The News

Three Sisters, a...
Edmund Charles...
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If you go over to Homeliving today, there is a good article up about News and the Homemaker. We will always hear about the national news. We can hardly avoid it. If you cut yourself off of internet, television, radio, and newspapers, your neighbor would be over telling you all the latest (at least there are no ads that way). You take what you hear and try to discern the truth of it. You do your part in helping where you are needed. That is just part of life. But as the article says, it is not good to submerge yourself in it to the point where you worry.

The news I like is news of personal victories, of the latest creative project someone has going, of the latest cooking feat of a friend, of a family's success, of mothers who are homeschooling their children and all the things they have discovered. I think some of the best news comes from home-and-craft bloggers! I like news of local things that concern me everyday- how the neighbor gets her chickens to lay more eggs than mine do or what that new building in town will be. I like family news, about what the baby can say now or that one of the children conquered tying shoelaces. I like homemade family newspapers!

We have a clerk in a local store who greets customers with, "What's the news?" If you tell him something negative, he'll say "no, I mean the good news." That makes me think: What better "Good News" can we share, talk about, and dwell on than the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

He'll Never Hear That!

We've all heard it, seen it, or maybe even experienced it. I overheard it today. Father and child, in the store, and child is throwing a fit. Daddy says in a loud but Mr-Nice-Guy tone, "Do I need to take you to the car? Do I need to take you to the car? are not controlling yourself. You need to make a decision to calm down. "
 The word "No" never comes up on the Dad's part, but that is obviously the favorite word of the child! What does he think the child is going to say, anyway?
"Yes, Dad! I really, really need to go to the car."
He'll never hear it.

The Wishing Bridge

Two Little Girls...

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Among the legends sung or said

Along our rocky shore,

The Wishing Bridge of Marblehead

May well be sung once more.

An hundred years ago (so ran

The old-time story) all

Good wishes said above its span

Would, soon or late, befall.

If pure and earnest, never failed

The prayers of man or maid

For him who on the deep sea sailed,

For her at home who stayed.

Once thither came two girls from school,

And wished in childish glee

And one would be a queen and rule,

And one the world would see.

Time passed; with change of hopes and fears,

And in the self-same place,

Two women, gray with middle years,

Stood, wondering, face to face.

With wakened memories, as they met,

They queried what had been

"A poor man's wife am I, and yet,"

Said one, "I am a queen.

"My realm a little homestead is,

Where, lacking crown and throne,

I rule by loving services

And patient toil alone."

The other said: "The great world lies

Beyond me as it lay;

O'er love's and duty's boundaries

My feet may never stray.

"I see but common sights of home,

Its common sounds I hear,

My widowed mother's sick-bed room

Sufficeth for my sphere.

"I read to her some pleasant page

Of travel far and wide,

And in a dreamy pilgrimage

We wander side by side.

"And when, at last, she falls asleep,

My book becomes to me

A magic glass: my watch I keep,

But all the world I see.

"A farm-wife queen your place you fill,

While fancy's privilege

Is mine to walk the earth at will,

Thanks to the Wishing Bridge."

"Nay, leave the legend for the truth,"

The other cried, "and say

God gives the wishes of our youth,

But in His own best way!"

-By John Greenleaf Whittier, 1882

A [is for] Apple Pie

Illustration For...
Kate Greenaway
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This was such a cute free book, I hope my readers will enjoy it! A Apple Pie by Kate Greenaway on Project Gutenburg