City Scapes

Joe's parents, along with his Aunt Laurie and Uncle Frank, are currently enjoying a travel adventure with the ECHO charter school students, and friends of the school.  The school does a big trip every year in May, to one of four regions of the US, in a four year cycle.  This year they travel to Gettysburg, Philadelphia, and New York City.  They also stopped in the Pennsylvania countryside near Shanksville, PA, to see the memorial to United Airlines Flight 93.  When Jeremy attended ECHO as a ninth grader, they went on a similar trip, but instead of the Pennsylvania locations, the year he was along they toured the Boston area.

Dave Ose, a family friend, and a native of the area where Joe grew up, is along on the trip.  He has been posting frequent updates and pictures to facebook.  It's been fun to read the updates and see all the things they are busy with each day.

Today Dave posted a picture that turned out very cool.  It reminded me of a couple of famous paintings. 

Here is Dave's photo, which he titled, Umbrella Day in New York.

Umbrella Day in New York  Dave Ose

My first thought was of a painting by Gustave Caillebotte.  The obvious connection here is the pedestrians with umbrellas, along with the muted tones of the city scenery.

Paris Street, Rainy Day  Gustave Caillebotte

But my second thought was that Dave's pictures had some vivid contrast in light and dark, that reminded me of Edward Hopper.

New York Office  Edward Hopper

A Walk in the Park: Greenwood Park

Who Goes Amid the Green Wood

Who goes amid the green wood
With springtide all adorning her?
Who goes amid the merry green wood
To make it merrier?

Who passes in the sunlight
By ways that know the light footfall?
Who passes in the sweet sunlight
With mien so virginal?

The ways of all the woodland
Gleam with a soft and golden fire -- -
For whom does all the sunny woodland
Carry so brave attire?

O, it is for my true love
The woods their rich apparel wear -- -
O, it is for my own true love,
That is so young and fair. 

by James Joyce

I had an awesome Mother's Day.  I don't have time to write much, so you'll get the abbreviated version.  (I guess it's your lucky day!  but as always, it remains to be seen whether what I eventually post will, in fact, be at all abbreviated.)

After church and a nice Mother's Day dinner, we relaxed.  We had plans to work outside, but the wind was gusting fiercely, which took some of the eagerness out of us.   Joe ended up taking a nap; I think I might have, too.  The kids played indoors and out.  John went for a bike ride (this is the first year he's old enough to ride on the highway.  He can only go a designated distance we can see from our front window; and not with others, who might distract him).  Some of the kids went for a walk in the fields adjacent to our house. The bigger kids finished up some of their weekend chores.

I was showered throughout the afternoon with the many little treasures Joe and my kids had prepared for me.

I had e-mail cards from Clara and Sophie; facebook greetings from Matt and Louisa.   I got a woodworking project Elsie made me in her shop class at school (I can't remember the politically appropriate name for the class that was formerly called "shop", so I'm sticking with that). Sophie gave me several projects.  John gave me some cups with grass and marigolds, started from seeds at school; and a chore contraption.  (It's a "bouquet" of tongue depressors, each with a little decorative top and a greeting of affection; these are contained in a paper plate vase like a bunch of flowers; Each one also has a little helping out task written along the "stem."  I can pick a "flower" and John will then do the chore that is written on the stem.  Pretty sweet.)  Stella brought me pretty rocks throughout the day.  Donna filled a little tin for me with "treasures" from among her possession.  Joe gave me a card in which part of the message had screwy font and so had to be decoded, as he put it, with a "super secret decoder ring." That's not really what he gave me, but it is true the card he made me got messed up at first, so we got a good joke out of that.  He really got me two pairs of earrings handmade by my friend Christine; and Christine included as a gift, a pair she custom made for me. 

So you see, I was quite literally showered with these wonderful tokens of love.

By evening, Louisa was itching to go to town to visit a friend, and the other kids had expressed a desire to "do something special" for Mother's Day.  So we had our traditional Sunday snacky supper.  Then we got everyone cleaned up enough for going in public, and loaded the van.  Matt stayed home.  He had worked a closing shift at Pizza Hut Saturday night and was still feeling the effects.  He offered to do dishes so we could get going sooner, and then he went to be early.

The rest of us headed into town to go for a walk at Greenwood Park.  This is a little secret place in Thief River Falls.  It's really not a secret, but it feels like one.  Along the Red Lake River, in between a couple of residential areas, and adjacent to one of the cemeteries, there is a little wooded area with walking trails.  Until a few years ago, it was on a dead end street that I believe was even gravel.  Then the city put a bridge across the river right there and added a paved parking lot.  So it's much less secret now then it used to be.

We parked the car and headed out.  We had called Jeremy to meet us there, which was an additional treat, since we don't' see him often enough.  Louisa's friend, Logan, was also meeting us, so Louisa and Elsie stayed with the van to wait for him.

Some of the other kids wanted to run ahead, but we asked them to stay with us, until we saw how the trail was.  Part of the trail runs right up against the river, so with all these little, busy, fast-moving bodies accompanying us, I wanted to see how things were before letting anyone run off alone.  I think they were disappointed at first that they couldn't just run.  But I'm quite sure they would all agree that we had a very nice time. 

The kids had fun picking wildflowers.  (I hope that's not illegal?)  We found purple, yellow and white of violets; some dainty white blossoms on lacy-looking stems (maybe a variety of baby's breath?); yellow gentian and trillium; and two other varieties of unidentified wildflower (I think one was ginseng, but I'm still checking up on that).  The kids found a bed of ferns, which most of them had never seen before, so they all grabbed clusters of fern fronds.  I am originally from the Puget Sound area of Washington State, very verdant and damp, with many, many ferns growing in any wild place.  I love the smell of ferns, so I drank in that fragrance (and memories of childhood) as the kids waved around their bouquets. 

Then we walked the grassland paths up above the river.  The kids enjoyed urnning ahead up there, racing back and forth, having rolling competitions, doing cartwheels and summersaults, and generally just being crazy kids.  We ended up finishing off by skirting the edge of the cemetery to get back to the parking lot.  Joe and some of the kids looked at some of the monuments.  They found one from a few years ago for a six month old baby.  Some of the kids left their bouquets there.  I thought that was very sweet of them.  It was precious to me to see such an expression of tenderness.

After we were done with our walk, we stopped at Hugo's and got push-ups and ice cream sandwiches for a treat.  Then we dropped Jeremy off and hit the road for home.

The whole way home I kept trying to remember some vague literary association I had with the word Greenwood.  I felt sure there was a poem that included that name.  I checked last night after all the kids were in bed and found there are actually three poems and several other uses of that word in literature.  None of the three poems sounded particularly familiar, so I'm not sure how I knew of it.   I included the one by James Joyce at the beginning because it talks about spring, and the springtime attire of a woodland. 

The others poems with that word are "Under the Greenwood Tree" by William Shakespeare, from As You Like It; and "Come to the Greenwood Tree" by William Makepeace Tackeray.

I see Under the Greenwood Tree is also part of the title of a novel by Thomas Hardy.  The full title is Under the Greenwood Tree or The Mellstock Quire: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School. That's quite a title.  I've read several of Hardy's books, but never heard of that one. 

And if those tidbits are not enough with the work Greenwood, early twentieth century writer, Sara Jane Lippincott wrote also under the name of Grace Greenwood.

28 Day challenge summary

I am done with my 28 day challenge.   I removed my ticker for counting down the days, and left the weight loss one up.  It is still serving its purpose.

In summary, I lost five pounds instead of the eleven for which I had set my goal.  It's a little disappointing.  But I'm still happy about those five.  Very, very happy.

I didn't accomplish any of my big goals.  Not a one.  But I am feeling better all the time and have more energy.  Most days are a little bit better than the one before.  The daily view is baby steps.  But when I look back at each week of my challenge, each one is substantially better than the one before. 




Although I didn't finish any outside chores, I did so some work out there, so I guess that is at least part of one of my big goals that I got done.

I hope to continue my mental and emotional improvement, and maybe in a few weeks, I'll set another set of goals.  I'm busy right now with a confirmation celebration to prepare for my Elsie this coming weekend, and several graduation celebrations to attend in the coming weeks.  The kids will be done with school soon.  So there will be lots of busyness and transition.  That particular combination, for me, is kind of a recipe for disaster.   

So no big goals right now.   Stability will be enough to handle.

I will continue the Monday morning weigh-ins with my walking buddies, so I will keep that ticker active to keep me accountable.

315 Stations and Nothing but Bad Songs On (well four stations, anyway)

I had to run into Thief River today already.  But first I had to stop by a friend/neighbor/member's house to pick up Joe's paycheck.  This man lives about 12 miles east of us; TR is west and north.  So it made a bit of a drive.  (And yes, even though he's twelve miles away, when you consider how few people are in between, he's still kind of a neighbor, right?)

Often I like a nice long drive.  It gets me out of the house, and up and rolling right away.  And when there's good music or good talk or good news on the radio, it can be kind of fun.  But I'm still in my anti-talk radio and anti-current events mood.  So I flip through the music stations.  There is an eclectic station out of the Community College in Thief River.  There is a Public Radio music station. There are a couple of pop/hip hop type stations, but they don't come in very well; and there are four country stations.  Oh, and classic rock.  I can usually get one or the other of two classic rock stations.  I can almost always find something I like.  And so the drive flies by.

I don't know if I've written about it here, but my car is like my rebel place.  I love to find a song I like and just go crazy singing out loud and jamming to the tunes.  

But lately, I don't know, lately I'm having this ADD radio thing again.  I don't like ANYTHING on the radio.  NOTHING!  Well, very little.  I've gradually fallen into a mostly country radio habit, but lately, all the songs I had previously come to like are "old" so they don't get much play time.  I don't happen to like most of the "new" songs.  Or if I do, they are of the sort I probably ought not to like as well as I do.  

Some I like for the music.  It's interesting, complex, or has a fun beat.  An example of that, a song that's older now, but that I always find myself grooving to until I realize which song it is, at which time I feel chagrined, since it's one I don't allow my kids to sing out to, is this a long enough run-on sentence yet, is Honky Tonk Bedonkadonk by Trace Atkins.  I really think that's a cool sounding song.  But you know, I just can't get myself to feel right about a song, the entire purpose of which is to celebrate a woman's backside and how she clothes and moves it.  I don't know...maybe it's just me.

Then there are those songs that are just plain fun, but too hedonistic for me to say I really like them.  An example of this is George Strait's Here for a Long Time.  I love to sing out on that one at the top of my lungs.  It's just so fun.  But there is that one swear word that I can't in good conscience sing in front of my kids; and in general that song is all about hedonism.  Have fun and take no responsibility.  Louisa has tried to assuage my guilty feeling by explaining that it could be about not worrying, or not striving to accumulate things or power or position; and I suppose that could be true.  But to me, it feels hedonistic.

Then there are the melancholy songs about days gone by.  And quite frankly none of us needs any encouragement to wallow in the guilt, shame, or pain of the past; or any temptation to dwell on the good times to which we can't return.  Memories are fine, and good, and a rich blessing. And occasionally a country music song will celebrate memories in this healthy fashion.  But that's not the kind of song I'm talking about.  Most country music songs are not rejoicing in good memories.  Instead such songs pine for the past in an unhealthy way.  They tend to tantalize the discontent and covetous aspects of our sinful nature.  There are a few bands or individuals, though, whose melodies, harmonies, and musical arrangements come together so compellingly that they draw a listener right into the songs, and thus put people right back into old times.  This kind of song, too, I prefer not to listen to very often, even thought I may love the sound of these songs.

Lately, though, it just seems like either the songs are totally boring, on the one hand.  Or they are fun or interesting or lovely musically, but fit into one of the above categories.

And so today, driving a total of about 80 miles, I heard one song I really liked.  ONE.  I heard only TWO of the songs that I like from the previous "guilty pleasure" categories.

But the one good song was a really good song.  Josh Turner's Why Don't We Just Dance.  I suppose that I ought not to complain.  If I had to hear just one good song, I'm glad it was that one.

22 Day Check-In

Day 22 of theMom's 28 day challenge.  I don't have much to report.  Getting no big things done, but continuing to baby step with little improvements in energy and attitude.

I had a very busy week last week, with various appointments and obligations for kids.  That took up hoards of time, and disrupted the home life schedule, which then does two things.  It makes it harder to get the basics done, but it also zaps my energy.  The disruption, that is, wears me out.  So I consider it a great accomplishment that I kept up with the basics and even showed some improvements.  I'm happy to have gotten through the week without "Ricky's mom blowing up".    That in itself is a feat. 

Not to mention the fact that we've been out of our B-complex vitamins of which I generally take 2 each day for sanity, increased energy, clarity of thought, and emotional stability.    Joe calls it my Vitamin Behave

I was supported throughout the week by actual and virtual* conversation with friends far and near, and that my friends, is a gift from God.  Don't ever doubt it or take it for granted.

I took a couple of extra walks this week, besides the regularly scheduled Monday, Wednesday, Friday ones with my neighbors.   Yesterday evening, I even jogged 1 mile of a three mile walk

Oh, and I lost another 2 1/2 pounds.  Yippee!

*  Does anyone else find it strange that these days "virtual" means exactly the opposite of virtual?

Bless the Lord, oh my Soul

Psalm 103 is one of my all time favorites.  The cadence is soothing.  The message is comprehensive and comforts me each time I read it.

First we are treated to a litany, an overview of the many things God has done for us.

Bless the Lord, O my soul;
And all that is within me, bless His holy name!
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all His benefits:
Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from destruction,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,
Who satisfies your mouth with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Then we read about His righteousness toward His people from ancient days until the present.  He is just and merciful.

The Lord executes righteousness
And justice for all who are oppressed.
He made known His ways to Moses,
His acts to the children of Israel.
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.
He will not always strive with us,
Nor will He keep His anger forever.
He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
Nor punished us according to our iniquities.

Just think of that, "He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities."  I don't know about anyone else, but I know my own heart and my own many sins of both commission and omission.  Wow!

More picture language follows.  Take a moment to let it sink in.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,
So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him;
As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
As a father pities his children,
So the Lord pities those who fear Him.
For He knows our frame;
He remembers that we are dust.

No matter how many times we mess up, our Heavenly Father has mercy on us.  "He knows our frame and remembers that we are dust."

Next the psalmist, David, contrasts our few days here on earth, to God's eternal self.  The marks we make on this earth, the legacy we might leave behind, all are nothing.  "The wind passes over it, and it is gone, and it's place remembers it no more."  But God on the other hand, His mercy and righteousness are "from everlasting to everlasting."

As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
And its place remembers it no more.
But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
On those who fear Him,
And His righteousness to children’s children,
To such as keep His covenant,
And to those who remember His commandments to do them.

Oh-oh.  What's that last line?  "...to such as keep His covenant, and to those who remember His commandments to do them."  I guess that's not me. 

But wait, it is!  Remember earlier, the part about God removing our transgressions from us.  This reminds me of the many other places in Scripture where Jesus perfect life and sacrificial death are attributed to us.  When God looks at us, He doesn't see our sin.  He sees Jesus' perfection.  He sees the debt of sin paid off in entirety because of Jesus' death and resurrection.

I John 1:7 The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

And for this we join with all creation in a final strain of praise.

The Lord has established His throne in heaven,
And His kingdom rules over all.
Bless the Lord, you His angels,
Who excel in strength, who do His word,
Heeding the voice of His word.
Bless the Lord, all you His hosts,
You ministers of His, who do His pleasure.
Bless the Lord, all His works,
In all places of His dominion.

Bless the Lord, O my soul!

Turning into a Busy Day

I like to laze around a little on Saturday mornings.  The bigger kids don't have to rush off to school; and because of the quieter morning, the little ones sleep later, too.  But somehow, each week, the lazing around time passes all too quickly.  Soon, I find myself still sitting around, still being lazy, but with the Saturday chore list built up around me in a somewhat intimidating fashion.

Today I began my day with a nice warm cup of coffee and reading Article VIII of the Smalcald Articles, in study for a discussion I'm in the midst of on God's workings in our daily lives.  I hope to post about that eventually, once I get everything sorted out in my mind.  I also had a couple of internet conversations on the above topic first thing this morning. 

Later, just as I was about to get up and rolling, I was treated to a brief phone call, suggesting a skype conversation with one of my very bestest of friends.  This friend is fairly new to e-mail stuff and so even our frequent e-mail exchanges of late feel like a great gift.  But now we have conquered the skype thing.  This was our first time.  It was awesome!  Totally!  So wonderful to see her smiling face.

After that I sat down here to formulate some tentative plans for my day, but then one of my daughters came and sat down next to me, and we got distracted with a little bit of what my teens call facebook creeping.  This cultural phenomenon consists of doing a facebook search for someone you want to know more about, or show pictures of to another person, etc.  It feels a little bit like stalking, but I suppose it's no different than looking at pictures in a high school year book and sharing them with a friend.

When Elsie and I were finished with our "quality time" I realized that, once again, I am behind already this Saturday.  So what do I do?  I sit down and spend more time at the computer composing this blog post.

Today I hope to

• get three meals on the table
• catch up on all the various bits and pieces and piles of dirty dishes that are sitting around my kitchen
• finish Matt's preliminary Marine Corps paperwork (the part where they ask all the details of every person in our lives, to give to the FBI, so they can determine whether or not Matt or anyone in his circle of people is a threat to national security
• get Elsie's confirmation invitations in the mail
• orchestrate Saturday chores for everyone
• fold some laundry
• get three more laundry loads run through
• get all the little ones through the Saturday bath cycle
• take a walk or exercise in some way

That's the plan, Stan.  Wish me well.

Don't Blink

Country music singer, Kenny Chesney, has a song out right now called, "Don't Blink."  It's a prettily done number, suitably melancholy for country music, about how time flies and how we all tend to take it for granted.  Its chorus has been going through my mind this week.

Don't Blink
Just like that you're six years old and you take a nap and you
Wake up and you're twenty-five and your high school sweetheart becomes your wife
Don't blink 
You just might miss your babies growing like mine did
Turning into moms and dads next thing you know your "better half"
Of fifty years is there in bed
And you're praying God takes you instead
Trust me friend a hundred years goes faster than you think
So don't blink

On Tuesday afternoon I took Matt and Elsie into Grand Forks.  Elsie will be confirmed in a few weeks.  My fourth baby, already getting confirmed.   She needed a dress for the occasion.

More traumatic for mom, however, was taking Matt to the Marine recruiter to start the process of his enlistment.  Oh, boy!

And then at the elementary school concert last night.   During the final number, they had a third or fourth grade boy with a desert camo shirt over his clothes walk about throughout the gym waving a big flag during "Living in America." 

It was all a little much for me.  All I could think was that this little guy was my Matt, just a few years back.  In a little over a year, that desert camo will be his professional attire, not just a costume for a school program.

Don't blink.

Today's simple goals

switch a wash load
get dressed
brush teeth and hair
do dishes
switch was load
fold some laundry
switch a wash load
get lunch on
do lunch dishes...right away...
kids to quiet time
roast in the oven for supper
switch a wash load
work outside in the SUNSHINE for a spell
do some mending
get cleaned up for Clara's concert
supper on
dishes
concert
bed

Jack London's Way with Words

Please note that I only had one commenter brave enough or interested enough to try to guess the source of the literary excerpt I posted yesterday. Congratulations to Amy who correctly guessed that the author was Jack London. The work from which the quote is taken is White Fang.

You read yesterday's excerpt as a whole. Today I am highlighting various elements of the writing that give it depth and feeling. Jack London is an expert at drawing the reading into his stories in a very emotive fashion. Whether it is the Arctic wilderness as in this example from White Fang, or the raging seas upon which a reader sails in The Sea Wolf, London's readers feel the very circumstances that he paints with his words. When I read this snippet, I am in the very Arctic wilderness, even if it's only in my mind. London's talent in this aspect of writing stands apart from most, even among the many writers considered great.

Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness - a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild. ...

...They travelled on without speech, saving their breath for the work of their bodies. On every side was the silence, pressing upon them with a tangible presence. It affected their minds as the many atmospheres of deep water affect the body of the diver. It crushed them with the weight of unending vastness and unalterable decree. It crushed them into the remotest recesses of their own minds, pressing out of them, like juices from the grape, all the false ardours and exaltations and undue self-values of the human soul, until they perceived themselves finite and small, specks and motes, moving with weak cunning and little wisdom amidst the play and inter-play of the great blind elements and forces.

Because I hope to one day write stories I often examine the works of those authors I admire. In Jack London's writing, I very often find myself in awe of that power I described above, of taking a reader into a setting. So I examine such writing for specifics in vocabulary and use of literary devices that lend the writing such sway.

In this excerpt, for instance, I noticed the verbs that were particularly interesting. They lend depth and character to the narrative. The forest frowned; silence reigned and crushed.

The unusual nouns, too, I marked. Waterway, instead of river; desolation, recesses, ardours, exaltations, specks, motes.

Colorful adjectives. dark, frozen, white, fading, vast, lifeless, lone, cold,terrible, mirthless, masterful, incommunicable, savage, frozen-hearted. Doesn't that list make you shiver with cold, and infinite and oppressive loneliness?

What about emotive use of prepositional phrases combined with those richly flavored nouns? Wisdom of eternity, futility of life, effort of life; weight of unending vastness and unalterable decree. Then that last sentence and it's run of powerful prepositional phrases: moving with weak cunning and little wisdom amidst the play and interplay of the great blind elements and forces.

Notice London use of simile. Mirthless as the smile of the sphinx; cold as the frost; affected their minds as deep water affects a diver's body; pressing like juices from the grape.

Pairs of words: black and ominous; lone and cold; ardours and exaltations; finite and small; specks and motes.

I periodically practice this art, for fun and to develop my skill, but I know I will never be the master that London was.

I have blogged about some of my favorite books and authors, and I've included many excerpts highlighting one or another or several skills I enjoy. If this subject interests you, you can find more such analysis within my books or writing index tabs. One of my very favorite snippets is featured in one of my first blog posts way back in 2007. Wow, time flies, doesn't it?

Today's topic: 20th Century Lit

I'm going to play a little game here.  I pulled two paragraphs out of a novel by one of my favorite authors.  

Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean towards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness - a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild. ...

...They travelled on without speech, saving their breath for the work of their bodies. On every side was the silence, pressing upon them with a tangible presence. It affected their minds as the many atmospheres of deep water affect the body of the diver. It crushed them with the weight of unending vastness and unalterable decree. It crushed them into the remotest recesses of their own minds, pressing out of them, like juices from the grape, all the false ardours and exaltations and undue self-values of the human soul, until they perceived themselves finite and small, specks and motes, moving with weak cunning and little wisdom amidst the play and inter-play of the great blind elements and forces. 

Any guesses from what work these quotes are taken?   No googling (or binging, or yahooing...).  The author will probably be an easier guess than the book, for anyone who's interested in such things.  I'll write more tomorrow about why I like this author and how these paragraphs pull at me.