indy from My Romantic Home has this gorgeous kitchen chalkboard…and I have a highly functional but highly ugly whiteboard. *smile* I wish I were creative and talented and motivated. If I were I’d add a beautiful frame around it complete with a shelf with a hideaway for the markers and add the little appliqués that Cindy mentions in her post on how to paint furniture. And while I was being creative, talented and motivated, I would paint my kitchen, the table and chairs and the desk and maybe even stencil some beautiful poetic saying above my kitchen sink. Oh, and also buy dishes and silverware that actually matched and…I’m sure Michael, who is very worried about the economy (think MBA and all the economic classes he’s taken for the past two years) and who will probably have had a heart attack due to reading about this casual spending of his hard-earned money and who is a bit of a miser with money in the best of times, is very glad that I’m not motivated…at least not this time, dear. *smile*
MarthaStewart.com has ideas, recipes and crafts for St. Patrick’s Day, Spring and Easter. Family Fun has Celebrate Spring and Kaboose a little something for everything too.
My beautiful floral graphics which provided the backdrop for my images today came from a very old and dear friend…Lady Dj. I surely do miss her and the beauty that she brought to the web with her gorgeous images.
kay, I just whined in the previous post about no winter precip this season. Well, it’s freezing rain outside so we won’t be taking the boys tubing today…so now I’m whining that there is.
The boys are still sleeping so they don’t know yet…I’m bummed! I was really looking forward to watching the boys tube and flying down the hills myself.
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Please keep my eldest, Sean, in your prayers this morning as he makes his way home from work. When he left around 3:00 a.m. the roads were okay but now it’s a mess out there. Thank you.
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It’s a good day for soup and bread…(some recipes to peruse)
Swanson Warm Winter Soups
Whole Foods Market: Soup, Stews and Chili
Bread Maker Recipes
Bread Machine Recipes
…and to watch an old movie or two.
Turner Classic Movies - Schedule
t snowed a bit yesterday…finally, some pretty white stuff on the ground! Somehow I always feel cheated if we don’t have one really good all day, all night snowstorm but it’s been many years since we’ve been snowed in. Still, winter isn’t over yet and it has been known to snow in March so I’m still keeping my fingers crossed though my Momma, sisters and most of my friends are hoping for Spring.
It Snowed
Yesterday it snowed,
and the wind did spritely blow,
Keeping me inside.
~Barbara
Lynn Terry~
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I ran across two new blogs that I really liked. Little Cotton Rabbits is the blog of a knitter who makes the most adorable little knitted animals. She also offers free patterns…I don’t knit but I wish I did!
A Storybook Life has a great post on Creations Under Glass - Creative Displays to Fuel the Imagination.
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Snow tubing tomorrow with our homeschooling co-op…not too sure about Michael but the boys and I are really looking forward to it. *smile*
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The cake dish is empty and my husband has requested that I refill it so I’m off to check a few of my favorite baking websites to see if something catches my eye…
he Anchoress has a beautiful post on our modern day saints…a good Lenten read. I’ve ordered both books by Ann Ball (Modern Saints: Their Lives and Faces Book I and Faces of Holiness II: Modern Saints in Photos and Words) for the boys for religion.
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By Brian T. Olszewski
Catholic Herald Staff
During Lent, the church instructs its members to make prayer, fasting and almsgiving integral parts of their lives. For you who wish to supplement your spiritual diet, your Catholic Herald presents the following 40 options for prayer, fasting and almsgiving, in no particular order, as ways to help you experience a grace-filled Lent — a Lent in which you deepen your relationship with God.
1. Learn about your patron saint.
2. Pray for — by name — people you don’t like and for people that don’t like you.
3. Participate in a healing service.
4. Read a Catholic magazine every time you visit the library.
5. March 19, in honor of St. Joseph, patron saint of carpenters and fathers, build or build upon a relationship with one of your children.
6. Buy two of everything on your grocery list, and give the duplicates to the local food pantry.
7. Find out why you should have fun on Laetare Sunday, and then do so.
8. Start a “cuss bowl.” For every unkind word you utter, put in a dollar — two dollars during Holy Week. After Easter, give the money to an English as a second language program.
9. Bring a “Baltimore Catechism” to a gathering of Catholic friends, and start asking each other questions.
10. Give away a material item you really value.
11. Pray for those, e.g., children, parents, spouse, siblings, who have left the church.
12. Talk to a neighbor you rarely or never talk to.
13. Keep a dish of ashes in a prominent place as a constant reminder of the season.
14. Receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
15. Test your knowledge of Scripture.
16. Read a biography about Archbishop Oscar Romero and/or watch the video “Romero.”
17. Open a Christmas Club account with the intention of giving the money to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.
18. Visit a church when you don’t have to.
19. Reserve a button on your car stereo for the Relevant Radio station in your area.
20. Pray the news — for the people whose stories of hardship are reported daily and weekly.
21. Read an entry from a Catholic encyclopedia.
22. Attend Mass at a parish other than your own
23. Tithe your tax return.
24. If Catholic schools get NCAA tournament bids, learn for whom those schools were named.
25. Observe five minutes of silence every day.
26. Instead of watching the Academy Awards on Feb. 27, watch “The Passion of the Christ.”
27. Use a Lenten theme in decorating part of a room.
28. Memorize a Proverb.
29. Participate in a faith formation presentation.
30. Tell someone your story(ies) of faith, how God has made a difference in your life.
31. Disconnect the TV and/or the computer.
32. Identify your God-given gifts, how you use them, and how you could use them better.
33. Fast from gossip.
34. Pull the rosary out of your drawer and say it. Too boring? Say the Scriptural rosary.
35. Remove your watch before leaving for church on Palm Sunday.
36. Develop a prayer list.
37. Read a history of the papacy.
38. Find out who Raamah, Putiel, and Uzzah are.
39. Sacrifice your time in order to help others.
40. In the words of St. Francis of Assisi, “Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary use words.”
ioneer Woman did such a great job with her goose that I decided to give it a try. These are photos that I took at my great grandparents’ gravesite last year. I used Overcooked and Gum Bichromate Print, Photoshop Actions from rawimage…altered a bit. Click on thumbnails to view full-sized images.
Original
Overcooked - Altered
Gum Bichromate Print
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The following are inscriptions from tombstones (courtesy of my Cambria County Genealogy listserv)
Harry Edsel Smith of Albany
Born 1903–Died 1942.
Looked up the elevator shaft to see
if the car was on the way down.
It was.
=============================
In a Thurmont, Maryland cemetery:
Here lies an Atheist,
all dressed up
and no place to go.
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On the grave of Ezekial Aikle in East Dalhousie Cemetery, Nova Scotia:
Here lies Ezekial Aikle
Age 102
Only the Good Die Young
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In a London, England cemetery:
Here lies Ann Mann
who lived an old maid
but died an old Mann
Dec. 8, 1767
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In a Ribbesford, England cemetery:
Anna Wallace
The children of Israel wanted bread
and the Lord sent them manna
Clark Wallace wanted a wife,
and the Devil sent him Anna
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In a Ruidoso, New Mexico cemetery:
Here lies Johnny Yeast
Pardon me for not rising
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A lawyer’s epitaph in England:
Sir John Strange
Here lies an honest lawyer
and that is Strange
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In a Uniontown, Pennsylvania cemetery:
Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake
Stepped on the gas
instead of the brake
==============================
In a Silver City, Nevada cemetery:
Here lays The Kid.
We planted him raw.
He was quick on the trigger
But slow on the draw.
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John Penny’s epitaph in the Wimborne, England cemetery:
Reader, if cash thou art in want of any, dig six feet deep and thou wilt find a Penny.
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In a Hartscombe, England cemetery:
On the 22nd of June,
Jonathan Fiddle
went out of
tune.
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Anna Hopewell’s grave in Enosburg Falls, Vermont:
Here lies the body of our Anna,
Done to death by a banana.
It wasn’t the fruit that laid her low,
But the skin of the thing that made her go.
==================================
On a grave from the 1880s in Nantucket, Massachusetts:
Under the sod and under the trees,
lies the body of Jonathan Pease.
He is not here, there’s only the pod.
Pease shelled out and went to God.
==================================
In a cemetery in England:
Remember man, as you walk by,
as you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, so shall you be.
Remember this and follow me.
To which someone replied by writing on the tombstone:
To follow you, I’ll not consent
until I know which way you went.
love visiting online vintage stores. I found some new ones this weekend…
came through on my Baltimore-Washington Home Education email list. Three great resource links to bookmark and use.
uinn and I started last week and now Cade and Connor are sniffling and sneezing. This has been a really mild winter (temps again today near 60) and so the cold germs seem to be flourishing with us catching every strain of the virus out there.
