Monthly Archives: November 2012

I just got back from returning the four Thursday night kids to their abode. Tonight was rather spur of the moment, but still pretty good. However, their presence here tonight provided the impetus for today’s grateful praise.

I’m very, very thankful that I was taught to obey. If only children (and parents!) would realize how much easier their lives would be, how much better things would go for them, how much they would gain of the good and miss of the unfortunate, they would just OBEY.

And they just might not miss out on a treat from Ms. Mary Ann for the ride home. 

Oh! Woe is me, for I’m an ogre. (But only if you disappear when it is time to go home and do not come when you are called.)

Our Girl Nettie was upset last evening. “Mary Ann,” she said, all concerned like. “You have a real problem with spiders! I’ve been killing them. They jump like crickets, but they are SPIDERS!!! You need to do something about them!” 

Yes, well. We’ve called them “Demon Crickets” because they look so evil. Like Middle Daughter, Deborah says, “It looks like a cricket and a spider had an illicit relationship. Nothing that evil looking could have come from a ‘holy union!'”

I understand that they are called (among other things) “Camel Crickets.” Are we the only family plagued by these creatures? They never have any rhyme or reason to their jumping, causing the younger generation to ponder greatly before heading to the basement for anything.

Which brings me to what I am thankful for on this 7th day of November. I’m really, really thankful that it wasn’t MY skirt that one of them jumped up into tonight when there was a quick trip made to the basement.

Sorry, Beebs!

 Correction:  This from Deborah’s comment on my facebook posting:

Deborah Yutzy I need to set the record straight. Rachel came up with the name “Demon Cricket”, and that’s her quote. I said that they looked like a spider and cricket got married and had a baby. Rachel said nothing that ugly could be from a holy union.

If any of you expected to hear a political post from me, you don’t know me very well.

I truly have nothing to say about this election.

But this is the season of Grateful Praise, and you don’t have to know me very well to know that this, of all things, is something that is very important to me.  I believe that a Godly woman should wear grateful praise as a garment, wrapped around the sharp edges of her personality, softening the scratchiness of her tendencies, and covering the naked patches of her soul where discontent or ingratitude or pettiness or even impatience would show through.

Ah, my sisters.  We’ve been given so much.  May we not forget.

And tonight, I am grateful for some really ordinary things:

The postal service.  A padded envelope, full of things for my faraway girlie’s birthday, arrived in Uganda today.  Belated, but THERE!

The highway system:  My Sweet Mama and my husband and I traveled for six hours today to get home after a wonderful weekend away.  Roads are wonderful things!

Two rows of lima beans, frozen from the weather while we were gone, which still yielded about six wonderful cups of shelled limas for a good meal later this week.

A house, clean, orderly and warm.  The weekly laundry done, folded, put away.  Curtains, left behind when I went to Pennsylvania, needing to be washed, ironed and rehung — all back where they belong.  A happy Nettie and Cecilia, well taken care of.  Middle Daughter’s conscientious and careful care, coupled with friend Normie’s filling in, and Eldest Daughter’s help made coming home a “gentle landing.”  

And now, my own bed.  Comfy, warm and clean. 

This heart gives grateful praise.

Inspired by others I have seen posting 30 days of thankfulness, I will try to post one thing I am thankful each day this month: Not going to have internet all the time, but I might as well get started. A little gratefulness never hurt anybody!

I’m very, very grateful to have found some very important papers that I lost. Whew! What a load off my heart!