What do you need to go on with?

"In spite of everything I shall rise again:
I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing."

Vincent van Gogh, Letter 136, September 24, 1880

Leonardo da Vinci, Study of Arms and Hands. c. 1474.
Pen and Ink with white chalk on brown paper

Still filling up..........

Make haste slowly.

Great words to think upon.
Think before you do anything is
perhaps behind the words.
Organic is like that.
Being organic takes time.
Slow time.
Making compost.
There's an urgency to haste.
There's patience to a pile of compost.
How about in education?
Think upon that one and you will find
yourself slowing down to ponder, wonder,
and meditate.Reformation.

Jean Drawing (1901). Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919). Jean Drawing is a portrait of the artist's young son Jean drawing.

Filled ....

We are trying to describe today:

my husband : the sky was blue but
on the horizon , grey and black clouds
were gathering. Meetings filled his day
at home ( he works for the Big Blue from
home) so we saw him a little bit.

Emma: filled with people.
We had a poetry class today, high school
students here for the Humanities class,
she sang at a nursing home and then
had an End of the Year Party for the choir.

Me: I laughed at Edward Lear.
We read The Jumblies, then The Dong with
the Luminous Nose. Well, there at the start
of my day, were the Jumblies IN the next
poem. Wow. How did that work out so well?
A friend read from Julie Andrew Edward's
book ( which is so funny like Edward Lear)
The Last of the Great Whangdoodles.
Very funny and feed the imagination.
Thanks, Anita!
AND it is near to the end of our study of
Christendom in the Humanities Class.
It is a hard curriculum and I still love using
it and teaching from it. We lose one of our
teachers next year who is moving back to
Franklin.( Anita will take her place!!)
Here is a great quote from today's
lecture on the Founders and the Classics:

"A classic is a book that has never quite finished
what it has to say." Italo Calvino

The skies did rain and the day filled with rain
off and on.Up in Boone, Evan said snow up in the higher
elevations.

BRAD: got tazed today. YIKES. ( in the
Police Academy). Pepper sprayed later in the
week.



Painting: Breton Children Reading
by Emile Vernon

Being Blessed right in front of my eyes

As children grow up , more things
come in the way of a family sitting
down and playing a game. We do that
on vacation but not so much now as
when they were younger. Most of my
children can beat me at Scrabble , even
when they were young. It also was
something we would do when school
days became frustrating and we just
needed to do something different for
a morning or afternoon! SO when
Gordan, who is 18 , said "Let's play
Scrabble out on the porch after dinner,"
I was blessed.

I did win both games too.
Just a fluke as Gordan beat me at age 11
and I didn't even let him win.

The ones not playing came out to help.
There's something contagious about
wanting to find a new word.

There's something contagious about
thinking about Gratitude every Monday.
Read Ann's blog who started it all!
Join if you have a blog.

JOY . That's what it was.
Surprised me.

finding the name of the gorgeous flower

I got to Winghaven's Plant Sale
today. It is a 3 acre garden of a
husband and wife. Here are some
photos from a friend's blog of a
wedding there. Here are some flowers
we saw today. Do you know what
they are ? I think they have gotten on
my list of most beautiful creations of
our God!





They were out of the blue so I had to
buy the red.

Beatitude on Books

" It is an old and healthy tradition
that each home where the light of
godliness shone should have its own
bookshelf. Blessed is the man or woman
who has inherited such a cultural and
spiritual bequest."

John Macleod ( 1872-1948)

READ this article:

Home library .....

Local foods

We ate well this weekend up in the
N.C. mountains! I was thinking today
how good food , homemade food ,is a
gift. All the restaurants we ate at were
locally owned. So the cooks were local.
That makes it different when you order!
You know that a chain restaurant tastes
basically the same no matter where you are.
( Read The Geography of Nowhere if you
like thinking about that!)
But you need a local to say : Their basil pesto
pizza is out of this world OR everything is
homemade and served with her homemade
wheat toast! YUM. It made our trip wonderful.
It made celebrating Evan's 21st so fun.

We came with a Guinness Ginger Cake made
by a friend of our family. YUM again.
When I get the recipe I will post it because it
was out of this world! We put lemon curd and
whipped cream on top. The above photo is
from this blog and recipe.
Take a look!

So on this Gratitude Monday , I am
thankful for all those cooks. All the
good food they presented to us in their
local restaurants and my dear friend who
has a way with ingredients!

Bon Appetit!