Rebel

So, I realize this is a ridiculous thing to post about but, I am feeling like a rebel. I am one of the only people in the world without Facebook. I had an account before it really got big and, as I only knew 1 person on it, I thought it was a complete waste of time. Now I would know a lot of people but I don't want to do it. I have flirted with the idea but find that I feel very rebellious about it. I DON'T want it!!! I realize such a statement could get me ostracized from all internetdom but, so be it. I find myself making all sorts of excuses for not wanting FB, some of them are good, valid reasons but really, I am just a rebel. I like blogs and resent that there is so much less blog activity when people are on FB. Silly, huh? 

 So there you have it..... I am a rebel! 

(Of course, now that I have posted this, my rebellion will probably dwindle and one of these days I will have to make an embarrassing confession. :oP  )

Spring?

 The weather has been amazing the last week and my kids have all enjoyed the freedom of Papa & Grandma's big yard.  They have played outside for hours and come in tired, dirty, and very happy. The freedom to explore is so good for kids and is one of the things that I will miss the most when (and if? JK Mom!!!) we move back to our place. I desperately long for a place to live where my kids can play outside.  But this post is not about that....... this post is about the weather and what it has resulted in. :o) The last 2 days my girls have brought me flowers!!! FLOWERS IN FEBRUARY?!?!?!?  They have brought me daffodils, periwinkle,salmonberry flowers, crocus, rhododendron (or azalea? not sure), and an extremely fragrant little group of flowers that I have never seen before. They grow on a small bush (according to the flower pickers), they blossoms look and smell like jasmine but the flowers are a dark pinkish-purple on the outside of the petals and a very pale shade of the same on the inside. The blossoms grow in round cluster on the end of stems, no leaves came with the flowers........  Does jasmine come in colors?  My Grandma often had jasmine plants when I was growing up but the flowers were larger, always white, and the plant was more viney than shrubby.  The stems of "my" flowers were thicker and stiff like a shrub and not viney at all.  Anyhow, I was/am thrilled with their gifts and can't believe that we are already getting flowers!!! I guess it has been a mild winter over all.......  The problem is that all of this sunshine and flowers makes me start dreaming of a garden and I am not sure where to put one! :o)  I really want raised beds but that is just going to have to wait until we have a better and more permanent housing situation.

Of Pink and Blue........

Way back in my premarriag/early marriage days I was a receptionist at a veterinary hosp. I LOVED my job and the people I worked with. One of the vets was the mother of 2 adorable kids and she would let me babysit them, hang out at her house, stay nights when the weather was too bad for commuting, etc.... We were friends and I ADORED here kids. Anyhow, she was telling me one time that (now this is the jist of the conversation. 9+ years have taken their toll and my memory and there is no way I could tell it verbatim!) BEFORE she had kids she had bought into the theory that boys and girls are only different because of how we raise them.... meaning boy are more masculine and like "boy toys" because that is how we parent them and girls like "girly things" because that is what we raise them to like. I think because she was rather tomboyish herself it made understanding girly girls easier. Anyhow, THEN she had kids! LOL!!!!  Her little was one of the girliest little girls! Dresses every day, froofy, frillies, tea parties and baby dolls. Her boy on the other hand couldn't have been more BOY.  Tractors and equipment, farm work and cars. :o)  You know I laughed to myself rather smugly because, even without kids of my own, I knew that God created boys and girls very differently. There are different variations within each gender and manifests itself differently in each child but girls are girls and boys are boys.  Being thus convinced, I didn't think I had any surprises in store when I had girls and then a boy. I mean seriously, I KNOW they are different but somehow knowing and experiencing on a daily basis are very different.  There are days I shake my head in AMAZEMENT at the difference. I mean WOW!!! My girls are VERY much into tea parties, playing house, comforting and caring for the sick stuffed animals (who have always fallen prey to some supremely tragic fate), or some other such thing. Even their outside play is tinged with it. Forts become personalized and made homey, they name them. For instance then have a large puddle/overflowing ditch/? named "Charlotte" and a tree named "Luke".  They make garden areas in these forts and just, in general, practice for their roles as "growned up" women, and I LOVE it.  Now my BOY on the other hand, although he doesn't mind playing such things with the girls on occasion , wants to be "WORKN".  He may build boats out of the couches (WHY CAN'T THEY BE BOATS WITH THE CUSHIONS ON?!?!?!), pound on the closest available surface with his toy hammer,  make everything into a tool, "huntin' elk and eatin' elk" with his pretend guns (usually his hands or a stick, dig in the mud, or use a vacuum cleaner end to "clean" every available surface (particularly the dangerous ones that you have to stand on the back of the couches to reach).  He doesn't want to just play, he wants to work, and the delight of his life is to have a job to do (other than picking up toys of course! lol) esp. if that job is with Daddy. There is nothing in the world like "helping" him.
 Anyhow, all that to say that, I love to watch the difference between boys and girls! And, I have learned, that I knew all about marriage and child rearing BEFORE I was either wife or mother and now find that I know nothing! LOL!!!!  All my theories and ideas were foolishness. Those wonderful absolute statements (MY kids will NEVER....., My spouse and I will ALWAYS........., etc....) have primarily proven false and my pride has received several nearly fatal (though not fatal enough!!!) blows in those areas. :o)

I want a "Susan Baker" :o)

 Now, any of you 'Anne of Green Gables' buffs know what I am talking about but, for those of you who maybe haven't read all 8 books this week :o), I will explain.  Susan Baker is the house help at Anne's House of Dreams and then at Ingleside.  I love her. She is a fun, chatty, "old maid" who "knows her place" lol, is hard working, makes pies almost every day, etc.... Now, I realize there is a lot of people who think that because we have modern appliances we no longer need house help, but I disagree. My appliances REFUSE to have a conversation with me, they don't do the work themselves if I am sick, they can't wipe a runny nose if I am up to my armpits in something or other, in short they are just appliances.
ETA:  I don't think I was as clear as I wanted when I wrote this..... A BIG part of what I loved in Susan Baker was the mutual benefit. It wasn't just a job. She became 1 of the family. She couldn't have imagined life without them. They needed her, she was useful, she was loved, she was family. Without that job she most likely would have been stuck living with siblings, feeling like a burden instead of a needed part of the family.  For the Blythes the help was invaluable, but so was the love, the care, the devotion of this woman. The couldn't have imagined living without her either. She wasn't just some person who had been hired and came once in awhile to help out. She lived with them and loved them. The beauty in the situation is the mutual beneficiation of both parties.
I also am developing a LOVE for the naming of homes..... I just love that many homes used to have names and would love for my someday home to have a name.  :o)

 On a slightly different subject, I noticed how much I have changed this week. When I first read the 'Anne' series (tweens/early teens?)  I loved them for the fun story and for the romance, when I read them in my late teens it was for those reasons and for the characters and just plain wonderful writing, such descriptions!  When I read them in my early twenties I still loved them but didn't like them as well, there was something that made me slightly unsettled. Too much "magic" for my very matter-of -fact personage? I wasn't sure what it was....... This time I was able to put my finger on exactly what it was that left me feeling rather disappointed. It was the fact that there was so much religion.  They quoted Bible verses, they talked about going to heaven, etc... but it always stopped short of the mark. They never seem to be absolutely sure of how or why they were going to get there.  I was rather saddened by this frequent falling short of the truth. I realize its a novel but still......  I have noticed this in other books too. They last week I watched 'Fiddler On The Roof'.  I have always loved that movie for the characters, the drama, and the romance, but this time I watched ti with sorrow. It hit home like never before how very lost these people were. Very religious and sincere in their traditions but sincerely wrong.  I about cried over the line " Rabbi, we have waited so long for the Messiah, wouldn't now be a good time for him to come?"  Oh, for people to realize that He HAS come. Our Messiah had come and He is offering the healing you so desperately need! 

  Anyhow, I just thought it interesting that in so many areas lately I am seeing much more clearly peoples need for a Messiah, their longings, and all that He has to offer. I am more sensitive to the evidences of the emptiness and deceptiveness of religion. 

 Anyhow, enough of my ramblings.......  Hope you all have a lovely week! :o)

Foreword

I will probably bore you to death with book talk but I have to share this little incident with you! :o) In perusing my Mom's library I found a copy of Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. As it had been several years since I read it I thought I would re-read it...... Now this book is a 1995 printing and the paperback cover makes it look like a ridiculous schoolgirl romance not a literary classic. If I had not known what was inside that paperback cover I would not have picked it up to read!  Anyhow, for some unknown reason I decided to read the Foreword. I have yet to learn why Forewords are in books but they often are and this one had a doozy!  It is written by Elizabeth Engstrom whom, from a quick search on wikipedia, I learned is an author and a teacher at many writing seminars. The impression I got was that she is a rather well known celebrated author. Anyhow, the Foreward was pretty normal until I got about 1/2 way through and then she said this: 
    "Elinor, the eldest sister, is engaged to be married to conservative Edward Farrars, a man of impeccable breeding and reputation.  Marianne, the younger sister, is smitten with Holloway, a man of dubious lineage and questionable activities, but with a theatrical flair that steals her heart." 

   I about fell off my chair! What had they done to Jane Austens classic?!?!?! So, I read the book and found that it was unaltered. Evidently Ms. Ensgstrom didn't actually read the book, she just wrote a general Foreword based on all the other stuff that is our there. I mean, Elinor was not engaged to Edward for most of the book and, worse yet, Marianne is not "smitten" with a man named Holloway!!! His name was Whilloughby for pitys sake!!!!  You would think that an editor or SOMEBODY would have caught that! Anyhow, so the lesson to be learned from this is to read the book before you sign your name to a Foreword for it!  ;o) 

Back?

Wow,  I can't believe its been a month since I updated!  I am not sure exactly why it is so difficult to get to the computer these days, but it is..... In some ways there seems to be so much happening that my head is spinning and yet, at the same time, it seems that there is really nothing to say. All of the long "catch up" posts that I have written are lost in the recesses of my tired mind, and so I am rather at a loss...... How in the world do you write a month worth of posts? So, rather than a "catch up" post I am just going to let you know that I am alive and, if Mom will let me borrow her laptop long termish ;o), then I will try to update more often. So, if any of you still read this, I am back........... I think. :o)

Sharing

Stumbled across this great article and had to share!  I just love her blog. It always has so many encouraging posts..... I have wanted to link and quote her many times but I find that getting time at the comp is increasingly difficult and I am left with nothing to do but write posts in my head. Wonderful, intriguing, insightful, genius posts that I know you all are just dying to read (sorry, sarcasm was a bit much there, wasn't it?).

 Speaking of unwritten posts...... I am still getting in more reading than normal and have to laugh at myself. If I were to write a post every day I am sure that you could tell which author I am currently immersed in..... One day you would read and laugh to yourself  'Oh, she is in the midst of a Bronte' book' or 'Definitely reading Kate Douglas Wiggins' or perhaps you would nod your pretty little head and say 'She is definitely reading Prentiss today' and then filled with horror you would say something like 'Good gracious! Please tell me she isn't reading Jeanette Oake!!!!' (that is for you E! :o) I find that, when I read, my thoughts change patterns to match that of the book which I am reading. If the author(ess) is generous in it's use of good language and a higher level of vocabulary then I find myself thinking in a like manner, if the writer is large in religious sentiment I find my thoughts mulling over the ideas presented and spending more time thinking about my stand on the arguments presented, etc...... Now, maybe this is more noticeable to me because I spend so much of my time with small children, I sometimes wonder if I have been reduced to thinking like a 6 yo! :o) It is also why I choose to be very careful with what I read. Much of the current popular literature would not lend itself to improving my mind but would instead lend itself to the hindrance of the growth in my faith that I desire. If my thoughts are filled with romantic trash that does nothing but excite the flesh and lend itself to discontentment with my spouse and/or my surroundings, what have I gained? If my thoughts are focused on that which are diametrically opposed (though oft times cloaked as the newest and greatest in "christian" literature) to the Christian walk, will my Christian faith grow as it aught?  Or will I, though the battle is hard enough without sabotage, make myself stumble and scatter so many stones in my path that I refuse to walk the path and instead stay as an infant in my faith?

 Anyhow, enough of my ramblings. My time on the comp is up.....  Hope you enjoy the link :o)