• Potpourri

    cute.

    Amelia (the last baby of eleven) “Mama, I’m so glad you had more children…” Me: So you’d have lots of people to play with and lots of people to take care of you?” She nodded, yes, and gave me a hug. I think she’d forgotten that she’d told me this some time ago.

  • Family - Gardening - In the Kitchen - Recipes

    Autumn’s ushering in Winter

    It’s sure chilly-chilly here tonight!!  The forecast even includes snow!  Suddenly it seems to be just fine to give up wishing for warmer days and working in the garden for the year — for now, baking season is here!   And around our home it’s time for “special requests.”  By this, I mean that it’s time for everyone to submit this year’s favourites for me to bake — or, better said, this year’s update to the list of things “we have to have ________” for Thanksgiving and Christmas! Confession:  I simply cannot keep track of who likes what and who doesn’t…

  • Devotionals - Potpourri

    stuck like glue…

    I read a letter from a dear sister and at the end of her letter she enclosed a quote:   “Self-pity is like super glue from hell that keeps us stuck to the past.”   (Love & Thank you, Jenny) As I’ve worked in our home today I’ve been mulling this quote over in my mind.  I’ve been thinking of other angles on this one  and I’ve come to see another angle on what keeps us stuck in the past — it seems to me that guilt is the “super glue from hell” that keeps us stuck to the past.  Even confessed…

  • Essays - Potpourri

    If we had to leave in a hurry…

    I’ve been thinking of this a little bit lately… what if we had to leave our home in a hurry.  No, not because of an impending flood, but for some other reason entirely. For a little background, I guess I ought to say that we’re not all set up to survive for 90 days or two years or whatever.  We don’t have a great huge stockpile of anything.  Well, except wheat and pink salt.  We do have a bunch of both. So, I’ve been sort of glancing here and there in our home — taking a brief mental inventory of…

  • Devotionals

    Thinking Thankfully

    I know you might be snickering at that title — as if it were written:  “[She’s] Thinking. Thankfully!”  Well, I am working diligently at really t-h-i-n-k-i-n-g before I write, t-h-i-n-k-i-n-g before I speak and even t-h-i-n-k-i-n-g before I think on things.  If I’ve learned nothing else in the past year it is to t-h-i-n-k.  Think. Think. Think… before I do or say anything.  Still, I don’t get things right. But tonight the thinking I’m referring to is thankful thinking — or, thinking thankfully.  Just as it’s very hard — almost impossible — to praise and complain at the same time,…

  • CSA - in the news - NewsDuJour

    Thank you, Shiva

    News DuJour:  Amazon delisted that item… I meant to get this out early this morning. Time constraints. Dontcha know. Hello Pamela, This book is no longer available for sale. Thank you for your recent inquiry. Did I solve your problem? If yes, please click here: [address removed] If no, please click here: [address removed] Best regards, Shiva M Amazon.com Your feedback is helping us build Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company. “The listing and description of the item was no longer available [at Amazon] early Thursday.”  I’d like to think it was my letter (or yours) that got that item pulled.  What’s…

  • Of special concern - Parenting

    Amazon

    I very rarely promote store boycotts or product-boycotts  — mostly bcz I couldn’t possibly keep on top of who sells what and where egregiously offensive materials, products, etc., etc., are sold and bcz of the huge impracticality of such boycotts.  But sometimes something is brought to my attention that I cannot ignore.  Stuff dealing with the use/abuse of children — especially when that stuff negatively impacts their sexuality, their well being or how they’re treated by their families and/or caregivers — for these, I must not remain silent.  And, in a round about way, I’m asking you to not remain…

  • Devotionals - Homemaking - Internet Addiction - Planner

    for the woman in the mirror

    Facing the woman in the mirror…  and getting her to do what she ought:  O,  what a challenge, sometimes!!  I know this.  I know this painfully well. And so… I want to share with you some things you might do to help the woman in the mirror. Don’t “muddle” through life… there is help and there is hope.Your tomorrows do not have to be like your yesterdays. I’ve sometimes thought, with dread, that things will never change.  I’ve sometimes thought, again with dread, that I will never change… that I will never get a handle on this or that struggle.Every…