good friday

Words of love... I've had a copy of this reading laying on our computer desk for over a year.  Words of encouragement and hope were shared with us when Steve's dad died.  This morning I'm thinking about them and retrieving them and sharing them.  Unforgettable words of love...

The earth has covered only that which was mortal
       Of those to whom we have said our farewell.
We shall not see again
       the familiar glowing face, the warm illuminate eye,
Nor hear the beloved voice.

We shall not sit face to face,
        Across the family table, or side by side
In the home of a friend or in worship.

We shall not feel the kiss
       That once evoked our deepest response.
Yet death has failed and must surrender

For the beloved who is gone
       Lives and will always live through the years
Not in some distant corner of our being,
       To be uncovered only in a rare moment
Or by a sudden surge of recall.
       The beloved has become a presence
Rooted so deep that life cannot carry us far from the cherished
       Now hallowed center of memory and love.
They live and move within us,
       In spheres beyond dominion.

We thank Thee, O God of life and love,
       For the resurrecting gift of memory
Which endows Thy children fashioned in Thy image
       With The God-like sovereign power
To give immortality through love.
       Blessed be Thou, O God
Who enables Thy Children to remember.
                            - Rabbi Morris Adler

atlas hangs on

I found an adorable reading of a favorite story of mine, "Atlas Hangs on".

The storybook is found on this website.  I read it with my 5th graders.

read the story... read it outloud... and then read it again. :)

money

I read an interesting post about money on a blog by Danielle LaPorte ...

20 personal money practices that got me to a place of grooving prosperity. (part 1)

helpful... simple... 

Am I the only one who doesn't know who Danielle LaPorte is?  These reviews about her book, "The Fire Starter Sessions", are interesting to read...

love bugs

These two are such good friends.  I have so many pictures of Cinder and Copper napping together...all cuddled up!  In this picture, Copper's got his chin resting on Cinder...sometimes Cinder lays on Copper's back.  It is so funny and so sweet.

memories

I've had this quote or line from a Waltons episode floating in and out of my mind over the past year.  I hadn't thought about it for years until last summer.

The memory was triggered when I was out working in our garden.  Giggles, shouts, and then crying :) drifted into our yard.  We have new neighbors with small children and they were out playing.   It had been years since those sounds were heard in our yard.  Those sweet voices actually seemed to originate from the air around me... and they floated around my head.  I stopped and listened.  My boys' voices have long since past that stage of high-pitched giggling and shouting!  There are very few sounds that are as sweet as children's voices in the summer evening air.  And those voices triggered memories of my own boys' sweet laughter... sweet chanting...

The line..."the ghosts of the children we were".  That's what I remembered.   It was a line from an ending scene of a Waltons episode.   Those words struck me as a youth when I heard them for the first time and then they were embedded in my memory when I heard them again as an adult.   But it has been many years since I've thought about those words.  There was something about the summertime air and those sweet voices that triggered them.

And now those words surface again. So I googled the line that I remember and found a Waltons website with summaries of episodes.  The website also includes the beginning and ending narratives from each episode (which I will be reading--all of them!).   I found the episode... season 2 episode 8 "The Braggart"....


"It's late now in Virginia, that ball field which once echoed to the sounds of our games is quiet except for the call of crickets and the ghosts of the children we were. For my brothers and sisters and I are all grown now, and our children play other games in places far from Waltons Mountain. Still, there's something about the fall of night that turns our thoughts homeward".

another weekend

It's Saturday morning.  Another busy week is over.  Work was full...MCA math retakes (poor kids--poor me), speech-language presentation (when will I ever get used to public speaking??), IEP meetings, and my regular speech therapy schedule. Today we are heading over to Grand Forks for the last basketball tourney.  Game today at 4 and then all day tomorrow.  Great group of 8th graders but I'm glad to be done. 

 

But before the busy weekend got started, I settled in with my first cup of coffee and my Kindle Fire. I downloaded my first book--The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy. And it was free! But that's not the best part...I did it all by myself and it is one of my favorite stories ever (this and The Lord of the Rings)!   I CAN NOT wait to start reading it. I've posted briefly about the dvd collection and will post about it in the future in GREAT detail!:)

 Soames Forsyte is my favorite character.  Despicable and pitiful... unforgettable.

And I will own the dvd collection someday.  A must see!!

Guess what I will be doing this weekend between games... and whenever I can get away with it!

happy Friday

I'm looking forward to the weekend and spending time in my home and with my family...  

...something I never get enough of.