He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge; His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

Psalm 91:4

I said, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! (or a robin would do)
I would fly away and be at rest.”

Psalm 55:6

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Have a blessed week!

My mother always dressed me frilly when I was a little girl. Dad and Mom had two sons fifteen and ten years before I was born, so I think because I was an unexpected baby girl, she delighted in making sure I was in ruffles, hats, and patent leather shoes whenever it was time to dress up. I distinctly remember preferring bare feet, shorts and dirt smudges on my face, but once in a while I had to submit quietly to curlers and bobby pins in my hair and a poofy dress with a huge satin bow tied in the back.

I remember a few photos my father took of me on Easter Sunday when I was three years old. After Sunday School my parents and I went over to my grandparents’ house to visit. I was a child who always seemed to have an earache, and that Sunday I had a bad one. A couple of the pictures were of me leaning with one hand against the rough bark of a southern California palm tree, and covering my ear from the wind with the other. I was crying. My dad asked me to smile but non-cooperation was the theme for the day, and I think he thought he’d get a picture of my Easter dress later on after I got out of the wind.

I didn’t feel good the whole day. I went outside on my grandpa and grandma’s patio to wander around right outside their garage, and my dad decided that might be the time to snap a few more photos of me in my Easter dress.

I couldn’t find the close-up pictures of a sick little three year old trying to smile for the camera through a whimper, even though I can still see them in my mind.

But I did find this old photo taken that same day, when I had finally had enough. I did not want to smile anymore, I did not want to be in stiff shoes and a scratchy slip under a fancy dress any longer, and I did not want my dad following me around with the camera.

So I did the only thing I knew to do to get him to stop. And before he went back into the house, he took this shot of me issuing my final statement on having my picture taken that day. My family has had a few giggles from this photo over the years.

Looking back on this, I can’t decide if I was a brat, or if it’s just that no one was listening to me.

Today I wonder those same two things…

My oldest friend Denel came to from SoCal to northeastern Minnesota to visit us last week. Apparently all the cool people in Southern California say SoCal now. I wonder if we slow and cautious northern Minnesotans will ever call our neck of the woods NoMin? (Man to airplane passenger on his left, “Where are you from?” “NoMin,” she replies, and the man gathers his newspaper and briefcase and searches for another empty seat.)

Anyway, Denel and I have been friends forty-seven years, since we met in Mrs. Lokken’s second grade class at Workman Avenue Elementary School in West Covina, CA. If you haven’t read my post about Denel and seen the goofy photos from our childhood, you can check it out here.

And while Denel was here, this broke:

We bought this very nice GE Profile double oven range four years ago right before we moved into this house. All of a sudden the digital display started flashing “LOCKED LOCKED LOCKED LOCKED LOCKED” and while the oven doors were not LOCKED, neither oven would heat. We unplugged it. We turned the breaker off. We kicked it in the shins. No luck. So instead of having my homemade version of this:

…we ordered out. Which is what I think we’ll be doing now until our four year-old range is repaired, not this week, not early next week, but on Friday, November 11th, to the tune of $457.00. That is almost half what we paid for the appliance. I thought about going out and buying a new one instead of investing so much in the old one, but I didn’t want to change out of my sweatpants and my saggy bra. So for the next nine nights, I’ll be using the crockpot, or The Barefoot Contessa will be stopping by to do some cooking for us, one of the two.

Carolyn is in rehearsals right now for our local community theater’s Christmas musical, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music. I love that movie! I would like to be Julie Andrews in that movie. I think being willowy and shy and gentle and beloved would be a very good thing. And living in Salzburg might be a nice change too.

Here’s who Carolyn will be playing:

Yes. The Baroness. Elsa von Schraeder. She was from Vienna and had a lot of money. She smoked. She had multi-tasking eyebrows. She wanted Captain von Trapp to marry her, but Maria stole his heart when they danced the Ländler on the terrace and then Elsa had to go home. Remember when the Baroness said to the Captain (magnanimously, I thought) “…And somewhere out there…is a young lady who, I think….will never be a nun.”

Maria von Trapp, Julie Andrews and I do have something in common. Like them, I will never be a nun. Although after reading In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden, I wondered if I shouldn’t seriously consider a vocation.

Carolyn will also be singing in the play, and I love to hear her sing, love to see her act, although I get just a teensy bit confused when she does. I sit in the darkened playhouse (which will be packed because in October the tickets for this December production were almost sold out) and gaze up at her, and say to myself, “Who is that lovely and gifted woman up there singing and acting and looking like my daughter Carolyn?” I mumble to myself, “I know it can’t be her, because just yesterday she was gasping and exclaiming to me, “Mama! Yook at dat yake!” as we drove past Lake Superior. It’s a very wistful feeling, this growing old.

Also, I’m knitting again. The glorious autumn leaves are almost gone, the furnace is on every day now, there is absolutely nothing savory simmering on the stove or baking in our two broken ovens, so I’m making Michael a scarf for Christmas. I have cast on and ripped out, cast on and ripped out, cast on and ripped out already, because I’m still such a beginner. But I do enjoy it and am looking forward to someday being able to actually read a pattern and make something more complicated than a precocious four year-old could make.

Here’s the yarn I’m using for the scarf, and of course it’s Sharon’s:

The colorway is called “Winter Birch” and I think it’s beautiful. See the little copyright symbol next to the Three Irish Girls at the bottom of the photo? That means it’s criminal for me to post it here on the blog without permission, but I’m guessing the woman who took the picture and dyed the yarn isn’t going to haul me into court any time soon. 🙂 She knows my two ovens are broken and I’ve recently taken to wearing my saggy bra.

Why wear a saggy bra, you ask? Because the sturdy garments that women of my build should wear to keep things elevated are a literal and sometimes unbearable pain in the neck. And in the shoulders. And in the upper back. One of my daughters tells me I should seriously consider a surgical reduction and I have actually thought about it for more than four minutes. I know three people who’ve had it done and were so happy with the results they said, “Why didn’t I do this sooner!?” But that means I would have to actually leave the house, and add some things to my already full schedule. Maybe I’ll think about that next year.

Sara recently had the opportunity to work with an amazing, up-and-coming young floral designer in the Twin Cities. This young woman’s business has really grown and she took on a wedding recently which had a $16,000 flower order! Just the flowers! Sara was asked to drive down to help, and she was thrilled to go. She created huge floral topiaries for the reception tabletops that weighed 75 pounds each:

Aren’t they breathtaking? So, if you ever have an extra $16,000 sitting around and you get a hankering for some flowers on your table, email me and I’ll put you in touch with Sara.

Our house is still for sale, and we have a showing tonight. This will be only the sixth showing in three months, but I guess that’s not a surprise considering the soft real estate market all over our country. If our house doesn’t sell, we’ll stay here and try again next year. If we do sell this house and move to something smaller, I’m beginning to get some very risky decorating ideas. I can’t get red kitchen cabinets out of my mind. Something along the lines of this:

Don’t ask me why, because I know it’s strange. I just think I would rather like it, even if no one else would.

Before Denel left NoMin to fly back home to SoCal, I took her on the TimTwis. It’s one of my favorite things to do here, as my children keep reminding me, and I was pretty happy that Denel loved it as much as I did. Here’s a short video of what it’s like to ride The Timber Twister.

Lastly, here’s a picture of the floral arrangement Denel ordered from Sara as a gift to Michael and me:

Beautiful! I love that it matches the red and blue of our kitchen, I love the asymmetry and all the unexpected elements.

I hope your week is blessed, and as the Lord brings you to mind, I will pray for you. Your prayers for our family would never be taken for granted either.

What’s going on with you?

“You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”

James D. Miles

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(this is from the archives….)

In 2007 Michael and I took a wonderful trip to Scotland, Ireland and England. In each place we stayed, whether chain hotel, bed and breakfast or elegant guesthouse, there was tea. Not just tea offered in dining establishments, but tea in our rooms. There was always an electric teapot, some nice teacups, a small assortment of shortbread, and Typhoo brand tea every single place we went.

We got into the habit of getting up in the mornings, heating water in our little electric teapot (much faster than microwaves), and enjoying real UK tea together before we went out to see the sights.

Then at night when we returned to our room after traipsing the Scottish Highlands or the Yorkshire Dales, we’d have tea again. Sitting together in quiet and taking time for a cup of tea seemed so simple, yet its effect on us has been a lasting one. As we sipped, we talked over the day. We wondered together what the next day would hold. We marveled that a cup of hot water with dried bits of leaves in it could taste so good and feel so comforting. By the time we flew home to American Siberia we totally understood the British habit of stopping everything at 4:00 p.m. to have a cup of tea.

Michael has been an inveterate coffee drinker for decades, and I’ve always liked tea, but I probably drank it only a few times a year. When we returned home, we started buying little red plaid boxes of real Scottish shortbread, and having a cup of tea almost every day. It made us think back to our fantastic trip, and we enjoyed sitting together for a few quiet minutes in the waning of the day.

When we moved into this house almost two years ago, we decided to designate a nook in our bedroom as a special place for two comfy overstuffed chairs, a reading light and small table, and an ottoman, where we could take a few minutes to have tea together.

I would heat the water for our tea in our kitchen microwave and carry it up in steaming mugs on a tray to our bedroom, and we would sink into our chairs and sigh, sipping our tea, nibbling our buttery shortbread, and remembering how much we love Scotland and want to move there.

Well, a little over a month ago I was in Menard’s, of all places, and as I wandered the aisles I found an electric kettle almost exactly like many of the ones in our rooms in Great Britain. I bought it for Michael for Christmas and he smiled when he saw it, knowing exactly what I had intended by this little gift.

Now when we have tea I don’t nuke the water in the kitchen microwave and carry it upstairs. Instead I fill the teapot in the master bathroom and plug it in just like we did on our trip each morning and evening, and since the teapot is faster than a microwave, we have boiling water in the time it takes us to sing “Danny Boy.”

Here’s the tray with all our tea things on it, sitting on the ottoman in our lovely bedroom nook. (These pictures should enlarge if you click on them.)

And not that I have any issues or anything like that, but I also think it’s a good idea that our mugs sort of match the decor, which is black and cream with splashes of deep red here and there.

Above, you can see my cardinal mug from a friend, Michael’s manly black and white Guinness mug he bought in Ireland, a box of Typhoo tea bags from the United Kingdom, a red bowl with a few other tea bags in it, and the new electric teapot, all sitting on a dark red tray. We keep all of this here all the time, and even on the days when we don’t sit down for tea, the tray still beckons and we look forward to the next day, when perhaps we’ll be able to take some time in the morning or late afternoon to sit in peace together.

Our teatimes aren’t all about tea, however. We have been reading through the Bible together for years now. Sometimes days will go by and we won’t read together at all. We’re not so concerned about finishing quickly as we are about taking it in as we read, to discern what God is saying to us on that particular day. We read slowly, out loud, and stop to talk about what we read and what it means to us. I always keep Kleenex nearby. We mark our Bibles when we finish each chapter so we’ll know when we’ve read through all sixty-six books together. We finished the New Testament years ago, and are more than halfway through the Old. We keep rereading the Psalms and Proverbs and we both love the book of Acts so much we’ve read that aloud numerous times. This morning we read a chapter from the Psalms, and one from the books of Daniel and 1 Samuel.

After we read, we often pray together. We pray for each of our children by name, each of our sons-in-law, each grandchild. We pray for our friends, for neighbors, for those people we know who have needs that only God can meet. Sometimes we ask for huge miracles, sometimes we just ask for daily bread. Some days we don’t know how to pray, so we cry, knowing God can read our hearts. And we always ask for God’s help and forgiveness for ourselves; we’re so thankful that His mercies are new every morning, and that His faithfulness is so great. (Lamentations 3:22-23.)

I must say that I think the most wonderful, miraculous and intimate thing Michael and I have ever done as a couple is pray together. When we were newlyweds in the early 1980s I used to think the most intimate thing between us was, er…uh…ahem, something else. And as wonderful, miraculous and intimate as married love is, the joining together of hearts and souls in prayer to the One who made us and loves us, defies description.

And we hardly even know how to pray. We just bumble through like many people, placing ourselves before our Father, humbling ourselves before Him as best we know how, asking in short, ineloquent phrases that He would help and guide us, and help and guide the ones we love so much. Author Anne Lamott says the prayers she most often says are, “Thank you, thank you!” and “Help! Help!” We’re quite familiar with those prayers too. God doesn’t expect us to pray perfectly. He just wants us to pray – to talk to Him and trust Him and listen to Him.

Michael and I have asked Him to do things He has yet to do. Still we trust Him and pray. We have asked Him to do things and He has exceeded our expectations, taking our breath away. So we thank Him and praise Him, and pray again.

I don’t know much about prayer, but I confidently say to any married couple who might be thinking they should try praying together: do it. Don’t let fear or embarrassment or any other thing stop you from connecting to the One who has all you need. If all you can do is bow your heads, join hands for thirty seconds and one of you croak out, “Dear Jesus, please help us! Amen,” then do that! That’s a lot. He will hear you.

So when 2010 arrived, it seemed only right that Michael and I start the year out in our comfy chairs in our little bedroom nook. When we found some time to go upstairs, I brewed cups of tea from our new electric teapot that reminds us of Scotland, and we sat together and exchanged knowing smiles. We read a little from the Bible. We held hands and prayed together too, asking God for a clean slate as we face a new year. Indeed, we need a clean slate each and every new day.

A cup of tea and a clean slate. Both are so heartening, so comforting. Michael and I highly recommend them. 

Succotash. Hookworms. Well-done steaks. Stiletto heels. Not finding the couscous. Thirty-five below zero. Rap music. Cake frosting made with Crisco. Depression. Ted Dekker books. French dressing. Heat and humidity combined. Badly behaved dogs. Geometry. Hubris (especially in myself). Southern California traffic. Cliques. Smoking. Hopelessness. The hunting death of Hope the black bear. Tanning beds. Swampland. Computer crashes. Menopausal memory issues. Sullenness. Infidelity. Mildew. Forgotten cucumbers that turn to mush in the refrigerator. Trash talk. Sharks. Parkinson’s Disease. Spam (the kind in my inbox and the kind made by Hormel). Mullets. Time wasted on a book that never got good.  Bad cosmetic surgery. O.J. Simpson. Gossip. Lessons I just can’t seem to learn the first time around. Gristle. Spiders. Not taking my thoughts captive. Divorce and the certain destruction it always brings. Lentil soup. Lentil anything. My own selfishness. Peter Pan Syndrome. Someone who betrays confidences. Fear. Uveitis. Life lived too loud to hear that still small voice. Ingratitude. A pro-choice platform. Poverty. Gumdrops. Powdery, fungal toenails. Missing and/or unnecessary apostrophes. The smell of mouse. Fractured families/withheld forgiveness. My paperwork procrastination. Lessons I just can’t seem to learn the second and third times around. Being misunderstood. Grapefruit. Young men who won’t say no to crack (both). Duplicity. Old Plymouth K-cars. White bread moist enough to roll into a ping-pong ball. Politics as usual. Tuna. Drought. Ruffles at the hip. Trying to swim through a Pacific kelp bed. Rejection. Cherry pie. Finding no red and blue floral upholstery fabric on the earth. The feel and sound of fingers on Styrofoam. Clowns. “Love, Mary” signed on anxiously anticipated Christmas cards. Human black rain clouds. Seeing pain in a child. Soft and mealy apples. The last name Penix. Insomnia coupled with despair. Dishwashers that don’t get dishes clean. Massive brown beetles that skitter up the headboard by your pillow in the night. Pouting. Thick, white nylons. Cancer. People who refuse to be teachable. Telemarketing. Skippy peanut butter. Being licked by a cat. Not knowing. Monosyllabic conversation. Broken, empty cisterns. Orange hair pretending to be blond. Alcohol’s warm, inviting subtlety disguising its cruel, often inevitable snare. Mustard. The smell of hot blacktop. Tinnitus. Bratz dolls. Debt. Faulty predictive texting. Broken promises. Jones fractures. Right index fingers that turn east. Worthless idols. Carpet that won’t give up its diamonds. Sheetrock dust in every drawer, nook and cranny. Prayerlessness and the resulting loss of perspective and peace. Easter blizzards. Margarine. Insincerity. Bullfights. What the locusts have eaten. Bunions. Chicken-and-fat necklaces at some Chinese restaurants. Tax preparation. Lying old tapes. Sportive Lemurs’ eyes. Goodbyes. Candirus. A loved one rejecting Christ. My own mediocrity.

What’s on your yuck list?        (reprinted from the archives…)

The love of Jesus, made real in my everyday life. My husband’s love and faithfulness. My three beautiful daughters. My seven stellar grandchildren. Peanut butter and chocolate ice cream by Baskin-Robbins. Hydrangeas. Studying the Bible with friends. Miniature German Schnauzers. Slightly undercooked, very cheesy pepperoni pizza.  Scarlet maple trees in the fall. Deep conversations with transparent women. Learning new useless trivia. Old, majestic hymns. Reading in a comfortable chair. The Gunflint Trail. Cobb salads. Making lists. Hearing about other peoples’ lists. Michael’s kind eyes. C.S. Lewis books. The Sound of Music. Original Nancy Drew books with the words “roadster,” “titian” and “chums.” Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Miniatures. Hammond B-3 organ music. Scotland, especially the Highlands. The movie One True Thing. Sharon’s humor. Van Morrison music. Deep greens and blues. Toile. British television series. Peanuts eaten right from the shell. Carolyn’s voice. The Alpine Slide in Lutsen. A timely raised eyebrow. What Not To Wear.  Sara’s massages. Road trips. Calligraphy. Swimming. Hand-fed cockatiels. Chris’s daddying. Anne of Green Gables – books, movies, soundtrack. Alaskan cruises. Community Bible Study. The Hawk and the Dove by Penelope Wilcock. Crackling fires in stone fireplaces. Tim Hawkins. Homemade Spicy Molasses Cookies at Christmas. Finding God’s purposes in hard times. Hope. Shopping online and staying completely out of stores. Jeremy’s daddying. The memory of my parents’ love for me. All Creatures Great and Small. Clean sheets. My home-concocted Cappuccino Coolers. Cardinals, real and other. Children’s books. Long-lasting friendships. An uncluttered desk. A hand-written letter. Forgiveness. Birkenstocks. Driving a stick-shift. Walks in the woods or near the water. Swiss Muesli. Estee Lauder’s “Beautiful.”  Morro Bay fog. Simple jewelry. The Mitford Series. SmartWool socks. Clara’s love. The SAGs. Old hubcaps. Virginia’s Peanut Butter and Chocolate Frosting. Blue and white cups and mugs. In-n-Out cheeseburgers. Fast roller coasters. Candlelight. Bob Bennett music. New friends. Planning trips. Hot baths. Remaking songs into goofy ones. Sleeping past 7:00 a.m. A good, smooth pen. Cullen’s laugh. Mercy. Honeycrisp apples. Making words from license plate letters. Canoeing. Watching Carolyn in a play. Fridays. Medium rare steak. Home births. Innocence. Happy tears. Elijah’s trusting gaze. Labrador Retrievers. Thankfulness. The Lord of the Rings. Smooth flights and safe landings. Scrapbooks. Being home during a snowstorm. Long-enough jeans. Eleanor’s luminescence. Scrabble. Giving. Sharon’s yarn. Words. Organized drawers. Church. Divine Design with Candice Olson. Reconciling and balancing to the penny. Bavaria. The Timber Twister. Mexican food. Vivienne’s vivaciousness. Healing. Michael’s soothing touch. Finding something previously lost. Libraries. Fidelity, no matter what the cost. I Love Lucy. Spectator pumps. The Christmas carol “O Holy Night.” Eustace Scrubb’s undragoning. Margaret’s walk. The prayers of a friend. Memories of being proud of Dad’s coaching and Mom’s organ playing. Soup simmering on a cold day. The faith of a child. Sara’s floral creations. Kindness. Audrey’s grin. Picking out new postage stamps. A friend’s confidence. E-mail. Book club discussions. Playing Words With Friends with friends. Delft. Orange-ginger hand soap. Salvation.

What are a few of your favorite things?   (reprinted from the archives, with previous comments and new ones…..)

Not long ago Michael and I drove up the shore of Lake Superior to spend a quiet weekend of rest with our friends Danny and Su.

We stayed in a two-bedroom cabin that would have fallen into the lake had it been any closer to the water. (You can click to enlarge the photos if you like).

There were still some trees with a bit of gorgeous fall color left, but the October winds sent most of the leaves to the ground.

Danny and Su…friends for decades.

What is a north woods cabin without north woods decor?

The days were mostly cloudy and cold, which made a fire in the wood stove just right.

A very nice kitchen for not cooking, which is my primary agenda for going away for a rest.

“Michael could you live here?  I could too.”

Dinner at The Crooked Spoon in Grand Marais, MN. Michael ordered a “pan-roasted Minnesota Duroc pork tenderloin with a coffee and ancho chile spice rub, bourbon-molasses glaze, a butter and brown sugar baked sweet potato and red cabbage slaw.”

Here is a good man:

“I will refresh the weary, and satisfy the faint.”

Jeremiah 31:25

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“Jesus Christ as only an example will crush you.  You’ll never be able to live up to it.  But Jesus Christ as the Lamb will save you.”

Tim Keller

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“How beautifully leaves grow old.  How full of light and color are their last days.” 

~John Burroughs

I took these photos about ten days ago in our neighborhood.  Now these trees are completely bare.

I hope that as I grow old, my last days will be full of His light and color too. Jesus is such a master painter! I hope He will paint my life with kindness and patience and faithfulness and mercy….