bekahcubed – Page 90

WiW: Anne on Contentment

January 23, 2012 3 Comments by bekahcubed

I thought that the quotes I had flagged in my copies of Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea were to no purpose. But now that I’ve got them written on the same page, I see they have a theme after all: Contentment.

“The ice cream was delicious, Marilla, and it was so lovely and dissipated to be sitting there eating it at eleven o’clock at night. Diana said she believed she was born for city life. Miss Barry asked me what my opinion was, but I said I would have to think it over very seriously before I could tell her what I really though. So I thought it over after I went to bed. That is the best time to think things out. And I came to the conclusion, Marilla, that I wasn’t born for city life and that I was glad of it. It’s nice to be eating ice cream at brilliant restaurants at eleven o’clock at night once in awhile; but as a regular thing I’d rather be in the east gable at eleven, sound asleep, but kind of knowing even in my sleep that the stars were shining outside and that the wind was blowing in the firs across the brook.”

~Anne Shirley, in Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

I think I agree. I do so love having a variety of experiences–but for everyday life, I’d really much rather be Rebekah of the House of Dreams, watching the sun sink over the lake and then slipping into sleep myself in my own bed.

“Did you see all the diamonds those ladies wore?” sighed Jane. “They were simply dazzling. Wouldn’t you just love to be rich, girls?”

“We are rich,” said Anne staunchly. “Why we have sixteen years to our credit, and we’re happy as queens, and we’ve all got imaginations, more or less….You wouldn’t change into any of those women if you could. Would you want to be that white lace girl and wear a sour look all your life, as if you’d been born turning up your nose at the world? Or the pink lady, kind and nice as she is, so stout and short that you’d really no figure at all? Or even Mrs. Evans, with that sad, sad look in her eyes? She must have been dreadfully unhappy sometime to have such a look. You know you wouldn’t, Jane Andrews!”

“I don’t know–exactly,” said Jane unconvinced. “I think diamonds would comfort a person for a good deal.”

“Well, I don’t want to be any one but myself, even if I go uncomforted by diamonds all my life,” declared Anne. “I’m quite content to be Anne of Green Gables, with my string of pearl beads. I know Matthew gave me as much love with them as ever went with Madame the Pink Lady’s jewels.”

~Anne and Jane, after the Hotel Concert, from Anne of Green Gables

I can sympathize with Jane’s feeling that diamonds must be comforting. I’ve felt that way about wealth myself. I’ve imagined myself not having to work for a living, able to devote myself to the various and sundry interests and cause I care about. But I must come to Anne’s conclusion: I’m quite content to be Rebekah Menter, RD, working-girl. This is a good life that God has made for me, and I am content to be here.

“Do you think you will ever go to college?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Anne looked dreamily afar to the opal-tinted horizon. “Marilla’s eyes will never be much better than they are now, although we are so thankful to think that they will not get worse. And then there are the twins….somehow I don’t believe their uncle will ever really send for them. Perhaps college may be around the bend in the road, but I haven’t gotten to the bend yet and I don’t think much about it lest I might grow discontented.”

“Well, I should like to see you go to college, Anne; but if you never do, don’t be discontented about it. We make our own lives wherever we are, after all…college can only help us to do it more easily. They are broad or narrow according to what we put into them, not what we get out. Life is rich and full here…everywhere…if we can only learn how to open our whole hearts to its richness and fulness.”

~A conversation between Anne and Mrs. Allan in Anne of Avonlea

I love Mrs. Allan’s dreams for Anne, and how these dreams remind me of the many women I love so much who have encouraged me so much.

“I would like to see you go to college,” Mrs. Allan says, but I should best like that you would be content wherever you are.

In the same way, I feel the blessing and encouragement of dozens of women whenever we speak of my dreams (and even when we don’t speak of them.)

“I would like to see you in your own home, married with children,” they say, “but I would like best to see you content wherever you are.”

And by the grace of God, I am and shall be.

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week–and Carrie’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge to see what everyone else is working on.

2012

2012: Week 3

January 22, 2012 Leave a comment by bekahcubed

I’ve been in Grand Island on survey all week, which means that I have accomplished precious little towards my 2012. I may have to start adding sleeps to my list :-)

Attend a funeral
Review Flora’s Very Windy Day by Jeanette Birdsall
Listen to Straight Thinking Podcast #136-Did Adam and Ever Really Exist? (Part 1)
Listen to Straight Thinking Podcast #137-Did Adam and Ever Really Exist? (Part 2)
Listen to Straight Thinking Straight Thinking Podcast #138-Did Adam and Ever Really Exist? (Part 3)
Listen to Straight Thinking Straight Thinking Podcast #139-Did Adam and Ever Really Exist? (Part 4)
Listen to Straight Thinking Straight Thinking Podcast #140-Did God Create the Universe? (Part 1)
Listen to Straight Thinking Straight Thinking Podcast #141-Did God Create the Universe? (Part 2)
Text with my Dad
Write a Flashback about my childhood bedroom
See my brother Joshua’s performance in Twelve Angry Men
Spend face-to-face time with Timothy
Hug my mom
Buy a TV

We can, and should, blame state for both the lack of activity towards my list this week and the lack of photos on this post.

As I could have told Timothy this morning, state’s a bit chilly.

Flashback Friday

Flashback: A Room with a… carpet?

January 20, 2012 1 Comment by bekahcubed

Prompt #3: “What was your bedroom like growing up? Did you share it with your siblings, or did you have it to yourself? Can you remember the carpeting, the wallpaper, the pictures that hung? What did you do to make it your own?”

My sister Anna had her own room for a blessed 14 months before I showed up, wrecking all of her plans of displaying play food on low shelves. With my advent, her small toys were banished to an upper shelf waiting for my nap-time.

Not that I remember that bedroom.

The first bedroom I really remember is the one where Anna and I spent much of our elementary years.

It was the largest bedroom in the house, maybe 12’x14′(?). This was the room where Anna and I fitfully shared the full-sized bed (fitfully due to Anna’s penchant for tickling and/or kicking me OUT of said bed.) This was the room where Anna and I much more peacefully shared the same crack of light from the hallway (so we could better read our novels after lights out.)

This was also the room where our doll changing table/crib (that Dad made for us) was set up and where the blue bookshelf (that Dad also made for us) held our favorite books.

This was the room that contained the closet that was perpetually overflowing with dirty clothes because we were less than diligent about doing our laundry. The doll changing table/crib was where we once found an apple core that was filled with maggots due to my disobedience to the rule about not eating anywhere but the dining room–and due to our rather lax room-cleaning habits.

This was the room that was almost perpetually a mess.

Every so often, our parents would get fed up with the mess and issue an ultimatum. Either we cleaned the room or Mom and Dad would come in with a broom and a trash bag and do it for us.

No way we’d let them throw away our treasures. We took to the room with a broom first, sweeping everything into the center and then dividing out the pile into a dozen littler piles, then finding homes for the items in each pile.

Finally, the pale hardwood floor would be fully visible.

Oh, that hardwood floor.

How we hated it.

How we wished we could have carpet like the rest of the house.

We begged and pleaded for carpet, but to little avail. How would we manage to clean carpet with the kind of messes we made? It would be a disaster.

Still, we petitioned our parents until they relented.

Conditionally.

We could have carpet if we could keep our room clean for a month.

And so we did.

Mom and Dad, with remarkable foresight, gave us not the wall-to-wall carpet we’d dreamed of, but a single large area rug for the center of the room.

While it wasn’t what we’d wanted, it turned out to be a wise move. Because within weeks (days?), the room was back to being a pit. “Do you think we live in a pigsty?” my parents would occasionally ask.

Maybe they didn’t, but we kinda did.

We knew it and were rather ashamed of it, but not enough to do something about it in the long term. We hadn’t the diligence to tidy it on a regular basis.

Instead, we spent our preteen years performing semi-regular all-night cleaning parties. We’d get out our brooms, sweep everything onto the carpet, and swear we wouldn’t go to sleep until we’d gotten it clean.

Six to eight hours later, we could roll up the carpet and sweep underneath it.

We couldn’t vacuum it, because by then it was six or so in the morning.

Instead, we went to bed exhausted, vacuumed (or beat) our carpet the next day, and unrolled it again across the floor.

A few years later, my Aunt Martha and my dad built a room for Anna and I in our previously unfinished basement. The teenaged and pre-teen kids (the first four of us) moved into the basement and Mom and Dad moved into the room that had previously been Anna’s and mine. Before they moved in, they carpeted the floor with dark green wall-to-wall carpeting.

As my sister and I neared the end of our teenage years, our family collectively realized that our allergies were being exacerbated by carpeting–and we pulled up all the carpet that had hardwood floors (or concrete) underneath. All except Mom and Dad’s room that is.

When Mom and Dad finally added on a few years back, they laid hardwood floors in the living room–leaving that one corner room as the only carpeted room in the house.

That’s the guest room now, and where Anna and I stay when we visit our parents in Lincoln.

Ironic, isn’t it?

Flashback Friday

Flashbook Prompt: A Room of Your Own

January 19, 2012 Leave a comment by bekahcubed

While holed up in a hotel room this week, I finished Anne of Green Gables for Carrie’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge.

I couldn’t help but notice Montgomery’s description of Anne’s bedroom. The room is described on three different occasions.

When Anne first arrives at Green Gables:

“The whitewashed walls were so painfully bare and staring that [Anne] thought they must ache over their own bareness. The floor was bare, too, except for a round braided mat in the middle such as Anne had never seen before. In one corner was the bed, a high, old-fashioned one with four dark, low-turned posts. In the other corner was the aforesaid three-cornered table adorned with a fat, red velvet pincushion hard enough to turn the point of the most adventurous pin. Above it hung a little six by eight mirror. Midway between table and bed was the window, with an icy white muslin frill over it, and opposite it was the washstand. The whole apartment was of a rigidity not to be described in words, but which sent a shiver to the very marrow of Anne’s bones.

Then there’s what Anne imagines her bedroom might look like:

“Now I’m going to imagine things into this room so that they’ll always stay imagined. The floor is covered with a white velvet carpet with pink roses all over it and there are pink silk curtains at the windows. The walls are hung with gold and silver brocade tapestry. The furniture is mahogany. I never saw any mahogany, but it does sound so luxurious. This is a couch all heaped with gorgeous silken cushions, pink and blue and crimson and gold, and I am reclining gracefully on it. I can see my reflection in that splendid big mirror hanging on the wall.”

Finally, there’s her bedroom after she’s lived there several years, and grown up quite a bit:

“The velvet carpet with the pink roses and the pink silk curtains of Anne’s early visions had certainly never materialized; but her dreams had kept pace with her growth, and it is not probable that she lamented them. The floor was covered with a pretty matting, and the curtains that softened the high window and fluttered in the vagrant breezes were of pale green art muslin. The walls, hung not with gold and silver brocade tapestry, but with a dainty apple blossom paper, were adorned with a few good pictures given Anne by Mrs. Allan…”

After a week in a hotel room, I’m gladder than glad to be at home, in my own bed in my own room at my own house.

This week’s prompt is about your childhood room:

“What was your bedroom like growing up? Did you share it with your siblings, or did you have it to yourself? Can you remember the carpeting, the wallpaper, the pictures that hung? What did you do to make it your own?”

Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday: Here at last

January 19, 2012 2 Comments by bekahcubed

Last Thursday, the long awaited state-surveyors arrived.

I was thrilled that they left at a decent hour, allowing me (some) time to get to Lincoln in time for Gracie’s show choir concert. I made it by the middle of the first song (although I did have to break out the inhaler to get my breathing under control after my mad sprint up the school hill.)

This week has been a rather odd one, what with staying at a hotel in Grand Island and having state there every day.

This week I’m thankful…

…that I made it to Grace’s concert
Gracie did a fantastic job with her solo and looked wonderful in her glittery duds.

…that state takes MLK Jr. Day off
Their day off meant I got to spend Monday in one of my other facilities (the one I’m usually in three days a week), making sure I don’t get too far behind there.

…for a celebration of Hazel’s life (and a veritable old church reunion.)
Hazel was a special lady who touched many lives. I was proud to stand with so many old friends and celebrate her exodus into glory.

…for state leaving at a decent hour every single day
I’m used to staying in the facility from a half hour before breakfast is served to a half hour after supper is served. These surveyors have taken off by five every evening.

…for some productive trouble-shooting during the long wait that can be state
A dietitian’s work during state survey comes in fits and spurts. We’re crazy busy in the lead up to meal service and directly after service–and don’t necessarily have much to do at all during the in-between times. Myself and my consultant dietitian (with our dietary manager’s input, of course) were able to come up with what we think is a good plan for long-term staffing.

…for residents that make me smile
Some residents can be definite characters, but I love them. I love the happy announcements of some: “Rebekah, I lost weight this week!” or “I followed that advice you gave me and cut out snacking and put LOTS of vegetables on my Subway sandwich–and I think it’s working!” I love the compliments of others: “You do a good job” or “That bean soup was excellent” or even “Thanks for switching that snack for me.” My favorite is the one I received during lunch service, though: “I hope state sticks around for a long time, ’cause I like having you around.” I appreciate the sentiment, although I can’t help vigorously hoping the opposite.

…for finally figuring out how to turn on the heat in my hotel room
The unit had a little tester button thing on its power cord (like you see on a hairdryer). Once I figured out that that had been tripped, I got heat immediately. Unfortunately, my room reached 60 degrees before I figured it out (on morning #2 of my stay). Now, though, I’m nice and toasty.

…for being able to go HOME after state leaves today
It’s been interesting making my home in a hotel this week, but I’m still a real homebody at heart. I’m eager to be home in my own bed, with my books all about me, my fridge stocked full, and my craft supplies ready for whenever a yen hits.

Politics, Technology

Opposed but not protesting

January 18, 2012 1 Comment by bekahcubed

I am not in favor of SOPA or PIPA.

But I’m not “blacking out” bekahcubed in protest today.

I’m just busy.

The state is currently making demands on my professional life–such that I have little time to write.

Although, of course, I did take the time to write this, just so as not to give the impression that I’m “blacking out” as a social statement.

Not that I might not have made that social statement had I had the time to look into the topic in more depth.

:-)

Everyday Life

A bit of bathroom humor

January 17, 2012 2 Comments by bekahcubed

The maid put the toilet seat lid down.

I didn’t look behind me.

I sat.

There was no hole.

Awkward.

Reading My Library

Book Review: “Flora’s Very Windy Day” by Jeanne Birdsall

January 17, 2012 2 Comments by bekahcubed

Flora rather wishes her little brother weren’t around–after all, he’s always messing up her projects and getting her in trouble.

When the wind almost blows her away, she tells it that it can’t get her since she’s wearing her super-special heavy-duty red boots. But Crispin, on the other hand… “You may notice that my little brother is wearing regular old purple boots.”

The wind takes Flora’s suggestion and blows Crispin away-and Flora kicks off her boots to join him. While flying through the sky, Flora and Crispin meet one thing after another. Each thing, whether a dragonfly or a rainbow or an eagle or the moon, asks if it can keep Crispin. It seems each could really use a little boy. Flora refuses each time “I’m sorry, but I can’t,” said Flora. “He’s my little brother and I’m taking him home.”

Each time, she hears the response “If the wind lets you.”

When Flora asks the wind why he wouldn’t let her take Crispin home, he responds that he thought she didn’t want Crispin around.

Flora realizes that maybe she does want Crispin around–and the wind kindly returns them both home.

This is a dear story about sibling relationships–sometimes hard, but ultimately worthwhile. Clearly, there’s a moral to this story–but it isn’t a moralizing tale. It’s just fun and real and wildly imaginative (all at the same time).

I’m still reading my way through the children’s picture book section of my no-longer-local library. For more comments on children’s books, see the rest of my Reading My Library posts or check out Carrie’s blog Reading My Library, which chronicles her and her children’s trip through the children’s section of their local library.

Books, The Week in Words

WiW: Dangerous Books

January 16, 2012 1 Comment by bekahcubed

The narrator sums up his initial description of Don Quixote with these words:

“In short, our hidalgo was soon so absorbed in these books that his nights were spent reading from dusk till dawn, and his days from dawn till dusk, until the lack of sleep and excess of reading withered his brain, and he went mad. Everything he read in his books took possession of his imagination: enchantments, fights, battles, challenges, wounds, sweet nothings, love affairs, storms and impossible absurdities. The idea that this whole fabric of famous fabrications was real so established himself in his mind that no history in the world was truer for him.”
~Don Quixote, Part 1, Chapter 1

Don Quixote is a warning to book lovers, to fantasy immersers, to those prone to let their imagination run away with them.

“And so, by now quite insane, he conceived the strangest notion that ever took shape in a madman’s head, considering it desirable and necessary, both for the increase of his honour and for the common good, to become a knight errant, and to travel about the world with his armour and his arms and his horse in search of adventures, and to practice all those activities that he knew from his books were practiced by knights errant…”
~Don Quixote, Part 1, Chapter 1

It puts me in mind of Anne of Green Gables, when Anne thoroughly scares herself with her imaginings of ghosts in the “haunted wood” (haunted woods are so romantic).

So enthralled they are with the beauty or the romance of the imaginary world, both Quixote and Anne make themselves ridiculous in the current world.

Quixote tilts at windmills and insists that monks are really bandits kidnapping a princess. Anne is truly terrified by the world of her own inventing.

Both led astray by a fiction not grounded in reality.

Does this mean all fiction is dangerous? Is imagination bad for us?

Certainly not.

But when fiction becomes more real than reality, we have missed the point.

Fiction can be a welcome escape from reality, yes–but truly good fiction consumed wisely is a means by which to better understand reality.

Escaping into a dream world can seem desirable (I certainly know I like it often enough)–but when the dream world seems more attractive than the real world, something has gone wrong.

In our imaginations, we have somehow forgotten the story currently being woven with our own lives–a true story more fantastic and romantic than even the most phantasmagorical fiction.

The true story is one of a brave knight slaying a terrible dragon, of a great sorcerer banishing the dark forest’s haunts, of a bridegroom seeking a bride. The true story is of a God seeking worshipers, a King establishing a kingdom, a Father making a match for His Beloved Son.

Every book that causes me to escape this reality is a dangerous book.

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

2012

2012: Week 2

January 15, 2012 1 Comment by bekahcubed

Daniel’s Birthday Card (49), Pictures of Cows (52)

Remove It Looked Different on the Model by Laurie Notaro from my TBR list
Wear my blue felt hat
Teach Ezekiel
Make Maple-Dijon Pork Tenderloin
Have folks over for Sunday dinner
Make Candied Acorn Squash Rings
Play UNO (deep and dirty)
Close out children’s picture books by Phil Bildner
Close out children’s picture books by Jeanne Birdsall

The Little Miss and me (63), Grace after her show choir showcase (62)

Close out children’s picture books by N. M. Bodecker
Make Borax Crystal Snowflakes
Cut paper snowflakes
Send a birthday card to Daniel
Make Savannah Red Rice
“Poke” Joshua
Take pictures of cows
Make Ranch Popcorn
Make Toffee Bars from Betty Crocker
Listen to Straight Thinking Podcast #129-Thinking about Near-Death Experiences

Top Row: Cream Colored Hat (68), Triple Braided Pocahantas (67)
Bottom Row: Patchwork Toes (66)

Listen to Straight Thinking Podcast #130-Atheist A.J. Ayer’s Near-Death Experience
Listen to Straight Thinking Podcast #131-OKC bombing and Conspiracy Theories
Listen to Straight Thinking Podcast #132-C.S. Lewis: Life and Conversion
Listen to Straight Thinking Podcast #133-C.S. Lewis: Christian Apologist
Listen to Straight Thinking Podcast #134-C.S. Lewis: Christian Writer
Listen to Straight Thinking Podcast #135-C.S. Lewis: Strengths and Weaknesses
Go to Grace’s Show Choir Showcase
Take picture with the little Miss
Write a Death and Dying Flashback
Go to work Christmas Party

Reupholstered chair (74), Candied Orange Peels (73)

Paint Patchwork Toes
Do hair in a Triple Braided Pocahontas
Wear Cream Knit-Covered Hat
Teach Daniel
Have a white chocolate peach steamer
“Work out” at a “gym”
Make Roasted Red Pepper Hummus
Make Candied Orange Peels
Reupholster kitchen chairs
Play “Just Dance”

Because I was unsuccessful in completing 77.4 projects before midnight last night (38.7 projects per week), I have determined to recalculate and see if I can figure out a way to still say I’m on track.

Considering the 2012 has 366 days, I should complete ~5.5 projects per day; which would mean 82.5 projects by midnight tonight.

Okay, not going to happen.

What if I calculate by months and say I’m halfway through one month? That way I’d have to complete 83.8 projects by noon tomorrow.

Also unlikely to happen.

Okay, so I’m probably going to have to use those 366 allowable “sleep” projects. But, eternal optimist that I am, I’m not willing to add them quite yet!