Breaking the Spring

We had a great Spring Break. From exploring quirky Kansas sites, to prom dress shopping, to college visits (YIKES), to staying in the smallest cabin known to man (probably not, but it sure seemed like it) we had a fun week together. We did a couple of day trips, with mornings spent working at home . . and we actually made some progress on cleaning the house finally! Here's a quick photo journey through the first half of the week. I have 161 pictures, so hard to choose which ones to share, but I'm trying :)

Day one (Sunday) was spent exploring Marion County . . this is at the city park in Marion. My camera was doing weird color things!

Day two -- prom dress shopping (with four teenage girls!) It was a fun day and full of laughs. I'm sure every mom thinks her daughter looks beautiful in every dress she tries on. She really did :) (this isn't the one she chose . . . you have to wait until April 18 to see that one :)

Day three - Rock City in Minneapolis, Kansas -- FUN!!My family all climbed up the rocks . . .
I sat on rocks that weren't too far up from the ground :) And I took most of the pictures so I'm not in very many, which is fine with me!
Did you know that Minneapolis, Kansas is the hometown of George Washington Carver??? I didn't, but here's a plaque to prove it (we had a Kansas day trips book that alerted us to this little-known-fact). Another little-known-fact is that there is a YARN SHOP in Minneapolis, KS. I visited it and bought some great yarn and needles. There is also an ice cream shop that sells the biggest "small" cones I have ever seen.
Day three ended at Maxwell Game Preserve in rural Galva or Canton. Everett and I went there during our college years and our good friends were engaged at the top of this tower. We saw elk for the first time this trip and also saw buffalo fairly close. It was a little windy but very peacefull and beautiful! I would have taken more photos but my camera batteries died about 2 seconds after this one was taken!

I'll have to finish tomorrow or another day soon as my bed is calling out to me. I sleep horribly when I'm away from my waterbed!

Keeping Sabbath

I've been thinking a lot lately about keeping, or even finding, Sabbath. Our sermon at church on the first Sunday of Lent was about keeping Sabbath, and how that has kind of becoming a thing of the past. I've thought a lot about why that happens, especially for women. I wrote a really long-winded post about it, going back to my childhood even. But as I was typing I wondered what good might come of it. It seemed like I was griping, complaining, looking for a reason to blame anyone but myself for my lack of finding and keeping Sabbath in my life. I gave up talking about people for lent. I've become negative lately, at least it feels that way to me. I wasn't seeing God in those I interact with. I'm trying to do that as I wait for Easter, and strive to find Sabbath.

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream.

The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman.

"I've been thinking," he said, "I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone."

"The Wise Woman's Stone" Author Unknown

Addicted

I got a new polymer clay book with my christmas barnes & noble gift card. It's amazingly inspiringThis is my addiction right now. I can't wait to go to the craft store tomorrow to stock up on clay. In different colors. I think I'm going to make a Cora Paige line and put them in my etsy shop. I'm totally hooked. I had lots of things to finish this week, including these shirts that we silk-screened for the journalism class at the high school

That's the front. The backs came out better.

Anyway, I couldn't wait to get it done so I could play more with the clay. Tomorrow! I can't wait.

Fish

Be Funky

Anyone who knows me wellKnows that things like this really excite me

Probably way more than they should

I could truly spend hours doing things like this on the computer

especially when there are numerous other things I should be doing

Too much fun!
Try your own here.

Precious

The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence.
When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will
bloom like flowers.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

World peace

So, really, I have nothing of consequence to post about, but I love reading everyone's blogs (well, not everyone in the whole wide world, because if that were the case, I would never have time to do anything else, not even sleep. But everyone whose blogs I have bookmarked), and I started feeling like it had been a long time since I had posted. So, here we go. I just found a recipe for cookies via a blog and the post title with the recipe had something about world peace in it. It appears I have a little bit of an issue with run-on sentences tonight. I wonder if that's a symptom of something, like brain overload? I've been so touched recently by the posts I've been reading. Beverly has a beautiful post about her growing family. I love Rilke too. I was much older when I discovered his writing. My favorite quote of his (so far) is this one:

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

I think I like it so much because it speaks to the belief I hold fast to, that although what we do in our lives might not impact the big picture, at least not in ways we might be able to see, they impact the big picture in the way talked about in the quote. I might not be able to make world peace, but I can make peace (or try to) in my house, at my job, in my neighborhood. And by doing that, it ripples out to others and then the things they do ripple out to others . . . like pay it forward.

Kristen has a beautiful post about siblings. It made me remember my siblings and hope that someday our girls will have wonderful memories of their growing up years and wonderful relationships with each other, although some days that's hard to imagine.

So many of the blogs I read have had posts to pray for Cora. I encourage everyone to pray for Cora and her family. From the moment our first daughter was born, the world changed for me. I remember leaving the hospital and seeing all the people in Newton going on with their daily lives like everything was still like it had been the day before. But it wasn't. The world had changed, hugely. And, my greatest fear was that something would happen, she would get sick or hurt, and I would have to watch her suffer. I'm so sad any parent has to do that.