Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt: Hair

Posted on June 15, 2007 by Barbara Harper

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I didn’t think I had a picture for today’s theme other than various fuzzy bedhead pictures from when the kids were little, til I remembered this:

I was working at a fabric store and we were asked to dress up if we worked on Halloween. Though we as a family don’t “celebrate” Halloween, I didn’t feel there was any harm to dress up. And since we worked at fabric store — we were supposed to make something. So this is my Raggedy Ann outfit. I added red circle cheeks later.

I had to wing it to to make the “hair” by making a circle of white fabric, making a casing for elastic around the edge, and cutting a lot of red yarn, then sewing rows of yarn in circles around the white fabric. Then I added elastic to the casing.

It held up well through the years, even being tossed in the washing machine. All three of my kids had a “clown day” in elementary school, I think in K-5 or first grade, and they used the hair with the clown costume I made for them.

Tell me what you think…

Posted on June 15, 2007 by Barbara Harper

I’ve been getting things together for centerpieces for this ladies’ luncheon and thought I had things pretty well in hand when I realized my centerpieces were too tall. I took them to the church yesterday to try them out — and, yep, it’s right in the line of sight of the person directly across the table. A friend with me thought it was ok — they’re big round tables and you usually talk to the people around you rather than across from you because you feel like you’re shouting across. But it’s just one of those cardinal rules I learned somewhere that the centerpiece shouldn’t be so tall that you can’t see over it.

So — I spent part of yesterday hammering out a plan B, came up with a couple of possibilities, and found a smaller vase and greenery. I still think I’ll keep the big one maybe to put on the clavinova.

Here’s the big one (not in its final polished form — just put together to get an idea):

And here’s the little one with the smaller vase:

Think the smaller one looks ok?

The theme, by the way, is “The Heart of the Matter” from I Peter 3:3-4: “Whose adorning…let it be the hidden man of the heart.”

Paul Harvey on Fathers

Posted on June 15, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Some of you may remember Paul Harvey’s radio broadcasts with “the rest of the story.” I don’t know, are those still on any more? I found this some years back and love it: it’s one of my favorite pieces about fathers (though of course the theology here and there is off — but I am posting it for the sentiment about fathers).

A father is a thing that is forced to endure childbirth, without an anesthetic.

A father is a thing that growls when it feels good–and laughs loud when it’s scared half to death.

A father never feels entirely worthy of worship in his child’s eyes. He never is quite the hero his daughter thinks, never quite the man his son believes him to be. This worries him, sometimes, so he works too hard to try and smooth the rough places in the road for those of his own who will follow him.

A father is a thing that gets very angry when school grades aren’t as good as he thinks they should be. He scolds his son although he knows it’s the teacher’s fault.

Fathers grow old faster than other people.

And while mothers can cry where it shows, fathers stand there and beam outside–and die inside. Fathers have very stout hearts, so they have to be broken sometimes or no one would know what is inside. Fathers give daughters away to other men who aren’t nearly good enough so they can have grandchildren who are smarter than anybody’s. Fathers fight dragons almost daily. They hurry away from the breakfast table, off to the arena which is sometimes called an office or a workshop…where they tackle the dragon with three heads: Weariness, Work and Monotony.

Knights in shining armor.

Fathers make bets with insurance companies about who will live the longest. Though they know the odds, they keep right on betting. Even as the odds get higher and higher, they keep right on betting more and more.

And one day they lose.

But fathers enjoy an earthly immortality and the bet is paid off to the part of him he leaves behind.

I don’t know where fathers go when they die. But I have an idea that after a good rest, he won’t be happy unless there is work to do. He won’t just sit on a cloud and wait for the girl he’s loved and the children she bore. He’ll be busy there, too…oiling the gates, smoothing the way.

Show and Tell Friday

Posted on June 15, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Kelli at There’s No Place Like Home hosts the “Show and Tell Friday,” asking “Do you have a something special to share with us? It could be a trinket from grade school, a piece of jewelry, an antique find. Your show and tell can be old or new. Use your imagination and dig through those old boxes in your closet if you have to! Feel free to share pictures and if there’s a story behind your special something, that’s even better! If you would like to join in, all you have to do is post your “Show and Tell” on your blog, copy the post link, come over here and add it to Mr. Linky.“

Those who come by for the Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt will have seen this back in April, but I wanted to “show” and “tell” about it today, too.

I made this when I was expecting my first son 23 years ago. It was from a kit, and it is one of my favorite things I have ever stitched.

Here is a close-up of the detail I love about this piece. I don’t know if it will show up well, but the little iced cookies are raised and the little cupcakes have french knot icing. I love the stitching for the grass and fringe on the blanket as well.

I like it because it has bears on it; I like it because of their expressions; I like the detail; I like it because it is cute; I like it because I made it for my children; I like it because it is one of the few pieces I’ve stitched that I still have — most things I’ve made were for gifts and were given away.

I don’t know if I will give it to one of my sons when they have children (if they want it) or if I will keep it and use it in a room for grandkids. If they live nearby I’ll probably have a room where they can keep toys and take naps. Until then, it’s tucked away in a closet.

Flag Day

Posted on June 14, 2007 by Barbara Harper

Our Duty to Our Flag

by Edgar Guest

Less hate and greed
Is what we need
And more of service true;
More men to love
The flag above
And keep it first in view.

Less boast and brag
About the flag,
More faith in what it means;
More heads erect,
More self-respect,
Less talk of war machines.

The time to fight
To keep it bright
Is not along the way,
Nor ‘cross the foam,
But here at home
Within ourselves today.

‘Tis we must love
That flag above
With all our might and main;
For from our hands,
Not distant lands,
Shall come dishonor’s stain.

If that flag be
Dishonored, we
Have done it, not the foe;
If it shall fall
We first of all
Shall be to strike a blow.

(Graphic courtesy of Home Sweet Home Graphics)

Booking Through Thursday: Dessert First

Posted on June 14, 2007 by Barbara Harper

The Booking Through Thursday question for this week is:

Do you cheat and peek ahead at the end of your books? Or do you resolutely read in sequence, as the author intended?
And, if you don’t peek, do you ever feel tempted?

I used to look at the end in my undisciplined youth. 🙂 But I found that actually spoiled the story for me. Part of the enjoyment is the unfolding of the story itself, the anticipation, the guessing of what’s going to happen.

I had a similar experience with Christmas presents when I was a child. I was playing near the Christmas tree when I realized that some of the wrapping paper on the presents was light enough to see through. I came back later when no one was around and investigated and made out what most of my presents were. I was delighted! Until Christmas morning when there were no surprises left. Then I was bereft and deflated. I never again yielded to the temptation to find out what my presents were ahead of time.

I’ve come to love savoring the story, not just finding out the ending — unless it is a really boring book. There are times when I am reading through kind of a dull part of a book that I’ll skim through the next few pages and see where it’s going, and I’ll usually come back and finish the dull part before going further. But I do like the save the end for the the last thing.

Father’s Day Quotes

Posted on June 13, 2007 by Barbara Harper

1. To be popular at home is a great achievement. The man who is loved by the house cat, by the dog, by the neighbor’s children, and by his own wife, is a great man, even if he has never had his name in Who’s Who. ~ Thomas Dreier

2. “A man’s children and his garden both reflect the amount of weeding done during the growing season.” ~Author Unknown

3. “A father is a guy who has snapshots in his wallet where his money used to be.” ~ Author Unknown

4. “None of you can ever be proud enough of being the child of SUCH a Father who has not his equal in this world-so great, so good, so faultless. Try, all of you, to follow in his footsteps and don’t be discouraged, for to be really in everything like him none of you, I am sure, will ever be. Try, therefore, to be like him in some points, and you will have acquired a great deal.”
~ Victoria, Queen of England

5. “It is a wise father that knows his own child.” ~ William Shakespeare

6. He who is taught to live upon little owes more to his father’s wisdom than he who has a great deal left him does to his father’s care. ~ William Penn

7. A father is someone you look up to, no matter how tall you grow.

8. Fathers are people who give their daughters away to other men who aren’t nearly good enough so they can have grandchildren who are smarter than any body’s.

9. The father will be too small or too busy to interest the big boy if he counts himself too big or too busy to be interested in the little boy. ~ Elisabeth Elliot

10. “By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact. But I am prouder, infinitely prouder, to be a father.” ~ General Douglas MacArthur

11.“One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.” George Herbert

12. By the time a man realizes that his father was usually right, he has a son who thinks he’s usually wrong.

13. If you want your child to talk to you when he is 15, listen to him when he is 5.

Stray thoughts

Posted on June 13, 2007 by Barbara Harper

This is the first time in months, ever since I first started participating in Works for Me Wednesday, that I haven’t shared a tip. I have a couple in the back of my mind but need to just let them incubate for a while.

The Ladies’ Luncheon is this week. :0 Things are coming along, but there’s lots of little stuff to do, loose ends to take care of. I’m finding summer is not the best month to do this — so many people are out of town. I just keep having to give the whole thing to the Lord — attendance, details, etc. I tend to have this underlying nervous feeling when things like this come up, even if everything is going well — would appreciate your prayers for a calm heart (and mind and body…) Yes, I am meditating on Phil. 4:6-8 often.

Thank you for your well wishes with my cold last week. Though I was initially dismayed to be sick with so much to do, really last week was a better time to be sick than the week before or this week. And though I had intended to get a lot done with Jesse away at camp, I was able to really rest with the quietness and knowing he was being taken care of and not being neglected in another room. And I was able to get a few things crossed off my list even with that. The “brain fog” started to lift about Friday and the energy level started returning — that helped a lot! This cold seems to come with a lingering cough — Jim and Jesse are still coughing. I’ve had a little bit of a cough but I’m still having to blow my nose a bunch even though overall I feel a lot better.

One odd thing happened though — one day when I was blowing my nose, I all of a sudden felt extremely dizzy — had to grab the door frame because otherwise I was going to fall. It only lasted a few seconds, but then my right ear felt like it was blocked, like it does when I fly, even though I could still hear out of it (odd, since the left sinus has been the worst). That feeling went away after a while, but sometimes when I blow my nose, there are squeaky sounds in my right ear.

The visit with the new doctor went well. It took two hours just to get back to the exam room, though. I hope that’s not normal. She seems maybe just a little bit flighty — forgot to give me the prescription she wrote out but thought she had given to me when I asked about it, then she found it, then, when I got home I saw it was for the wrong dosage. I still have to call back and get that corrected. But I liked her overall and felt that I could communicate with her. That’s probably the biggest criteria I have for a doctor — that we communicate well and that they are willing to listen and discuss things with me. In the past I have had a well-known, much recommended Christian doctor have his hand I the doorknob the whole time he talked with me, like he really needed to go. I knew he had a waiting room full of people, but I had been waiting a long time and was paying good money for that 10 minutes of his time! He also tended to resent it if I asked questions. I like to be an informed patient. I don’t really go to a doctor just to get a prescription (my dad was that kind of patient — “I don’t want to hear all about it, just fix it.”) I like to understand what is going on and I don’t like to take medicine.

When this new doctor started with, “Tell me your story” and then asked questions along the way, I felt we would indeed have good lines of communication.

Everything was ok with all the blood work (cholesterol is only 168!) except for one odd thing I had never heard of before. The lab tests listed my “EO” (whatever that is) as 15.9H %, and normal is 0.9-2.9. She said in 30 years of practice she had never seen it that high in anyone and said it indicated either I was very allergic to something or had a parasite picked up from animals. She asked a lot about the cold, but it was definitely a cold and not allergies. I’m not having any symptoms of either of those problems, so she wasn’t sure what to make of it. I’m supposed to go back in a month. The lab test results page says this suggests “eosinophilia” — this was the only word I had trouble understanding with her accent but I am sure it was because I had never heard of it before. I looked it up online — and you have to be careful about that because they always have to give the worst case scenario and can scare you to death — but I still don’t know what to make of it. We do have a dog, but she’s mostly outside. She comes in at night and stays in one room. I don’t feed her or really do much with her besides occasionally petting her and washing her blanket that she uses indoors. I have seasonal allergies in the spring and am allergic to a couple of medicines, but haven’t been exposed to those. So I don’t know what to make of it, but I am not going to worry about it. We’ll see if it is the same when I go back next month. She also said I have a bit of a heart murmur — I had never been told that, either.

Well, this was just going to be a short note, but I have rambled on. Better go get some things done! Hope you have a great day.

A few poems for Father’s Day

Posted on June 12, 2007 by Barbara Harper

FATHER

Out in the morning Father goes,
Whether it pours with rain or snows,
Whether the wild wind beats and blows:–
By the fire sit Mother and I
Doing our lessons quietly.
Back in the twilight Father comes,
When I’ve finished with books and sums.
Not all the noise of all the drums
Is a jollier noise, I know,
Than Father when he says, “Hallo!”

~Author Unknown~

Be kind to thy father, for when thou wert young,
Who loved thee so fondly as he?
He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue,
And joined in thy innocent glee.
~ Margaret Courtney

Two Prayers

Last night my little boy confessed to me
Some childish wrong;
And kneeling at my knee
He prayed with tears–
Dear God, make me a man
Like Daddy–wise and strong;
I know you can.
Then while he slept
I knelt beside his bed,
Confessed my sins,
And prayed with low-bowed head.
O God, make me a child
Like my child here–
Pure, guileless,
Trusting Thee with faith sincere.

~ Andrew Gillies

(The beautiful graphics are courtesy of Snapshots of Joy.)

Time Travel Tuesday: Vacation Memories

Posted on June 12, 2007 by Barbara Harper

The topic for this week’s Time Travel Tuesday, created and hosted by My Life as Annie, is “Vacation Memories.” Annie asks:

We are traveling back (in our minds) to vacations… either a favorite one, or most memorable.
Do you have any special vacation memories? Where did you go? Did you camp out, or stay in a hotel?

Some of you who read here regularly will have seen a little of this in a childhood meme a few weeks ago.

I don’t remember that we actually went on vacations except to visit relatives. I don’t remember going to amusements parks as a family: my first memory of a hotel was during my high school senior trip.

When we did visit relatives, we usually went to see my father’s mother and brother who lived in LA (we lived “next door” in TX). The thing I loved about that particular uncle was that, of his 5 kids, 3 were girls close to my age and all of our birthday were in August. One was a year older than me, one was the same age I was, and the other was a year younger. I remember once we celebrated all of our birthdays at once with a big party complete with relay games. I think that was the first time I ever had a big party like that.

My father’s mother, affectionately nicknamed Nannie, had children in TX, LA, and AL and she would drive around to visit them all. We used to call her the Galloping Grandma. 🙂 There were a few times she took me with her, and I enjoyed traveling with her.

Other than that, if we went anywhere it was to the beach. I grew up in Corpus Christi, TX, and we made multitudes of excursions to Padre Island. Camp-outs, cookouts, birthday parties — a lot of that kind of thing happened there, besides just regular Saturdays at the beach. We moved from there when I was 13, and I had forgotten how much I missed it until we want back for a family reunion when I was in my early 30s.

Since being married and having kids, one of my favorite vacations was to Charleston, SC. Our kids’ Christian school’s Easter break was a different week than the public schools’ spring break (I wish it was like that ever year!!), so we didn’t encounter all kinds of other families on break. Our pastor used to live in Charleston, so we asked him about places to see and stay. He told us about a hotel right on one of the beaches. It was a little more expensive but oh-so-worth it to be able to go down to the beach any time (and going to sleep with the sound of the surf was nice). We do have modesty concerns and don’t want to go to beaches with the kinds of things people wear — especially with 3 boys — so having that area of beach almost to ourselves for a few days was wonderful. Plus we went on one of the carriage tours (only marred by someone behind us chatting on her cell phone so we couldn’t always hear the guide clearly. Grr!) and visited the Yorktown and went on a harbor tour. It was one of the loveliest vacations ever.

Another time we went down to Clearwater, FL, because my oldest son was interested in Clearwater Christian College, and we took an extra day and went to Sea World. I just loved that, especially the dolphin show.

My husband has often said that all he remembers about family vacations as a child is driving and driving and driving and then having to sit around and listen to adults talk. 🙂 Though that is a part of vacations (and we do want the kids to value getting to know their relatives and not just think vacations are all about their entertainment), we have tried to have a few family excursions like the ones to Charleston or taken an extra day here and there just to do something as a family. Even when we have gone to visit relatives, we’ve tried to take a day or afternoon to see some sights. We used to camp a lot when the two older boys were younger.

Whatever we do, it is just nice to break from routine and spend some time together apart from the usual distractions and duties.