This Thursday's Thankfulest Things are...

1. A periwinkle-flowered* garden

This is the "blueberry hill" we built in the spring of 2003 and planted with eight blueberries, all of which have died. However! the blue asters, blue salvia, pincusion flowers, lavendar, evoluvus, lamb's ears, and sage are all doing nicely, as are the various white and yellow roses, and I am happy.
*For Valerie, who knows how much I love periwinkle


2. A hard-working hubby

We have five rose bushes growing here beside the driveway, and before Monday, they were accompanied by a thin strip of lamb's ears transplanted from the blueberry hill, and completely surrounded (and sometimes engulfed) by grass. Here, Mike is digging up all the grass and making it into a real bed where, later that afternoon, he helped me plant four dozen daffodil bulbs, pink, white, and yellow snapdragons, pink and white petunias, two pineapple sages and two red-flowering sages, and more lamb's ears. Unfortunately, I forgot to take an "after" picture.


3. A very good book
Last week, Carmon had a poll in her sidebar asking which Jane Austen novel is your favorite, and I had to answer "Please don't make me choose!" Peter Leithart's excellent explanations of the major themes of each novel just cemented my prior conviction - my favorite Jane Austen book is whichever one I happen to be reading at the time.

You simply must get this book! And don't forget - "Real Men Read Austen." :-D

Happy tired
Been gardening all day. Took lots of pics. Too tired to poszzzz.....

Praise God, ye servants of the Lord,
O praise His Name with one accord;
Bless ye the Lord, His Name adore
From this time forth forevermore,
From this time forth forevermore.

From rising unto setting sun
Praised be the Lord, the Mighty One;
He reigns o’er all, supreme in might,
Above the heavens in glory bright,
Above the heavens in glory bright.

On whom but God can we rely,
The Lord our God Who reigns on high,
Who condescends to see and know
The things of heaven and earth below,
The things of heaven and earth below?

He lifts the poor and makes them great,
With joy He fills the desolate;
Praise ye the Lord and bless His Name,
His mercy and His might proclaim,
His mercy and His might proclaim.

Words: The Psalter, 1912
Music: “Andre,” William B. Bradbury

The BadgerMum's simple 3-point plan for getting your house clean and clutter-free:
1. Put the books, good furniture, and items you simply cannot part with on a U-Haul
2. Call the local charity and ask them to pick up everything that's left
3. Move into a new house

There you have it: simple, elegant, stress-free.

Also not very practical if you’re not in the military and don’t move every few years.

Yes, I know it’s dreadful, but I honestly don’t know how to deep-clean a house without moving! The easiest way for me really deal with clutter is to strip a room down to its bare necesseties, and then replace only what must be in that room according to its function.

I did just that last week in the school room. It was so messy-looking with three student desks and three sets of track-and-bracket shelves on the walls, a fish tank, a computerless computer desk, and never enough room for all the books and notebooks and other supplies, so we went to the stuff-mart and bought two white five-shelf bookcases and two matching white storage cabinets. These we placed neatly all against one wall, with the bookcases, which are taller, in the middle and one cabinet on each end. The room is just over 12 feet long so they fit with a few inches to spare.

In place of the desks, we moved in the 3’ by 5’ kitchen table, and placed it with one end up against the wall under the window. Mr. Fish is now happily residing in the corner of the room nearest to the dining room/library. The computer desk, now serving as a plant stand, and two of the student desks, sitting back-to-back, fulfill the table's former duties in the kitchen's breakfast nook.

The school room looks so much better now! One solid wall of storage and one large table provide a visual unity that is much more attractive than the cluttery disunity of three separate study areas. The table has room for the three oldest children to study at the same time, and this evening it provided a comfortable place for Elai and me to sit and chat in a relatively private spot.

And having storage behind closed doors is absolutely essential to my sanity, if you know what I mean.
;-)

Thankful Thursday!
1. the peace that passes understanding

2. early morning quietness

3. friends who check in every Thursday to add their own thanksgiving lists; they motivate me to keep on being thankful :-)

4. Valerie is back!

There is so much to love about fall
the stultifying heat of summer is over
migrating songbirds have returned to us
the wind is refreshing
pecans are falling and pumpkins ripening
cool evenings and mornings have returned
we sleep with our bedroom windows open
the air smells clean

Surrogate blogging
;-)

Liza Q's family has been studying the middle ages, so for Michaelmas they put on a medievel feast, including a dramatization of the story of St. George and the Dragon. Liza has generously allowed me to share these photos of their day, along with a few notes on how the day went. Thanks, Liza!

Some random thoughts on the day...

We got some ideas about Michaelmas from Catherine Called Birdy and The Royal Diaries:Elizabeth 1.

Our soundtrack (The Chieftains, The Battlefield Band and The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos) was lovely.

Peasants preparing the feast


Our home-made (no sewing, just scrounging around our closets and the dress-up clothes box) peasant costumes came out better than we expected!





Noble guests


Our store-bought costumes were very pretty.




Liza's ideas for the food were very creative:

The duck, which was easier to locate than a goose, was easy to make and tasted better than I remembered. Doing many things the easy way (like buying canned soup and bread from the bakery) made for a very relaxing time. Not authentic, but still lots of fun. Adding almond extract to French Vanilla pudding mix works very well. Marzipan looks better than it tastes. OK, that's just Mom's opinion - some of my children strongly disagree!

Valiant St. George and the beautiful princess Una


Una's costume was bought at a medieval festival sponsored by Medieval Adventures.





St. George triumphs over the dragon!

The thing I greatly feared has come upon me
The cordless phone is lost... and I can't page it because the battery has gone dead!

A funny cloud formation that I saw at Twylah's blog yesterday reminded me of some strange clouds we had this summer. The younger kids came running into the house shouting, "Mama, there are hands in the sky!"

So I went out, looked straight up, and saw this:





The sky was covered with this strange formation, but it only looked hand-like directly overhead. Off at an angle, this was the view:





Have you ever seen anything like that? The clouds were rolling and churning, but they kept that finger-like formation the whole time.

Thankful Thursday
The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage. (Psalm 16:6)

1. First day of school!
2. Sausage and eggs for breakfast
3. An early-rising husband who always gets the coffee started in the morning