A Sweet Poem

I found this yesterday in a book I am reading by Margaret Sangster. The book is entitled Fairest Girlhood and was first published in 1906.

There's but the meager crust, Love,

There's but the measured cup;

On scanty fare we breakfast,

On scanty fare we sup.

Yet be not thou discouraged,

Nor falter on the way,

Since Wealth is for a life, Love,

And Want is for a day.

Our robes are hodden gray, Love,

Ah! would that thine were white,

And shot with gleams of silver,

And rich with golden light.

Yet care not thou for raiment,

But climb, as pilgrims may,

Since Ease is for a life, Love,

And Toil is for a day.

Our shelter oft is rude, Love;

We feel the chilling dew,

And shiver in the darkness

Which silent stars shine through.

Yet shall we seek our palace,

And there in gladness stay,

Since Home is for a life, Love,

And Travel for a day.

The heart may sometimes ache, Love,

The eyes grow dim with tears;

Slow glide the hours of sorrow,

Slow beats the pulse of fears.

Yet patience with the evil,

For, though the good delay,

Still Joy is for a life, Love,

And Pain is for a day.

~ Author Unknown

I Love Horse Food

Oats, I mean. They're good raw, with a little honey or peanut butter to sweeten them. Or you can cook them - oatmeal. If you want, you can eat them with bananas or on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Or my favorite -granola! :)

Pour one 42-oz. container of old-fashioned oats into a large mixing bowl, and cover that with 1 7-oz. package of coconut. Sprinkle enough flax seed over these to cover them. Add 1 cup brown sugar. Mix these together, then add 1 cup cooking oil and 2 cups syrup.

Mix and pour onto 2 greased cookie sheets. Bake at 300 degrees for 10 minutes. Stir. Bake 10 more minutes or until golden brown. Turn out onto your kitchen table and let dry.

You can store half of this in the original oats container and store the rest in something else. If you want, feel free to add dried fruit, chocolate chips, or anything else to the dry granola.

Camden Park

On Friday we went to the best amusement park in America. In case you're wondering, you can find it very close to Hunington, West Virginia, and it's most famous for its great rides, small area, and short lines. This was our third time there, and the first time now that four of us are adults and the other is permanently out of KiddieLand.

Here are some of their beautiful flowers. They also had a big bushy plant that was growing something like giant yellow marigolds about six inches in diameter. But we didn't think to take a picture of it.

Caleb and Jedidiah played Dodge 'Em more times than I can count, Dad rode a few rides in the early morning and then retired to the benches by the carousel to watch the families there, Mom and I rode almost everything (we think), and my favorite remains the Log Ride.

Caleb came really close to shooting out that little red star at the Tommy Gun Alley, but just missed it both times. However, Caleb fared better with the frog game, getting one of those frogs onto the lily pad and winning the prize! And then he went back and talked to the Turkish man at the machine gun alley for a while.

Around eight o'clock we finally left the park for Pizza Hut. Wow! Was that good pizza or what? Thick crust with extra cheese, sausage, and pepperoni. And then iced cinnamon sticks. I don't know how many meals I've had better than that one. And on the ride home we heard some hyper health expert guy (okay, he talked super, super fast!) and an excellent show on Unshackled.

You'll have to take a trip to Camden Park sometime yourself! :)

We Found It!

The answer to that bad smell the clothes were getting from air-drying in our garage is fabric softener! Actually, Mammaw told us that little tidbit several weeks ago, so I should have posted it already. But now I can tell you that it is successful! :D

An Overview of Your New Health Insurance!

Here's the link:

http://www.liberty.edu/media/9980/attachments/healthcare_overview_obama_072909.pdf.

Please read this. It may surprise you, or it may not. It may start you thinking. It may scare you. It may make no impression on you at all. It may do any number of things. But whatever it does, just know that unless God intervenes, this is what our government plans to implement very soon.

Sacred Claim

I just recently finished reading a book by one of my long-time favorite authors: Leslie Ludy. The book was Set-Apart Femininity, and it was anything but a disappointment. One of the points that convicted me most was the one called sacred claim.

My life belongs to God. I belong to God. I am His to do with as He pleases. He has a sacred claim on my life and wants to use me in some way in the world for His own glory.

So what right have I to waste my time and money and affections on trivial pursuits? God's kingdom needs servants. God's field needs workers. There are hurting people everywhere, and God would have me burdened to help them.

It helped that my devotions have been in Exodus lately. The children of Israel were slaves, strangers in a strange land. Then God heard their cries and delivered Him, leading them on a pilgrimage to a far-away country; so they rose and cooked their unleavened bread and got their packs ready and went out from Egypt, trusting in the God of their fathers Who had delivered them with His mighty hand.

What would have happened, I wonder, if they - like me - had so many possessions that they couldn't fit them in a room, let alone a pack; and they were dull to the Spirit of God because they were neglecting their relationships with Him for the sake of worthless "pleasures"?

God's call on us is to be pilgrims. Ready to stop and help the needy, but otherwise faithfully and steadfastly walking forward on the road to the Promised Land.

The Simple Life: Laundry

It seems like every time we turn on the radio, someone is talking about the economy, or problems with this administration, or some other negative detail about this period in His Story.

Don't get me wrong. I think it's good to alert people so we can take action and I'm very glad that they're doing that. I don't want that to stop. And I agree with them. It's bad. But it is also important to remember that this is God's Story. He is writing it. He is sovereign, and He knows what He's doing.

There are also things we can do in the meantime. Like cultivating our relationships with God. Like being politically active. And like living the simple life. As Amy Scott of humblemusings.com says, things we should already be doing.

http://humblemusings.com/archives/2008/12/06/things-we-should-be-doing/

But if you're like me and my family, you may not have already been doing some or all of them. Here's one thing we've been trying recently: air-drying laundry. I figured that would be impossible since we currently live in the city. But Mom knew better.

She hung some stiff yellow rope three different ways in our garage and we've been hanging our clothes there for a little under a week. Of course, when my brother is home this weekend we'll have to use the dryer for the sake of time, but we'll still be saving money during the week.

One thing we're still thinking about is how to deal with the bad smell a few of the pieces of laundry have been picking up . . . . More for another post. :)