Perspective

"Children will not trouble you long. They grow up- nothing on earth grows so fast as children. It was but yesterday and that lad was playing with tops, a bouyant boy. He is a man and gone now. There is no more childhood for him or for us. Life has claimed him. When a beginning is made, it is like a raveling stocking: stitch by stitch gives way til all are gone.

The house has not a child in it-there is no more noise in the hall- boys rushing in pell mell; it is very orderly now. There are no more skates or sleds, bats, balls or strings left scattered about. Things are neat enough now. There is no delay for sleepy folks; there is no longer any task, before you lie down, of looking after anybody and tucking up the bed clothes.

There are no disputes to settle, nobody to get off to school, no complaint, no opportunities for impossible things, no rip to mend, no finger to tie up, no faces to wash or collars to be arranged.

There never was such peace in the house! It would sound like music to have some feet to clatter down the front stairs! Oh, for some children's noise! What used to ail us that we were hushing their loud laugh, checking their noisy frolic, and reproving their slamming and banging of the doors? We wish our neighbors would only lend us an urchin or two to make a little noise in the premises.

A home without children. It can be like a lantern and no candle, a garden and no flowers, a vine and no grapes, a brook and no gurgling and gushing in its channel. We want to be tired, to be vexed, to be run over, to hear children at work with all of its varieties."

T.L. Haines, and L.W. Yaggy, The Royal Path of Life: Aims and Aids to success and Happiness, Eastern Publishing House, Philadelphia, PA, 1882

Another Susan

I have a growing collection of Susans. Susans are just lovely and useful friends. I already posted Miss Sue, there's my stylish and Southwest-fixated sister-in-law Susan, my California-grown froo-friend Susan, Susan of Narnia, and I could just go on and on, but today meet my friend Susan a.k.a. Suzy homemaker.

Gingerbread biscotti and homemade marshmallows.

I'm not kidding.

She is priceless, authentic and completely unedited. Last week at our MOPS Christmas Party, hosted at our home, she was making strong anti- fake fruit and flower statements and I could hardly contain myself as she dug herself in deeper and deeper, sitting just feet from my 2-foot tall pillar of fake-as-they-come cranberries. Not to mention a monsterous silk flower arrangement next to that. There was no recovering when we pointed them out to her. "Oh, I don't mind them in other peoples' houses, just not in mine!" She didn't say what she thought of my all-natural white Christmas tree in the dining room.

Susan puts all of us to shame with her organic everything, her from-scratch recipes and professional cake decorating. The Italian Mother in her is spoiling her beautiful boys for their future wives, no doubt. She is a great cyber-friend, too, discovering the most beautiful blogs for me to check out. One of these days she will start one of her own and put Martha out of business!

What makes everything she does so beautiful is that it is all laced with 100% pure affection.

I love you, Susan! SO glad you came into my little world!

Susan with the thrifted plastic Christmas arrangements that I bought just to decorate her MOPS table this week. She probably broke out in hives from contacting them and will mix up a homeopathic remedy!

Lily Blessings

Miss Lily Grace was born on Friday and our prayers for time with her have been granted! Go to lilyblessings.blogspot.com to hear her life story.

Therapy

The last two weeks have been extraordinarily full, which is sayin' somethin' around here. Thus the bloggy lull. At times like these I get pretty whiney, leaving The Banker at a loss. Today after church he told me that what I needed was to go by myself to Longwood Gardens and have a meal in their yummy restaurant. He was almost exactly right, just forgetting that there are few things which I like to do all alone.

So I grabbed one of my favorite sons; the one I hardly get to see these days because of his basketball talents. (He won the game for his team recently, by the way. One of those last minute, all-net shots where the entire gym holds its breath with anticipation.) Anyway, he dutifully went along and even let me hold his arm from time to time, practicing in case I ever get to be the eccentric old lady that I am in training to become.

We listened to separate music on the way, but the company was great.

My Music. One of the very few Christmas songs I like.


His Music. I like it too, makes me run faster in the morning.

We ate THIS. Chester County Mushroom Soup.

We saw THIS.

And THIS.

I took THESE along, but never did read them. Reading is over-rated anyway.

We posed HERE. Such a nice boy.

We shopped HERE on the way home.

The boy honestly thought this hairband was a fancy sleep mask.

So now I've got my color fix and we're ready to face another week of Christmas prep. Hope to catch up on the bloggy lull right away.