Wedding thoughts and a beautiful announcement

In the mail....




When Cindy was a teacher in Columbia Mo. she met the nicest young art teacher named Carrie Shryock.  They became good friends.  Cindy cheered as Carrie and Beth started 1canoe2...she was one of their biggest fans!  Carrie and Beth have become big illustration, letterpress, stationary stars....but Carrie still kindly makes the best announcements for Cindy from time to time.  This one was especially special!!


To see more of the darling work from Beth and Carrie check this out.

1canoe2.com



*****

Cindy was looking for poems or verses for her wedding.   I thought of some that I liked...but I knew right away that they probably wouldn't be her thing.  She knows I love to pick out quotes and that is why she asked...but honestly, I was picking from my personal place...

”We need a witness to our lives.  There's a billion people on the planet, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything.  The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things, all of it, all of the time, every day.  You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it.  Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness'."

*******

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Cameron reads I carry your heart in the movie In Her Shoes.

(It was hearing it read in this movie that made me really like this poem.)

...for as long as we both shall live....

See...it's all so personal....

Joe: It wasn't... personal.

Kathleen: What is that supposed to mean? I am so sick of that. All that means is that it wasn't personal to you. But it was personal to me. It's *personal* to a lot of people. And what's so wrong with being personal, anyway?

Joe: Uh, nothing.

Kathleen: Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal.

******

And so....Cindy and Pat chose their own perfect verses and quotes.... 

*******

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
--William Shakespeare  

This beautiful sonnet came to mind..but I didn't send it.  I have heard it read in Sense and Sensibility many times and had no idea what they were saying.  It wasn't until I heard Sarah Jessica Parker recite it in Did you heard about the Morgans that I understood it and thought it to be so lovely.

I know. Lame.

And it's so obscure it is not even on youtube.  Ah well.  I will cherish it alone in my pretty little head.

What is the nicest thing you have ever heard in a wedding?

Yours? Anothers?

Encourage one another,

Donna

 

Super Bowl XLVIII Commercials -- "Puppy Love" and Lambeau Bound

Link to video on youtube







Click here to see on Youtube


Here are two of the sweetest commercials you will ever see!    I have included the links to youtube for those of you who can not view them here!!!  I promise you will adore Puppy Love.  And well...we Wisconsin folks have a very special place in our hearts for the little football players and people of Ashwaubenon.    We park our car right by that water tower when we go to the Packer games.


Both commercials are little stories and I loved them both!

Encourage one another,
Donna


p.s.  I don't know the name of the Lambeau commercial...so I just called it that.

double space this!

One of these things is not like the other....










I saw some pretty shapes and shadows at the end of the driveway yesterday.




I made this for lunch.

The Pioneer Woman's queso-fundido

Her picture is much better than mine.  It looked so yummy.
It tasted pretty good too.

If you like things 'hot' then you should definitely add some jalapenos or even use pepper jack cheese.
(that's for you Janet)


When I am done cooking in the oven I leave the door wide open to warm up the kitchen.
Does anyone else do this?


It's Catholic Schools week.  Today is the day parents come in a eat with their student.  I wanted to skip it this year....I've done this five times and don't really remember it fondly.  So I asked Katie if she wanted me to come and she said yes she did, she is afraid to be the only one without a mom to sit with. So I will go.  They don't always want you there.  She does now.  So I shall be there.


I read last night that the double space at the end of the sentence is incorrect.  The article had loads of facts and proof to make his point.

All I can say is....tell it to my 7th grade typing teacher.

I can not change and I will not.

Double space forever.


XOXO
Donna

Homebound

This might drive some people batty.  This staying home all day long.
But not me.

I like being home.  I didn't always.
But I do now.

When the children were small, Patrick slept during the day so I HAD to get out of the house.  I headed over to the Menominee YMCA five mornings a week.  When the children were very little they went in the nursery while I took or taught aerobics and attended many modern dance classes.  We tried to stay away until 11:30 when Patrick would wake up and eat and head back to work.  Those were the days he worked from noon until 6 am. the next morning.  You can understand why I wanted to keep things quiet!  Poor guy.

As the years have gone by Patrick's schedule changed as did ours.

Homeschooling...then not homeschooling.
Aging....and still aging....

Home.

It's warm here.





I love it.





Especially when Katie is home from school.  She says 'the selfie' is her hobby.


***

Jep sent me a box full of books.  She sent a book called "Don't Forget to Sing in the Lifeboats" by Kathryn and Ross Petras.

It is a small, fat book of quotes written in big type.  How perfect :o)


Here are a few quotes I liked;

It is the peculiar nature of the world to go on spinning no matter what sort of heartbreak is happening.
~Sue Monk Kidd

I have posted this before but I was reminded of it the other night.

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.  God is awake.
~Victor Hugo

It even helps stupid people to try hard.
~Seneca

Thank you Jep!

Have a beautiful day!

Wishing you courage and patience and peace,

Donna

Downton Abbey. 1-26-14

There will be spoilers...most likely in the comments.

I have gone ahead and read the story lines for the future episodes.  Those I won't tell.  But after last Sunday I could not stand not knowing what would happen between Anna and Bates.  I could not handle it.  At that point I didn't know the answer would come so quickly.  That's a funny thing, I am so used to American soap operas where story lines DRAG on for months and even years.
This quick attention to something so painful makes me glad.


Joanne Froggatt's (Anna) acting was stupendous last night. Did you see her lip quiver?  Oh man.
I cried for so much tenderness for Anna.

Oh Bates.  I don't trust you tho.  And apparently neither does Anna.

I'm glad Mary could see her Papa as a kind man.

Wasn't Mary happy to see Napier?

The Dowager and Isobel were bickering quite a bit weren't they?

“I wonder your halo doesn’t grow heavy. It must be like wearing a tiara around the clock.”

heh

I was watching while hopping back and forth between the Grammy's and Downton Abbey so I don't think I get a real feel of the episode.  I will re watch it to see what I missed.

What did you think about the episode?


****


Katie's volleyball team had a wonderful tournament over the weekend.  After years of playing on teams with NO WINS (Blessed Sacrament and last years club team) ....OTT U14 is winning!  The girls are learning and improving!!  They seemed to fix the problems of the last tournament and look so good.  I'm very thankful for our coaches!!  They work so hard with the girls and it's showing!
It really is delightful to win.






Ten hours into it...Katie looking fresh as a daisy....
I was exhausted.

Next tournament will be in our hometown!!! So happy!


*****

Katie is home from school. The Polar Vortex is back.
We love staying home.

Kasey Musgraves won two Grammy's last night.  I cheered loudly and shocked Patrick and Katie!
I love her album and her pretty voice.  "Same Trailer, Different Park."



This is the song she won the Grammy for...and she won Best Country Album.

Yeehaw!

Have a great Monday!  Stay Warm....and dry LA!!  I heard you had some rain :op

Encourage one another,
Donna

In which Anita Klumpers writes a novel.

Anita has been my friend here in the Madison area for over ten years.  I knew she was a wonderful mom and devoted wife and I knew she had great organizational skills and was a tireless worker for the soccer team and Flame.  But I didn't know she was a fantastic writer with a vibrant imagination!

She published her first novel this week and it is really a great read!  She writes beautifully and her story grabs you right from the start!!

I am so thrilled for her and inspired by her.  Writing a novel is a dream for so many people ....and Anita did it!!  I was very curious about the whole process so I wrote her and begged to ask her a few questions!  She was delighted to answer for us.

So here is my mini interview with the author of Winter Watch, Anita Klumpers;

Have you always wanted to write a book?

 I used to make up long, involved, open-ended stories when I was young and read them to my parents. They gently encouraged me to simplify. And to finish the stories. Instead I just married everyone off in the middle of whatever disaster they were in and signed off 'The End.' So yes, I always wanted to write a book and actually finish it. My parents would have been so relieved that I finally did!

Where did this story come from?

 The homeschool soccer team gave me a gift certificate to a bed and breakfast so my husband and I went up to Bayfield, Wisconsin, as far north as you can get before you hit Lake Superior. And we went in February. We ate at a great little restaurant and a young lady was sitting by herself eating. I thought she was so pretty and poised, but when she turned to look around the room I noticed something odd about her eye. That gave me the idea for Claudia. AND! My dad told the story about his grandpa who was blind. He would go into town to hand out tracts and feel his way home along a fence, but one night he got caught in a blizzard and froze to death. I always wanted that story to have a different ending and in my book I made it all come out OK.

How long did it take to write?

 Well, your Emma was still on the soccer team :) It took several years. I would work and then set it aside. It started out to be a tragic tale of revenge and has been rewritten so often that it metamorphosed into a suspense with some romance and humor.

Did you keep a certain writing schedule?

 Yes. Once a month, when I was supposed to have a new chapter ready for my writers' group I would write like crazy for an entire day. Self-discipline is foreign to me and I stink at sticking to a schedule. But I hate to let people down and I have enough of an ego that I didn't want to be the only person at the writers' group with nothing to contribute.

Do you have a second book floating around in your brain?  Will Claudia make another appearance?

 I started the second already! It actually picks up a week after 'Winter Watch' (I told you I have trouble finishing a story) and focuses more on Philip, the teenage boy, and some new folks who will make an appearance. There is another mystery and there might be blood. Or at least blood will be alluded to. My murders tend to be off-stage.

What books do you recommend for aspiring writers?

 Hmm. That is a good question. Read books on how to write if you want. More importantly, just read good literature, in any genre. Stretch yourself and read out of your comfort zone but read GOOD writers. Get the feel of how they make words work together, how they set moods, create characters, pull you into a story that sticks with you. Then just start writing. And please, if you aren't super disciplined and self-confident, consider joining or starting a writing group. You share your work of the past month and critique each other's offerings. Make sure everyone in it is honest. And very very kind.

Who are your favorite authors?

 Dickens. C.S. Lewis, Ray Bradbury, Agatha Christie. In the romance/suspense genre—Mary Stewart, Barbara Michaels (who also writes as Elizabeth Peters) Josephine Tey. Susan Cooper for children/youth. I better stop there. I almost headed to my bookshelves and would have come back with two dozen more.

Thank you Anita!!! I loved reading your answers!

Winter Watch by Anita Klumpers

You can read a sample on Amazon and the book is available as a hard copy and as an ebook.

Congratulations Anita!

I'm proud to know ya!!!

Encourage one another,

Donna

Movie Reviews with Miz Boo

Hi!   Sorry I'm late.

I was stuck under the dome and couldn't reach the computer.

Naw.  Really I was at the doctor's office.  Yearly check on my kidney stones. They get their picture taken once a year.  They look the same so that's good.  Just hanging out in my kidneys.  As long as they stay put, we're good.


***

I want to do an official movie update here on the blog.  I have talked about the movies we have seen on Facebook, but I want to put my plug in for the good ones and steer you away from a big stinker here!


1. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Ben Stiller.
I really liked this movie.  It started out slow but I think it needed to in a way...to show how dull his life was.  I'm sure many of you have read Thurber's short story about Walter.  I know I had to read it in High School.  Walter lives a dull real life but has a fabulous imaginary life.  He turns things around in a big way.  The locations and cinematography are spectacular.  It's worth seeing it just for that reason.  I like the music too.




Watching this makes me want to see it again.

grade: B+

2. American Hustle

Patrick and I sat and stared at the screen and honestly did not laugh once.  The costumes, music and hair were amusing.  But that was all.  The story was scattered and the dialog uninteresting.  Jennifer Lawrence's character is a ditz and she is a little funny.  But I see funnier writing and characters on television every day.

Why this movie is a big hit and gathering awards is a true mystery to me.

If you can explain it to me, I'm all ears.  Honestly.

Could be my funny bone is not sophisticated enough.


grade: D-


3. Enough Said with James Gandolfini and Julia Louise-Dreyfus


This is a sweet love story for the older crowd :o)  It looks at dating later in life and relationships between married couples, friends, and children.  All messy.
I cried when Julia was not nice to James, because he died this year and that makes me sad.
Julia dresses frumpy so she looks like the rest of us which amused me.
Her acting is quite good.  Really quite good.

grade: B


4. August: Osage County with Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts and the guy who plays Sherlock and the lady on the Millers and Chris Cooper and Ewan McGregor,  et cetera, et cetera, et cetera....




(this preview gives away less of the story than the other original trailer.)


This movie is about the most dysfunctional family...ever.  It is a Pulitzer Prize winning play made into a movie.   I LOVED this movie.  It was fascinating and interesting and stupefying all at once.
The acting is crazy good; by everyone.  I wanted to see this again right away.  It is that good.
It  is more of a bungee jump than a roller coaster because there is no happy ending...or even happy parts.
Just a sick, pill popping mother and her shattered children.

Well.  That's sounds terrible doesn't it.  But it is was not terrible for me.  I laughed more in this movie than all three of the others put together.

I might think I was crazy but my friend Karen (who I saw the movie with) and Emma both thought it was as great as I did.

It must be the writing and the acting.  The writing is stunning as is the acting.  What a story!

My grade: A+


*****

Now for my delicate readers.  There is swearing in all of these movies...I think.  I am immune to it but I know you are not.

Here is a link to one spot that does a thorough review of such things;


 Kids in Mind website


So there ya go.  My opinions.

Please tell me if you saw any of these and if you liked them or didn't.
I seriously want someone to explain to me what is funny about American Hustle and why it is winning awards.
( Again...Awards season and I stand scratching my head.)


Encourage one another,
Donna

P.S.  It was not snowing this morning on the way to town.  Thanks for your prayers.

I live in an evil snow globe.

I feel like I am trapped in a snow globe.

A snow globe that is owned by a sinister giant who finds it amusing to shake his little globe every single time I get in my car.  It is, for some reason, the only time he shakes his little globe....when I am getting in the car.  And then, he stops shaking it when I get out of the car.

You see, it is not snowing now.  But it snowed while I was driving to school, just enough to make the roads slick and scare me.

Honestly, my nerves are shot.
Because this has not happened once.  It has happened three times a day, seven days a week. (I'm only exaggerating a tiny bit. Maybe one day the sun was shining...and it blinded me.)


It reminds me of an episode of Dr. Who that Katie told me about...the one when the people are stuck in their cars...for YEARS!
Or Stephen King's The Dome.
Or the Twilight Zone.

Or even the final episode of St. Elsewhere.

Yes.  St. Elsewhere ended with a little boy looking into a snow globe...insinuating that the whole show was this little boy's imagination.

Problem is, it has to be done. There is no out.
Katie must go and I must take her.

I tell ya, it's like I am being forced to walk a tight rope over Niagara Falls three times a day.

Nerves frayed.

In fact, I can not watch the Packers play any more...I can not handle to stress of it.  I can't handle any show with tension.

I don't drink, never have...but let me tell you,  I need a drink right about now.

What can I do to bear it bravely?
Besides just bearing it bravely?




Miss Daisy.




Thanks!
Donna

P.S. Patrick hit a deer last week.

Be not a Dunce.

Use no ill words. 

Tell no lies. 

Hate Lies. 

Speak the Truth. 

Spend your Time well. 

Love your School. 

Mind your Book. 

Strive to learn. 

Be not a Dunce 

The New England Primer of 1777 

In which Katie thinks on these things...

or not.

Happy Tuesday!

Encourage one another,

Donna

Downton Abbey Season Four Week Three (episode Four)

I very much liked the story lines for Mrs. Hughes.  How she dealt with the Edna and Thomas affair was fantastic!  I loved how the old Duchess told Tom her sweet story of grief and dropping things.  I found it very moving.  Mrs. Hughes is becoming my favorite.  I am not usually a fan of the downstairs stories.  This is changing.
That I care so much for Tom is a testament to some awfully good writing and acting.
I loved when Isobel said that she loved Mary. 
And then when Mary said her head was still full of Matthew.
(As it should be so soon.)
I don't hate Rose as much as I use to...I'm glad she is not so much of a brat.
Oh my!  How the family freaked out when she danced with the 'black man."  (I wonder if the word would have been negro?)  The singer has kind eyes but I hate the make up on him and really didn't care for his voice.  
I really do not care a bit for the whole Ivy, Daisy, Alfred thing.  snoozefest.  
Again we see a quick shot of the babies...off in their prams.  
Gosh...no wonder they do not have relationships with their parents.  
So below you will see a few quotes I found especially fine.

Mrs. Patmore: Sometimes you can spend too long on a one sided love.

Mrs. Hughes: We were mad as hatters to let her (Edna) back in the house

Lord Grantham: There is no such thing as a marriage between two intelligent people that does not sometimes have to negotiate thin ice.

I hope you have watched the show and can share your wonderful opinions...and remind me of what I have already forgotten.  (I am in the process of watching it for a second time this morning.)

Have you ever spent too long on a one sided love?

I have.

Encourage one another,  Donna

resigning

Quote and picture from  1canoe2

Resigning oneself to the influence of the earth reminds me of Amy Carmichael's "In acceptance lieth peace".

Around here, the fruit of the season seems to be pot pie.

The drink, chai.  

And well the air....so dry we wake up with sore throats and the inability to even swallow...

When I remember to do so, I put a glass of water on the nightstand to help me out.

Life is beautiful.

Winter is long.

The sun is setting later every day.

Peace.

Lots of love,

Donna

Club Volleyball

Club Volleyball season has started.  Katie plays on a team called OTT for Over the top.  They had their first tournament last Sunday.  Katie plays to improve her skills and for the love of the game.  (For those of you who do not know about volleyball nowadays....it is highly competitive.  At a local middle school eighty girls tried out for the 8th grade team!)  Katie is playing very well at the setter position this year.  Playing beach volleyball last summer really helped her see the court better.  We picked this small club for one main reason; the coaches.  Morgan and Maria are both former University of Wisconsin volleyball players and they are great with the girls.  They are both really lovely women and I am very thankful for them.  The girls like them a lot too!





We do not have a tournament this weekend so we will be watching football.


Duracell Trust Your Power commercial.




Derrick reads lips and speaks very well doesn't he?
He is very well respected on his team.
So inspirational.

Go Derrick!





The other night Katie was flinging her hair around and I wanted to style it like this.  She didn't want me to, but I have always wanted her to wear her hair with the bangs down.


So the picture turned out really pretty and it got many wonderful comments on Instagram and FB.  But she is still not persuaded to wear it like this.

What more can I do?
She has a mind of her own.


****


And in the weather dept.....

The more it snows ~~
tiddely pom,
The more it goes ~~
tiddely pom,
The more it goes ~~
tiddely pom
On snowing ~~

And nobody knows~~
tiddely pom ,
How cold my toes ~~
tiddely pom,
Are growing.

A.A. Milne

Happy Weekending!

Love,

Donna

Throw Back Thursday.

2007




Katie was trying to get another child's attention at the pool.  Wanting to make friends.  I remember this so well.




I found garage light.



In 2007 I leaned of Stuart Townend.



I love how the audience sings with him.
I love his songs.


Here is a poem from 2005


Winding Wool

She'd bring to me a skein of wool
And beg me to hold out my hands;
so on my pipe I cease to pull
And watch her twine the shining strands
Into a ball so snug and neat,
Perchance a pair of socks to knit
To comfort my unworthy feet,
Or pullover my girth to fit.

As to the winding I would sway,
A poem in my head would sing,
And I would watch in dreamy way
The bright yarn swiftly slendering.
The best I liked were coloured strands
I let my pensive pipe grow cool . . .
Two active and two passive hands,
So busy wining shining wool.

Alas! Two of those hands are cold,
And in these days of wrath and wrong,
I am so wearyful and old,
I wonder if I've lived too long.
So in my loneliness I sit
And dream of sweet domestic rule . . .
When gentle women used to knit,
And men were happy winding wool.

~Robert William Service


Looking back is nice.
Don't you think.


Encourage one another,
Donna

Round here

Around here...


We have been watching the great Jane Austen movies.

First we watched Sense and Sensibility.

Katie liked this couple!

They always drive me a bit crazy but Katie thought they were very funny.

I like Colonel Brandon.

Then we watched Pride and Prejudice.

Three hours one night and three the next morning.  I was so pleased to notice that Katie understood the formal English language.  I know it was hard for me when I started watching these fancy movies :o)
We are different in this way, I have noticed.  When I was young I found it troubling if I didn't understand words in books and that would make me decide they were too hard for me.  Katie plows thru and if she doesn't get a word, she just keeps reading and she doesn't let it bother her.  I'm glad for her.  I wish I had someone leading the way for me...but I didn't, so I bloomed late.  Which is better than not blooming at all I guess :o)

Btw, Katie liked happy Bingley.  Both of my girls have always liked him best.

This is how Mr. Bingley smiles.

This is how Mr. Darcy smiles.  He is very happy here.  Can't you tell?

"And your parents are in good health? and all your sisters . . . "


I think my favorite part of the whole mini series is when Elizabeth runs into the a flustered Mr. Darcy at Pemberly (happily situated Pemberly)

Ah. heck. Let's watch it.




Katie liked it very well....

What can I say, my job is done here.

Love,
Donna

Interesting Video about Anna's story.

Thank you Susan.