Hodgepodging Beauty and Hope

What would you use as a point of reference
to straighten this photo??


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1. 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'  What's something you've seen recently that you thought was beautiful?

This little cowgirl,

whose third birthday is today!

2. Our culture and beauty...your thoughts?

I think that a feeling of hopelessness is evident in movies, games, etc. So much is full of ugliness and violence. And as long as people keep paying to see violence and ugliness, we'll get more of it. We need to teach the younger generation about respect, love, and hope.

"For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope."  There IS joy, love, acceptance, forgiveness, and HOPE, despite what is being portrayed on the big screen. But it's not found deep within our selves. If we're honest, when we dig deep enough, we find fear, emptiness and selfishness. Rather, hope is found in Jesus of Nazareth, the son of God, who gave himself for us.


"But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—  and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus^, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—  not the result of works, so that no one may boast."- Ephesians 2:4-9

 A beautiful Wisconsin sunset

3. Age before beauty, beauty queen, beauty mark, beauty sleep...which beauty-ful phrase resonates with you today? Why?

It must be 'beauty sleep.' And every time I look in the mirror, I determine that I am definitely not getting enough of it. 

 I found this collage under 'beauty' in my photo archives.

'For The Beauty of The Earth'

4. I read here a list of the top ten
beasts animals that scare us the most-

alligators, coyotes, black bears, birds (but pigeons in particular), sharks, bats, bed bugs, rats, rattlesnakes, and the black widow spider. 

Which 'beast' on the list scares you the most? What is the liklihood of you having an actual encounter with that particular beast? Did a movie contribute to your fear of this creature? Have you ever had a real life encounter with any of the animals listed?

 In reality, this was a teeny snake in our backyard.

Yes! I've hunted and eaten an alligator, hear coyotes every summer night from our porch, got a photo of a black bear resting in the maple tree in our front yard, and ate a boa burger (not a rattlesnake). On another farm, we had bats in the attic that occasionally got into the house. I HATE bats in the house, although I don't have a problem with them if they're simply flying around outdoors at night, minding their own business, catching bugs. I hate rats more than anything and hope I never have an encounter with one. I'd say that rats probably scare me the most - even the thought of them!  If a rat scene is in a movie, I turn away until the music changes and I know it's over.

And with that in mind, isn't it lovely that Mr. is always hiding fake rats for me to find!! I threaten to throw them away, but he seems quite fond of them.

This one isn't hidden, but Mr. C. put it there to entertain

the postman when he drops off the mail.

Black bear resting in our maple tree

5. Where were you when you last heard a bell ring? Was it alarming or musical?

On a very calm evening, from our house, we can hear the church bells from the nearby village. 

6. What's your favorite carb? How's that for random?

Chicken pasta casserole, pictured above, is my all-time favorite carb. It is the ultimate comfort food. If I want to put on pounds, I know just the thing to eat, and this is it. I'll have to admit, though, that quantity has something to do with it. Gluten-free pasta, chicken, yogurt, sauteed onion and peppers, garlic, cheddar cheese, olives, potato chips crushed on top before baking. I happen to have some in the freezer, but am trying to stick to meat and salad for a while. I make no guarantees about Friday night, however. It seems to be the one day of the week when I get that overwhelming carb craving. And really. What's the worst that can happen? No, I don't want to think about it.

7. Let's wrap up another month of Hodgepodging and life with an acrostic. Recap your month using the word MARCH.

Miserable weather. It's almost

Always windy and cold. At least we got a

Reprieve the past few days, enough so that I

Could get a good walk in, from

Home to the stop sign and back, a nice 2 1/2 mile walk.

Not this stop sign.

I'm hoping to get down to the Westby area in another couple weeks.

8.  Insert your own random thought here. 

 These little characters

are now 6 months old.
Tommy & Smokey

***


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Bleak March in NW Wisconsin

  When is shearing day? Sign me up!

I'm assuming that these ewes are gong to be lambing sometime in April. I don't know when their shearing date is, and no sheep wants to be without its coat during a March snowstorm, but these sheep look pretty eager to get rid of their coats.  

Amish farm

On Sunday, on the way home from church, we drove on a few backroads (which is pretty much any road), so I could show you what bleak March looks like in Wisconsin. If I had a better photo-editing program, I might have been able to do something with these, but we've a string of gray days and colorless landscape, so this is what I've got.

 This is a familiar sight: a weight limit sign on the side roads.

Evergreens and red barns are the only bright

spots in the monochromatic landscape.

We live in a lovely area of wooded, rolling hills. It's beautiful. 

But you'll want to visit Wisconsin in May, not March. 

It's much prettier with sunshine and GREEN.

May 2015

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The Message About the Cross

'For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.   

For it is written, 

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
    and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?  For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.  For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;  God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.  He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption in order that, as it is written, 

“Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”'

                                                               I Corinthians 1:18-31

St. Felix Church,

Wabasha, Minnesota

Have a blessed Lord's Day.

The Shop Around The Corner

Barn near Turtle Lake, WI

We're getting several rainy, dreary days in a row, which always makes me realize how dependent I am upon sunshine. I guess it's a good thing I don't live in England or in the Pacific Northwest. I'm posting some odds and ends of photos, some of which some of you might have already seen.

I took this pic a few years ago when I was checking out the vintage country school I attended in first and second grades. As I was backing out of the driveway, suddenly there were two little goats who appeared to want to get into the car. No kidding, they chased me down the road about a quarter of a mile! And yes, when I was far enough ahead, I stopped to quickly get this photo before hopping back into the car and speeding off. I wanted these little creatures to go home, and not be out on the road where they could get hurt!

Blue skies and the old feed mill in Stillwater, Minnesota. A grain elevator (feed mill) has such a recognizable shape here in the upper midwest and all across the Great Plains.

In case anyone has a husband who isn't interested in accompanying them on a shopping spree, I guess this is Stillwater's answer to that problem. Actually, what I liked even more than the sign was the reflection of the buildings across the street. 

Smokey, getting equal screen time

Marcia, from Birds, Blooms, & Books blog, mentioned in a comment on my Wednesday's post that the movie 'You've Got Mail' is a remake of the old 'The Shop Around The Corner' with Jimmy Stewart. I hadn't known that, nor had I ever seen the Stewart movie. So yesterday, Smokey and I watched 'The Shop Around The Corner.' What a cute movie!  I do like the newer one better, especially because of the group hug with the dog at the end. Of course, Jimmy Stewart was wonderful, and I think that Margaret Sullavan was just as good as Meg Ryan in the role of the charmingly confused correspondent.

Smokey and I will have to watch 'You've Got Mail' to see if she agrees with me.

Some of my favorite scenes of London
and of course my table-top street map

 Thinking of London

***

Linking to:

Eileen's Saturday's Critters
and
Maggie's Mosaic Monday

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Mad As A Hatter Hodgepodge

Someone enjoys pulling books from the shelves!

Tommy's first step in learning to read

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1. Setting aside the real March Madness (NCAA Basketball) describe something happening at your house this month that might earn the title 'March Madness'?

This pretty much sums it up:

But the kittens surely have been a comfort

after losing our 17 year old Tuppence last week.



2. What's a favorite made up word from your childhood or a favorite from your children's childhood? Does your family still use the word today? If there's a story behind the origin please share.

I can't think of any cute, invented words from my childhood. We didn't have time for frivolity, struggling as we did to keep the family cave warm and the dinosaurs fed. But there are some in our extended family who had pretty cute words we all found amusing. One used 'Clo' as singular of 'clothes' and 'Santa Claw,' because he was an individual. Another used 'jamp' as past tense of 'jump,' and her family thought it was so cute that they never corrected her. She was in high school, really, high school, when she used it one day and was laughed at by the other kids. How embarrassing!



Shadows cast by late afternoon light

on my dancing cast iron cats.



3. Will you be doing any spring cleaning now that the season is upon us? I read here a list of 15 quick (under one hour) spring cleaning tasks. They were-

clean out a drawer, vacuum furniture, whiten tile grout, dust the nooks and crannies you don't get to year round, degrease kitchen cabinets, wipe down walls, go behind furniture, wipe down ceiling fans, vacuum the mattress, clean the range hood, wash baseboards, shine the stainless steel, clean out vents, tackle the windows, and wipe down gadgets

Of the fifteen 'quick' tasks listed which two most need doing at your house? Will you do them?

I've already been cleaning out drawers, and it's not a quick task, believe me. The windows desperately need to be washed, but I'm not making any commitment here. We'll see. It's a huge job. 

When I was a kid, we had a Norwegian neighbor lady who would coerce her husband and son into moving all the furniture out of their house and setting it on the lawn. NO KIDDING. Then she would proceed to scour the house from top to bottom before returning the furniture to the house. You'd drive past their farm and see all the furniture sitting out. It was so strange. Every spring it looked like they were holding an auction!

4. A favorite movie set in Paris or New York?

Two of my favorites!

I like so many Audrey Hepburn movies

I loved the group hug in the final scene of 'You've Got Mail.'

5. What's put a spring in your step this month?

The fact that there is currently NO SNOW on the ground has definitely put a spring in my step, or maybe it's my new New Balance shoes. They have a nice springy sole.



See? No snow!

6. Did you ever want to be a teacher? Why or why not?

I never wanted to be a teacher of other people's kids, but did homeschool our own kids for 21 years and loved it! Back in that day, however, it became a little tiresome to get the old refrain, 'But what about their social development??' as though we were keeping them chained in a dungeon. Besides teaching the basics, homeschooling provides so many opportunities for field trips, kids pursuing personal interests, interacting with people of all ages, etc. etc. So yes, I did want to be a teacher. And no, I didn't want to deal with other people's disciplinary problems.



I wonder how many kids have

great memories of times on the school bus.



7.  What's your favorite floral scent? Do you have this somewhere in your home or maybe in a perfume? How do you feel about florals in food? How about wines with floral notes-yay or nay?

My favorite floral scent is probably honeysuckle. I do have it in my home, in my soap room, as a matter of fact! I like lavender (an herb, not a floral, but you know...) in scones, and I like nasturtium blossoms on a salad because they're pretty. I don't have a lot of experience with wine. I can't get past the headache.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

The late afternoon sun these days is very revealing. Especially after burning wood all winter, the house needs a good cleaning. I wonder if Mr. C. would want to carry all the furniture out onto the yard so I could give this house a thorough scrubbing (see #3 above).



They like me; they really like me!!


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Antique Books, Minnesota, and Kittens

 Young Folks' Library

1902

I'm pulling some photos from my February file (except for the last one) because I've been so remiss in taking photos of anything but kittens and cat for the past few weeks. I know that many of you, like me, love old books. The spines pictured above are from a beautiful set of antique books I bought at a used book store more than 20 years ago. It is a complete set, including the index.

 One of the color plates from

Young Folks' Library

1902

And a few photos from Minnesota:

These photos were taken north of Rochester, MN, and I don't know why it's always so interesting to me when we drive through one of these large cuts that were made so the road could go through. But it is. And when the light is better, that sandstone looks golden. This is just before entering Zumbro Falls.

 I think I put this barn photo on Instagram - maybe.

 Huge grain bins and a cattle trailer.

Look how dark that soil is!

We live on sandy loam, so this soil looks beautiful to us.

***

Oh! And guess what. Surprise, a little kitten collage!

I took these photos after little Smokey returned home from the vet. I had thought that I would have to keep them separated for a week or so, but the vet said no. The two kittens were eager to see one another, and you can see that Smokey got her spa treatment from Tommy (l), and after they posed for the middle photo, he decided to use her as a pillow. I did watch her belly to make sure that I could see the rise and fall (to make sure she could breathe), but she seemed to be perfectly content. I think they're happy to be back together. And they will not be making kitty babies. 

I hope you all had a nice weekend. I was hoping that Masterpiece would be on PBS, but it's another pledge drive. I think I'll read. 

 amazon

Linking to Maggie's Mosaic Monday

Maggie has such a pretty springtime header on her blog. But she lives in Normandy. Springtime doesn't actually arrive in NW Wisconsin until mid April -  if we're lucky. I've finally learned to stop thinking that it's supposed to arrive on March 21. It helps to avoid disappointment. 

***

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