Sunday, December 29, 2013


As the year comes to a close, give me a steaming cup of cocoa, a book of poetry, a flickering candle, and may the cares that 'infested' 2013, fold their tents and silently steal away (my favorite lines from the last stanza).  Can you hear them tiptoeing away?  God has been good this year, as always.  Looking forward to meeting his daily mercies every day of the new year...



The Day is Done


The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

Friday, December 13, 2013

The Hobbits Are Back!

My kids love books.  My kids love audio-books.  I think they may have the audio version of The Hobbit memorized by now.  Due to my admittedly stubborn preference for paper pages in binding, we read it aloud first.

To coincide with the theater release of Part Two of The Hobbit, our amazing local library staff created another great event for the kids.  They do large scale (at least they look large scale to me) events regularly, and every one I've attended with the kids has been a blast.  The invite said to 'dress the part,' so we did.  Alex and Kathryn got brand new hobbit cloaks from my reluctant sewing machine. 

*Sewing intimidates me, frankly.  It's the whole inside-out, 3-d construction thing- messes with my head.  Ask my poor sister (recipient of my first attempts), whose super-comfy jammies' crotch was soundly mid-knee.  Nathan's pockets were sewn shut, and his jammies turned into a long skirt.  I've improved a bit since then, and cloaks are decidedly 2-d in nature, so we pulled it off.  Please note the highly artistic furry feet (brown magic marker :o)  Please also note that Kathryn refused such nonsense, making her perhaps the most well-groomed Hobbitess ever.*

Activities included making it safely through the spider webs, making furry feet (not as easy as ours), creating one's own dragon breath fire blower, the troll toss and lots of food for "our supper and afternoon tea."  Note to library staff:  yes, it makes sense to tell the children they mustn't touch the spider web threads (so they won't just go barging through), but such a command has a strange effect on my (thankfully) obedient and (somewhat) OCD kids.  That will explain Alex's slow and strange contortions to get through (wish I had a video of that- haha!) and Kathryn's mid-web panic when she realized it wasn't ACTUALLY POSSIBLE to not touch any threads.  Just so you know... 

Here are some fun pics of the "Unexpected Gathering" which was obviously expected, so... never mind.