Keeping in Touch Friday, Fall Garden, Fall Mornings and All that Jazz...Including Crazy Schmuckiness

I figured I would see how fast I could put a blog up before I get down to the busyness of folding clothes and the art of the home here. The pic above? This was taken a month or so ago, the day I made the cloth bags. This is Joycie, Grace and Zuzu working on the Fall Garden one beautiful sunny Saturday eve. At the same time Janie was putting the patio set by the pond, yep, all four our sweet daughters. We are so very, very blessed. Another blessing are the beautiful mornings here, this was taken a month or so ago early one morning. There is something about walking in the Autumn coolness. The crisp cool breeze upon my face like kisses from the Father above as my hot coffee warms the hands...Me and the doglets, a special time for me with the Father. Today: A nice sunny Autumn day today. Oh it's beautiful here today...Thinking of Christmas and Thanksgiving meals and such. The girls and I are planning on what to do and not to do when my dad comes to visit. I hope he enjoys the visit and all works out with he staying at Mother's house. Quite a burden for an only child like myself at times. I hold the Father's hand and thank God for my blessings though and try to keep things in perspective. Christmas and Thanksgiving: Anyone else having a hard time trying to keep balance at Christmas? I want simplicity but not cheap or thoughtless, thoughtless gifts are so insulting. Gifts are fun but not over the top either...We have a very small budget this year and that's okay. It's plenty enough for a nice sensible traditional Christmas for our girls. I'm making some things by hand this year and praying the rest in as I shop and the Lord shows me bargains. God is so good with things like that isn't He? Datenight: Hubby and I had the best time the other night...We went to Midtown to that nice Green Restaurant. Do you ever sense someone is eyeballing you and listening to you? There was a table behind hubby and a man was watching and listening. Soooo............I decided I would give him something to listen TO. I quietly told hubby about the wonderful book I'm reading, quiet enough for the man not to hear that part of the conversation. The book? House Calls and Hitching Posts, Stories from Dr. Elton Lehman's carer among the Amish as told to Dorcas Sharp Hoover. I am enjoying this book, it's been sitting on my bookshelf and the time was now to read it. I fact, I bought a nice copy for my mother in law for Christmas. Okay, I have a fascination with medicine and probably would have loved to have been in medicine if I wouldn't have chosen to do the best thing in my book, be a stay at home mom and mother. : ) I've had my health crisis' before, many of them were crisis because of the way the medical establishment handled them by the way! The Lord used all of that to point me in the way of natural medicine. My daughter, Janie and I are both Family Herbalists. Yes, you should see me in my granny glasses, visions of me saving someone's life with some cayenne pepper in my purse!  Back to that yuppy green restaurant. As I sat peering over my delicious veggie burger at the man staring but not staring I put my acting hat on. You must know my daddy had done some acting and my uncle was majoring in drama at Rice. If you've ever heard of Jeanette Clift George, she and my dad attended college in the same years when my dad was a single young fella. Once I attended a play at her theatre and told her who my dad was. It was cute, her eyes twinkled and she smiled. Back to my story....I'm good at bunny trails I do believe. I proceeded to tell hubby about one of the medical cases in the above said book. I told of the miracle baby born blue after a month of a mother almost miscarrying and how the placenta was black. The baby had not received hardly any nourishment for at least a month. The baby was rushed to the hospital from the birthing home to miraculously survive! God's hand was clearly upon that baby! Well, the man heard a nice little true story told as if I were there firsthand. *big smile* And the Lord was truly exalted! Ya know? Life is just too short to be stiff I say. Do you ever see church people who are so puffed up with knowledge that they are also puffed up with pride, arrogance and stiff as a board? Yuck. Those are the kind who hung Jesus on the cross. I'm not a total sanguin gad-about let me tell you, I can be very contemplative and what some may consider melancholy. Depends on what mood you catch me in and who I'm with. My hubby knows me best, and my girls do too of course. : ) After the restauranti Hubby and I went over to the midtown bookstore...I love that place. It's an old, old used bookstore and I love to wonder around there...I was standing in front of the cds eyeballing this most wonderful looking Coniff cd of musical movie themes and gave my girls a "ring-a-ding-a" to see if they might enjoy that cd, I was having visions of us singing to the musicals while we cooked! Hubby came over letting me know I was talking way too loud on the phone and everyone in the bookstore could probably hear me, I promptly put my hand over my mouth in embarrassment. It was one of those Scout and Jem moments. It's amazing how cell phones do that to us in the volume department isn't it? I guess it was the good Lord's way of showing me maybe I should have mercy on others with cell phones instead of thinking they are loud schmucks. Well after I said bye and clung to my cd, I smirked and told hubby-Jem that "By the way...At least I don't crack jokes at funerals by the coffin" in a most mischevious but all-in-fun Scout Jean Louise way. (You must be of Italian descent to get the funeral comment.) My Italian relatives are split in half, some quiet, my grandpa would cry at funerals, he was such a sweetheart. But there are some, I want to slap a hand across their mouth at times....I've seen them cracking jokes slapping each other on the backs right by the coffin for pity's sakes...Gee Willikins. Hmph. (And he said I talked loud on my cell phone) ; ) All in good fun though and it makes for a fun night. I better get going now...I hear some hunters in the back, I need to go call my doglets, kitlet and anything or anybody I can think of and make a loud ruckus, yes, a very loud ruckus. Listening to: Corner Cafe' Relaxing Jazz & Ray Conniff Musical in Rhythm - Hollywood & Broadway Sipping on: Paramount Christmas Truffle coffee. (I found it at name brands for less for $4.99 a bag, and it is good too!) Figuring out: Janie and I....What's for dinner and a good ol 40s movie to watch tonight. Have a nice weekend all! Until the next time. Be good. Love, ~Amelia