Marvels of Life

breakfast pizza- a real treat

By Corynn

 

 

Donuts- AGAIN?!?!  This time they were to take platters (and introduce ourselves to) two different new neighbors on our hill.

But we had some too.  ;-)

Donuts are killing me, my friends.  Killing me softly.

Did you all see the solar eclipse yesterday?  We went to the scratch and dent store and bought .99 boxes of cereal so we could make projection boxes in order to see it because all the solar glasses were sold out everywhere.  They worked- meh....so-so.  Not so great.   I noticed that if you look at the reflection on the back of a windshield, you could see the crescent shape even better so the boxes were tossed aside for a while.  The boys and I were at a park at the time, waiting for the girls to be done an American Girl program at the library and there were a TON of people there with glasses.  One nice lady about to leave gave us a pair so we got to see the effect really well.  We don't live where it was a TOTAL eclipse- and it was too far a drive to get to a place that did have one- but it was amazing to see anyway.  We raced back to the library so the girls could see it through the glasses too- and all the other girls at the class too.  Just goes to show that one small, nice deed can have a ripple effect- touching the lives of many.  Lots of happy solar eclipse watchers thanks to her kindness!  According to the NASA website, our area is due for an ALMOST total eclipse in 2024.  So, I'll have glasses ready for that now.  ;-)

There is so much beauty in the world that it actually literally hurts me sometimes.  Does it ever feel that way to you?  Like the air is sucked from your lungs and you can't bear it?    It happens to me.  I am not sure if it is due to the beauty or the fact that this beauty that overcomes is tainted with shadows.  And there is a place where no beauty is tainted.  How can that be?  How can it be more glorious?  My imagination falls flat.  It's hard to explain.  It is also hard to breathe.

Thank you all for your responses and comments to my question last week.  They were so helpful and encouraging.  Intermingled in it all, some beautiful insights and genuine nuggets.  Thanks for taking the time to share with me.  I should ask more questions more often because I really, really loved the interactions with you.  I am not sure if you just like talking budgets or if you'd be equally interested in answering other questions- but I am sure I could think of a few!  ;-)  Reading your comments reminded me that I am not just typing to a glowing box- which is what it usually feels like- but to people who actually come to this place and read my words.  And that fact is pretty remarkable to me.

Craftiness of the week~ I had the pleasure of sewing some baby gifts for some darling twins who arrived recently.  I used this pattern/tutorial for the pants and just loved the fabric for it.  I inverted them to be twinny- but not like identical twinny.  ;-)

Ineke makes it so difficult to so things these days.  She is in that infuriatingly sweet phase of getting into every.single.thing.  I love that she is so easily happy doing mundane, repetitive things.  She LOVES washing canning jar rings.  She could poke needles into felt and then take them out and then poke them back in all day long.  Reminds me of what Chesterton once said (in Orthodoxy, pg 61): 

"A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. "

And while we're at it, Chesterton helps me explain why there are so many pictures of babies on my blog in his essay “In Defence of Baby Worship” from The Defendant, 1903.  Because they are marvels, each one, and marvellous in all they do.  With their "delightful bulbous heads, three times too big for the body", these human mushrooms are fascinating. So- that's why there are an inordinate amount of pictures of them here. :-)

Reading of the week~ In the canning beans picture above, you'll see I am still working my way through Coolidge (on audio) which I am really enjoying through the necessary tedium of every day.  It must be a huge book- there are 18 cds in all in the audio version.  I'm on cd #11 and it is due back at the library this week.  Eek!  

At night I am reading The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Great Depression which is actually a fabulous combination to read simultaneously because of Coolidges' strategies and resulting impact of the economy versus Hoover/Roosevelts.  Very interesting!  Trump would do very well to read these books with all that is on his economic plate these days.

~ crafting on~