Sunday, December 25, 2011

goodbye christmas

it got cold enough to have a fire, so daddy built one
and mama  made the most amazing cheese ball ever. 
oh. and turkey. 
chris just said in reference to pearls strung on twine...
'i'm not sure if that's scriptural, anne...might be casting your pearls before twine....'
{..}oh...
our family. 








dawn's bone necklace for anne.  she says it's sanitary and for anyone who doesn't think so, to ask her about the cleaning process and she'd be glad to tell them all about it. 
anne liked it of course.  the only condition was that she had to wear it to school one day.



my brothers do have a way of expressing their approval or disapproval.
when i asked abe what he thought about my sweater he said,
'you know, i don't why people like that color.
looks like someone threw up lasagna on a yellow shirt.  why don't they just keep it one color
or the other - either yellow or orange???'

goodbye christmas until next year. 
you've been a good'n 
for sure.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

shoe box and pixel



       found these pics from several years ago.
made me happy.

   





      claire, van gogh, the weepies and watermelon.

Monday, December 12, 2011

monday is for gingerbread men

today we made gingerbread cookies and sugar and refrigerator cookies.  i'd rather eat the dough.  who said to bake in the first place???  we put more strands of lights on our tree this year than we ever have and it looks so pretty at night.  we turn off all the other house lights just for fun, and look at the fire and lights.  lizer-beth's snowflake was missing from the tree and it was the first time.  liz, you'll have to make another. next year on this day it will be 12.12.12.  what will YOU be doing?  i was wondering that last year on 11.11.10 - 'what would i be doing 11.11.11???'  and do you know what that was?  i was at a wedding. and i forgot to look at the clock for 11.11 on 11.11.11.  {!}  a shame, i know.  i finished finals in grammar class with dawn today.  here, look. 'Around the rocks, the rugged rascal ran'. says i  passed, but wouldn't have if i hadn't pulled an all-nighter studying.  goodnight.  i'll leave you with a word from dawn:
   'Hey Gabe, you know in those books where a chicken is baking a cake and she says "Now for the eggs!" Aggh...Doesn't it disturb you at all? make you feel uncomfortable?  It's those details the author overlooks that can ruin a story.'




















oh and check out anne's blog.  she finally made one
and i am very happy she did.  
you will be too.



Sunday, December 11, 2011

heaven

      It's hard to think about eternity in some ways. It's just so BIG and whenever I concentrate hard and try to imagine what it will be like and get my mind around it, I never can.  That's no surprise, I guess, because we won't ever in this life wrap our minds around eternity.  Shoot, I don't even know if we'll be wrapping our minds around eternity in heaven. But sometimes heaven seems more real to me than others and the fact that one day when I die I'll go there - amazes me.  It hits me like someone broke the news to me for the first time. You know those things that have been hard to do - almost impossible at first - and very scary?  For me it was the first time Mama taught me to swim.  In the Olympic size pool at Oxford where scuba divers would blow bubbles 15 feet down and everything seemed  bigger than it does now {even now that place is huge} I was terrified.  I was so afraid that her arms wouldn't catch me if I went under and that I'd get water in my nose and that my toes wouldn't touch bottom.  But more than that, I remember feeling afraid of what I didn't know. I had never done it - what could happen?  What would hurt?  Would she help me?  Yes.  Then there was the tooth pulling.  Aghh...The boys were determined that the string to tooth, to door would work.  But it didn't because I always chickened out and bent over when the door would slam shut.  Mama would get a hot washcloth and I'd hold it in my mouth.  One night I went to where she was sitting on our old blue couch {i used to sit on that couch and cry whenever the moody steve green tape played}.  She said she would pull it for me but no no - I wouldn't hear of that.  So I kept whining and worrying over it until she said she would just 'look at it' and when she looked at it, a quick twist and jerk and burning and blood and babam! It was out.   I guess  I think about dying that way, almost.  It's that terrifying moment, only it will be a beautiful moment for us.  One that requires trust - more and more trust.
 I remember when Uncle Doug was sick, I was sitting on his hospital bed holding his hand and could  barely see him from wet eyes, but he was so calm.  He said 'Baby, I'm not afraid.  I'm ready to go if he wants me now.   I think of earlier this year when one of our friends was dying - A lady who would leave 11 kids behind and one of the most adoring husbands. She lay there holding onto life - by what???  sheer will, maybe? it was so weak - her breathing.  and labored.  the man would stroke her face and say 'It's o.k. beautiful, you can go...' It was so plain to me, there in that dark room, that she was standing on the edge of the river that every christian stands on before he crosses it.  The river must have seemed so big and deep and cold.   But a little exciting too, I think.  At that place the Christian is almost home.  He's finishing his course, crossing the finish line and entering something that is unfathomable to us.  Eternity.  What will he find on the other side of that dark, rushing water?  They say it's beautiful and a place where all sorrow is wiped away.  But will we lose who we are?   Will we remember once we cross it?  What will the shore of that place feel like?  Will the air smell differently and will my feet touch the bottom or will something try to grab me while I try to cross?  Will He say hello Himself and will I know who's who? Will everyone turn around and look at me like they do at church when I  walk in late?  Does everyone REaLLY have a harp?  and will I wear a tunic?  will there be grass or will it just be clouds?  Can I talk to everyone I've told myself  I would, or will people be singing throughout all eternity like they do at a sacred harp convention before lunch - nonstop?  Will there be trees?  Can I sit under one and think?  Will I need to think there?  What about waterfalls? Will there be waterfalls and can I look behind all of them?   It only makes sense to me that if earth, with all its beautiful places was just the work of his hands, and was made only for mortals, then a place that Jesus said He was preparing for and has spent all this time preparing for us - that it will be so far beyond what I call beautiful and what has been known to us as beautiful, that earth will seem shabby after seeing heaven.  And time?  Unmeasured time...Non - existent, time -  that will be the dream.  Heaven.  Amazing that it is ours.

Friday, December 9, 2011

T-give post.

Ok.  Here we are,  Thanksgiving post.  I haven't forgotten you.  
 Thanksgiving was twice.  Well, really three times, because Chris fixed a leftover Thanksgiving meal for me one day when I was at work.  We had dill pickles by a man named 'Dill Pickle' and we had greens that Peg Leg cooked herself - tasty, but Chris wasn't used to sugar being in his greens and there was dressing and cranberry etc. Anyhow, that was one Thanksgiving meal.  Chris made a super-yummy tea that day too.  So we listened to  'Sense and Sensibility' soundtrack and the sun kept getting in my eyes because it was a blue sky and gold and I was sitting by the window.  We had sprouts, too.  What an awful date food that would be.  We were laughing about how awkward it would be to make a girl sprouts and pressure her to eat them.  You feel absolutely like a grazing cow.  
   The two other Thanksgivings were both big and loud and fun and I wished wished wished it wouldn't go by so fast.   Mamaw and Papaw gave us Merry back after two weeks of quilting and sewing.  Papaw told us about Uncle Leonard, and Mamaw Mink and how he and Mamaw met. They told us too, about daddy when he was little.  They had pictures of him growing up and even though we've seen them before, we still get giddy when we see his old pictures.  Especially when he was in the Air Force.  Talk about handsome.  Oh boy.  No wonder he's good looking.  Every day in Arkansas we walked. Walked long roads beside cow fields and chicken houses and Brother Marvin's diesel truck. And every morning Mamaw would make a huge breakfast and everything from scratch except the hog.  We had homemade jellies and jams and biscuits.  I love their coffee too.  Papaw makes it just right.  We really didn't need a Thanksgiving meal after two mornings of that kind of cooking, but of course, we did. And we got to see family we hadn't seen in a year or longer and cousins that were new additions.  And then there was Memphis.  And it was awesome. The End










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