Cooking tip for the day:  I wouldn't recommend grating chocolate over a styrofoam plate. 

It seemed OK at first, but as soon as I reached for the plate, the grated chocolate took wings and flew all over the counter and the stovetop.  (and the floor, and the toaster, and the dog who was waiting for me to drop something. . .)

Static electricity is not your friend when grating chocolate.

I'm just saying. . .

Finished size 81/2 x 11

also available as a bookmark

Finished size 8 1/2 x 11

Close up of lettering

Finished size 8 1/2 x 11

Also available as a bookmark

More to come. . .

Last night we watched Frasier for the first time since the doorbell incident.  (We only watch our favorites and last night's was one of the best--the Crane Boys Mysteries; a classic)  Only a few minutes into the episode, Ivy hopped down and made a dive for the desk.  There wasn't even a doorbell this time; we think she must have recognized the voices.  No amount of cajoling could get her to come back out into the living room.

I don't know if tonight's episode is a good one or not, but I'm just curious enough to tune in just to see what she does.

Pictures at 11:00.

Monday wash day

Everybody happy?  Well, I should say!

That's a song we used to sing at church camp.  Maybe you sang it, too.

Ivy is not happy this morning.  Nobody reminded her that it was Monday before she settled into our cozy, unmade bed.  She absolutely refused to move when I started stripping the sheets from the bed. 

I reminded her that if she didn't get off, I'd roll her up in the sheets so she could visit Mr. Kenmore. 

She was not impressed.

I am finally buckling down and setting out to learn how to make Celtic knots the 'right' way.  It's something I've wanted needed to learn to do for some time, but it's tedious and complicated and hard not to get all tangled up.

It is proving even harder than I thought it would be.  So far, I've made two very small pieces--one made up of four triangle knots and one made up of four pretzel knots.  It has taken me all afternoon to accomplish this and my work is only so-so at best. (I worked in pencil, so some of the lines didn't show up too great when I scanned, but they're all there--I promise.  What I DON'T promise is that they're all in the right place!)

Are there any other "knotters" out there? 

Last night, after a couple of days of sitting, disassembled, on a sunny window sill, we put my phone on the charger.

The battery took a full charge but, as you can see, there is still condensation and no information shown on the front.

 

 When we powered it up, all my information is there--pictures, contacts, wallpaper.  (That's a picture of Ivy curled up on our bed)

 But it never connects to service.  Searching, searching, searching.  Searching for service.

So, it's not as bad as it could be.  I haven't lost all my information and I do have a credit for new phones at the Verizon store.

*Like Karen always says, "If you can't see the bright side of life, polish the dull side." 

I just wouldn't recommend throwing the dull side in the washer.

A few years ago, Tom got me a cell phone.  I am not much of a phone talker to begin with, so I haven't used it much.  Usually, it sits on top of Tom's dresser and he recharges it for me when he notices.

But now that Beth is home alone with the baby and John is back to work, I stuck it in my pocket when I went to the basement to exercise yesterday morning just in case she needed something.  I am often out in the yard with the dogs or plugged in to my Ipod, so keeping it nearby seemed like a good thing.  This was the first day I've ever kept it in my pocket.

Yesterday was a busy day.  I did all my laundry in the morning and then ran over and helped Beth with a few things in the afternoon.  After I took my shower last night, I tossed the towels and my clothes down the laundry shoot.  I sighed, thinking to myself, "so much for having all the laundry done and put away." 

You know what's coming.  I wanted to be triumphant over that laundry!  So, I went down and threw the pile into the washer before I went to bed.  With my phone in the pocket.

Sigh. . .

 A quick Google search gives me hope that it may still work once it dries out. 

For the past 27 weeks, I've been taking my little Sunday School class verse by verse through the book of Acts.  It's been an amazing journey through the history of the early church and through the life and ministry of the Apostle Paul.  Each week since his conversion in Chapter 9, his personality and style have been fleshed out through the scriptures.  I've always loved Paul, but I admit that I could  identify more closely with Peter.  I've always sort of seen Paul as the "go to" guy for doctrine.   In my imagination of what they would have been like if you'd have been there and could have known them, Peter seemed the guy to talk to, while Paul seemed the guy to listen to.  (I know that may seem silly but I don't think you can diligently study the Word without developing a relationship of sorts with its authors as well as its Author.)

 But I've changed my impression of Paul through this study.  Now, when I read his epistles, I can almost see the man behind the letters--his passion for the Gospel, his love for the churches, his willingness to both discipline and restore.  More importantly, the more I see of Paul, the more I see of the Trinity--God's sovereign plan, Christ's Person and Work, and the Spirit's guidance and direction.

Ephesians 1 has always been one of my favorite "go to" passages in all of scripture.  I've read it more times than I can count or will ever know, for it is chock full of the doctrines of grace.  But when I read it again this morning, I didn't just thrill to the great theological sweep of the chapter, I saw Paul, the man, writing to his beloved friends in Ephesus, speaking to them of the things he desired above all other things that they remember. I can imagine how those words echoed in the minds of the Ephesian elders.

He had laid the foundation of doctrine while he was laying the foundation of friendship--with the Ephesians and the Galatians and the Caesareans and with every one he taught, even me.

Paul's a great guy to get to know.  

It's going to be slim pickin's around here for a week or so.  There are lots of grandma things to do and the rest of life doesn't just stop because you're doing something else (you all knew that already, right?) so blogging gets pushed way down to "if I've got a spare minute."

Thank you all so much for all your kind words and congratulations!  It means a lot to me.  I'll show your comments to John and Beth--I know it will tickle them, too.

 Until the next spare minute. . .

 

If it were possible for a dog to blush, Ivy would have been blushing in this picture.  She is not sleeping, but she refused to make eye contact.

You see, she gets embarrassed.  Ivy knows a faux pas better than any of my grown boys.

Last night, we were watching a re-run of Frasier and it happened again.

Let me explain.  Eve was raised in a house with a door bell, so when she hears a door bell, she gets up and goes to the door, barking and wagging her tail.  Ivy, on the other hand, was raised in a house with a knocker and so she has no idea what it really means when someone rings the door bell.  She just thinks it's time to get up and join Eve in random barking, because Eve still barks at door bells--every time Roz or Niles rings Frasier's door bell.  Which happens in almost every episode. 

So now Ivy barks when she hears a door bell and thinks it's great fun.  

Except now Eve is nearly deaf and when she is asleep, as we learned last night, she no longer hears Frasier's door bell. 

Ivy hopped off my lap and went into her random act of barking, but Eve did not join in.  Ivy looked from face to face and then, ears drooping, tail tucked and clearly embarrassed, she ran into the office and hid under the desk.  No amount of coaxing and telling her it was "alright" would convince her to come back to the couch.  

Barking for no apparent reason is fine if someone else is barking with you, but barking alone and then being CONFUSED ABOUT WHAT WAS GOING ON is, apparently,  just too embarrassing for her.  Every once in a while, she'd peek around the door, but as soon as we would call her, she'd go back under the desk.

Poor confused dog.  We finally had to put her in her crate to help her get over it.   Sometimes that's the most merciful thing to do.

And after. . .

This morning I found Neverland. 

Oh, certainly I had known of its existence since I was a small child.  I have fond memories of Disney's Peter Pan and even fonder memories of taking the two oldest boys to see it in the theatre when they were small. (tug)

Several years ago, I saw a Peter Pan 'remake' that was delightful.  I remember at the time saying that I'd like to see it again someday, but then I promptly forgot it. (tug, tug)

Last night our family watched Finding Neverland, and again ' Peter broke through' and I was tugged back into the world of Neverland.

This time I did not promptly forget.  I awoke this morning still thinking of Neverland and so I did what I always do when I want to learn more:  I googled J. M. Barrie (because the grown up me wanted to learn about him and see how much of the movie was true.)

Enthralled with the man, I began to explore the links at the Wikipedia article and found a link to the e-book, chapter by chapter.  (TUG)

And so, sitting here in front of the computer monitor, sipping coffee in the early morning quiet of the house, I set off on my discovery of Neverland. 

Would you like to travel with me?  I'm not sure if that would really work; I think you have to travel there on your own.  But travel you must, especially if you have children, especially if you have boys, especially if you love to read aloud.  Come to think of it, maybe you don't have to travel there alone.  You could take a child along with you.

I'll be reading one chapter a day (there are 17) and sharing the chapter link and one quote per day.  That'll be 34 tugs in all.

I predict you will Find Neverland, too! 

Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.

Chapter One 

Isn't this gorgeous?  My neighbor, Sharon, is an interior designer.  She's been collecting fabrics for years and a few weeks ago, she shared yards and yards of designer fabric with me.  I fell in love with this black and pink tapestry and knew it was what I wanted for my rocking chair. . .

This fabric dates back to September '97 so there is NO WAY I am going to find more of it.  Notice, too, how much I have.  1 yard.  Definitely not enough. 

My solution?  I'll use the tapestry only in the front of the chair. 

The back panel will be upholstered in black chenille.  I'll probably have to extend the tapestry by sewing on strips of the chenille so I have enough to stretch and pull.  Could be tricky.  Cross your fingers.

I bought this chair for a song over 20 years ago.  Twice I've reupholstered it.  Twice it has had the bottom "jumped out" by one of my sons' friends.  

It's been up in the attic for three or four years, but with our grandson arriving soon, it's time for Grandma to get busy!

The day here is foggy and misty and dark and gloomy and I can't get a good picture of it, but I'm not waiting for the sun to come out before I start tearing it apart.

I'll be taking photos as I go along.  

So, yesterday morning we had a violent spring storm.   You know the kind; high winds, black sky, horizonal trees--amazingly rapid onset, wild and brief.  Must've been around 10:30. 

We lost and regained electricity multiple times in a very short period of time.  As soon as I realized the storm was here, I tried valiently to shut the computers down before it hit.  It was during shut down that the on again, off again power surges happened, so I am happy to even have a computer that works this morning.  (After various disc checks and reboots and alarmingly scary Microsoft error messages, everything SEEMS to be working except my active desktop.  I still can't get past the Active Desktop Recovery page.)

Back to my story.  So we lost electricity, but we didn't think too much about it.  That happens.  Out came the sun and dried up all the rain.  It got hot and humid.  Tom came home about 3:00 because they'd lost power at work, too.  We fooled around all afternoon without electricity.  

It was strange.  So many things I wanted needed to do.  Just regular Friday stuff like laundry and vacuuming.  I was going to shampoo the rug on the front porch.  Couldn't use my light board.  Couldn't download the birdy videos I took before the storm.  Couldn't work on the Sunday bulletin or type up my Sunday School lesson.

So I read.   And listened to Deathly Hallows on my iPod.  And cleaned the bathroom.  And wasted time.  And called ComEd for updates about when the power would be restored.

By 5:00, we decided we better go to the store and pick up something to throw on the grill for supper.  By 6:30 we decided we better do something about the food in the refrigerators and freezers, so out came the chest coolers and ice.  We packed all the frozen stuff into the big chest freezer and crossed our fingers.

We played Nertz by the light of the oil lamps.  We all sat around together and talked about the places we've lived and all the other times we've been without electricity.  We reminised and told stories and called ComEd.   Floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, Nor'Easters, blizzards.  They were all discussed.

Around 8:00, the ComEd recording estimated that power would be restored to our town by May 31st, 5 pm.  A more specific recording based on our street address told us we could have power by 11:50 pm.

And so we started the Father Time game.  This is a family estimating game, usually played in the car on the way home from a long drive.  Sometimes we estimate how long until the pizza arrives or how long Jake will take in the shower.  Tom always wins, usually within a few minutes of his estimate.

I, being the most upbeat and optomistic, said the power would be on by 9:07.  Tom said 10:42.  Sam claimed all the minutes in the 10:40ish range.  Jake, our pessimist, said 11:20.

By 10:30 we had talked ourselves out.   There was nothing else to do except blow out the lanterns and candles and go to bed, which we did.

The power came back at precisely 11:20.  Jake now holds the title of Father Time. 

It's 40 degrees outside and 56 degrees inside this morning.

I am NOT turning on the furnace. 

Less than three weeks to go!

I haven't been this excited since our own youngest, Sam, was born!  "I can't wait" is a phrase that has been firmly ensconced in my conversations for many months now.  I'm sure my friends are tired of hearing it!

I can't wait until my "I can't wait" goes from "I can't wait until our grandson is born" to "I can't wait to share the good news and some pictures of our new little grandson!"  Heartstrings are firmly attached already.  Soon he will be tugging them.

Random musings on a sunny, Sunday morning: 

I haven't seen my trifocals for over a week now.  I wasn't too worried when they were first missing because I misplace them all the time.  I was pretty sure they were in the house somewhere and figured they'd turn up in the linen closet or under a chair or some other strange place but I'm beginning to think I've lost them.  I'm good at losing things.  If I lose my bifocals, I am sunk.

Mama Bird is busily feeding her babes.  Papa Bird is an ever present presence in the yard now.  One of them swooped me when I was weeding under the nesting tree yesterday.  I'm thinking it must have been Papa because Mama isn't particularly bothered by me.  Here she is this morning, sitting on her fuzzy gray chicks.  (I peeked in the nest while she was out pulling worms but by the time I came back with my camera, she was back on the nest) As you can tell by the movement of the camera, Papa wasn't nearly as tolerant of my intrusion into the privacy of his family. 

I (well, Tom) made a new bed for my shasta daisies yesterday.  They weren't thriving beside the sidewalk where they've been for the past two summers.  I think they don't like all the snow piled atop them during the winter.  Hopefully, they'll like the new digs better.

See these?  They're not weeds!  They are tiny lavendar plants.  I'm going to leave them alone for a while and then transplant them when they get a little bigger.

The spiderwort is just starting to bloom this morning. 

The girls like to sleep on the porch in the mornings.  It's like a green house with the sun streaming in the windows.

I forgot about this picture I took of the cloud formations on Friday evening.  Don't they look like cotton candy? 

We got a new super duper printer for my business yesterday so this afternoon we'll be re-arranging the whole office to accomodate this new piece of equipment.  It always makes me nervous to mess around with the computer cables and cords.  If you don't hear from me, you'll know why. . . 

I need to go get ready for church now!  Have a wonderful Lord's Day!