This might help…

This is Audrey Elizabeth, who is eighteen months old. I think her parents like to dress her in clothes that match her little rosy cheeks.  🙂

Just looking at her smile makes me smile too…

…to bring two photos of scenes that are all too fleeting in warm weather-starved northern Minnesota.

This was taken through a kitchen screen (sorry) this morning:

And these perfume the kitchen today:

We love our lilacs. I remember what they smell like and pray that I can smell them again someday. In the meantime I will surely enjoy their beauty.

Back to the June bloggy contest now. Comments are still open and the winner of the scrumptious prize will be announced on Tuesday, June 9th.

Maybe one of your quirky food preferences happens to be lilacs. Our daughter Sara ate a lilac blossom yesterday and declared it sweet and good.

Almost everyone I know has some sort of strange food preference, and I have a few myself – maybe they were inherited.

When my father wanted a snack he chose one of two. He would spread lardy Skippy crunchy peanut butter on a piece of white bread, then wrap that around a whole sweet pickle and eat it like one does a hot dog. If he didn’t have time for the bread, he would just dip the pickle in the peanut butter and eat it that way. I didn’t know until I was older how strange this was.

Dad also practically lived off of crackers and milk. He would crunch an entire sleeve of Premium soda crackers into a large bowl, then pour whole milk over it. It would turn into a half-crunchy, half-mushy white mess, and he loved it. I can still see him spooning that into his mouth while watching Perry Mason on TV.

He didn’t like chocolate, and also ate only vanilla ice cream, and he avoided most vegetables like the plague. He hated whole grain anything, would eat fruit now and then, and thought he was doing well to eat a small salad made with a few pale leaves of iceberg lettuce topped with Wishbone Italian dressing, which was a staple in our house. Despite his fairly unhealthy diet, he lived to be a vigorous 87 years old.

In my family we often had oatmeal on the weekends, but I never saw anyone put sugar or milk on their oats until I was an adult. We put crumbled, crisp-cooked bacon, and bits of scrambled eggs, and pats of butter on top of our oats. And then sprinkled it with salt. Sweet oats? Shudder.

I know of someone who likes white spaghetti noodles mixed with cold French dressing. Someone else I know craves pancakes topped with about an inch of peanut butter.

I like chocolate and peanut butter in almost any form, although that pairing might not be considered quirky. Considering how many new candy bars Reese’s is putting out lately, I think millions of others like peanut butter and chocolate too.

Sometimes I crave blue cheese dressing and peanuts together, so I’ll mix those two in a salad. Once a year or so I revert back to an old childhood snack and dip graham crackers in milk, several of them all held together and dunked in that manner.

When I was pregnant I used to crave blue cheese dressing spread over a slice of strong rye bread. It must be something about the mold in the cheese. Maybe I just have a compulsion to get as much mold into my body as possible. (Come to think of it, that might just explain everything…)

So this brings us to this month’s bloggy giveaway! What are your food quirks? Or the odd food preferences of someone you know? Do you like unusual food combinations, like soda crackers and milk, peanut butter and pickles, or chicken and grape jelly?

If there are three or fewer comments posted, I’ll use the eenie-meenie-minie-moe method of choosing this month’s prize winner. If there are more of you who share, I’ll consult random.org, so anyone who leaves a comment has a chance at the “yummy” prize. The winner will be announced in the morning on Tuesday, June 9th.

Bon appetit,

“Lord, when we are wrong, make us willing to change.  And when we are right, make us easy to live with.”

Peter Marshall

I think I hear a Divine ahem…

😛

1.   The SAGs and I had our monthly dinner in Gilbert, MN last week, at a Jamaican restaurant called The Whistling Bird.

2.   I just finished a great book by Lisa Genova called Still Alice.

3.   I now have a Personal Assistant (she cooks, she organizes, she runs errands, she does paperwork!) and she is making a wonderful difference in my life.

4.   Michael and I will be visiting Madeline Island in the Apostle Islands soon, to celebrate our 28th anniversary.

5.   We went down fast water slides whooping and hollering, and swam for hours recently at The Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells, WI.

6.   I’m memorizing Philippians 4:8 right now: Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.  (And pondering what my life would be like if I just put this verse into practice for one month. And wondering how people would respond if I chose to think of them in this manner too.)

7.   I like a handful of peanuts on my romaine, red onion and blue cheese salads.

Upcoming blog posts include: “Bring them here to Me…”, Who is praying for you?, When Oprah Came Calling, “…full of grace and truth…”, and Organ lessons.

Exciting stuff. You don’t want to miss it.

Now, what are your seven random things today? (or five or three or one?)

Inquiringly yours,

…and I’ll get to snuggle my darling two year-old granddaughter for the first time in over a year. Little Glee-girl and her family are coming for a summer visit soon.

I think she looks like she needs a good squeeze.

For a long time now I’ve been thinking about hope and patience and how they’re linked. Specifically, hope in God and His doings, and patience with His timing. I don’t want to just hope, I want to hope in God.

Hope alone is like putting a heartfelt written message into a bright blue balloon, then blowing it up and releasing it into the air, fixing your eyes on it as it rises, until it’s just a tiny blue pixel in the sky before it disappears from sight, and wishing it will go someplace where someone will eventually find it and read it.

Hope in God is like writing that same message from your heart on a scrap of paper, and as soon as you put down the pencil, a huge hand comes down from on high and takes to Himself what you’ve written, and leaves you with a sense of peace and expectancy that not only were your words received, but are that very minute being ably and lovingly tended to.

Patience is diligently keeping in your heart and mind the picture of that huge hand taking those words, while the circumstances around you still rage and roar, and calmly and confidently waiting for the answer, the resolution, the change, the miracle, the whatever is needed to come.

Not long ago I received a wonderful drawing from a new friend I met at our local Community Bible Study. Her name is Shawna and she heard me share a while back about the changes that God has brought into my life, and my (varied) responses to those changes. She sent me a sensitive and encouraging note, along with a wonderful drawing she did, entitled, “Seed of pain mixed with seeds of hope.”

I had no trouble at all picking out which seeds are the seeds of hope, and the drawing is very meaningful to me. I plan to have it nicely framed and it will hang in our bedroom in a conspicuous place.

Seed of pain mixed with seeds of hope

I decided to assign verses to each of the seeds Shawna drew.  🙂

The seed on the left:  Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1

The next seed:  For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Romans 8:24-25

The dark seed of pain:   We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;  perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 2 Corinthians 4:8-9

And the last seed:  May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13

Shawna’s drawing is really a glimpse of what life is like, isn’t it? Hope mixed with pain. Or pain mixed with hope. The main thing I want to keep in mind, though, is that as I hope, I’m not just sending up a balloon and wondering if it actually reaches someone instead of going down in some remote woods, never to be found. I’m hoping in God. I’m putting my hope in Jesus. It’s the patience while hoping that I’m still fumbling with.

I need all the reminders I can get. Be patient, Julie. Put your hope in God, Julie. Amid the pain, there is still hope. Hoping in God brings peace and joy. Julie, hope in Him does not disappoint.

When I hang Shawna’s drawing in our bedroom, these are the truths I will be reminded of.

“O begin! Fix some part of every day for private exercises…whether you like it or not, read and pray daily. It is for your life; there is no other way: else you will be a trifler all your days…Do justice to your own soul; give it time and means to grow. Do not starve yourself any longer.”

John Wesley

Trying not to trifle,

I do realize that bloggist is not actually a real word. Blogger is a new word in this decade, but it’s still barely a word.

So accidental bloggist is a phrase I’m using (anyone read the book Accidental Tourist?) because I’m going to share once again some of the funny search terms that people have typed on Google that accidentally sent them to my site, JustJulieB.com.

Some of these are chuckleworthy. See if you don’t smile at a few – these are exact quotes:

“Do you ever listen to a song over and over again” – yes, yes I do. Yes, yes, I do. Yes, yes I do. Yes…as a matter of fact, I do this a lot. What I’m playing over and over again right now is a G.T. and the Halo Express CD.

“Big Tex pure grapefruit juice” – No Big Tex pure grapefruit juice at JustJulieB.com, Google folks.

“No one to tell me and no one to say Julie will come over” – what do you suppose this person was actually searching for? Are these lyrics to a song? If not, maybe they could be…

“Kilt” – they probably saw this photo, but scratched their head when they read the druthers post.

“Anemia muesli recipe” – I didn’t know there was an anemia muesli recipe. I think if you put red meat in my muesli recipe, it might help your anemia.

“Son-in-law Jeremy Birkenstocks” – My son-in-law is named Jeremy, but his last name isn’t Birkenstocks.

“Purple sea anemone” – People from all over the world happen upon my blog because of this post, more than any other thing I’ve ever written. That’s the truth.

“Be persnickety blog Julie” – Okay, I’ll try!

“Sheep lie down” – I’ve heard that they do – in green pastures, as a matter of fact.

“Her arm hair” – whaaaat?

“The blog that ate Cleveland” – Google sent them to my site for this quote? I don’t think my blog even knows anyone in Cleveland.

“Enemies of the pachycephalosaurus” – Yes, if you wanted accurate information about dinosaurs you could always visit my blog. I’m incessantly posting something about the uplifting Jurassic era.

“Sharon Nisky” – perhaps the name of my yet to be conceived great-granddaughter?

“Doily couch” – I think when I’m seventy-three I’ll probably own a couch made entirely of doilies. Not yet though.

“Woman yawning face smell” – Oh my. I’m not sure this woman received any help when she clicked on this site.

“Beagle boo radley” – I didn’t think Boo Radley had a dog. Maybe I need to read the book again.

“What is the meaning of a woman slaying a dragon” – I have no idea. I only know about one woman (me) trying to slay a figurative dragon (selfishness) and I wrote about it here.

“Rabbiting laws” – I couldn’t agree more – there should be rabbiting laws, and they should be aimed at shiftless crows who take fake casual strolls in yards in which there are rabbit holes housing helpless baby bunnies.

“Would” – What in the world would a person be looking for by typing “would” into Google? Whatever it was, they found my blog.

Anyway, I’m on vacation, so this is auto-posting. I will tell you about our trip when we return.

If you accidentally happened upon this blog because you typed “fever kangaroo Tupperware elbow departure,” into your Google search, I welcome you. If you actually visit here on purpose, thank you for reading.

Blessings,

With a passel of grandchildren in my life, children’s books are never far away. Right now there are several piles in the den, some in the living room, at least ten on our bedroom shelf, two on the dresser, one on the floor beside the bed, and one on the kitchen counter. I love sharing books with my grandchildren that I enjoyed as a child.

The books that I loved when I was little were:

Carol Ryrie Brink’s The Pink Motel.

I haven’t read this to my grandchildren yet but think I might this summer.  Actually, anything by Carol Ryrie Brink is wonderful. She is most famous for Caddie Woodlawn, but her The Bad Times of Irma Baumlein was also a favorite with my children years ago.

And Beverly Cleary books were great reads, especially for little girls. My granddaughter Clara is devouring Cleary’s books as fast as she can get her hands on them. This is her favorite out of all she’s read so far:

About three weeks ago I took two of my grandchildren to see a wonderful play at the Minneapolis Children’s Theater called Ramona Quimby.  Based on her other grandma’s recommendation, Clara is now reading Cleary’s Ellen Tebbits.

I also was addicted to Nancy Drew books. I didn’t like when they were revised and modernized even back then. I preferred the word “roadster” to “car,” and “pumps” to “shoes,” and I thought Nancy’s hair was much more attractive when it was called “titian” rather than “blond.”  One of the best Nancy Drew books was this one:

If I remember correctly, this story was set in Canada, and an evil crook (in the red coat, one inch away from an unsuspecting Nancy on this old book jacket) almost thwarts her ingenious sleuthing work that not even entire police departments and experienced attorneys could outdo.

 I have no remembrance of why I liked this book so much, but I owned it and read it several times. I recall staring at the cover a lot. I’d be surprised to learn that any of you read this one – did any of you read this one?

And what childhood would be complete without the adventure and imagining this Newbery award book brings? Some of the concepts in L’Engle’s books aren’t easy to explain, but even youngsters are fascinated by the thought of “tessering.”

I first learned about Betty MacDonald’s Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books in second grade when my teacher, Mrs. Lokken, read them out loud to us after lunch recess every day. It was hot where I grew up, and the lights would be turned out to keep the room cooler, and we would put our sweaty heads down on the desks and listen to these wonderful stories. I read them to my children and now my grandchildren enjoy them:

Clara recently told me that her favorite Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle story is “The Radish Cure.”

There are so many of course, but my final favorite today is this book, one of many written by Marguerite Henry:

This heartwarming book won the Newbery medal in 1949, and now sixty years later I just finished reading this true story to some grandchildren. It’s the kind of book that made them say at each chapter’s end: “Grandma, will you read one more chapter, please???”

I just love it when they say that.  🙂

Now it’s your turn. What is one (or some) of your favorite books from your childhood?