18 for ’18

December 31, 2017January 27, 2018 / Apple Hill Cottage / 7 Comments

This is my 6th annual New Year’s post with additions for 2018. I wasn’t going to do this again; six years seemed like plenty. Then I read through it and thought that this year needs a peace, love, and can’t-we-all-just-get-along? post more than any other year I’ve lived through. Except maybe 1968… (eh, was that really fifty years ago?)

So I wish you all peace, love, and a year of forgiving and forgetting. Happy 2018 everyone — and thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing my little place in cyberspace.

There are two kinds of people in the world:

1. those who would go to Times Square for New Year’s Eve, and those who couldn’t be paid enough to go…

Sunrise from our bedroom windows

2. those who go out for New Year’s Eve, and those who stay home…

steak, burgundy mushrooms, asparagus

3. those who would rehab an old vacant house, and those who would look for a new one instead…

boards

4. Cat-lovers and Dog-lovers…

Cat in the Christmas tree

5. Savers and Pitchers…

6. Dreamers and Doers…

7. those who believe and those who scoff…

Micah 6:*

8. those who stay, and those who go…

9. those who love snow, and those who don’t…

10. those who take naps, and those who feel superior to those who take naps…

Cat nap

11. those who love city streets, and those who love country roads…

12. those who look up and those who look down…

13. those who eat their fruits and vegetables, and those who eat their meat’n potatoes…

green tomato salsa

14. those whose glass is half-empty and those whose glass is half-full…

Stag's Leap winery

15. those who work for pay and those who work for love; and those who are blessed to do both at the same time…

Mr. H.C’s truck

16. those who believe santa is a democrat, those who believe santa is a republican, and those who believe santa should just start a third party for the rest of us — the Dempublicans? The Republicrats? (Surely he would get more than just my vote…)

Blue Santa

Red Santa

17. Those who love to go shopping and those who would rather eat worms than go to a Walmart.

18. Flitterers and Plodders…

At different times in our lives, we can be any of these. (Well, probably not too many of us would admit to being that turtle…)
Me? I have been all these — a city lover, a country girl; a scoffer, a believer; an optimist, a pessimist; a cat-lover, a dog-lover; a dreamer, a doer; a shopper and a worm-eater…(Though I would have to be paid a lot of cash to go to Times Square on New Year’s Eve.)
Can we remember this?
Can we remember that our differences make this beautiful world what it is?
Can we let go of our prejudices, our prides, our preconceptions, our (fill in the blank here)… and just love each other?

May grace, peace, and joy be yours in abundance in 2018.

Christmas angel

133. No Time to…

May 26, 2015May 10, 2017 / Apple Hill Cottage / 20 Comments

So what happens when one finally gets settled into a routine at the cottage where one has spent three years preparing to live?

Life.

Yes. Life.

Yes. Life. Happens.

There’s a new job.

There’s a volunteer commitment one made before the new job happened.

There’s cooking to do, gardens to plant, flowers to grow, pillow covers to make, Bible to study, VBS to get ready for, neighbors to visit, friends to talk to, firewood to haul, and, yes, there are still boxes to unpack, files to organize and a room to paint. As well as the bathroom to gut and redo, and the back porch to finish.

And suddenly, there’s no time to write.

Ha, silly me. I thought perhaps after we moved here, I’d have spare time to finish that novel… Now I can’t even find time to write 500 words for a blog post.

It’s the rhythm of life. Suddenly there is much going on, but it is the routine of day-to-day, interspersed here and there with a gorgeous full moon, the bloom of a new starburst flower, the scent of peonies, a gentle sunrise.

Sunrise in March

But that is life, isn’t it? Making the most of those boring bits of life in-between the great, amazing stuff that, if we are honest, doesn’t really happen all that often.

It’s what we do with the routine and the interruptions to our routine that are important. Read this C.S. Lewis quote and put it on your fridge.

Yes, the unremarkable, the humdrum, the commonplace — that’s the life God is sending us. And do we sing on the way to work, or grump about the trucks that are making us late?

Do we gripe about having to fix dinner on a day when we don’t get home until 6:00, or do we look into the fridge and make it a game with ourselves to come up with the best we can with what’s there?

Do we go to visit the neighbor when we really should be… (insert really important thing to do here.)

I have to admit that I’m only good at loving the uneventful life sometimes. I try to remember that God has given us this ordinary life to live for him. He sees when we grumble at our husbands for no good reason except a mood; he knows when we choose to be in a funk, rather than pray; and best of all, He understands when we chafe against the boring bits of ho-hum pfhh that so much of life seems to be…
Bare hill
and he graciously gives us new eyes to see beauty in the familiar.

106. These days…

June 2, 2014June 2, 2014 / Apple Hill Cottage / 15 Comments

“The purpose of art is washing the daily dust of life off our souls.” — Pablo Picasso

The last few weeks there has been a lot of daily dust on my soul. On my body too, as we sweep the city house clean of grime, stuff, and collected junk. Touching every single item that takes up space in this house, getting rid of the stuff that needs gotten rid of, and storing and keeping the sweet memories. It has taken its toll. Alternately at peace yet anxious, content yet wistful, it’s lovely to see the gardens beautiful again, the rooms freshly painted, the porches clean and inviting, and junk cleared out. For two years I’ve wanted to be at the cottage; these days I find myself wanting to be here at the city house, enjoying these last days before we sell it.

At work, too, it is the same. This is my last week. We must give up the old to embrace the new, and I’m ready to do that. But then I get sixty cards from students telling me how much they will miss me, thanking me for being in their lives, drawing me pictures of their favorite books, hugs goodbye, and I’m wistful again.

Beauty helps. I’m so glad that we are not moving in the winter. I can sit outside in the green and watch birds, take pictures of flowers, and feel the beauty of it all washing the dust away from my tired body and needy soul.

Buzzards aren’t usually photographed for their beauty. But the turkey buzzard on the barn roof was a beauteous sight. There he sat, with his wings stretched out — long enough for me to admire him, run inside to grab my iPhone, take his picture, and then admire him for a few more minutes. Soon he was joined by his mate, but as I was adjusting the camera, he flew away. I didn’t get the photo of two turkey buzzards on the barn roof.

It looks to me as if he is praising God for this sunny, glorious spring afternoon. Yes, I know that is anthropomorphism, (perhaps it sounds more acceptable if we make it a literary allusion and call it personification?) and he was probably just airing out his wings…

Yet it reminded me to stretch out my arms and praise God for the sweet beauty of these days.