I’ll probably delete this in the morning.
The Cat: Put me down, please.
The Girl: She’s so cuddly!
The Cat: Are we done yet?
The Girl: She loves it when I hold her!
The Cat: I see things I’d like to chase.
The Girl: What could be better than holding a soft cat?
The Cat: I should try squirming around. That ought to do it.
The Girl: Look at the camera, Puss!
The Cat: Nope.
The End.
The Blog: Finish me off.
The Writer: I’m not sure I’m done.
The Blog: You are.
The Writer: Delete.
‘Tis the season!
The garden paintbox cracks open –
Lovely tubes of reds and yellows,
Watercolors splashed among leaves,
Calling out a cheery hello to your neighbors
“Hello! I’m just passing through!
Happy to pose for photos!”
Don’t forget:
Jesus is the reason for this season, too.
‘Tis also the season for deleting. Deleting happens.
Somehow it seems right to put these photos together.
The second photo is from when my dad was experimenting with trick photography back when he was about 14 years old. The caption was his.
As in water face reflects face,
So the heart of man reflects man.
Proverbs 27:19
As in blog, post deletes post, so the heart of a blogger deletes post. Or something like that.
The world is full of surprises, isn’t it? The chances of meeting a pirate in the produce aisle are slim, but apparently not impossible.
Be on the lookout.
The Dread Pirate Robert will probably kill this blog in the morning.
Quotes from the Commonplace Book
A room without books is like a body without a soul.
Cicero
Let be known that we have enough book-filled rooms to ensoul our whole house.
Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God‘s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.
Jeremiah Burroughs
And this side of heaven, reality will often feel like grief. Something is wrong. Deeply wrong.
Reality itself is a puzzle with no solution in the box.
The missing pieces to the puzzle aren’t here.
…Artwork routinely comes out of the puzzle of grief, perhaps not great grief – like the loss of a loved one – but the normal every day, grief of finding yourself living in a world that you know in your bones has gone very, very wrong.
S. D. Morgan
I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.
King David, Psalm 13:6
God is the source of all our blessings – He is the ocean of blessings. Creatures are but the hands which distribute his charity through a needy world.
Samuel Davies
And now, for a random photo:
A blog without an ending is deleted in the morning.
As I was sorting through our books a few weeks ago, I decided to sort through my cookbooks as well. In the process I came across an old cookbook called “Treasured Polish Recipes for Americans.“ It had been a Christmas gift to my mother-in-law from her sister in 1952. It’s probably been in our possession for a long time, but I’ve never looked at it. I picked it up and started to read the foreward: “This is no ordinary cookbook.“ What a great start!
It was published first in 1948 in Minnesota, right after World War II when there were many Polish families that had come to America. They did not want to lose their heritage, particularly as it relates to cooking. Let me just share with you a few random phrases from the introduction.“Baking in Poland, delicious in its results, was a test of endurance and muscle. Old recipes say ‘Beat butter or eggs and sugar for one hour and in one direction only.’” Yikes! My arm hurts just reading that sentence.
Here’s another one: “The generous use of butter in the recipes may startle you. You may ask, do they use so much butter in Poland? The answer is yes, and let us tell you why.” It turns out that in rural areas every household owned a cow and faithful cows give milk all year long. I have no objection to a lot of butter in recipes – sounds like a good plan to me.
“Warm hospitality is a characteristic of the nation. Stranger or friend is always welcome and never bid farewell without a serving of food – it little matters how modest – the little cottage shares what it has.”
Well, I just had to try a couple recipes after reading all of that. I started to read through the cookbook to see if there was anything that I, in my modern kitchen, with our modern grocery stores, could make. It was startling to run across a recipe for Cassubian headcheese that called for one pig head. And then jellied pigs feet, which of course calls for four pigs feet cut in halves. I had to move on to something a little more doable and after much perusing decided on making Bitki Wolowe w Smietanie (Beef Bitki in Cream) and Buraki (Beets).
The Beef Bitki recipe wasn’t as precise as I might have wanted, and I had to make a few judicious guesses and substitutions. The beets recipe was very straightforward. The author of the cookbook claims that Polish cuisine has hauntingly good flavors. I have to admit our beef and beets were very good, although I’m not sure what constitutes hauntingly good. It was a lovely excursion into Polish cooking. I’d make the beets again anytime – fabuloso!
Blessed be the Lord who daily loads us with benefits
AI dictation programs 😊
The coming of spring
Good food
Being inside on a very windy day
Good teaching and preaching (good food for the soul)
This post was not made with a pig’s head, though I can be pig-headed at times. Deleting in the morning!
It turns out that using the dictation feature on my keyboard, isn’t always as intuitive as you would think. Nevertheless, it seemed like a good option to spare my arm some typing. So here it goes!
I’ve got a few pieces of artwork that I finished last week before deciding to give my arm a break.
Most of these, as usual, are copies of things I found on Pinterest, with the exception of the owl which I drew from a photo.
Is the owl a fowl?
Certainly not! Perish the thought!
Is the owl very nice?
Certainly not! Just ask the mice!
Has the owl gone crazy?
Certainly not! Nor is he lazy.
Does the owl bill and coo?
Certainly not! What’s wrong with you?
Will the owl teach and preach?
Certainly not! Just hear him screech!
Is the owl a night sleeper?
Certainly not! He’s a night peeper!
About the owl
I’ve told you a lot
You now are an expert
On what he is not.
The end.
…in the morning.
When robins appear
And lay their beautiful eggs
Spring is what hatches
When blog posts appear, deleting is what hatches.
It’s hard to put out content when I’m having trouble with my arm, so I’m going to post just a photo or two from the dead photo file each day for a bit. Let the photos tell you things while i rest my arm. Prayers appreciated!
delete?
I’m working on making drawing and painting more of a daily discipline than doing it on a whim.
This goose is the last watercolor painting I did on the non-watercolor paper. My dad used to ask if we wanted to learn some “Indian” phrases. “Sure!” Then he’d have us repeat them one at a time as they are on the painting above. “Now say it faster,” he’d say. Eventually we’d get it. He loved that joke, even though he could only do it once for each of us.
Again, these are all sketches and paintings copied from things I found on Pinterest.
I’m making progress on the mobile, too!
I’m thinking of starting a drawing/painting series of owls. They’re such interesting looking creatures!
Thanks for sticking with me to the bottom.
Oh-wah, tah-blah, guy-am. In the morning.
That’s right – there are no April Fool’s pranks associated with this blog. You’re welcome.
Quotes from the Commonplace Book:
If a book is well written,
I always find it too short.
Jane Austen
God has promised to supply all our needs.
What we don’t have now,
we don’t need now.
Elisabeth Elliot
This is every cook’s opinion
No savory dish without an onion,
But lest your kissing should be spoil’d,
Your onions must be thoroughly boil’d.
Polish cookbook
There are many heads lying on Christ’s bosom,
but there is room for yours among the rest.
It is our heaven to lay many weights and burdens on Christ.
Lay all your loads and your weights by faith upon Christ.
Ease yourself, and let Him bear all.
He can,
He does,
He will bear you.
Samuel Rutherford
I know worrying works,
because none of the stuff I worried about
ever happened.
Will Rogers
That photo has been languishing in my blog photos file for quite some time now. Time to let it out.
I’ll be deletin’ this in the morning, no foolin’. Maybe.
Lynniebeemuseoday 