memories – Page 17 – Home's Cool!

Fifty-eight Thousand on THE WALL

Posted on January 6, 2011November 18, 2016 by Katharine

Just finished a good book by SQ. Rushnell containing a moving story about the Vietnam War and the damage it caused. It mentions the memorial, the 500-foot long black wall. It tells of visitors moved to tears by the more than 58,000 unlived lives and living heartaches represented there.

You could say they died to protect us. It would be a fair statement even if many disagreed.

You cannot say that about some others who have died. The aborted ones have no memorial to speak of. Oh, sometimes we display a few wooden crosses to make a statement, a temporary protest. When we put the crosses away later, we prove it is not a memorial.

But if a similar black wall existed for these dead babies, it would have to be at least a thousand times longer than the one memorializing the war dead.

Three million people visit the Vietnam War Memorial each year. At that rate, if the aborted ones had lived to visit the Wall, it would take them about 17 years.

To buy one rose for each MILLION would cost about $250.

To educate them, the public schools would garner about $550 billion.

Per year.

That’s where their money goes.

Pray.

Coffee-ism

Ike Stole My Coffee!

Posted on January 4, 2011November 13, 2013 by Katharine

We don’t live south enough to suffer much from hurricanes. The night Ike passed left us a surprise, though, the common calling card of storms.

The most surprising thing about it was that somehow, a tree could fall on the door to my coffee without me knowing it.

Since our stove is electric, the electricity was out, and it was coffee-time, I calmly felt my way through the dark to our guest house, where the stove is propane, where we always solve the electric problems. Lugging an old-time drip-through which I’d loaded with grounds in my dark kitchen, slipping down the hill on flip-flops through the wet world, hardly able to see yet always knowing the way, I bumped smack into bunches of limbs. Heh.

Could the woods that always so lovingly envelope us actually have thrown branches at us in the night? Perhaps.

Back up to the house for a flashlight. Back down to the guesthouse where the door should be. Zowie!

An entire tree.

In the way.

Of the coffee business. Heh.

Back up to the house for my trusty loppers and a discussion with Husband. Back down to the guesthouse for some pruning.

In the dark.

Before coffee.

Sure.

Finally I found space to get the door open just enough for me and the pot.

Candles lit.

Stove lit.

Tea kettle filled.

Burner on.

Promising sizzles from the wet bottom of the kettle.

Husband descends. “How do I get in?!”

I pass the loppers through to his bulkier self. It doesn’t take him long.

Shivering in the morning cool in this secret hideaway, we mumble through our personal morning fogs the slight chat of people who are comfortable with saying nothing. In their jammies. By candlelight.

Whistling. Pouring. Bubbling. Dripping.

Aromas of Colombian dark roast tantalizing.

The first sip. We smile.

Are we bizarre to grope and fight for such a small pleasure, while ignoring the storm damage all around us? I don’t think so. Pleasures worth having usually are worth working for. The adventure of wrestling them out of the wilderness is part of the pleasure, don’t you think?

Coffee-ism, Inspiring, Wisdom

Good Morning? Good Night!

Posted on January 3, 2011January 3, 2011 by Katharine

Maybe you just woke and had that first cup-o’. That’s where I am. Sorry I overslept.

I think of 2010 recently fallen asleep. Although the new year spreads out like an endless path before us, both inviting and scary, I’m looking back to that bumbling old thing I just put to bed. How was it with you?

My 2010 memories are amazing, filled with whole-house-cleaning for a friend, funerals, trying to hear God, birthday parties, gardening, trying to hear God, workshops, canning, trying to hear God, estate sales, college kids home, trying to hear God, a wedding, glorious concerts, trying to hear God, possums and snakes in the chickens, teaching ladies’ Bible study, trying to hear God, husband filling an interim over an hour away, 15 people staying several nights together, trying to hear God, losing opportunities, and trying to hear God.

Lots of it hurt. Much of it was so confusing. I’m glad it’s over.

At the end of the day, when it all shuts down, when the party’s over, when there’s no more silliness, when it gets quiet—when you cannot hear anything else but your own heartbeat, the next thing you hear will be…what?

Your dreams. What will they be? Where will they take you?

God only knows.

Home School, Inspiring, Who's the mom here?, Womanhood

Attitude? Awareness? Vision? How Can a Tutor Know?

Posted on December 9, 2010May 20, 2016 by Katharine

I used to tutor.

Once, a young mother came to me for help with her first-grader daughter. The girl had been in a private school and was producing perfect work, daily, but on the following days, she seemingly knew nothing from the day before. Everyone was puzzled. The mom had heard about home schooling, found my phone number on a poster, and thought I’d know something the girl’s teachers did not.

Scary scenario!

However, I’d recently received a copy of a learning styles test a friend had written, and thought that with it, and with private tutoring, perhaps I could discover something an overworked teacher had missed.

The child was sweet, bright, and eager. This was going to be fun. I gave the mom a copy of the test to fill out at home, since she probably knew her daughter better than anyone else. I began carefully disguised check-ups of the girl’s reading and math skills.

She was a puzzling bundle. She could know something one moment, then know nothing the next. We read from an early reader, and she would do very well after I told her almost every word. I wondered—was she guessing? Memorizing?

The learning style test had come back showing her to be a visual learner. She ought to love reading.

I turned to the back of the reader, and showed her vocabulary lists placed there for the teacher. I pointed to a word from our day’s reading, and asked her what it was. That’s when everything became clear.

“Oh, Ms Kathy! I could never read that word; it’s too little for me to see it.”

Dear me. A visual learner who cannot see. Of course. She was, indeed bright enough to memorize each day’s lesson, but had inadvertently missed learning to read.

That day, she and I made huge yarn letters together, one per page of construction paper, and did copy work on the board with letters one foot tall. Immediately she knew what was going on and began making enormous progress.

When her mom came to pick her up that day, I asked her if either she or her husband had vision problems. She said they both had trouble seeing much of anything, that their vision was corrected with contacts of a strong prescription.

I told her, “I think your little girl cannot see. I think that is the basis of the problem, plus missing out on the foundations of reading readiness.”

We both had tears in our eyes that day, and eventually the girl received her first pair of glasses. I lost that tutoring job soon afterward, but the joy of helping such a needy one, so quickly, was compensation enough for me.

Blessings of Habit, Home School, Homemaking, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Scream Carrot Gardening and How to Stay Alive

Posted on December 8, 2010May 20, 2016 by Katharine

In the summer, we still teach our children. You know we teach them all the time, right?

Really fresh carrots

One summer, we were all out in the garden learning about how hard carrots can be to pull up. It was fun, though, a sort of tug-o-war between children and carrots, with Mom along to man the shovel if the tops broke off.

So many Bible lessons happen in the garden. We constantly show them how well the weeded plants grow, compared to the weedy ones. They know a beet seedling from a pigweed seedling, although they so resemble each other.

And the buckets of rocks!

They have learned to love harvesting their own snacks straight from the garden, like a small, perfectly sun-ripened tomato, rubbed until shiny and popped into the mouth to dribble everywhere while quenching thirst. They know a small packet of seeds can make all those jars of wonderful food in the basement.

The most important lessons the garden teaches, though, is that when Mom says you have to do something, whether you like it or not, you have to do it. This lesson, in a grown child and transferred to other authorities, can protect job security.

In a young child, it can save a life or limb.

Most dangers in life are unexpected. We can teach endlessly and still miss the lesson that will be needed tomorrow. This was the case, one day.

My son, another fearless one, about age twelve, had managed to extract one carrot that housed a curiously beautiful spider in its stems. He brought it to me to see its beauty and I’m sure my eyes widened.

“Drop it!” I ordered.

He looked at me, saw my face matched my tone, and obeyed. Today I still think about it. He was happy with his find, happy in his boldness, and probably happy in anticipation of sharing and of my praise. What a big deal to older brother, to turn loose of this happiness! But he did it.

And that day, the garden yielded up the lessons of the black widow spider. God’s protection, parents’ obligation to protect children, children’s obligation to obey, and the continuing obligation for all to “FEAR NOT!”—all those lessons and more came from our garden that day.

And I am not afraid, but I still shudder. His right hand was two inches from destruction.

But God can fit inside two inches.

Last story in this series here!

Blessings of Habit, Home School, Inspiring, Sayings

How a Crazy Picnic Morphed into a Sweet Memory

Posted on December 4, 2010July 20, 2017 by Katharine

Long ago—oh, so long ago—we set out, trembling but sure, with little but our dear children and sheer determination, to home school.

Our children had endured unhappy experiences where they were, we had tired of the huge expense of a private education that produced unhappiness, and we imagined we could do at least as well as the teachers we had met.

Not much going for us? Well, we thought we had the world by the tail.

We did have it by the tail.

One of our first home-school acquisitions, a black Lab puppy, soon taught us some lessons about the joy of life. Before he grew out of the puppy stage, he had been, as the joke says, “like a Slinky—not really good for much, but it’s fun to watch him fall down.” As a Retriever, he totally loved retrieving, but never did really learn also to relinquish the retrieved thing. Still, if he brought the pop fly balls from wa-a-ay outfield, all slobbery, and we had to tussle them out of his mouth, it saved time and endless running for us and provided him no end of joy and exercise.

As our schedule solidified and we found more time for relaxation during schooling, we chose a particularly crisp, sunny day for a simple picnic. Just sandwiches, granola bars, and juice in sippy cups, each one making his own lunch, was all we wanted—that and a blanket outdoors. Because our year-old pup relished people food, we took along his dish, a bit of dog food, a dog biscuit, and some “fetch toys”. Loading all this into our wheelbarrow, we rolled out to the backside of our seven acres for a lazy hour of rejuvenation.

As we ate and tossed toys for our pup, we played silly games, joking and teasing a lot. Pup managed to steal half a sandwich from the youngest, which I replenished with half of mine. Oh, the laughter of that afternoon!

About a month later, we unearthed time for our second, ever, home-school picnic. Out came the same wheelbarrow, the same red blanket, the same toys, the same lunch bags….

Suddenly, from seemingly nowhere, our Lab appeared, running round and round the wheelbarrow, barking all the way. We laughed at him and his excitement. Could he be anticipating what our actions implied? Could he be excited about going on another picnic?

He scooped up his food dish in his teeth and ran a couple of circles around us, galloped off to the backside of the seven acres to deposit it, then rushed back barking all the way to hurry us along. That’s when we were certain of it: he actually remembered the fun of a month ago and seemingly could not wait for a replay.

Still laughing, more in wonder than amusement, we hurried as best we could while he continued barking.

What a marvel that a dog could understand family togetherness better than the world can!

The next hour filled with creating more happy memories.

But we guarded the sandwiches better.

Blessings of Habit, Homemaking, Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom, Wives

Gramma’s Wisdom – Spring Cleaning

Posted on October 7, 2010November 29, 2016 by Katharine

They tell me old timers used to practice Spring-cleaning every year. My mother did. For a long while, I felt guilty when I failed even to nod in that direction. Now I realize why they did it and why they had the energy.

And what a blessing it was, in disguise.

They had to. Winter warmth cost them more than just the husband’s fuel bill. The fuel deposits carried an extra annual cost for the wife: Spring-cleaning. Smoke from wood or coal settled ash onto every surface, even walls, curtains, and ceiling. Humid breezes from spring’s open windows melded with this deposit, forming mold. It was clean or die, and they knew it. Hence the motivation to have some energy.

I recently heard from some beautiful elderly women who remember their grandmothers’ Spring-cleaning. Drafting every member of the family and any neighbors who wanted to trade services, they ordered every piece of furniture outdoors. I know why. Every piece needed cleaning, fore and aft, inside and out, yes.

However, the carpet, itself, also had to make that trip outdoors for a good scrubbing and sunning, and to grant that sub-floor its own turn with the soap and scrub brush.

Everything, everything, in the house was clean as new, only one week later.

Usually they worked together, neighbors helping each other by turns, just as the men often did the harvest. Spring-cleaning and the harvest were equally essential to life, and they knew it. God had told them in Leviticus 14, and, of course, lately we’ve learned He was right, that a moldy house is bad, but back then they didn’t have any better sense than to believe God.

Well, of course, that was the right thing to do, but to believe Him so much that they would act on it by actually removing mold or even the potential for mold, was their only recourse, lacking today’s science.

Well, of course, today’s science isn’t so advanced if they actually already knew these things back in our great-great-great-grandmothers’ days, but it just proves that those verses actually were right.

I mean, to invest an entire week of hard work into believing that a few Bible verses might be right, was the best they could do. They had no way of knowing the dangers of mold or the importance of washing things

Oh.

I think I’ll go dust for a while. ‘Bye, now.

_________________

Katharine is a retired home educating mom who writes about all things “woman”, from a Godly viewpoint, here on this site, and at The Conquering Mom. Her writing appeared in several magazines for 15 years, and she is currently working on several books. She loves to write, speak, teach, cook, garden, spoil her hennies, and watch old movies with popcorn.