. . . out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
–Matthew 12:34b
Blog
Saturday Sayings – REFUGE
- Rocks, dens and caves, but I in none of these find place or refuge. –Milton
- The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats. –Psalm 104
- This last old man—their latest refuge was to send to him. –Shakespeare
- Light must be supplied, among graceful refuges, by terracing any story in danger of darkness. –Wotton.
- Bred to disguise, in public ‘tis you hide. –Pope
On this date, in 1951, the Unites States adopted the Twenty-Second amendment to the Constitution, stipulating that a president may not serve more than two terms.
Here Comes Spring (Hay) Fever!
Well after all the fun posting photos of snow, Spring has sprung, hasn’t it!
With Spring comes Spring fever. This is a malady that makes you feel like doing nothing. It attacks us, hand-in-hand with its old ally: hay fever. Hay fever makes us feel like yuck.
Itchy eyes, ears, nose, throat; runny eyes, nose; stuffy nose; and cough are just a few of the delights that visit us each year, if we are among the pollen afflicted.
Pollen is so tiny, yet can cause such misery!
Outside of chemicalizing oneself half to death, what can a person do?
Spring pollens do not bother me, but I have found several ways to beat ragweed, which possibly would help with any other pollen problem. I’d love to share them with you!
- The first thing I always do is eat honey all year long. Not just any honey will do. It must be raw, as in uncooked. If the label isn’t boasting, it probably isn’t. It also must be native, as in from near where I live. Honey contains miniscule flower parts in various forms, and eating about a teaspoon of it daily helps me beat my pollen allergies, like an immunization.
- Outside of that tiny dose of honey, I avoid all sugars. Sugar kills immunities, especially the super-processed sugars.
- I take vitamin C. A lot. Vitamin C is supposed to help with the body’s immunities, so it is what I need. I also find that for me, the things I’ve read about C acting as a mild antihistamine are true. They say you can tell if you’ve had too much when you develop diarrhea. They say to cut back a bit if that happens. I usually get by with taking 2000 milligrams per day.
- I wash my face a lot. Every time I think the pollen is getting to me, I wash it off. Have you ever seen a magnified photo of pollen? It looks prickly like a cactus. No wonder it bothers the sensitive tissues of face, eyes, and nose. After washing, I apply a coating of some light hand lotion to my face. As it dries, it seems to make a barrier between my skin and the pollen prickles.
- I stay indoors and keep windows shut. I know, some of you cannot do this, but those who can may find it helps. After all, the pollen is out there, not in here.
- If I find that I am just simply miserable, I use heat on my face. I run a bowl of hot water, as hot as I’d ever want a bath, and dip water from it with a washcloth and hold this over my face, renewing as it cools. Or I stand in the shower with the water hot, spraying on my face. It takes about 10 or 15 minutes, but this wet heat draws out the histamines in my body. Histamines are what cause allergic reactions, and are what anti-histamines are supposed to circumvent.
Anyway, as the heat applied to my face draws out the histamines, my face is itchy and my nose grows stuffy. Oh, but—when that itching stops, it means all the histamines my body could produce are out. Most bodies cannot produce any more for several hours, like four to eight. Hours. Of no itching, sneezing, stuffy nose, runny eyes, etc. It’s plenty of time to take a nap or go to a restaurant or visit a friend like a normal person. - If I go so far as to become wheezy, I drink hot coffee. Coffee is supposed to be a good emergency substitute for asthma drugs. I don’t have asthma, but hot coffee helps me breathe when the pollen count is high.
There you have it, what I do instead of taking pills. Sometimes, when it really is tough outside, I have to add pills to my regime, but not often. I love not being tied to chemicals and I think you will, too.
How to Treat Weekend Guests (With Recipes!)
I just sent my brother on his way from visiting us for a long weekend. It was wonderful to have him and his two grown kids here with us. All my own offspring came to honor him and the long trip he made to be here, and to visit with their seldom-seen cousins. I enjoyed them all, too.
Of course, there is work involved in having important company, which my brother is. If someone makes a twelve to fourteen hour trip just to see me, I feel it important I bother with his comfort once he is here.
What does a guest need? Several things:
- A light meal for the first meal. After traveling, snacking, and sitting for a whole day, a guest wants a simple, easily digestible meal. Not knowing when the guest will actually arrive, you also do not want time-sensitive foods. Put the two together and you get SOUP! I served my visitors a light, homemade chicken noodle soup and an apple salad with honey/yogurt dressing. They loved it.
- Privacy. A person naturally wants to be able to dress, brush teeth, and snore in peace, without feeling watched, censored, or odd in any way. He also needs a place to hang clothing. I put my nephew with my son on twin beds, my niece with my daughter in bunked beds, and my brother in our sunroom on the daybed with doors shut and curtains drawn.
-
Bath Tap (Photo credit: butkaj.info) Cleanliness. You may know the smear on your vanity faucet is just a dab of soap, but your guest wants it off, wants clean. Extreme clean. Towels must be fresh, and if possible, color coded, so your guest knows his is his. Sheets should be your best set with pillow cases ironed to kill germs. Bathroom surfaces should shine and all dust, hair, and smears should be removed daily, during their stay. (You may be comfortable staring at your husband’s toothpaste droppings from yesterday while you brush your teeth, but who else would be?)
- Entertainment. Find out what your guest might like to experience. We live rural, so it’s mostly parks and other natural events. We took my brother and kids to one he and I had visited as children. His own had never seen it. It is impressive and they were impressed. Anything, though, to break up sitting and chatting, will suffice. Bike riding, fishing, antiquing, strolling through woods, or rock collecting are affordable and fun ways I would enjoy burning a few calories and getting out.
- Internet access. Not all want this, but if you do not have Internet in your home, seek the nearest hot spot.
We had the best old time. I taught him how we make grilled cheese sandwiches and he taught me how he makes French toast. Mmm.
Here are your recipes:
Chicken Noodle Soup
One whole chicken, cleaned
one cup plain salt
one gallon water
whole onion
stalk celery
clove garlic
3 – 5 sage leaves
salt and pepper
1 ½ bags egg noodles or homemade noodles from 3 eggs (for homemade noodles, see here)
The night before, soak chicken in covered bowl, in gallon water with one cup salt added. In the morning, drain and rinse chicken. Make sure it is cleaned of unnecessary parts. Boil chicken covered with water in large pot. Add all ingredients but salt. Simmer until flesh falls from bones, at least three hours. Cool. Debone. Return meat to broth, boil, and add egg noodles. Simmer until noodles are tender, thinning broth with added water, as desired. Adjust salt, if needed. Remove vegetables, if desired. Serve hot with crackers or bread and butter. Serves eight or more.
Simple Fruit Salad
one yellow apple (Opal?)
one red apple (Roma?)
one pear
one orange
one banana
½ cup golden raisins
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 carton Greek yogurt
¼ cup raw honey
Peel orange and banana. Wash apples and pear. Cut all fruit into bite sizes. Mix all fruit together with remaining ingredients until well blended. This salad is outstanding for aiding digestion.
My Brother’s French Toast, Which Is Better Than Mine!
For ten slices of bread:
ten eggs (yes, one egg for each slice of bread!)
half that volume of milk
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
dash vanilla
butter
Beat egg, milk, spices, and vanilla, thoroughly. Seriously soak each slice in some of this egg mixture until completely sogged. Set aside until all pieces are soaked. Pour any remaining mixture over already-soaked bread, using it all up.
Fry soaked bread in butter, at pancake temperature, until lightly browned. Turn and repeat. Serve with syrup, powdered sugar, and/or pureed fruit. Serves five.
Now: Invite me to spend the night! 🙂
6-Year-Old Hauled to Psych Ward Despite Parent’s Wishes
Last week, a school in Los Angeles sent a little boy to a psychiatric ward without his mother’s leave. Why? Worrying about the fact that his dad had been deployed to Iraq, the boy had drawn a violent picture and had written that he wanted to die, which caused the school to manifest this knee-jerk reaction.
The mother told school staff she would take her son to a therapist, but she was told it was (conveniently!) too late – the ambulance had already been sent.
This six-year-old child spent two solid days in a place foreign to him before anyone would let his mother have him back. Of course, this only further traumatized the poor child, as if the trauma of seeing his daddy leave for overseas combat were not enough.
ParentalRights.org president Michael Farris states, “Clearly, giving school and other government officials complete control in these kinds of situations goes too far.”
The proposed Parental Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution would affirm that “[t]he liberty of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is a fundamental right,” and would help defuse such situations as above.
Please pass this post to others you know who might find such atrocity terrifying, and urge them to visit parentalrights.org/petition
Thanks to Your Grandfather
When I was only 8, my family took me to visit a park I remember fondly. It had fountains and rock formations that still exist today. Recently we returned to it and although improvements have appeared, much of it remains unchanged.
One beautiful part of this park is the thousands of rocks placed in formation to create retaining walls. These walls hold back soil and erosion, yes, but long ago, they held back something else, too: starvation. You see, all this rock work was done by the Works Projects Administration (WPA). For all its criticism, it performed two amazing feats: It provided sustenance for 3,000,000 families during the Great Depression, and it beat today’s common welfare to pieces. In fact, reducing common welfare—the dole—was one of the goals.
So during our excursions in this park, I marveled at the beautifully-laid rock work. The terraces and roadways were perfectly preserved from 80 years ago. The fountains and pools in the gardens, although coated with moss, obviously were the result of much pains taking. The warm, inviting craftsman style was perfectly suitable to a U.S. park.
I contemplated the beauty and imagined the men who worked on it. As they labored with this rock, did they cut their hands? Were they engineers, that they could so beautifully work out the physics for these structures? Did they know what a lovely thing they were making? Could they look at it and realize they were vastly improving our nation? Could they see the vision for the finished project?
Did they live in camps and mail the money, or could they go home every night? And if they went home, did their pride rise as they walked through the front door with their paychecks in hand? Did they bask in their role as the family hero? Did their wives shed tiny tears of joy at the realization there would be food in the pantry again?
Did they ever guess someone like me would come along 80 years later and exclaim at the loveliness of the park? I touched the rocks with something like awe, knowing that once, long ago, someone else full of worry for the future, had handled each rock, knowing this was the only way his children could eat.
And did they dream my son would propose to his sweetheart while she sat on a bench they’d made?
My grandparents were farmers and preachers, so they always had enough.
But somewhere out there is a reader whose grandfather I wish I could thank.
Related articles
Weekly Photo Challenge: Refuge
These are my woods.
In spring, these woods beckon to me. I leave housekeeping, planting, and writing, and walk alone through my woods. I can feel the presence of those who have gone before. I think ancient people walked my woods. They were welcome.
In these woods is a small, natural chapel. Pines bent by ice storms form arches over a deep bed of straw. A trickling spring interrupts the palpable hush. Surely the wild things growing here have waited, their beauty unnoticed for ages.
Paths through these woods lead to a gravel road, which leads to town. No one coming from town would be able to find the outlet, the access to the paths; a charming privacy. There are no sounds except the ones God created; a calming quiet.
I go to these woods when they call to me, when housekeeping, planting and writing weary me.
Then I come back. I have promises to keep, and miles to go . . .
Home's Cool! 