And above all, may silence make you strong

I'm sitting in a quiet house right now. That doesn't happen very often. The kids and my mom are all in bed and Everett is at work. It feels and sounds wonderful. It prompted me to look for quotes/poems about silence and I found this one:

May the stars carry your sadness away,
May the flowers fill your heart with beauty,
May hope forever wipe away your tears,
And, above all, may silence make you strong.

Chief Dan George

I feel the silence making me strong already! I'm kind of a collector of quotes so I find many opportunities to find new ones. One of my favorite sites to find them is Inspiration Peak. It has some really great poems, quotes and stories. Plus some cool things to buy. I never have bought anything there, but I like their t-shirts.

We had a nice 4th of July. A few fireworks (lots if you count all the ones in the neighborhood around us), a few friends to visit with. We had two nights of festivities and made ice cream in the ball* both nights. It's good stuff. When I was a kid my dad always made ice cream in the hand crank ice cream maker. It was lots of work. Then, as a teenager, our youth group hosted a yearly ice cream social. I belonged to a fairly small country church in Iowa. We lived about a mile from the church and I spent many good times there. All the churches in neighboring towns would come (and we would go to theirs). We made lots and lots of ice cream, cranking and cranking by hand. Those are great memories. We also always had a horse tank full of ice water and bottles of pop. I remember getting thrown into the tank by all the mean boys in my youth group too. They liked teasing me. I always reacted so I'm sure that only prompted them to do it more. As a friend later in life told me "Beth, they couldn't get your goat if you didn't tell them where it was tied". I guess I'm pretty transparent most of the time. I guess that's not a bad thing (most of the time). There was also lots of volleyball at my home church and it was very competitive. I was traumatized by that, but I won't go into that now :) I think I've gotten over it (just don't ask me to play volleyball, please!). Anyway, the ice cream in the ball reminded me of those things. The taste of homemade ice cream can take me back. Oh, of course there were no raw eggs in it, which there always were in the homemade ice cream of my childhood, but it still tastes much the same.

I apologize for the lack of pictures lately. My camera batteries died and I've been too lazy to replace them yet. But, I AM painting tomorrow so will have some before & after pictures of the bathroom and maybe even some living room updates!! I know, I know . . you can't wait!!!

I made links on the Inspiration Peak words up higher and also the word ball in the
4th of July paragraph. I tried to make them show up but they don't, so click on them if you're interested.

*this ball is really fun and I recommend it, especially if you have kids (or young-at-heart adults) in your life.