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Thursday, September 22, 2011

Regarding Babies...and Dust...and Such....

I shared this with a friend tonight....and it brought back such wonderful memories.  I've got lots of firsthand knowledge of babies, but of course, no two babies are the same, and no knowledge of any one baby gives one the right to assume they know about babies.  Babies are something else.  They change your entire world.  Everything you think is important is either still important and elusive, or else it's not so important any more.  At any rate, there is no denying that babies, human or otherwise, change our lives forever.  Someone shared this poem with me when I had three babies in diapers.  I took it to heart, and I believe it's as true today as the day it was written, and the day that author was born, and her mother was born, and her mother was born, and...well, you get the idea...To my  mind, it just proves the greatness of God....

Song For a Fith Child, by Ruth Hamilton. 1958



Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth

empty the dustpan, poison the moth,

hang out the washing and butter the bread,

sew on a button and make up a bed.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?

She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.



Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue

(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

Dishes are waiting and bills are past due

(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).

The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew

and out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo

but I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo.

Look! Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue?

(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).



The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,

for children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.

I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Fall - New Beginnings

I love the fall.  I love everything about the fall.  I love that there is change in the air.  I don't mind that the days are getting shorter, but even still, they're not that short.  I love that feeling of "vacation's over, back to work" even though Big Steve and I didn't enjoy much vacation goodness this summer.  When I was a little girl, I used to LOVE the smell of that new box of crayons for school.  I loved the new school year, the clean slate, the potential A+'s, the new teacher I hadn't aggravated yet.  It was all so good.

There's a precious little girl in my life with all the same optimism.  Even though I assured her the garden was spent, she wanted to explore.  I tried to explain how the weather made all the veggies come in extra early this year and there wasn't the same Labor Day bounty we have come to expect.  Nothing would dissuade her.

So....as one should expect, eternal optimism paid off.  I need to take a page out of little Lekya's book.  Expect good things, expect blessings, and that's exactly what will happen.  As evidence:


Now, I assure you.  We did not plant pumpkins this year.  It's a gift from God.  We didn't sow, but we reaped.  And what a lovely pumpkin it is!!!  It came out of the compost pile, just the way that God uses the compost of our lives to bless us and those around us.  What a wonderful Father!



Thursday, September 1, 2011

Zippy Chicken

OK - I know that's a lame title, but that's just what it was.  Tasty, zippy chicken.  If I did it again (and I will) it would be just a little bit zippier (a little more red pepper flakes).  But it was so good, and the leftovers are my lunch for tomorrow.  Yummy!!!!  And cheap eats.  I'm guessing dinner for two with leftovers for lunch -- under $5.  Good stuff!

Big Steve and I started low-carbing a week or two ago.  We've both lost several pounds already.  But we had reached a crisis stage.  You see, we had a wonderful houseguest for the summer who ate neither beef nor pork.  No problem, we adore chicken and meatless meals.  So we had chicken this and chicken that during the summer.  I enjoyed it, but Big Steve is a red meat kind of guy.  So he got a bit overdosed on chicken and a bit underdosed on red meat.  So for the past two weeks it has been red meat this and red meat that.  Honestly, I was just about to puke red meat two days ago.

So..............yesterday we had awesome shrimp and the last of the green beans  from the garden.  But for tonight, I took some so-so looking drumsticks from the freezer and wondered what to do with them.  I wanted something with a soy sauce base. 

Enter zippy chicken!  (And mashed faux-potatoes...low carb yumminess!!!)