truth was that her friend loved and obeyed God, and that God was very, very good. It wasn't a reward. It wasn't payment. It was a gift.

So, Catherine, there's the story. I know it took me a long time to write it, and I didn't do it justice, but I know that God's timing is perfect, and that this is a story someone needed to read today.

Playing at a Thrift Store Near YOU

Okay, so it may not be near you, but if it is, stop into my favorite thrift store (if you know me, you know where it is. If you're a stalker, get lost) this Saturday and see Almost Dublin Over, a Celtic group featuring my good friend Linda, her daughter E. and my dear husband Bo. Should be a rockin' time.

Before the Ball

Houdin and Bard were off to a contra-dance ball tonight. Because I was a ding-dong and left my digital camera out in the rain, I only had Bo's phone to take photos. The friends they're going with have a camera and promised to take some shots, so I hope to have better ones available later.

I'd like to add that all of the items they're wearing, except their socks and undies and Bard's sweater-shawl, were thrift store finds. I wish you could see Bard's coat for real. I bought it a couple of years ago at the thrift store for me to wear when we go out to a fancy place and I get to play dress-up. The collar is real fur and the coat is a delicious grass-green that contrasted wonderfully with Bard's lovely maroon dress.

Now it's time to go retrieve them. I hope they had a lovely time!

I leave with you the letter that was sent to serve as guidelines for the ball:

~ Dress Code: :

Men: This dance requires semiformal to formal attire. If you are indecisive, err on the formal side. Dress sla'cks, shirt-and tie are appropriate. Bow ties, suspenders, and vests are also acceptable accessories. Dress shoes with a rubber sole function very well on a wood floor.

Ladies: Erring on the formal side also applies here. However, for the ladies there are a few different considerations. Dresses ought to be mid-calf or longer [with a full skirt]. A well fitting bodice (not too tight and not too loose) will be comfortable for all the dances. It is important to remember when choosing your dress that you must be able to move your arms freely in front of you, to the side, up and down, without hindrance. It should be modest in all positions of the arms and torso. Much of the movement in the dances will cause your dress to twirl and fill out. Please keep this in mind when considering appropriate underskirt attire. Many ladies like to wear gloves. Modesty is strongly encouraged.

Responsibilities

Men: Men have the greatest responsibilities in this type of social gathering. They must see that all the ladies have the opportunity to dance. Choosing only one lady with whom to dance during the night is selfish and inappropriate. If you see ladies standing on the side waiting to be asked to dance, then choose one with whom to dance. Do not monopolize any single lady. That means, in general, do not dance with a single lady more than twice. Of course exceptions are permitted: married, engaged, or courting couples, or siblings, are free to break this guideline. Many of the dances are "mixers" so the lady with whom you begin the dance is not the lady with whom you finish. You get to dance with all of the ladies in the circle or set. If you ask a lady to dance and she declines, you cannot ask why. If she declines and does not say it is OK to ask later, then don't ask again. When dancing, please be gentle with the ladies. As mentioned before, men must be gentlemen and responsible men.

Ladies: Ladies also have certain responsibilities. They must not ask a man to dance unless he is a family member; [Conduct as well as dress should be modest.] If a lady wishes not to accept a dance, she may decline politely. If she wants to sit out a dance, but doesn't mind if he asks later, she should tell him.

A note to young gentlemen on ball etiquette :
From: Mr. Fritz Hinrichs :

My dear young gentlemen, ~

This ball might be the first for many of you, so you are in need of a little instruction on the rudiments of ball etiquette. A ball promises great delight and enjoyment; however, you must know how to conduct yourself properly to enjoy its pleasures.

First, this is a ball, not a dance. At a dance, many boys simply act without any direction or discretion. This simply will not do at our ball. At all times you must act with complete hospitality towards and respect for the young ladies. At no time are your actions to be controlled by male egotism, passion or cowardice. In order to make sure that you conduct yourself with all proper courtesy and decorum, please follow these guidelines. When you wish to dance with a young lady, approach her and say, "May I have this dance with you?" If she accepts, I offer her your arm, look for an available space on the dance floor and escort her to it. Once the dance is complete, thank her for dancing with you, offer her your arm again and lead her back to where she was originally seated. If you do not act in a polite manner when you ask her to dance (for example, of you approached and said "Hey, let's dance") you will simply be told, "No." If you are polite to her and yet she does not desire to dance, she will smile and say, "No, thank you." or "No, thank you for asking."

A ball is not a place where one comes to find some romantic dream. Therefore,do not wait the entire evening trying to get up the courage to ask a girl for whom you have taken a particular fancy. This is an error that shows both a lamentable fixation on your own passions as well as simple cowardice. One comes to a ball to dance. It is your responsibility to make sure that the young ladies who would like to dance have an opportunity to do so. If you see someone who has not yet had an opportunity to dance, make sure she is given that opportunity. If you find you are turned down, simply smile, walk away and ask someone else.

Your gracious attitude towards the ladies should not stop once you leave the dance floor. Whether it be around the punch bowl, going through doors, or simply chatting between dances, you will be expected to show them all proper deference. Phrases like "'Excuse me", "'Please, you first", "'Thank you", "'You are kind to say so." should be ready on your Ups.

You can expect the finest behavior from your female peers; however, they may be a bit nervous themselves· and resort to that irksome habit of huddling in little female bevies around the peripheries of the dance floor. If this were a perfect world you would not need to face such obstacles, however, manly courage is not daunted but strengthened by such trials. Remember - it is not the woman's place to ask you to dance. It is your responsibility to overcome your boyish timidity,take the part of a man and show a hospitable initiation towards the young ladies.

Politely requesting a girl to dance will say volumes about your character. Also remember, just because a girl looks down at the ground when you approach to ask her to dance, this does not necessarily mean that she does not wish to dance. Often young women are quite shy and find it very difficult to look at a young man directly. If a young woman has come to a ball, it is a fair assumption that she would like to dance.

I do not mean to give you these guidelines to restrict the natural delight that one can take in such events, yet, as with the rest of life, it is within structure that we find the blessings freedom provides.

Mr. Hinrichs
a.k.a. Mr. Manners

Wednesday Evening Inventory

I borrowed this from Bella Dia and then adapted it for myself.

On my bedside table:
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Reckless Faith by Jo Kadlecek
Reflections for Ragamuffins by Brennan Manning
Live More with Less
A New Way to Be Human by Charlie Peacock-Ashworth
Reason for Hope, A Spiritual Journey by Jane Goodall (who I had the pleasure of meeting a couple of years ago. I see she has one called Harvest for Hope, A Guide for Mindful Eating. I've put it on my PaperBackSwap Wishlist.)
At the Crossroads by Charlie Peacock-Ashworth
Several Christmas decorating books

Most of these came from PaperBackSwap. Some came from the thrift store. I got Reason for Hope, hardcover, at the thrift store for .50!

Latest interests:
Christmas decorating
Thrift store shopping (this really is an ongoing addiction...er, I mean interest)
Walking
Possibly changing eating habits

On my mind:
Christmas preparations
Money
A new blog look
A relationship issue

Learning:
The art of thrifting
Frugal cooking
Sewing? Someday?

Making:
Cookies
Hard tack candy
Hopefully, some knitted stuff

Avoiding:
Cleaning my room
Money issues
Doing laundry

Looking forward to:
Busy-ness being over with
A restful holiday
Cleaning my room...tomorrow!
Caroling on Friday
Christmas

Enjoying:
Several Christmas trees in various stages of decoration--I've been so blessed!
My "new" white Christmas tree from the thrift store. It turns around AND it plays "O, Christmas Tree." I have it assembled in my bedroom, but not decorated yet.
My husband and friends playing music downstairs. They'll be playing in church on Sunday!

Five Things Meme

Got this one from Kate over at The Tate School.

1) Five Minutes to yourself. How would you spend them ideally?
I think how I do spend them and how I think I would spend them would be two different things. Usually, I do spend them sitting in front of the computer. How sad. But recently, I've been stealing moments down at our cabin, generally putzing around, enjoying the quiet, eating raspberries, looking at Country Living and Country Home magazines, and reading snippets from various books.
2) Five Dollars to spend right now. How or where would you spend it?
A trip to our local thrift store for books and home stuff. Or, if there's a new magazine on the racks, I might buy that if there were nothing at the thrift store I wanted.

3) Five Items in your house you could part with right now?
* The television. Before our last house concert, we moved it into the computer room and it didn't come back out. After a month, I said, "Let's just get rid of it." We moved it to the in-law suite in the basement, but I'd rather it just be gone.
*Three rats. We have five, but I'd just like to have two. Want 'em? They're loads of fun!
*The quilt rack. I bought this great oak quilt rack at a furniture store years ago, but it's never been anything but in the way. I'll probably take it down to the cabin or give it away.
*Half the clothes in my closet. I shop thrift stores and clearance racks, so some of the things I bring home end up being a bit less desireable than I thought they'd be, for one reason or another. Some are just hopelessly out of style, though I try to stick with classic stuff.
*My garden. A lot of those things need to be yanked out and thrown to the goats. When I have time.

4) Five Items in your house you absolutely, positively could never part with?
* My dog
* My food processor (I feel a little funny writing this just after I wrote "My dog.")
* My mixer
* My book collection
* My photos

5) Five Words you love?
* "Let's go out."
* "What can I do to help?"
* "All done, Mom."
* "Yes."
* "I have good news!"

You're it! Let me know if you do this one.

A Date with a Bohemian

Here I am, blogging along, minding my own business, when who should darken my door but...my HUSBAND! What on earth is HE doing here?

I mean, yeah, he lives here and all, but he's home two hours early and I haven't...well, I haven't done much of anything, really.

Okay, that's actually not true. I Freecycled for an almost-new set of box springs so that I don't have to sleep six inches lower than Bo. And, will wonders never cease, this amazing man of mine is home not just on time, but EARLY so we can take a trip to the Big City to pick up my new find.

Here's the truth: sometimes you get really crappy stuff on Freecycle. I'm not even exaggerating. I seriously mean that it's crappy. As in, covered in crap. I freecycled for a recliner and my dad swore someone must have died in it. It took him three hours to hose it down. Yes, I did say hose it down. Now it's a nice chair. It just had a crappy job.

So when you're heading to some stranger's house to pick up something for free without even seeing it first, yes, of course, there's risk involved. But it's FREE, see. So, if it's truly beyond-repair-crappy, it can go to the landfill. Some would argue that you could Freecycle it again, but that's just cruel.

I've picked up some great thing through Freecycle! Really! I LOVE my Freecycled couch. It's the same couch that's in the banner above. We have a way-cool piano that we Freecycled. I have an awesome working second refrigerator. Freecycled. Lewis, our black lab brat (also in the banner above)--Freecycled.

My Awesome, Comfy, Freecycled Sofa

So it's a hit and miss thing, really. And I think you can get a vibe from someone's post, too. Okay, my prejudice is showing, but I do appreciate an attempt at good grammar and at least a modicum of properly spelled words (don't check my entries for grammar errors--they're all stream of consciousness, so cut me some slack. And did I spell "modicum" right?).

Since we're on the budget dating system, leaving the kids with Papa and Bard, a hop in the pickup truck to freecycle a set of box springs (box springs...is/are that/they plural??) and a shared dinner out is about it for the budget. That, and a 69 cent DVD rental.

That was the plan.

Don't you just love it when the plan actually works?

The box spring/s was/were awesome, I was able to talk Bohemian into a stop at the pet shop where I only broke down enough to buy crickets for One-Eyed Wilma my free-range chameleon and a hermit crab for Sweetheart. Don't ask me why little miss Tu-Tu wants a hermit crab. She just does.

And then we actually ate dinner together. The only interruption was the Red Sox/Yankees game and a very attentive server.

Then home for unloading the box spring/s, blogging, playing with Hermit (what else would a five-year-old name her hermit crab?), prayers for the kids, and, finally, at 1:00 AM, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Actually, that wasn't the final part of the date. After the movie, we both lay in bed talking until I could no longer keep my eyes open. When the time between Bo's questions and my answers grew to 45 seconds, and my answers began to have nothing to do with his questions, he let me sleep.

That was my date with Bohemian, the love of my life.

Okay, I take it back...

Here are the things I've done today:

FreeCycled for a brand-new, in-the-box, desktop 3-gallon aquarium which will be a Christmas gift.

Saw Bard and Bohemian off--him to work, her to choral practice.

Had a long talk with Houdin about how his brain functions and how he and I could learn to get along better.

Made my bed.

Cared for all of my animals.

Spent time working on finger-training one of our budgies.

Read the mail.

Nursed Baby all day long every 45 seconds.

A Family Outing...A Busy Day

Bard's Saturday morning rehearsal and Houdin's evening concert took us north into the bigger city today, and we decided to make the best of it. We all rose early for breakfast, got dressed and packed up the Jeep for a day away.

The plan was to drop Bard off at her practice, then head to GoodWill for some winter clothes shopping (success! spent $40, found all of the clothes they'll need for the winter, plus two pairs of snow boots for Sweetheart, a pair of clogs for her, and two pairs of Doc Marten loafers for me...for $1.50 each!), then drop off some baby finches to my friend T, and then over to our friends S&B's house to do some cleaning. A few weeks ago, We were at S's house when she found out that she was pregnant with their fourth child, and then she was with us at our gathering just after she had found out that the baby had died in-utero. It was so good to be able to be with her and to have so many of her friends around her to keep her spirits up. One of her favorite activities is to listen to our husbands play music together, and she was able to sit listening for the evening and absorbing the love of her friends and family. Today, we had hoped to go by her house while she was having her D&C and do some cleaning, but her dear husband and daughters already had it covered. Of all the women I know, S has such an amazing love for children that her loss just breaks my heart. I keep reminding myself that there is a greater plan.

After our other stops, we decided to visit a corn maze that had been part of a homeschool group field trip we'd missed yesterday. The maze's theme was the goldrush, and the goal was to find all of the clues in the maze as well as make it to the exit. Bundled against the cold and shielded from the wind by the corn, we trekked the trails collecting clues. One of the cool things about the theme is that the gold rush took place around the time of Little House in the Big Woods, which is the book we're currently reading as a family. The clues in the maze weren't simply trivial, but were actually informational and historical tidbits that were very interesting.

Another part of the adventure was the hidden rocks. All along the maze were small tumbled river rocks whose bottom sides were each etched with a number. If you found one of these rocks, you could take it to the stand and trade it for a prize. Sweetheart was determined to find these rocks for herself! Out of the five rocks we found, Sweetheart found three on their own, and they were not easy to find! :-) Each of the children were able to take a rock to the shop and claim their prize. The shopkeeper applauded them, saying that no one had brought more than two at a time! She allowed the children to choose caramel corn, small gourds, indian corn and pumpkins to take home. Sweetheart is thrilled with her winnings.

This evening, Houdin took part in a children's choral festival, which was quite a show! Packed to the gills. Dr. and Mrs. Jacobs sat near us and asked if they could come visit sometime. He was very sorry that they weren't able to attend the Open House, as he plays upright bass and thought the opportunity to play would have been fun, but they were in Indianapolis on a choral-related visit. Since Bohemian also played upright, they had a nice conversation about music, and they hope to visit soon. They asked if Bard might want to stay with them next week since she will have four choral events between Monday and Saturday. I think it would be a wonderful opportunity for Bard to spend time with her director, but I think she will likely stay with her friend Ash for the week.

I also stopped by a bookstore to pick up the next Italic Handwriting book for Houdin and Sweetheart and found a Latin-root vocabulary workbook for Bard. She's mentioned several times that she would like to learn Latin, and this looked like a good start. Any other suggestions would be appreciated!

We ended the evening with dinner together, then went to pick up Bard from her evening with Ash at the hayride, and a long drive home, me nodding off most of the way.

And now, for a bath and a long, long rest, curled up in bed with my dear husband and my sweet baby.

::: saturday and sunday :::

On Saturday, Bohemian and I picked up a free refrigerator that was listed on our local Freecycle list. Today, my dad cleaned it and we plugged it in. It will serve as a second fridge.

Bard and I had a great discussion about what she wants to be when she grows up. We discussed M. Night Shyamalan and how his entire family is comprised of doctors, but at around the age of 11, he decided he wanted to be a filmmaker. Bard says she'd like to be either a filmmaker, a writer, a singer or an actor. She feels those things are too banal for a teen, though, so she's not sure she wants to pursue any of them seriously.

Edison rode to Penny's house and did a bit of work for them. He rode to the bakery, too, and bought himself a donut. He's been thrilled to have this measure of freedom. The freedom does come with a bit of a price, though. When Bohemian and I came home from our trip to pick up the fridge and our fruitless yard-sale outing, it was after noon. Edison was just taking care of the chickens and goats. This has been an ongoing problem, and I actually had to call him home from a friend's house last week because he said he'd done the chores and hadn't. So, when it was time for him to ask if he could ride to Penny's, I told him that he would first have to write up and sign a contract stating that he would complete his animal chores each morning before 9:00 AM. Every word had to be spelled correctly and the punctuation had to be correct. Sure enough, he produced the signed document, and I told him he could go on his outing. This morning, his chores were done by 9:30. I let him know that this wasn't in accordance with the contract. The solution was that he would purchase an alarm clock.

We watched The King and I. We've been on a bit of a Rodgers and Hammerstein kick. When Monet asked if they could watch it, I said that it was a bit complicated and I wasn't sure if he would understand it. He then continued to tell me the entire story, punctuated by agreements from Sweetheart. When I asked him how he knew this, he said it was from The Sound of Movies, which is a documentary about Rodgers and Hammerstein that we watched a couple of months ago. Good retention!

This is how we spent today, Sunday:

Breakfast as a family. Edison set the table. Yogurt pancakes (flipped by Bohemian), hash browns and sausage.
Bard and I discussed the upcoming school year and discussed the possibility of using some of Cadron Creek's curricula. Bard tended toward Where the Brook and River Meet.
I finished True to Form by Elizabeth Berg. Bard and I discussed it a bit and thought it might be a good book about which to do a reading discussion.
Monet read Midnight on the Moon by Mary Pope Osbourne.
Bard and Monet played with (and then fought over) Robotics.
I made potato chips while we played Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. The kids took turns reading the cards aloud. Bard won. Bohemian and I came in second, and Monet and Edison came in third.
I finished my notification letter, which I hope to mail out tomorrow by certified mail.
I joined an e-mail list for Where the Brook and River Meet.

Tomorrow, we will go visit with The Chasers (friends of ours who homeschool. Mrs. Chaser is really one of my best friends. It's so good to have a kindred spirit!) for grilling and a baseball game.

::: sweetheart's room :::

Yesterday Bohemian put a few more coats of paint on Sweetheart's twin beds that I found at a secondhand furniture store. After he was finished, I dragged him into town to peruse the very coolest shop in the county. My friend Stefanie has the shop I only need to dream of owning, and I think she's the only one who could pull of such a totally hip place. Stefanie finds stuff, either in salvage yards, yard sales, resale shops, whatever, and spruces them up and makes groupings that are SO cool. I bought a hot pink plant stand, a little end table full of drawers and two matching tables for the feet of Sweetheart and Baby's beds. I stole a lot of inspiration, too. :-)

Bohemian perused the music store while I was salivating at Stefanie's place. He really wants a nice acoustic guitar or a new pickup for the guitar he has. I'd love to find a way to get these things for him. I'll have to think on it. I suppose the best way would be to stop spending money on other things. :-/

Before I came up with that revelation, I also stopped at the store and bought a quilt for Sweetheart's bed, not a pricey one, just a Wal*Mart one. I picked up some greenery for the kitchen, too.

When we got home, I dry-brushed a cream color on top of the pink on the headboard and footboards, and some pink and cream on the end tables I got from Stefanie's. Bard used Handi-Tack to stick five little vintage dollies on the top shelf of Sweetheart's very cute Ethan Allen dresser/hutch that I found at a different used furniture place.

The final product (which actually isn't quite done yet) is so cute. I still need to find some vintage or vintage-style curtains, a few little rag rugs, and some artwork for the walls. There was a way cute vanity at Stefanie's that would fit in Sweetheart's room, too. It has a huge vintage mirror on the back. I'm not sure if I'll get it, but it's definitely appropriate.

We've been playing a lot of Phase 10 as a family, and on Friday night, we played Scatagories. Monet, who is 9, really likes to play and we let him look at the clues before we start the timer so he can get a head start. Bard is the one who really loves to play. :-) Edison isn't into it at all.

But Edison has been very into magic tricks. He, Monet and Sweetheart put on a show for us on Friday night, complete with dancing, magic tricks, juggling and public speaking. :-) It was a lot of fun.

Edison and Monet have been spending a lot of time playing Star Wars Gallactic Battlegrounds. Monet thinks it's a good game to play. Find out more on the next post. Also, they've been spending a lot of time playing Uno, and even including Sweetheart.

Until next time!

::: volunteering :::

Our children belong to a local Roots & Shoots group. From the website:

Roots & Shoots® engages and inspires youth through community service and service learning. Founded by Dr. Jane Goodall, this global program emphasizes the principle that knowledge leads to compassion, which inspires action. All Roots & Shoots groups show care and concern in three areas: the human community, animals, and the environment.

Through that group, the kids have been able to do some interesting things and have had great opportunities to serve the community. Last night, they were able to serve again.

Georgia, the group leader, called us this week letting us know that she'd received a call from the local Humane Society, which is fairly new and still trying to raise money for a building. The Humane Society is having a yard sale at the fairgrounds today and they needed help setting up their things. Edison was able to do a lot of heavy lifting and general gophering. Bard was able to do organizing and pricing. I was able to do general organizing. I think it was an excellent opportunity to see what people get rid of, as well as see how many great clothes are available for a very inexpensive price! All of the clothing was priced at a quarter a piece. I was able to pick up some dresses for Sweetheart, as well as some Cat's Meow houses for above my kitchen doors. It was also a great opportunity to get to know some other people from the community.

Speaking of which, I was able to get a contact for one of the local 4H groups, which is made up entirely of homeschoolers. I asked Bard if she'd like to participate, and she seemed hopeful. Also, Georgia let me know that a local man is working on starting a theatre group here in our town! I'm excited about that, and I'm sure the kids will be, too. I hope to contact this man today, as well as the 4H lady.

I've been reading How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk and have been getting a lot out of it. I've been using some of the skills I'm learning, and they seem to work. I'm about 1/4 of the way through the book and hope to get Bohemian to read it, too. I may even have Bard read it. It's a helpful way to communicate, though some of it feels forced. We'll see how it works.

Monet is in the kitchen making smoothies. We didn't have the standard frozen blueberries, but we did have frozen grapes, so he decided to try that instead. They turned out really well! I'm enjoying a tasty frozen beverage right now. :-)

::: a room for sweetheart :::

Yesterday, Bohemian and I got up early (early for us on a Saturday, anyway) and went to breakfast. The goal was to hit the used furniture store in a neighboring town and to hit a couple of yard sales that started Saturday morning. Also, Bard and I had seen a used four-string electric bass that Bohemian had wanted to check out.

After breakfast, we headed toward where I thought the furniture store would be, but I hadn't been there so I was counting on seeing a sign, but as we approached the center of town, we still hadn't seen the store. We stopped at the general store and asked an Amish teenager there, but he didn't know of anywhere. I went inside and asked the Amish cashier , but she didn't know of the place, either. I was about to give up, but an Amish customer knew right where it was, just a mile up the road on the main state route! I thought it was funny that the other two locals didn't know it, but I was glad that we were able to get directions.

The sign outside the shop said "Quality Used Furniture," and it was, indeed. Many of the items in there would have been considered antiques, and her prices were that of an antique store, too. Since I was there looking for a bargain, I was a bit disappointed. There were some great things there, but the prices were so strange. A single bookcase could be $195, while a whole bedroom suite was $350. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason.

And then, as I turned down the last aisle, there it was. The sweetest chest of drawers with a hutch on the top. It was painted a cheery yellow, looked to be original paint and original knobs, and had white beadboard behind the hutch. The hutch had two cupboard doors and a shelf, and inside the cupboard doors were another shelf and a mirror on the door. Perfect for Sweetheart's room! It was a vintage Ethan Allen piece, and it was marked...$85! There was a sign above it that said "All hutches 15% off" and since this looked like a hutch as much as it looked like a chest or drawers, I asked. "Sure, I'll give you 15% off of that," the Amish woman said.

I wrote my check while Bohemian prepared to load the piece into the Jeep. He took out each of the mortised drawers and carried the HEAVY thing, which was in two pieces, out to the vehicle. I was already putting it into her room and decorating it with goodies in my mind before we even got it home!

But before we went home, we headed to the yard sales. At the second sale, I found five gorgeous little vintage dolls decked-out in crocheted dresses and hats. Mentally, I lined them up on top of Sweetheart's new hutch. I also found sweet hand-embroidered tea towels, a set of hand-embroidered "his" and "hers" pillowcases, two nice rag rugs in good colors, and a green bowl from a Prak-T-Kal vaporizer.

Saturday evening, we primed and painted Sweetheart's floor, a sweet, light pink called "Kissed by Juliet." Tonight, we primed the two twin beds I found at a different used furniture store and a long pegged shelf we've had for ages. They'll be painted pink and then cream and rubbed through to give an antiqued look.

I'm already mentally shopping for bedding at Target. :-)

 

::: a day with bard :::

Today seemed like a good day to go yard-salin'. So I woke Bard, got dressed, said goodbye to my dad and the kids, and headed off to find some bargains.

My main goals were to look for a sofa, some end tables, a couple of night stands, some bookcases and a set of beds for Sweetheart and Baby.

The first stop was a Mennonite woman's home who homeschools. She had a lot of boxed curricula and I wasn't really interested in most of it. I did, however, find some good dress-up clothes and a train set which I think is called a Whittle Train or something like that. The tracks are a base that are in the shapes of large squares that hook together like puzzle pieces. There are also little pieces that are used to create little shops and buildings. Cute!

The other thing I found was something called Learning Seeds, which is a file box filled with all kinds of activity cards in different subject areas. The goal is to provide a springboard for learning when children can't think of anything to do, so that they can turn to this creative outlet as opposed to turning on the TV. I haven't given this a very in-depth look, but I'm going to check it out further. I do know that I found a source for it online, and while I paid $4.00 for a brand new box, the site lists the price at $39.95!

Bard found six hockey pucks, which they'll use for ice hockey this winter. Up until now, they've been using a street hockey ball. The woman who was having this sale forgot to ring up my Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing book by Sheila Kipley, so she gave it to me for free. :-)

I found an unused Wilson's black leather vest, with tags, for $2.00. A perfect accessory for Edison's magic shows. I need to find him a nice top hat and a pair of black dress pants.

Bard and I spent a lot of time laughing about Homestar Runner today. I have to admit that I now think it's pretty funny. I had to swallow my pride and admit that to Bard, which was good, because we then spent the rest of the afternoon making silly Homestar Runner references and cracking ourselves up.

I couldn't find any beds or other furniture at any of the sales, so I headed for one of the local used furniture stores, where I found a set of twin beds for Sweetheart and Baby. They'll need to be sanded, painted and gussied up, but they'll be really fun when they're done. We decided to spend this weekend finishing up Sweetheart's bedroom, which means painting the floor and possibly creating a fun pattern with the paint. I'll try to post photos.

Bard was a joy with whom to share a day. She's clever, witty, and just generally funny. I'm really glad we got to spend the time together. We talked about books, what makes a book a classic, why some classics are so stupid (she recently read Catcher in the Rye and hated it) and whether or not her favorite books will be stupid when she's an adult.

Tonight, we filled the cracks in Sweetheart's floor and will prime and paint it in the morning, after I hit a couple more yard sales. The kids watched South Pacific on DVD and then watched a bunch of Homestar Runner shorts. Monet, of course, made a book of drawings of all of the characters. He's a very motivated artist! I'd love to get him plugged into a good class, if I could find a good teacher who would be willing to come to our home and wouldn't charge an arm and a leg. I know it's worth it, but I don't have it!

Tonight, Bohemian is teaching Bard and Edison how to play an electric bass. Edison started fiddle lessons about a year ago, but his teacher, who was also homeschooled, went to college at age 16, so we kinda lost out. Bummer. Bard seems to be picking up the bass very well, and has learned to tune using harmonics, which Bohemian taught using a short physics lesson. They're using a video called Ultimate Beginner's Series: Bass Basics. Bohemian is going through it with them step by step. They all seem to be enjoying it. :-)

I was able to contact a few local homeschoolers and find out about a support group here. There will be an informational meeting in about two weeks, and I think I'll attend, since it sounds like there are about 60 families who belong. I've been e-mailing with these ladies and hope to make some contacts that will lead to new friendships for the kids and me!

For now, I think it's time for bed. I'm hoping to get up early tomorrow morning, get breakfast down the street, and head for a couple more sales.

Thanks for a fun day, Bard!