It's Cold Outside! But It's Not Autumn Yet.

"For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” ...   James 4:14,15


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Minutes ago I stepped out onto our front porch into the grey, blowy 56 degrees and thought, "Brr! Another morning that feels like Autumn." (We've had a few already.)

But it's not Autumn. Not yet. My calendar says it's still Summer and I'm not one to push past a season's gate to begin the next one early. Life sails across my eyes too fast already, like the boats on the river down the street, and it certainly needs no extra shoves from my head.

I'm learning to stay away from the 'I'll be glad whens' (when winter is gone, when that appointment is over, when we have more shelves) and just live fully in the thousands of imperfect days I'm given so that no day is wasted by wishing it away.

These are still fragile, fleeting days of Summer and I'll view them as such, squeeze some more time out in my yard with my watering can and spade and hedge clippers. Read on the porch if when it warms up again, walk a couple bags of stuff down to the Salvation Army bin and sniff the marigold scent upon my fingers.

Because it's still Summer, the last few drops, but Summer nonetheless.


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If you asked Tom how many times I've reminded him at yard sales not to buy another small kitchen appliance, he'd reply, "About a million." We have no more room to store them and well, I find most handy-dandy kitchen appliances to be more complicated, time-consuming and flawed than just doing whatever task the old-fashioned way.

So guess what I bought last week? Another small kitchen appliance. (Blame our local Ways to Save Guy for recommending it.) Tom is still recovering from the shock.

It's a Greek yogurt maker and I know! Yogurt is one of the easiest things on the planet to make-- the only difficult part is when you stand over your stove and roll your eyes a hundred times while waiting for the milk to reach the perfect temperature without scorching. And I still must do that part.

And yet I love my new yogurt maker. It's cute and now it's ok that we have no pilot light in our oven and there's no relighting the oven every few hours and juggling a towel over the bowl and--

---it makes wonderful yogurt. Also, it fits just right on my handy-dandy roll-around tea cart. So there.  :)


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Today Naomi and her boyfriend, Jake, are flying to Idaho so she can meet his parents. Naomi and Jake are getting pretty serious so we shall see what we shall see.

Anyway, we'd appreciate any prayers for their safety and that they'll have a pleasant week there. Thank-you much!



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Free Kindle books:


A Love Surrendered

A Quest for More

Alaska Bound

Books! A Whole Bunch of Books.

Books! I won these vintage Scholastic books this afternoon at Ebay. (Yes, kids' lit. again.) All for less than a dollar each and some are copies of stories I too ruthlessly gave away during our last moves. I look at them in that photo and whisper, "What was I thinking?!"

But they're returning home again.

Books like these are my 'meds'-- they calm my head and steady my heart and make me feel 12-years-old, as though I can do anything and have a whole lifetime ahead in which to do it.

You must know what works for you, especially in Today's pretty mean world.

In fact, a couple weeks ago I realized that I simply must stop feeling guilty about the 4 or 5 days each year which I remain in my pajamas and robe. One reason? I've not been sick in 3 1/2 years(!) so I've not had that excuse to spend the day in night clothes. "So it's ok," I assure myself. "If I'm not gonna be sick, then I deserve a few days to appear as though I am."

Heh. As I said, you must know yourself. If you don't, you'll spend your life doing all sorts of things you dislike because other people told you to or caving to the 'tyranny of the oughts and shoulds'. And who wants to spend a bunch of decades living like that?


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“Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.” 
― Alberto Manguel


“She read all sorts of things: travels, and sermons, and old magazines. Nothing was so dull that she couldn't get through with it. Anything really interesting absorbed her so that she never knew what was going on about her. The little girls to whose houses she went visiting had found this out, and always hid away their story-books when she was expected to tea. If they didn't do this, she was sure to pick one up and plunge in, and then it was no use to call her, or tug at her dress, for she neither saw nor heard anything more, till it was time to go home.” 
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did


“For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time.” 
― Louis L'Amour



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Oh! And a very special thanks to 'The Mysterious Susan' (as I'm calling her) who loaned me a delightful kindle book. I'm enjoying it much!

Gee, I Hate The Disappointment Test!

When you buy a house in New York state, you get an Abstract of Title. 

What's that? It's a written history of your house, as in, who, back in the 1800's bought the original huge plot of land, when they subdivided it, who then bought your little piece and then who eventually built your house upon it.

Then it lists all the married couples or singles who, over Time and decades, bought and lived in your house, how long they lived there and, at times, it gives occasional details of improvements/property divisions, anything requiring The City to do something.

Our other suburb house had an Abstract of Title and on cloudy days, I'd take it from the drawer and read the names and notes and look around my rooms, imagining the original owners who'd built our bungalow in 1937. We were only the third couple to own the house so my imagining was a tad limited, though I'd heard a huge victory garden had been grown just outside our windows over a couple summers so I'd look out there and imagine that.

But our farm's Abstract! That house was built in 1880 and a ton of people had farmed that land and then lived in the house once it was built, so that one was great fun to read, what with its lists of old-fashioned names and notes. I even shared some of that with you here.

Well. Three long years had passed and we'd still not received our Abstract of Title and the Deed for Hobbit Cottage. Our real estate lawyer (you must have one here) told us 2 years ago that we must be patient--the city had laid-off workers, things moved slowly now and blah, blah, blah. 

Then he retired.

So. Last week I contacted our oh-so-helpful realtor friend, Cher, when Tom discovered from the City that they'd sent all those papers to our lawyer 2 weeks after we bought our house(!) Tom called the lawyer and (skipping a ton of details), the package arrived in the mail yesterday.

But there is no Abstract of Title. 

Tom told me our lawyer said it had been lost over time, but the papers include Title Insurance and that's good enough nowadays --- except that it's not good enough for me! Oh. My. Goodness. I nearly had a conniption fit. A stroke. A cow. I'd waited so patiently for three years for the history of Hobbit Cottage, only to be told it's not coming. It's gone. And once on a roll, with tears in my eyes, even, I told Tom, "Well, fine. Let's move then! To a house which still has its Abstract." And I came here to the computer and perused real estate listings

Yes, I said that. I did that. (Oh dear. Hanging my shameful head.)

For all the 21 years that we've lived in New York we've been told to hold onto those papers! You must have them when you sell your house, otherwise it costs you $1,000 so the City can pay a little old man in a dusty basement to research your history all over again. (Well, that's what you picture when you're told this. The $1,000 is for real--I do know that.)

Some of you understand my disappointment. Others? Well, if it sounds absurd, try to imagine your waiting for 3 years for a visit from old friends or a vacation or promotion, etc., then being told it's not gonna happen. Ever. Maybe that will help you know how I felt.

The disappointment test! Gah, I hate that one. But it's a test I take over and over because I fail it over and over. God doesn't let us flunk out, you know. Instead, His goal is for us to calmly, trustingly change what can be changed and accept what cannot. Jesus doesn't crumble into a thousand tiny pieces when things go wrong and He wants us to be like Him. He's made ways for us to, in fact.

The trick is wanting Him more than we want anything else--because that is possible, indeed, and a great love for Him cushions all other blows.

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"Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as you have: for he hath said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you."   ...Hebrews 13:5


Yes, I failed the contentment test also. Eegads...



And yes, I know my most helpful readers will suggest I do some online searching of my own or that I go down to that dusty City Basement of Records and poke around, etc. We'll see. Right now I'm still calming down and facing the fact that this meant too much to me. A heart adjustment seems to be needed more. Alas.

"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."  ...Psalm 139:23,24