First Snow on Wittstruck Road

We have been having snow off and on since Sunday morning. Yesterday at mid-morning it measured 4 inches. This morning it measured 6 inches and it is still snowing. We're supposed to get the "BIG" storm tonight. We'll see!

If you click on the picture with the bench, you can actually see the snow.

(Again, these pictures are not lining up for me! But, they will position themselves differently when I actually post them.)

As we look down our road, we're wondering if we'll venture out today.

Have a great day, whatever your weather is!

Waiting is an Art

Last summer, as a gift, I received a devotional book titled I Want to Live These Days with You. It is a year's worth of short excerpts from the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian of the twentieth century who was imprisoned and executed for his part in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

I thought today's writing was excellent, and I want to share it with you:

Celebrating Advent means being able to wait. Waiting is an art that our impatient age has forgotten. It wants to break open the ripe fruit when it has hardly finished planting the shoot. But all too often the greedy eyes are only deceived; the fruit that seemed so precious is still green on the inside, and disrespectful hands ungratefully toss aside what has so disappointed them. Whoever does not know the austere blessedness of waiting--that is, of hopefully doing without--will never experience the full blessing of fulfillment.
Those who do not know how it feels to anxiously struggle with the deepest questions of life, of their life, and to patiently look forward with anticipation until the truth is revealed, cannot even dream of the splendor of the moment in which clarity is illuminated for them. And for those who do not want to win the friendship and love of another person--who do not expectantly open up their soul to the soul of the other person, until friendship and love come, until they make their entrance--for such people the deepest blessing of the one life of two intertwined souls will remain forever hidden.
For the greatest, most profound, tenderest things in the world, we must wait. It happens here not in a storm but according to the divine laws of sprouting, growing, and becoming.

Thanksgiving and Getting Ready for Christmas

I have no clue why these pictures ended up all over the page, but you know how it goes with me and pictures and blogs! But, anyway, you can see some of the pictures from Emily's pre-Thanksgiving visit and a couple from when the rest of her family arrived. It was so much fun to have her here for her first official visit all by herself--the first of many, we hope. And, we're already looking forward to Bri's and Paisley's visits on their own. Jacob, of course, has been coming every summer for several years.

The first two pictures show how Emily "earned her keep." She had to feed the cats and make waffles every morning. Some of our fun things to do were getting out my nativity scenes and having a tea party with Jessie's tea set.

After Thanksgiving, all the girls worked together baking cookies. Is that Jeremy in the background doing dishes? And, we put our Christmas tree up and set up John's old train around it. The train was a huge fascination for the girls. It is John's from when he was a little boy in the 50's and it is in incredibly great shape. The track and transformer are modern, but the train is all the original. And, it whistles!

Well, I'm going to post this and see where the pictures end up then.

The White Horse King, the Life of Alfred the Great by Benjamin Merkle

Before reading Benjamin Merkle’s book The White Horse King, the Life of Alfred the Great, the only thing I knew about this ninth century monarch was that he had “Great” in his title. I finished the book published by Thomas Nelson with a great appreciation for this godly man who courageously rid his land of the fierce, marauding Vikings and then installed a system of protection, a plan of literacy, and a foundation of justice in his area of early Great Britain.

Merkle’s well-researched story may be a little long on battle stories for my liking, but he does an excellent job of showing his readers that Alfred isn’t just a battle-worn commander. Alfred becomes a compassionate, God-honoring leader who sets a goal of providing education for the common man in his country so all have access to the early writings of church leaders. Alfred, himself, learned Latin and then translated the first fifty Psalms and Augustine’s Soliloquies for his countrymen. Alfred generously established monasteries, churches, and schools, but wanting to give more of himself to God, he resolved to give one-half of each of his days to study and prayer.

In Merkle’s own words, “Alfred truly was the great king of England, the one monarch who rightly understood the needs of the nation and unrelentingly gave all he had to supply those needs.” He is a model for all who aspire to leadership.

I was fortunate to read this book under the auspices of the Thomas Nelson Book Review Blogger program. You can read about more of their books at http://brb.thomasnelson.com/.

The Power of Respect by Deborah Norville

How was a waitress who refused to show her gap-toothed smile turned around to become a successful finance graduate?

How did a veteran teacher make a difference in the life of a young “unteachable”?

How did a CEO avert the downward spiral of a company caught in the stranglehold of the economy?

These life stories and others are woven through Deborah Norville’s The Power of Respect. Norville has written a well-researched discussion of the destructive fallout of disrespect and the redeeming value of simple, sincere respect in families, classrooms, and workplaces. And she doesn’t just talk about the good and the bad; she gives step-by-step ways to instill respect in our own lives and in those around us.

Although Mrs. Norville uses little Scripture, the Golden Rule permeates her book. Like her, I’m thinking, “Why do we have to spend so much time and effort discussing this?” There were times I thought the writing could have been more concise, and although she says, “Respect begins at home,” I feel her book would have the greatest value in the workplace—especially now when workers are trying to hold onto jobs and management is trying to increase the productivity and satisfaction of the workers they have.

The most valuable statement in The Power of Respect is on page 2: “No one is too unimportant to be ignored. No one is so significant that others don’t matter.”

The Fantasticks--fantastic!

Last weekend in Minneapolis we were able to go to North Central's musical, The Fantasticks. It has a cast of only 15, but Jessie was excited to be a part of the chorus. The production was fantastic--the acting, the singing, the songs, the story.

The story is so good on so many levels. It's a story of boy loves girl, the story of two fathers who pretend to feud to keep the boy from the girl when really they're scheming to bring them together, the story of the blindness of love until the light of day and the reality of life, the story of man going into the world seeking adventure and finding cruelty instead, the story of trading the thing most dear for deceit, and finally the story of finding contentment back at the beginning. Add to all that some delightful lyrics and melodies and a couple buffoons straight out of Huck Finn. I hadn't realized it would be so funny!

It's easy to see why The Fantasticks has the world-wide record for the most performances of a musical ever!

Congratulations, Jessie. You did a great job in your first college performance.

Have a great day!

Atchison, Kansas

Well, I need to catch up with this blog! A variety of things have been going on.
First, my good friend and fellow grandmother, Susanne, was here last week with her 3 little doggies. This first picture is Taffy, the oldest, and the second picture is John, playing with the other two, Tulip and Tiki. Taffy was a little too mature for roughhousing with him, but the other two loved it.

Then later in the week John took me on an outing for my birthday. We drove down to Atchison, KS, where we enjoyed looking at the beautiful mansions, like this one, and the gorgeous fall colors. In its hey-day, Atchison had the largest per-capita number of millionaires in the country. That was in the famous days of the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe railroads. At one time up to 85 passenger trains per day stopped at the Atchison depot. I can hardly imagine that!

This picture was taken along the bluff-lined Missouri river.

We had our first stay at a Bed and Breakfast. The house was built in 1948 as an example of Italianate architecture (if I remember correctly), by Mr. Fred Stein, who invented the first radio which ran on electricity from the wall rather than from the cumbersome battery cells used previously. Go to the following to learn more about a fascinating man http://www.steinlite.com/history.html.

This is a picture of The Professor's Room, our bedroom. Yes, there was a bed and a bath as well!

Part of the reason for going to Atchison was to visit the Amelia Earhart home and museum and see the new movie Amelia. She was born in Atchison and lived with her grandparents for most of her early years. This is a portrait of her in the upstairs of the house.

John and I were the first "official" guests to a special exhibit of some of her own clothes and other items, as well as some from the movie. I don't remember seeing this outfit in the movie, so not sure where it came from.

For the movie, we went downtown to the only theater in Atchison. It was so old I wondered if Amelia had gone to movies there, but never heard anything about that. When you walk into the theater, you're standing under the screen and facing the audience. Although every seat was full for the movie, I wanted you to see how tiny it is. There were only 3 seats on one side of the aisle and 6 seats on the other, for a total of 116. (If you do the math, you'll see that doesn't come out right. Our row had only 2 seats because of a curved jut in the wall.)But, I think they had divided their old theater into two theaters, so the original would have been double this. We were glad we arrived more than a half hour early so we could sit together. Late arrivals weren't as fortunate!

At any rate, we enjoyed all the sights of the small town. I would recommend it as a short jaunt of a trip. And, for those "in the know," we did go to Nell's Hills. If you're not "in the know," as I wasn't, you'll have to figure that out on your own!

Have a great day!