A Mom's Musings

We recently welcomed our first grandchild, a daughter born to our oldest daughter and her husband. On the morning of her scheduled c-section, as I prepared to go to the hospital, I felt rather contemplative, and decided to write down my thoughts. Now, after 2 months, I have decided to share them here:

We are quiet this morning, thoughtful, as we await the delivery of Anjali. It is not unlike a pensive pause in the flurry of activity just before a wedding, or a reflective time in the room of the dying: joy mixed with anticipation.

Events in the lives of loved ones have a way of making us contemplative-- as we ponder the meaning of life. So concrete, yet so elusive and transitory. Just as a mother cannot stop a baby from "coming," so, too, we cannot hold the living among us when their time comes to leave us and move on.

At these moments, it is good to pause and reflect on life, and the One Who is the Giver of all life. He, too, was born. He, too, celebrated marriage, indeed, will come one day for His bride. He, too, wept at a friend's tomb. And He, too, died. But His death was designed to bring us life --not just this fleeting, ephemeral one, but Life Eternal, the only concrete thing of which we can be sure.

Father, thank You for life, both the temporal, and the eternal! Thank you for Anjali, and her parents, Christy and Manoj. We commit them into Your keeping.

Well, sorry, I still don't know how to resolve the issues I have with sharing pictures!! Oh well. Maybe I'll do better next time. More later.

Rejoicing in the Harvest

Well, after more than a year, I thought I'd update my blog. There are so many things that have happened, and so many thoughts I've wanted to share, that I should share here. So here goes:

This year, 2009, we actually cleared an area of the back yard of the giant evergreen bushes, and planted a garden. It took weeks of pulling out roots and weeds, sifting rocks and weed roots out of the soil, raking, leveling, etc. to finally have usable ground. We finally planted most of it about Memorial Day, about a month late.

We had read that you can water the seeds with a dilute hydrogen peroxide solution, so we decided to try it. Amazingly, the seedlings were up and growing in just a few days, and in 5 weeks, we had pickling cucumbers and small zucchinis!

We were really getting used to going out every day to harvest our wonderful produce, when, on August 8th, at 11:30 pm, we heard hail begin to pelt the house! We ran out to the garden, trying to pull plastic sheets, or buckets, or something over our precious garden, but the hail poured from the sky for 30 minutes, soaking and freezing us along with our beautiful garden! I was so sad and disappointed, that I didn't even go back out for a week.

The girls suggested we do another dose of hydrogen peroxide solution, so I agreed, and they did it for me... I still couldn't face the devastation. Another week passed, and I finally went out to see the mess, and although I could still see bent stems and see-thru leaves, there were big new leaves covering the zucchinis, and a couple of tomatoes were turning red! I couldn't believe my eyes. I praised the Creator, my God Who does all things well!!

This fall we have harvested several hundred pounds of produce. Zucchini, yellow squash, slicing cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, lettuce, baby carrots, radishes, and even potatoes! We are truly giving thank to God Almighty for the increase He has given our efforts at a garden this year.