Silent Happenings

Why does the house feel so silent this morning? waiting to hear from dil re taking granddaughter to Build a Bear – before they run out again – not having to try to find out about the paint clinic next week because looks like going to be cancelled – birthday over – got the work word, not till Monday – she’s not wanting to spend the night anymore, after getting her room ready, not sure what’s going on, oh, did forget supervisor to be back today, so…things seem to maybe be settling down, just feels quiet, maybe it’s on here, anyway, had a chance to come back this way, ran across a challenge someone did, regarding quirks, something used to be considered fun, but has gotten scary, but she made a comment, how to say – enlarging? everything trivializes the serious, just because you have a quirk doesn’t make you seriously mentally ill, but been doing some serious decluttering, or rather maybe I should just say shuffling, moving my stuff from front room/guest room, which couldn’t have been used, at least not without it, which hated earlier, to,yes, another room, but for another time, for granddaughter to use that room; moved the stuff to youngest son’s room, who just flew out to out West Sunday morning, bringing his stuff back first but it not going back in his room, but starting in the garage but right in the way, which surprised me him being allowed to, of hub reworking front porch steps, so he took everything upstairs – yes, we have an upstairs to our garage – just wondering where and I would have helped him, guess really should have realized he doing it, hm….because that’s where his ham radio stuff was, at least, although he’s fixed a place downstairs, just wondering if he filled up my side – really wondering how he managed to get there, but….anyway, since son’s room empty that’s where all my stuff went, but then we wound up in there anyway, oh, hm…one thing she hasn’t mentioned putting in her room is her new rocking chair – did not realize they come in different sizes – feel like Goldilocks – or how much of a difference design can make in making the same size feel so different, as in the legs/rockers being to the side or underneath so you’re not having to deal with them…so took the old one back – see how long lasts this time – for the 3 yr. old – why couldn’t it have stayed there for him to begin with? is that an irk or a quirk

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The Dreaded Phone Call

or is she one of the snowflakes down here? at least according to possibly my Kansas friend she is but, Toto, we’re not in Kansas – oh….

anyway, been wondering about all the deal with last year – oh, you don’t remember about the septic tank fiasco last year – well, it’s here somewhere

and the fire? last year’s, mind you, not this years

well, it apparently caused more issues – well, maybe not the fire; if that had been left alone, then maybe everything would be ok, but calling the fire department to put it out, even though it wasn’t what was thought to be on fire when they were called – maybe if they’d called them first? but…if you’re “merely” the executor of the estate of the house you’ve decided needs burning does that give you the authority to do so, when there are other heirs and especially if those heirs are state-dependent, so therefore, the state’s looking for their inheritance – now who decides which would give the most? the house as is or burned, but either way, certainly not if it ends up being only half – because of new rules? can bury but not burn, so, okay, thought be no biggie, would just get done, but….apparently not, so…here it still sits, a year later, causing a depreciation in property values to the assessed tune of $6000 – not that it would have to cost that much to have it done, but still….since it’s being assessed they’re apparently wanting somebody to pony up, although nothing’s actually been said….but, seemingly buying another house and moving has stirred all this up, since utility deposits had been made on the previous one, so with the transfer the confirmation apparently was sent to that house and found by the still owners, since the sale hadn’t been able to go through, which apparently led to checking out the rest of the property – property that son thought belonged to him, so -wouldn’t you use it? – but, oh no – Snowflake?’s threatening – now, instead of hiring this bulldozer to bury this house she was having burned – to bulldoze this shed on – whose? – property, hopefully at least after putting him the No Trespassing signs – oh my – so waiting on the courthouse – now why having to wait when ours would have just taken care of it right then – to drill down their stuff and see what they come up with, hopefully before she decides to actually do this – so guess we’ll see

Except a Seed

fall to the ground; isn’t that what it says?….but it doesn’t tell you how much it can hurt – never would I have expected the news I got this week – many times – and it seems it’s happened quite a bit lately – you’re rather expecting it, sometimes more than others, but mostly at least not surprised, but not this one – imagine your hub coming in from work with the strangest expression on this face, while you’ve just been going about your what you thought was just an ordinary day, actually more than usual, getting things back in gear, replenishing supplies, etc., and he says “you haven’t heard? you don’t know?” “no, apparently not; what am I supposed to have heard?” wondering then why you haven’t if it’s supposed to have been so important for me to have – then finding out that – well, maybe not like your best friend or maybe 2nd best such that your best one would have let you know – but at least somebody you’d come to care about deeply, maybe because you couldn’t help but reciprocate the love they showed to you, the personal things they did for you just because…that meant so much….finding out – no, no, no! – they died in a horrible, tragic house fire early this morning – (well, no, not “this” morning – but “that” one) so early, more or less last night – but more than that – maybe? – nobody let me know – like earlier – like last year an old – as in, yes, quite a while ago, before I moved here 30 yrs. ago – good friend also passed away and nobody let me know – just “happened” to find out by someone else mentioning it in passing – have I become invisible? but there’s more to this story but all I can do right now
her service was this afternoon – my heart’s just breaking

Her Name’s Not Lisa

A New Voyage of Discovery

My granddaughter, who I normally would not name, but somewhat vital to this post, so better catch it, Eliza – and, yes, this one time I’m going to put her last name as well – Parsons was here and once before we’d found her name – just her first – online in a printable font pattern, printed it out for her and have had it on the fridge so this time she wanted her first and last name, so hub this time googled it – and would you believe she has – or is – a namesake – turns out there was a somewhat famous – for her time, anyway, hasn’t lasted – author with her name. And turns out a couple – maybe, of her more well known? books are mentioned by Jane Austen in her book Northanger Abbey, maybe not necessarily in the best light – or – there’s somewhat some controversy as to whether she was being satirical in calling them “horror” books – believe they are considered gothic, at least, though not all of her books were, by any means. Those two are

The Castle of Wolfenbach and

The Mysterious Warning

I find it interesting that she married a turpentine distiller but especially at this time with the story of  his business taking a decline as an indirect result of “our” “American” War for Independence – from the perspective, of course, of both them and Jane Austen being British, correlating, in my mind, with it having just come out, I believe, the book The Lacemaker by Laura Frantz, who has studied our American Revolution – yes, she’s an American – in Britain from their perspective. He spent the rest of his money – at least he had some – trying to revive it.

First Line Friday

oops, it’s Saturday, isn’t it; oh, well, I just learned about this late last night

Where the wagon trains stopped we built our homes

 

The Moon is in the 7th House

and Jupiter’s aligned with Mars

or is it the moon; I don’t remember which it was that was supposed to have happened in March of 2011, just that dad, always one to be interested in such things, decided to go out on his back deck and look up at it; how I wish I’d had any idea what that would lead to; cannot believe or fathom how or why he went from that – made him dizzy? – to falling over his back steps – wish I knew which direction all that was, why couldn’t it have been on the other side of the deck where the railing was or maybe have a gate to the steps, but who would have thought…and then how I wish we’d rearranged those pavers so that edge wouldn’t be right there facing those steps for him to catch his head right there and slice it open, then was he conscious the whole time or did he pass out? how long did he lay out there? and why, oh why, didn’t anybody see him, like the people in the house right across the back yard with their big sliding glass door that I never saw covered up, but oh well, but just – but oh so glad – was he able to get himself back in the house? or on the other hand……why am I thinking about all this? still that blog I’m reading, only she was looking at it in November; by then a whole other situation had happened but I don’t remember there being anything in particular then….

Missing my Mom

tacking a different tack, reading a pdf of a blog – didn’t even know you  could do that, would like to learn how, puts all these blog posts, instead of being in reverse chronological order, back into correct order – anyway, this one’s the story of a wife about my age and her journey with her hub who’s old enough to be her dad – don’t ask, don’t really know, but got to right at the point where I lost my mom, so just brought all these memories back, not necessarily of what she did that was the same, but really in a way of some things going through myself now, but started with something similar; for years dad had a small collection of collectible coins that seemed as if we – though now not sure if really “we” or more just they at least thought couldn’t find – but, yet, after “they”; was it not till after both? I think – passed and I brought the little “lock” though didn’t really – metal box home that there they were just like always – was so glad because had been told they’d been lost, now think they just couldn’t see or process seeing them, suppose didn’t really want to go prowling – though, now, that think about it think realize didn’t know where the box was in their new house; realize even as I’d just been typing above I was remembering it as where it was in house grew up in, duh; anyway, just glad weren’t really lost, so much was – anyway in blog reading he wanted to put them in safe deposit box – I really wonder in many ways why mom and dad had one, had they ever had anything really in it, is that where the missing jewelry was and they’d gotten it out – anyway, when dad and I went to look in it after mom died – looking for what? jewelry, not even really sure – nothing in it but paperwork, of which they had copies, maybe even originals at home – anyway, when they got there he wanted to take his wife off his bank account, which, of course he could do, especially since it was his income, something that concerns me because hub changed his account again back to original financial institution that for reasons won’t go into here, wouldn’t go with him, so now he already has account not on; keep talking about at least getting POD put on but never get that done either, but not so much concerned about that as about before, but seems just now realized that if that were to happen he probably wouldn’t be working anyway, so….anyway, maybe because of issues there he decided to just close out the account, which he did, which hub might decide at that point to do as well, not worried about that now since still uses it, but him doing that meant she couldn’t pay bills or buy groceries, etc., which she was doing, point of my concern at some point, but at least not now or yet, so got the final check, do remember doing that with dad’s account, to pay final expenses of his caregiver, who’d been getting paid with a VA check of his, which, of course, got stopped when he passed away, and finally was willing to sign it so she could pay their that month’s expenses, but led to her getting guardianship of him, which have some concerns along those lines after some things that were seen and brought up after having TIA, was supposed to be seen by neurologist, but he – the neuro – didn’t have time to see him while he in hospital, supposed to see him after but never has

Backstory Saints Rest by Richard Baxter

If you’ve been following, you know we’ve been doing the book Stepping Heavenward -and we left off with them saying they were going to make a new start, so let’s see how that’s gone – and things did seem to be going well – until the butter incident – now, remember sister Martha has been allowed to assume the household responsibilities – we won’t get into what Katy’s then been doing, but let it suffice that that’s been okay, until now – so can guess where this is going – sister Martha’s way is always better, meaning things where she came from are always better, so you know this was in the days before the supermarkets, although things seem to be turning a circle of ordering from the people you know, which is what she did – she ordered the butter from “her own village” but we all know products, and butter would be one in particular, since it’s something that’s made so it’s quality depends on the skill and knowledge of the maker, besides the quality of what it’s made from, so….Katy could? not eat it and furthermore was ashamed – before who? for she was the only one who’d never had it – to have it on her table and said as much, which you know how sister Martha reacted – of the very first quality, which we’d expect Father to agree, but husband/brother? here we go again, oh, no, Katy’s just hard to please – hm, well….so, finally? husband/brother Ernest deigns to say this was a failed batch – really? did he really believe that? or finally just decide to try to smooth Katy’s feathers? would it work at this point? or too little too late? Was the butter rancid? and did it matter? as her mother, who did have occasion to show up, told her

“don’t make yourself miserable about ‘such a trifle'”, a lesson for us all – but, still….now, silly me, how did I miss all mother’s admonitions about Katy’s health and not getting up on ladders and chairs, which I could see later, but “sewing too much”, hm…and then the hot weather making her so languid – I can see that anyway – but to go back, she finally begins to get a glimpse that she’s not really going to be able to get along with Father and sister on her own, wondering why she hadn’t realized it before, especially in light of a letter her pastor?! can you imagine? of course, in response to a request for directions – now who does that anymore either? now, having said all that, this letter she’d gotten some few years before, actually after a year in which – some things never change, or maybe they do a whole lot, but you still hear this being decried against,  in some circles, anyway – she’d resolved not to read a novel for a year, since she was sitting up late reading them – sound familiar? so much so that even on Saturday then she’d be too sleepy to go to church the next morning – not good, but also, she began to not like any other kind of book – now, I know it always seems ironic to read of such – in a novel – but there are different kinds, but I somewhat feel I’ve spent a year of such – the book club I’m part of – irl, not the FB one – we’ve hardly read any novels and even those we have have been historical, based on real life, fiction, so still hardly felt like a novel, but I feel I’ve been stretched, so anyway she began to read devotional books, like the one we were supposed to read written by Julianne of Norwich, but it got mixed up somehow and everybody ended up reading her biography, instead, such as they could find since there wasn’t really much written about, maybe because there wasn’t much to write, since she was a cloistered nun, but, as such, she seemed to get quite a bit given to her in the way of devotional writing, which I was able to obtain a small little book just, say, pocketsize, to carry around and also as a plug here, since I wrote about Francine Rivers, she has some out as well, so he touched on that in his letter to her, advising her that, instead of trying to read the proliferation, which, contrary to the way we think now, there must have been in her time as well, it’s better to settle down on a few favorite authors and read their works over and over and over until you’ve digested, not just tasted, their thoughts and made them your own – advice I’d find still useful today, instead of some of this I see of people reading, it seems, 100s of books; I even made some such comment on one of the reading groups I’m in, saying I feel I’ve become much more selective in my reading, hence….

she began to read Taylor’s _Holy Living and Dying_, which I haven’t studied yet, because of mother’s advice, which I also find good with devotionals, not to read them straight through, like a novel? but to mingle a passage now and then with chapters from other books, as in reading them as devotions, which is how I prefer myself to do, which means you are allowed to read other books, such as novels – in moderation, as with everything? However, she also suggested beginning on Baxter’s _Saints Rest_, which, in taking her advice there, at least, if not the other, because otherwise how had she read every word and planned to read it again, as pastor advised, till fully caught its spirit, and at least at that point meant to never read “worldly” books again.

Still before get there, which will probably put at the top anyway, one thing in particular she got out of Baxter was it took away her fear of death, which, as some nonChristians don’t understand, anyway, is why, as she also says she got out of this book, making heaven wonderfully attractive, if so, they have it anyway, which, as some say, is it death or dying that’s the real fear.

So with that recommendation I did endeavor to look up that book and also see what I could find out about Baxter and this is what I found out that led to this serendipity of yet another Voyage of Discovery

His name was Richard Baxter, spending time in prison for – and in light of the upcoming Thanksgiving season, I find appropriate to be posting this at this time – his view that you have to repent and be faithful. But before that, he was a chaplain to the garrison, preaching sermons to the soldiers, during which time he also wrote another book, but before it was published he took ill and during that time is when he wrote his Saint’s Rest book

so now, for now, anyway, without getting into other serendipities, I found this oh so interesting, that even though I was going back and picking up earlier threads of Katy’s life, even as she was herself, such that this is not when the reading of her reading was, it’s happened on what “just happens” to be Mr. Richard Baxter’s birthday – yes, today, November 12

 

More of the Saga

Father living on crackers and stewed prunes – maybe they’re at least doing their job.

Katy met this dear doc the year she and her mom stayed at her aunt – her mom’s sister – ‘s house while she and hub went on a prescribed European trip – wouldn’t that be if docs would do that now? fascinating person, that aunt and Katy loved to visit with her; they stayed with their children while they went on this trip, actually not really sure she’d go to visit with aunt as much as see the children; came home to tell about it all at the dinner table – oops! no laugh, no response. mustn’t run on if father’s presence – he dreads levity – look it up – you get the idea. Oh, the vials of wrath! a foot square box – no harm – be glad to have hint how to appear very best before father and sister – oh my

interesting – seem to be hearing this a lot now – very best is real self

remember she’s not even 20 and sister is 40 but “mother” liked to have her “run on” – oh dear

now let’s go back; remember he never asked if she’d like him bringing father and sister there

but now maybe the real issue comes out – that she’d intended for her mom, who seemingly (I need to check this out a little more) doesn’t have any more children, so is by herself now, to live with them, but then she hadn’t asked him about that, either, so

he just took it for granted that she would welcome his father and sister but have to hand it to him; he did ask at that point if he should send them away ……..hm…..here’s her chance

but…..no……

long story – “Speaking beautifully is little to the purpose unless one lives beautifully”

How is it possible that Christian man and woman going through all this? hm…but

“try to bear with trouble father and sister make” hm….

but then she says she doesn’t mind – and then he’s called away  – all for nought

even letter from mom, who apparently, not sure where came from, had hoped to live her life out with them, begged her to be considerate and kind to father and sister, even though so indignant, but….

is this the issue – sister’s closeted with Katy’s husband, granted, it’s her brother, but still….in his office, never giving her any idea of what’s going on….hm….then, apparently she’s also been sticking her nose in the kitchen – no cook can serve 2 mistresses, especially when one’s a scrimp – remember I believe she’d asked Katy how she was along those lines, but now get this; she goes to her husband and his answer?…..

give it up and let sister do it; she’ll be happier and you won’t have to worry your pretty little head about it, hm….but rather than pour out her wrath again – since it didn’t do any good the last time she goes and tells the cook it will be that way – hm…

but she didn’t have to stay….so she didn’t, so guess sister got what she wanted, or maybe more, or maybe not, maybe they didn’t have a cook anyway, but beyond that, it began to seem as if he just began to want to escape his little lovely wife, but turns out something way more serious, but, first, ah, this older sister has, of course, always been looked up to and yet another area she decided to take over his accounts because, of course, why should his pretty little wife’s head be troubled about money matters? hm….oh, only a thousand reasons, right? but, fine, but to not even tell her what was going on

“ought not a wife share in all her husband’s cares?” – she asked – his answer? “no” – wow, but at least, at last, at long last, he proceeds to tell her what’s going on

turns out – well, not sure what exactly happened – but formerly prosperous businessman father winds up – well, see, doesn’t seem to mean as much now  –  well, or maybe it’s just the wording – losing everything except the home – now what everything was I don’t know either – and the home is mortgaged, now is still just a mortgage taken out to buy the home? believe was rather unusual back in that day – or, so, was a “mortgage” – a HELOC, no, don’t quite think would have had those back then, even under another name, but a Home Equity loan, refinanced the house? also, remember, when were the homestead laws put in place to protect the wife? or maybe other way around maybe they were in place even more so, that you didn’t even have to sign; anyway, never told his mom, but she – at least reason given, sufficient? – was in “delicate”  health so they never let her know a trouble could spare her – so, guess throw him a bone, he grew up like that, so why having/had to sell the home – now, don’t know what all this was about or why others were having to suffer from what happened to him or he did himself, somewhat seems like, since it seems to have thrown him into a nervous breakdown, as at least we might call it now or at least not long ago. But….either big difference in required or…..her hub, dear doc, dad’s son, has assumed his debts, and she still didn’t need to be troubled – oh, that’s right, anymore than his mom was by what had gone on with his dad – even though they were going to have to live economically until paid off, all while also supporting his dad and sister – well, explains where she was coming from to cook, who, no doubt was already not liking them being there anyway, being 2 more mouths to feed, but…

hm…was going to say Katy wasn’t brought up that way, but something’s not quite adding up here, but anyway she at least had gotten the idea he should have let her know right from the beginning and, of course, now he’s all sorry for not having done so, but she must have patience with her “stupid, blundering old husband” – hm….are you getting it yet?

but at least he does say they’ll start together once more, fair and square – we’ll see