Random Musings

Reverend Thomas Dorsey was in the middle of a sermon when a man came on stage and gave him a telegram, telling him that his wife had died in childbirth. After several months of grief, he penned the words to one of my favorite hymns: Precious Lord, take my hand Lead me on, let me stand I'm tired, I'm weak, I'm lone Through the storm, through the night Lead me on to the light Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home When my way grows drear precious Lord linger near When my light is almost gone Hear my cry, hear my call Hold my hand lest I fall Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home When the darkness appears and the night draws near And the day is past and gone At the river I stand Guide my feet, hold my hand Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home. This morning, my husband came out and flagged me down (I was on the riding lawn mower). A friend had called, asking us to urgently post a prayer request on Facebook for a church member. We briefly debated whether or not...

Last week during the Quilt of Valor sew-in (where quilters meet once a month in Raleigh to make quilt tops for the organization), one of the girls set out her ruler and rotary cutter for everyone to use. I have a rotary cutter. For those of you not familiar with them, it's like a pizza cutter, but with scissor sharp blades (older quilters seeing them for the first time call them scissors on wheels). It's and ideal way for cutting fabric. Once you've used one, you have no desire to go back to cutting fabric for patterns with scissors. But this girl, she had one of the newer rotary cutters.  It looked like this: See the curved handle?  That fits in your hands so much better.  The lever underneath, when pushed upwards, extends the blade. So when you're not gripping it, there's no blade sticking out. (Meaning if you bump it and it falls off the cutting table, it won't cut whatever it hits.) It still has the traditional Olfa red safety button to lock it in saf...

My mind has drifted south to Charleston, SC a lot this last week.  And while I've prayed for the families of all the victims and the survivors, I have to confess my mind and prayers keep going back to three little girls. Church -  the building holds so many memories for me, specifically Dad's office. That's where I hung out while sermon notes were typed, helped with printing and folding the church bulletin, rested during services while I was sick (Preachers and their wives don't always have the luxury of staying home with sick kids), made phone calls during extra-long choir practices or meetings, read books, was bored to tears, as a teenager sat and pondered what it would be like to make an appointment and chat with Dad, but never, ever, ever did it cross my mind that it would be a place where I would hover and hide with Mom while hearing my Dad and fellow church family members die. And that room will be an even harder room for that child and parent to face in months ...

First, there's an update on  the Quilt page. But my main post for today resulted in my husband giving me one of those very strange looks. I opened a new container of butter this week. That always brings back a ton of memories. You know how kids fight over everything? This always resulted in a small spat in our house. I always scooped around the belly button. At least one of my sisters scooped it out first thing.  But there was one time, without anything being said, everyone seemed to join me in scooping around it. And then came the fateful day when that one sister opened the lid to butter the toast and said "Who left the bubble in the middle?" and immediately scooped it out. I was aghast. Dad declared our argument petty and silly. I laugh about it now and sometimes wonder if God sees the things I get so bent out of shape about as an adult as trivial as the belly button in a bowl of butter. And now? I scraped around the sides about a spoon deep before attackin...

Growing up, I almost always read fiction. When I read fiction, if it's interesting, I read cover to cover, only stopping for what life demands (food, sleep, people, laundry, etc.) Non-fiction was something I read because school or work required it.   But the last five-six years I've found myself reading more and more non-fiction. I don't read it cover-to-cover like fiction. Some books I pick up and put down and start again later. As a result, I have more than one book going right now. I don't think I could have ever said that in my earlier years. Reading more than one book at a time was the most absurd thing I had ever heard. And yet, the last several years, that seems to be how most of my reading has been done. Why am I talking about this? I've been encouraging one of my young nieces to read 5 minutes a day while on summer vacation. (HELLO Aunt Monica! This is SUMMER! NO SCHOOL!!!) I've not been successful yet. The last time I brought this subject up (last we...

I can thank my husband for our garden this year. I seriously was contemplating NOT having one, when he hired a young man from church to come over this winter, rake up all the leaves in the yard....and heap them in the garden. I kid you not, my 36" wire around the perimeter's was 2/3 full...of leaves. And then this February, he had it tilled, not once, but twice. So I have the best soil I have ever had in the garden AND it was already tilled for me. How could I not plant a garden?  So I branched out. I've never had success with onions, but I had two in the house that started rooting, so I decided to give it a shot. Here's what I harvested from those two onion ends that rooted: Not as big as the bulbs in the grocer store, but I'm pleased. I bought some extra onion seeds, and the package said to wait until the tops of the onions flowered. Here's the ones from the onion ends that rooted. I thought they were actually kind of pretty. And the seed bulbs I bo...

Bobby's youngest niece and nephew stayed over after their family left for four extra days, so we enjoyed the busyness that comes with having middle school/high school visitors in the area. And now that they're gone, we're playing catch up and moving on with our busy summer calendar - after a mandatory day out with a migraine yesterday, that is. So, what's on our schedule these next few days?  Yard work. Housework. Kids party from our class at church. Quilting Class for me on Saturday morning. Manual reviews for upcoming election training. Clarinet practice (a group of us are finally going to play at church in a few weeks). And if time allows, start cleaning the porch railings for painting later this summer. I hope you summer is as blissfully busy as ours! :)

Last week was my niece's first week out of school. She's a social kid (very unlike her aunt), and does not live in a subdivision. Her school is in the town where her mother teaches, so she doesn't live near any of her classmates. Her only cousins are college-age. It only took a few days, and she became very bored.  So bored that she was calling me twice a day (and I didn't count all her texts). Being the loving aunt that I am, I started sending her lists of things to do each day. By day three she quit calling and texting. Arrogant me could pat myself on the back and say "she's busy", but realistic me knows that she has simply found things to do and doesn't want to "read all that stuff" I keep sending her. She does want me to send her some sewing projects (as well as drive 13 hours one way to come get her). I think she had a good day with my parents yesterday (she learned to make small apple pies...flapjacks, some people call them) and saved t...