Have you watched your little sister or brother show fear of falling when they have never actually fallen? Well, as Professor Goodman of Montana State University states -

“We are afraid of falling even though we’ve never fallen. The child who has been cradled his whole life still has a fear of falling because that was a dangerous time when we lived in trees.”

Just think, because you’re afraid to fall, you are demonstrating your ancestors instinctive fear of falling from the trees, where we swung around for a few thousand years.

I can’t help but notice that professors who lecture on the human body can’t help using words like crafted and constructed and shall we dare say designed ? To think that they know and recognize the amazing structure of our bodies and still override their obvious observations to say that such beautiful, well working, and superior organs are the result of a mistake, mutation, and random act.

Milk Thistle

We’re not busy people. We don’t rush to do hardly anything. We live in the country where mostly everyone still waves to you as you drive by. We drive with our windows down more than with the air conditioning. We use double negatives and combine words such as y’all and oughta . We shuck corn on the porch and listen to our country music stations while our rooster sends sounds of the country through our tiny town. We live the simple life.

We don’t take vacations or days off. We still go camping in a tent. Flannel shirts and braids are our “look”. People who come to our universities think this is where rednecks come from. We listen to bluegrass unashamedly and know the words to Rocky Top by heart. We don’t miss our State Fair and we loyally attend the local county shows and rodeos. We baptize in the river, even with the snapping turtles. We love to work with our hands. We still get up and awe at the sunsets over the fields of corn. We know the names of our neighbors for miles around and can recognize their grandchildren in town. We keep roadkill. We live the simple life. And I love it…

We have in our possession eight 1941 Life magazines. How they came to us, along with 80 other old books, was a little bit of a hectic ride - a few tears on my part I confess. Let’s just say, a garage full of books and I mean a GARAGE FULL of books, an offer to clean it out and keep the old books, offer allowed, dumpster, old message on a phone not received immediately, books in dumpster, thunderstorm, I cry, learn of the books still in the dumpster, quick truck ride over there, and hour and a half of digging through a dumpster retrieving the discarded magazines and books.

These magazines were in the process of WWII and refer to Hitler as easy as we refer to Hussein. Articles on the bombings of London as they happen, how to kiss a shy guy, and many others are sprinkled over the large pages. Last night I sat on my bed and for fifteen minutes was living in 1941, reading Life magazine, the originals. This is Momand I’s favourite cover…

“How to Knit” was issued only 13 days before Pearl Harbor. Notice the face she is making…

I write like
Charles Dickens

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Charles Dickens…interesting. I found this from Ribbons of Light.

…delicious looking isn’t it? Thank a curious swarm of bees who moved into my granny’s empty hive…and made it home sweet home.

On Friday afternoon, Mom and I undertook a task that we’ve been wanting to do for a while. Our steady stream to more organic living has taken us to the road of soap making. We wanted to make sure that soap making would not only be healthier but we were hoping it would be less expensive in the long run, and so far it has. We used the recipe from The West Ladies on their tutorial video Home Stead Blessings The Art of Soap Making.

tools graciously loaned by The Brooky’s

There is something so gratifying about making your own soap and waiting proudly as it cures for two weeks. Our first batch turned out lavender colored  (we think it was from the vegetable shortening that we used) and we ended up with 28 nice sized bars. We didn’t put any scent into it, though we added the suggested oats for moisturizer and cinnamon for colour, though it only turned out a darker lavender. Our next batch will probably have some essential oils for scent, but right down we’re going to test with plain soap.

“Because God’s plan is better than ours, and because He is sovereign, we don’t have to be searching for husbands, worrying about being pretty enough or charming enough to attract one, or fretting over the prospect of dying old maids. ” page 220

I love this quote from Anna Sophia and Elizabeth Botkin in their extremely enlightening book, So Much More. We have the promise of God that He is in control. The Bible tells us over and over again that nothing comes about that God does not know of. No young woman sits waiting at home for the husband God forgot about. He plans everything perfectly, so perfectly in fact that we will probably not see His complete sense of timing in this life.

I breathe a sigh of relief when to hear that my own personal charms and looks do not matter when it comes to the Lord providing me with a husband, if the time comes. To know that I am not in control really does send a fresh breath of contentment into my soul. If I was responsible for making myself pretty enough to see that I end up married, I would be in vain. And those are not the kind of marriages we want in the first place! A marriage based completely on looks will fade just like the features that they felt were so desirable. In truth,  marriages worth having are the ones that only God  brings together.

And as for charm, I know the Lord tells us that charm is deceitful, but what exactly is charm? Witty expressions, adorable traits? I always thought that charm was elegant and desirable. Most classy ladies had charm I thought - so I looked it up. From the words of Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, charm is:

3 a : a trait that fascinates, allures, or delights  b : a physical grace or attraction —  used in plural  *her feminine charms*  c : compelling attractiveness

The only thing “deceitful” that I can find in the definition is the word “allures”. Fascination and delight are not wrong in themselves, nor are physical grace or attractiveness…but ‘allures‘? To allure means to tempt, entice, or seduce…all actions that require the heart’s emotions. So the charm to be weary of is the charm that allures, not merely a charming character with Victorian styles, but like anything…it is the heart that matters. We sometimes do not realize the emphasis the Lord puts on the heart’s emotions. It is from the heart that we realize the need for a Saviour, it is the heart that produces my truest thoughts and desires.

I want to keep this quote in my mind whenever I think “Am I pretty enough for someone to actually think about courting me? I mean, I shouldn’t scare them before I even know them!” - which happens a lot. I am still learning to value the heart instead of the head, a little more everyday. Anything can happen at the blink of an eye to change the way we look but it takes a wave of change to scrape away our spirits. In the end, what do I work harder at beautifying…my outward or my inward appearance?

What I woke up to this morning…

Yep, she’s only got one. We got rid of all the other chickens when we thought we were moving, so we only have this hen, a rooster, and now a little chick. They’re slowly multiplying…

…you forget an important part of the pattern!

This is what you call “Half a Hat”. Can you tell what’s missing….6 inches of the pattern, the top is the decrease without the part for your head. I thought it looked funny but I didn’t want to ask…

God has blessed us with the ability to temporarily take leave of our senses when we are in pain, like trekking to safety with broken bones or passing out when the throbbing pulses of our nerves indicate severe injury, but occasionally that ability can come into play in unwanted circumstances, like today.

I’ve never been good with blood. The first time I passed out was at eight or nine in a hospitable and since then it’s been a somewhat predictable pattern of fainting. The last time I passed out Mom sat me in the chair so I wouldn’t hit my head falling to the floor like all the previous times, but that chair didn’t stop me. I just found a different route to the floor, though indeed a little less bumpy.

Well today, I was a little nervous as I needed to have blood drawn. 4 little vials waited beside me and the room was small and oddly lit, but the lady was very kind, hinting at my nervousness. I made it through 3 vials and then it started; that horribly uncomfortable silent-movie-type of symptom. My vision became blurry and I couldn’t hear the faces talking to me. An intense sweat broke out over my body and I immediately tried to read something on the wall to occupy my mind but before I could finish the poster on coughing, I performed the ‘classic Margaret faint‘, as Mom calls it. Apparently I went white and for someone who always has a rosiness in their cheeks, white means white. My head fell forward and my body shook for a little bit and then I came to.

The lady, when I awoke, was impressed with my “Snow White” fainting which made me feel better since I was unconscious in front of her. Compared to my somewhat unattractive routines in the past, this fainting was very proper and the closest I’ve ever come to fainting like in the movies. You know - the elegant sigh, the back of the hand against the fevered brow, and then the sweeping fall to the couch, ground, or in the below case - into the arms of those standing by.  I hate to bust the bubble of those who have never fainted, but let me tell you…the actual process is not elegant in any way, sadly.

From my perspective, during the seconds in which I was “gone”, I experienced a very fascinating example of the mysteries of the mind. In those fifteen seconds I saw every Dick Van Dyke episode flash before my mind in a fifties type of reel. For those wondering why, I had just watched an episode of Dick Van Dyke before leaving. Case solved.