Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.
Matthew Henry
The Mommy Diet by Alison Sweeney
Alison Sweeney, host of The Biggest Loser television show, wrote a book with Christie Matheson called The Mommy Diet. The book’s subtitle is: A Month-by-Month Plan for a Healthy Body and Mind Before, During and After Pregnancy. I read Sweeney’s blog and when the book was about to come out it sounded like something I might like to read and review so I ordered it. I was not disappointed.
The book is divided up into the stages of pregnancy and for each stage there is Fitness section with appropriate exercises and activities to do. Exercises are clearly explained and often there are black and white drawings to help you picture what you are to do.
There also is a section about Foods to eat and avoid during each of the phases of pregnancy including some great recipes. Sweeney also gives Fashion advice for each stage as a woman’s body is changing. Though she is a television star she gives very practical, economical advice.
Lastly, a Self-Care section is included to remind the mom to be that she will not be much good to her child and family if she doesn’t take care of herself as she moves through pregnancy. Throughout the book Sweeney also includes items about Romance and how to keep the marriage relationship strong.
Sweeney talks like your sister or best friend would and it was a very readable and enjoyable book. There are exercises anyone can do, and the tips for food were great. I also liked that throughout the book there were sections in gray called MD Extra that added to the text but also made it easier to find later. These also included great music playlists for exercise and relaxation, quite a few recipes and things like sleep strategies and pampering ideas.
Right after I finished this book I found out that one of my nieces was pregnant and we were so excited. I am going to be a great-aunt! This week she found out she is having a boy. Guess what I am giving her tomorrow when she comes over? This book will be right up her alley, as she is fashionable, eats healthy, exercises and loves to read.
The Mommy Diet would be a great gift for any pregnant mom, just give it to her early on so she can use all the great information it includes before, during and after her pregnancy.
Fall and Apple Picking
Orchards on the farm in 1964
I enjoyed fall on the farm. It meant things were starting to slow down but there was still lots of work to do. The horse corn needed to be harvested. The remaining hay was bailed. Pumpkins were picked. Crops that were finished were plowed over.
Apples needed to be picked as on my grandparents’ farm we had quite an apple orchard. Uncle Donald experimented graphing and there was one tree that produced five different varieties. I did pick apples but was always careful as one year my uncle broke his arm because he fell off the ladder, or it might have been from falling off a limb, knowing him. I was always careful.
Some apples were picked and taken to the mill to make cider. In later years, my uncle got his own cider press and we would help him make cider. So delicious. Other apples were sold at our farm stand or taken to market, where my grandfather, uncle and aunt would go into Baltimore City on Fridays to sell fruit, vegetables, chickens and eggs to customers.
I love apples. Crisp, somewhat tart. Grandmother would make apple pie. My father loved the apple filling his mother made and the crust that my mother’s mom made. My mom would make a delicious applesauce and froze it. I loved eating it before it was all thawed out.
That orchard was plowed under after the farm was sold. Now I have to buy my apples and while sometimes I have to use grocery stores, I try to buy my apples directly from the farmers. I love how fresh they are and all the varieties they have.
Remember an apple a day keeps the doctor away.
Bushels of apples picked on the farm. 1964
After Apple Picking
by Robert Frost
My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still.
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples; I am drowsing off.
I cannot shake the shimmer from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the water-trough,
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and reappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
And I keep hearing from the cellar-bin
That rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking; I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall,
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised, or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
The Sabbath: Psalm 51: 14-19
Psalm 51: 14-19 (Psalm 51: 1-6; Psalm 51: 7-13)
14Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
15O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
build up the walls of Jerusalem;
19then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
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Guilt had closed his lips, had gone near to stop the mouth of prayer;
he could not for shame,
he could not for fear,
come into the presence of that God whom he knew he had offended,
much less speak to him his heart condemned him,
and therefore he had little confidence towards God.
It is a sharp work wrought there, no less than the breaking of the heart;
not in despair (as we say, when a man is undone, His heart is broken),
but in necessary humiliation and sorrow for sin.
It is a heart breaking with itself, and breaking from its sin;
it is a heart pliable to the world of God, and patient under the rod of God,
a heart subdued and brought into obedience;
it is a heart that is tender, like Josiah’s and trembles at God’s word.
The breaking of our hearts for sin is a sacrifice of acknowledgment,
a sacrifice of God, for to him it is offered up.
It is not the pampering of our flesh, but the mortifying of it, that God will accept.
The sacrifice was bound, was bled, was burnt;
so the penitent heart is bound by convictions,
bleeds in contrition, and then burns in holy zeal against sin and for God.
Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Psalm LI, vs. 14-19, highlights (these were taken from my reading and underlining of key concepts on November 24, 1987)
Honor Your Commitments
Let me make clear where I am coming from in the beginning. I am a Christian. I am not married, nor have I ever been married. I am my mother’s primary caregiver. My mother has Alzheimer’s.
This week when told about a man whose wife had Alzheimer’s but the husband was seeing another woman, Pat Robertson stated, “I know it sounds cruel, but if he’s going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but make sure she has custodial care.” When asked by his co-host about marriage vows ‘for better or worse’ and ‘in sickness and in health’ Robertson added, “If you respect that vow, you say ’til death do us part. This is a kind of death.”
When I first heard this I checked Twitter and it was all a flutter and I thought someone must have misheard what was said. I then watched a clip of the segment and much to my disappointment Robertson had said it.
I still cannot believe that a man who has fought for the right of the unborn would so quickly give up on those at the other end of life. Christians value life. Christians value commitments.
Joni Eareckson Tada, who went to my high school, took piano lessons from my same teacher and attended Bible Study at my house, well understands those who have disabilities and the way the world treats them. It was no surprise when Joni and Friends made a statement including this: “Alzheimer’s disease is never an ‘accident’ in a marriage; it falls under the purview of God’s sovereignty. In the case of someone with Alzheimer’s, this means God’s unconditional and sacrificial love has an opportunity to be even more gloriously displayed in a life together!”
Alzheimer’s is a debilitating disease but my family has made the choice that we are going to care for our mother at home until we physically can no longer do so. She had dementia issues starting in 1994. We saw money issues and general forgetfulness. We started treatment with a Johns Hopkins’ doctor and she participated in several national Alzheimer’s studies. As time went on, we saw more and more issues but she was able to take care of herself with family members regularly checking in on her. In 2007, it was clear that she needed someone to live with her and I left my teaching position in South Carolina and moved back to Maryland to live with my mom. We have seen a steady decline though it has not been rapid. She loves life, her family, and people in general. She sings, doodles and tells stories. Having had hip surgery 9 years ago she uses a walker but is now more unsteady. She is more fearful and sometimes wakes up and doesn’t know who I am. Though things don’t always go as expected and there are struggles, we have made a commitment to care for her and we are honoring it.
You see, sometimes life doesn’t go as you expected.
Dad died when I was 16. Not what my family who dearly loved him wanted. Money was tight. There were definitely challenges and things were not always great. It was emotional, sometimes messy, and hard. Mom raised us and did not abandon us. She provided for us, teaching us right from wrong and to stand up for what we believe. She made sacrifices to see that each of us went to college.
My brother and his wife adopted a baby with special needs from Bethany Services. Those needs were not spelled out but when he was a few years old it became clear he was not developing as other children. After years of doctor visits and tests, they found out he is autistic. He is a valuable member of our family and we can’t imagine life without. He will need supervision the rest of his life.
Sometimes in life, it seems like we are thrown a curve ball. It doesn’t always go as we expected but the important thing is how we respond. My mom did not abandon us, she had made a commitment. My brother and his wife did not return their son. They had made a commitment. Marriage is a commitment and in the eyes of the Lord, a commitment for life.
ABC News with Diane Sawyer did a short segment about this issue. The last scene is very powerful. http://youtu.be/vsaqfP87Z58
What commitments have you made?
The Sabbath: Psalm 51: 7-13
Psalm 51: 7-13
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right[b] spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
13Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
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The pain of a heart truly broken for sin may well be compared to that of a broken bone’ and it is the same Spirit who as a Spirit of bondage smites and wounds and as a Spirit of adoption heals and binds up.
He does not pray, “Lord, preserve me my reputation,” as Saul, I have sinned yet honour me before this people. No; his great concern is to get his corrupt nature changed.
He prays, Lord renew a right spirit within me; repair the decays of spiritual strength which this sin has been the cause of, and set me to rights again.
David finds two ill effects of his sin:
1. It had made him sad.
By willful sin we forfeit this joy and deprive ourselves of it; our evidences cannot but be clouded and our hopes shaken.
Those that sow in penitential tears shall reap in the joys of God’s salvation when the times of refreshing shall come.
2. It had made him weak.
If I be left to myself, I shall certainly sink.
By this psalm, he is, and will be to the world’s end, teaching transgressors, telling them what God had done for his soul. Note, Penitents should be preachers. Solomon was so, and blessed Paul.
Matthew Henry, Commentary of the Bible, Psalm LI, vs. 7-13, highlights (these were taken from my reading and underlining of key concepts on November 14, 1987)
Remembering 9/11
I was in my third grade classroom getting ready to meet with one of the reading groups when I got a call on my cellphone from my sister. She told me a plane had flown into one of the World Trade Center towers. I quickly went to the cupboard to pull out the black and white television I stored to watch special events. I plugged it in near my desk and told the class what had happened. I had 23 students at the time and they crowded around my desk to see what was going on. I called the school office to tell them and they turned on one of the school TVs. I also told the other teachers in my building.
I was flipping around the channels but ended up on ABC. Some students hung around and others went back to completing their work. I am a flexible teacher and I know that this event was much more important than any work I had assigned.
I called my sister and found out that there was concern about my niece, Sarah, who was a congressional intern at the time. No one had heard from her yet and there was fear that a plane might be heading for Washington DC.
We were watching when the first building collapsed. It was so hard to believe. Students asked many questions but there was no panic. We stopped and prayed. Thankfully, we did not see anyone jumping from windows. You knew the second building was coming down and it all seemed so surreal.
My students left for lunch and I talked with other faculty members, most of which hadn’t seen any footage, so we gathered around the TV in the office watching.
After an hour or two we heard from my niece. At first, they were told to stay inside but then everything was evacuated. She said it was wild with so many people rushing to get out of DC. She couldn’t get cell service and headed for the Metro. Of course, being underground she still couldn’t get service. We all breathed a sigh of relief when she called and said she was back in her apartment in outside DC.
My other sister and her family were in Disney World with some close friends and it was important to get in touch. There was that sense, that day that you needed to hear the voice of all your loved ones. They were fine but as air travel was shut down they knew they couldn’t fly back home. They also wanted to leave and just be home so they rented a van and drove back to MD.
When my students came back to the room, after lunch and recess, Will commented when he saw the TV was still covering the event, “Is that still on?”
Nick, wise beyond his years, turned and said to him, “Will, this is history we’re going to be hearing about this for a long time.” I reached over and ruffled his hair, thinking how true that was.
That class graduated from high school this year and I went back to South Carolina for the graduation. Only four students from my original class were there and I had a picture taken of me with them. I knew I had to go back for this graduation as they were My 9/11 Class. We talked about that day and I reminded Nick of what he said.
Yes, we are going to be hearing about this for a long time. My mom talks about the effect the bombing of Pearl Harbor had on her. She and her friend sat on her marble steps in Baltimore City crying that their fathers were going to have to go to war. Her generation has not forgotten and may we not forget.
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Check out these other posts I have linked up with…. Always Remember Never Forget. Thanks to Sunshine Praises and Totally Temberton for putting together this link up!
A Bird Strays from its Nest, Again
Like a bird that strays from its nest is a man who strays from his home. Proverbs 27:8
Last month I wrote about an Uninvited Early Morning Visitor. Several weeks after that I went to put something in what can only be called the “junk” room. Mom used to have her computer in there and would store some things she didn’t want down in the basement. When I came to live there, I added things to the room and one of my projects this summer was to rearrange the boxes of clothes, Christmas decorations and the like. There is a shelf in there where I put gifts – those birthday and Christmas presents I have already purchased. I had set a book on the shelf and heard a fluttering as I was closing the door. I certainly sounded like a bird to me and I decided not to open the door again until I went into my “get the animal out of the house mode”.
It was 7 pm and I knew I didn’t have much day light left to draw this bird out. Mom was in her bedroom so I closed that door, my bedroom, the bathroom and the basement door. I then opened the doors to outside. Then I was ready to open the door to the junk room. I turned the light out in that room but kept the hall light on, hoping to entice the bird out.
I called my sister, wondering how in the world another bird had entered the house, I checked the fireplace where I was sure the last bird came in but it was sealed tight. I waited and waited and saw the light quickly fading. I went back and heard and saw nothing in the room. I then decided I would have to wait until the morning. I closed that door and stuffed a towel in the opening under the door. I did think I was starting to get a little paranoid. I again checked all around the house and saw no openings and wondered if it had come through the air conditioning vents, but so no evidence.
I got up early the next morning because Mom and I were leaving and I didn’t want to be gone for several days with a bird in the house. It was bright outside and I tried the same method I had before. I ventured in the room and even threw some things around hoping to coax the bird out but there was nothing. I had to leave the house and hadn’t seen or hear a thing.
When I got to my sister’s she said, “Are you sure it was a bird?” Now, you can imagine my response to that but I was beginning to wonder.
Hurricane Irene was coming so we stayed with my sister. After the storm was over, she was without electricity for several days and I finally went back to mom’s to check everything. She had electricity but as mom had been sick she was weak and we thought it best for mom to be with us both. There were no other birds in the house and I didn’t hear a thing. Had I imagined the whole thing? I didn’t think so and when I opened that door and smelled a dead animal I actually felt better. I moved some stuff but couldn’t find it and as my sister was waiting for me I left.
When mom and I finally got home, I started moving things around in the room. The smell had lessened considerably so it wasn’t like I could sniff out where it was located. I was rearranging things on the gift shelf and straightened out a box of gift wrap, tissue paper and ribbon. It seemed like the perfect place for a bird to be hiding but it wasn’t there. I then moved a bag and was picking up some ribbon that had fallen when I saw something black on the floor. Yes, I was not crazy. There was a bird, the same type that had been in the living room. I took a picture and sent an email to my sister saying , “So there.” Of course, she calls me and I am waiting to gloat when she asked what I had meant. The picture had not been sent!!
We surmise that this bird had come in with the other bird and because I closed the door to that room, the bird had been stuck in there while I was on vacation.
Yes, we will be having the chimney cleaned and a bird guard installed. I think I have it all figured out but I won’t be renting Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller The Birds anytime too soon.
Button Holed by Kylie Logan
Both of my grandmothers saved buttons. One kept hers in an old tin can and the other had hers in a mason jar. I remember loving to play with those buttons. There were the usual clear, or white buttons found on men’s shirts but there were also fancy buttons, some with only one of a kind. Sometimes my Grandmother Sewell would tell me where the buttons had come from and sometimes I would just play and sort the buttons as my other grandmother was sawing a button on one of my uncle’s work shirts. I learned to save buttons, those extra ones you get when you buy clothes, or when I had to throw out something that wasn’t even good for the thrift shops I would remove the buttons and save them. When I became an elementary teacher I got some buttons still on the cards from a special recycling store for teachers and I would use them in games.
So my interest was piqued when I heard about this book about a button collector. Button Holed is the first in a new series by Kylie Logan. The main character, Josie Giancola is an expert on buttons and opened up Button Box, a shop where you can get all kinds of buttons: special artistic ones, antique ones and many one of a kind buttons.
Josie is excited about her shop but when it is ransacked and an actress who she was helping to find the perfect buttons for her wedding dress is murdered in her shop, Josie’s world is torn upside down. She decides she has to investigate because the murder weapon was an antique buttonhook. There are men in Josie’s life, a homicide detective, Nevin Riley, with of course, sparks between them, a trusted older neighbor Stan who looks out for her, and her ex husband, Kaz, who ‘tries’ to help but has bigger problems of his own.
Logan has created an interesting set of characters that were believable and interesting and I look forward to reading the next in the series. Some tips on antique button collecting are also included.
Now if I could just find some of those old buttons my grandmother gave me.
It should be noted that most of the reviews on Drawing the Line Somewhere are from books purchased by the owner, or obtained from the library, publisher or author. No monetary compensation was involved nor a good review guaranteed. Links to book companies posted with reviews are as a convenience for readers to buy the book. If a reader buys the book by clicking through this website, Drawing the Line Somewhere receives a referral fee which is used to help support the cost of the website.
The Sabbath: Psalm 51
Psalm 51: 1-6
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. 1 Have mercy on me,[a] O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
a. Psalm 51:1 Or Be gracious to me
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The repentance which, in this psalm, he expresses, he was brought to by the ministry of Nathan, who was sent of God to convince him of his sin, after he had continued above nine months (for aught that appears) without any particular expressions of remorse and sorrow for it. But though God may suffer his people to fall into sin, and to lie a great while in it, yet he will, by some means or other, recover them to repentance, bring them to himself and to the right mind again.
Multiply to wash me; the stain is deep, for I have lain long soaking in the quilt, so that it will not easily be got out.
Sin defiles us, renders us odious in the sight of the holy God, and uneasy to ourselves.
It will be of good use for us to have our sins ever before us, that by the remembrance of our past sins we may be kept humble, may be armed against temptation, quickened to duty, and made patient under the cross.
It is good to be particular in the confession of sin, that we may be the more express in praying for pardon, and so may have the more comfort in it.
This should greatly humble us for all our sins, that they have been committed under the eye of God, which argues either a disbelief of his omniscience or a contempt of his justice.
Had I only considered this before, I find I should not have made so bold with the temptation, not have ventured among the sparks with such tinder in my heart; and so the sin might have been prevented.
Truth and wisdom will go very far towards making a man a good man. A clear head and a sound heart (prudence and sincerity) bespeak the man of God perfect.
Matthew Henry, Commentary of the Bible, Psalm LI, vs. 1-6, highlights (these were taken from my reading and underlining of key concepts on November 14, 1987, still true today)
