Tuesday, July 28, 2026 Forgetting How to Walk

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I have to admit that I did not see this coming when I had total knee replacement surgery: I have, apparently, forgotten how to walk. I noticed it as I started walking again when the knee was stronger. My gait felt awkward and my opposite hip hurt. I chalked it up to adjusting to the new knee. A thought surfaced: what if this is the new normal? I prayed about it and tucked it away.

Whate’er my God ordains is right
His holy will abideth

When you take a walk, you don’t usually think about the action of walking, anymore than you think about breathing. Your legs know what to do and everything else follows. It’s like riding a bike, right? You are in automatic mode and are free to converse, think, look around, take photos. But now I was analyzing every step. Heel, toe, heel toe…that’s right. But that inside pain on the upper right thigh – did I pull a muscle? And the pain on the outside of the hip? What’s that about? My six-month post-surgery appointment was coming up.

I will be still whate’er He does
And follow where He guideth

The Physician’s Assistant gave me a glowing report concerning my knee: everything is healing up as it should and the bend is excellent. You wouldn’t think you could be proud of being able to bend your knee well, but think again. Now, how about this hip pain when I walk? She asked a few questions, did some manipulations and said, “Well, sometimes this can be just an adjustment to walking with a good knee again as you unlearn the way you were compensating for the bad knee before.” Yay! “But in your case, I think it looks more like hip arthritis, which might not be helped by therapy. Good news, though – a hip replacement surgery is much easier to recover from than knee replacement surgery!” Oh. “Let’s set up another appointment in a month just in case the therapy hasn’t helped and we want to look at some options.” All righty then!

He is my God, though dark my road
He holds me that I shall not fall

I gave birth to twins many years ago, an emergency C-section at 33 weeks. Twin blessings! But the delivery was filled with tension and the recovery was difficult. Our oldest son, who was five years old, was so thrilled with having twin brothers that he suggested that I should have triplets next. You see where I’m going here. I was not prepared to start thinking about another replacement surgery in the middle of recovering from the knee surgery. But as I was grappling with this new and unwelcome vista before me, the words of a hymn came floating into my head “Whate’er my God ordains is right.” Oh, my friends, it makes all the difference in the world to leave it all to Him who knows and loves me best. He is the perfect Father; I have complete confidence that His plan, whatever it is, is for my good and His glory.

And so to Him, I leave it all
And so to Him, I leave it all

I’ll probably heel/toe this post to the delete button in the morning.

Wednesday, July 22, 2026 The Workshop: The Flower Fairy

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I was taking a stroll through Pinterest and became enamored of the things people were doing with their dried flowers and leaves. I’d been making bookmarks by randomly strewing them in laminating pouches and running it through the laminator. I liked how they turned out. But now there was a whole new game going on. Clever people had used different elements of flower petals and leaves to create wonderful images. I had some dried flowers and leaves left over from last year and thought, I bet I can do something like that. I invited my friend Barb over for this adventure and we got to work. I showed her some of the different designs and we chose a flower fairy, thinking it didn’t look too hard. We were wrong.

For one thing my dried things were so dry that they were brittle and hard to use. In addition, as we were placing them on our paper, every time we breathed, they scattered. We decided we needed to put a little glue on each piece while placing it. This was when I discovered that my friend Barb is glue-challenged. It turns out that she’s had a bad relationship with glue for many years. In her hands, it seems to find its way to everything but the thing that she wants to be glued. She told me of a time when she was using super glue, and ended up with several things being super glued to her fingers. We went ahead with our project, but it was a trial to her.

The Pinterest flower fairy was so charming and delicate. Her hair was a poetry of thin petals curling away from her head, and her face was well-formed. Her figure was trim. Her skirt was flowing and her wings were sheer and lacy. The bouquet she held out was lovely. More flowers grew out of the grass at her feet. Our supplies were meager, so we had to make do with what we had.

In the end, I had a flower fairy. Her hair was an unfortunate stiff thing that looked like she’d been caught in 20 mph winds. She turned out rather buxom as well, nothing like the lithe sprite in the original. Her bouquet was just two little flowers with no holder. However, I thought her legs and feet turned out quite well. Here she is:

And below is Barb’s flower fairy, who ended up with somewhat of a mop head and a matronly body, but is still presenting flowers with an attractively slender arm. I love her wings, bold and purple! I think her legs must have come off at some point, but we can pretend that she tucks them under her skirt while she’s flying.

When I see our flower fairies, they make me laugh and give me good memories of a laughter-filled afternoon with a good friend. By the way, I didn’t actually ask Barb’s permission to share hers on the blog, but I can’t IMAGINE she’d say no. 😬

I’ll probably have the Flower Fairy delete this in the morning. She might as well have something useful to do.

Tuesday, July 21, 2026 Commonplace Quotes: The Garden Bench Edition

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You’ll be amazed to learn that I am writing this post, not from the Sticky Chair, but from the garden bench. Pleasant insect sounds abound, as well as a dog barking just far enough away to be background noise. The trees are singing their susurrus song, which is no doubt near the top of creation’s hit chart. Towers of purple coneflowers are straight ahead. I can see bees delicately taking pollen from those startlingly orange middles. The flowers give, the bees take, and everyone is happy. The bees are having a party over on the cornflowers, too. “I think that I shall never see, an insect happy as a bee.” (With apologies to Joyce Kilmer for stealing his lovely lines.)

I haven’t copied much in my Commonplace Book lately. It is an oft-interrupted habit. But I have a few to share.

Meekness allows us to sit easy in our saddle, not reacting like a thermometer to the surrounding situation, but by being more like a thermostat, setting the temperature of our own spirit, even if we have no control of the surrounding situation. Meekness allows us to get control of our own soul.
Nancy Wilson

I’ve heard another definition of meekness as “power under control.” The control of the soul is key. Next time I feel my emotional temperature rising, let me remember to be more like a thermostat than a thermometer, controlling rather than reacting.

We are always looking for justice;
the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is – never look for justice, but never cease to give it.
Oswald Chambers

But what about my rights? What about them, indeed? Jesus had a better claim to rights on the way to the cross than we could ever have, yet He went anyway.

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. …Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in Heaven.”
Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount

Case in point.

My tendency is to think that my burdens are very big, very existential, but they must be solved only by moving heaven on earth. Very often, they are solved by a snack, a nap, or a bath.
Joy Clarkson (from the book You Are A Tree)

I suspect – but don’t yell at me about this – that this may be more true of women than men. Many’s the time I’ve been beside myself about something, only to find that a good night’s rest worked wonders.

Definitely a better view than I get from the Sticky Chair

And now, right on schedule, I’m hearing the lilting coo of the mourning dove.

I’ll probably need to turn the thermostat down on this post in the morning.

Monday, July 20, 2026 Sweltering Days of Yore

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The world outside is sweltering and I am happy to sit in the Sticky Chair with a fan blowing cool air in my general vicinity. Our family didn’t have air conditioning of any kind when I was growing up. We had a box fan in the living room and an oscillating fan up in the bedroom I shared with my sisters. I slept in the top bunk, where I would feel periodic air from the fan cooling my face. When the pillow got hot, I would turn it over to start afresh on the cool side. Sometimes my siblings and I would get into little scraps over people hogging the space in front of the box fan downstairs.

We went outside a lot in spite of the heat, probably because there wasn’t any significant relief from it in the house. My dad, who had summers off because he was a teacher, would take us to the nearby lake for a swim to cool us off. We would be wilting from the heat in the car on the way over, but once we ran into the lake, the air felt cool again. My dad would swim laps on the other side of the rope while we played water games on our side. We opened our eyes under water all the time, which I don’t think I’d do now. One game involved us all going underwater and one of us would try to say something. We’d come bursting out of the water shrieking with laughter over how funny it sounded, trying to guess what was said. Sometimes my older brothers would go underwater, let one of us younger kids step on their shoulders and then they’d jump up and throw us off. “Again! Again!” we’d cry. And they’d do it again. At last, it would be time to go home. We’d shiver from the cold and welcome the warmth of the car. Our fingers would be all pruny and our appetites would be sharp. Supper would be waiting in the back porch, so we’d sometimes stay in our suits and sit on towels while we ate.

We had no idea that we were making such rich memories.

In my mind, we had lots of photos of us going swimming, but I couldn’t find any. Here’s the swimming crew on a Sunday morning dressed for church. I’m in the front on the right. Littlest sister wasn’t born yet.

I’ll probably delete this with pruny fingers in the morning.

Wednesday, July 15, 2026 Story Time

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During a FaceTime chat today with our granddaughter (6) and grandson (4), my granddaughter suggested I tell a regular story, like “Jack and the Beanstalk,” but using stuff from around our house for the characters and scenery. I’m in!

Here we have Jack and his mother:

Jack is on the left, in case you weren’t sure.

Having been told to go sell the cow for money to buy food, Jack ended up selling it to a peddler for 5 magic beans.

The peddler is on the left.
She ended up riding the cow after the purchase.

Jack’s mother wasn’t too happy about the beans and threw them out the window onto the ground. She harangued Jack for a bit and went to bed in a huff.

As you know, a beanstalk grew from those beans (you’ll see that later). Jack went up the beanstalk. He fell from halfway up which was unfortunate, but he clambered back up and again and found the goose who laid the golden egg.

The goose is on the left. The golden egg is next to her in a nest.

The elements of the story were getting somewhat hazy to me, but I managed to remember the “Fe Fi Fo Fum” bit and employed that a couple times with the accompanying line, “I smell the blood of an Englishman!” My granddaughter laughed and said, “That’s just what my Dad used to say!”

I asked for help from the audience, having forgotten how Jack got out of his predicament, but no help was forthcoming. It occurred to me that a hatchet was involved. I had no hatchet, so the goose had to donate her nest to play the part of the hatchet. Jack climbed back down with the golden egg and cut the beanstalk down just in time. The giant fell with it and was killed. I’m not sure what happened to the goose, but I like to think she came down with Jack.

The giant is on the left of the beanstalk, having met his end.

Jack’s mother, who had originally been quite upset about the purchase of the magic beans, was thrilled to get the golden egg. We decided that Jack’s father was at work and missed the whole thing.

THE END.

That’s how our lamp ended up on the floor. I guess I should pick it up, along with the beans.

I’ll probably hack this post down with a fake hatchet in the morning.

Tuesday, July 14, 2026 Webster’s Words

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Many years ago we bought a reproduction of the 1828 Noah Webster American Dictionary of the English Language. We take dictionaries for granted nowadays, but it was quite a monumental project for Mr. Webster. He really wanted to make a dictionary “suited to the people of the United States.” He referred to it as a “work which shall be a guide to the youth of the United States.” He sought to rescue our language from “sciolists” (I had to look this up in his dictionary. It means “One who knows little, or who knows many things superficially; a smatterer.”) and to redeem our language from corruption.

Near the end of the preface, he said, “I present it to my fellow citizens…with my ardent wishes for their improvement and their happiness; and for the continued increase of the wealth, the learning, the moral and religious elevation of character, and the glory of my country.”

He also wrote “To that great and benevolent Being…I would present the tribute of my most grateful acknowledgments. And if the talent which he entrusted to my care, has not been put to the most profitable use in his service, I hope it has not been ‘kept laid up in a napkin,’ and that any misapplication of it may be graciously forgiven.”

After reading those words, I’m quite ashamed that up until this point I have not availed myself of Noah Webster’s great work very often. This lovely book has been used more often to press flowers than anything else.

My husband and I have been talking about reading through it, picking out words that are unfamiliar and adding them to our vocabulary. Maybe the word “skimming” should be used instead of “reading.” For fun I started looking through the “A’s” and stopped at the word “abature: grass beaten or trampled down by a stag in passing.” Now there’s a word your average person doesn’t get a chance to use very often. Here’s my attempt: “I saw a stag in the distance and in attempting to follow it, I looked for the abature left by its trampling.” I wonder if you could use the same word if it was a cow, horse or elephant doing the trampling?

I illustrated it. It seemed like the right thing to do.

This blog is produced by a sciolist and ought to be deleted (or trampled on by a stag) in the morning.

Monday, July 13, 2026 The Weather

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We like to talk about the weather, don’t we? If you go to the grocery store, the cashier might ask, “Is it hot enough for you?” Or mid-winter, you’ll get the opposite question: “Is it cold enough for you?” If you say, “No,” you’ll be throwing a huge wrench into the normal machinery of polite society, so you’d better stick with the script you’ve been given. The correct answers are:

“It’s beastly hot, isn’t it?” Or

“I heard that it’s 20 below zero with wind chill!”

Something along those lines.

Here in Minnesota we’re experiencing a heat wave. I can’t say “The Mother of all Heat Waves,” because it’s been worse. This is perhaps “The Oldest Child of the Mother of all Heat Waves.” And if you live here, say it with me: “It’s not the heat, it’s the _____________”. If you couldn’t fill that in with the word “humidity,” you need to turn in your Midwest card. You haven’t been here long enough to deserve one.

When we have weather extremes, I look at the weather app more often. Is this like picking a scab? I’m not sure, but I like to know in advance JUST HOW HOT it will get. Guess what I’ve discovered? The Weather Man has become positively poetic with his pithy reports!

Now listen, I don’t want any of you to tell me that this is a product of AI. I just don’t want to hear it. I have concocted a perfectly wonderful story in my mind about the Weather Man (or woman, if you prefer), sitting at his desk, determined to elevate the weather reports with lyrical, whimsical prose. And why not? I applaud you, Weather Man. Carry on.

One last thing about these muggy days. It’s time for me to resurrect the poem I wrote about the inventor of air conditioning, Willis Carrier.

Thank God for Willis Carrier
Who made our lives much merrier.
He packaged cold air in a box –
Better than gold in old Fort Knox.
Next time you turn on your AC
Thank God for brilliant Willis C.

Yes, indeed. Thank you, Lord!

This post will faint from heat exposure in the morning.

Thursday, July 9, 2026 In the Grace of the Beauty

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I am reading a book called Reclaiming Quiet by Sarah Clarkson. The subtitle is “Cultivating a Life of Holy Attention.“ She’s a good writer and I have felt quite bathed in the beauty of her observations about what it means to seek and find God in the quiet moments. Our busy lives don’t always lend themselves to moments of silence, the way we usually think of what it means to have quiet. We have to redefine what quiet means, and make a way to find it all through our busy days.

I just read a section in which she was talking about the way we tend to mediate all our experiences through our phone cameras. She said “When I mediate the whole of my experience through my camera, whipping it out at every hint of intense or immersive experience, I’m ending the very thing I set out to record. I am jolted back to a place where I’m standing apart from the thing I want to capture. I’m no longer in the grace of the beauty I have recorded.“

I know exactly what she means. I have been enamored with cameras and photography for a long time, but there have been times when I realized I could either watch and enjoy the thing that was happening or I could take photos of it. I could not do both. This is why we hire wedding photographers so we can enjoy the wedding without having to look through a lens. And yet, how wonderful it is to have the memory-provoking photos afterward.

I always take my Nikon camera out with me to the garden bench swing. There’s not a lot new that I see from year to year, but I still take photos. I am entranced by what I see and I want to capture it. Everything in a garden points to the Gardener and I practically swoon over His artistry. But flowers aren’t people; taking photos of them doesn’t detract one bit from my immersion in the beauty.

Too many photos of flowers? Surely not!

I’ll cover the lens of this post in the morning.

Wednesday, July 8, 2026 Three Postcards, One Poem

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I was inspired to write a poem based on three postcards I bought last year. The artist is Sarah Angst (should I comment on her last name? I want to. Okay, I won’t.)

The hedgehog slowly ambled
Through grass, amid the flowers
Where mushrooms, red and white
Seemed as tall as towers.

He strolled and as he pondered,
He looked from side to side.
“My kingdom is amazing –
So big and vast and wide!”

The moose was prone to wander
In woods or through a swamp,
’cross ponds and cheerful rivers
He’d loudly stomp and clomp.

He gazed out o’er a valley
Across the mountain side
“My kingdom is a wonder –
So big and vast and wide!”

The crow, his wings a-flutter
Would fly from tree to tree,
His clucking and his cawing
Rang out most joyfully

When soaring through the sky
He saw no room for pride.
“God’s Kingdom never ends –
So big and vast and wide!”

I love the bold and colorful artwork!

This blog post must come to an end, so small and puny and narrow.