I love being the baby of the family.  With six older siblings, I am the happy recipient of  hand-me-downs.  Don't think clothing here.  Think cookbooks, piano music, and most recently, Teaching Company Tapes.  Oh yeah!  My  PA brother has a plethora of  these tapes.  I bought a suitcase,  filled it with tapes and brought them home. 

This afternoon my son and I are making applesauce while we listen to Robert Greenburg's How to  Listen to and Understand Great Music. We laughed aloud when he explained the difference between  German language songs and Italian  songs.   Greenburg plays music on the piano and from CDs to illustrate his points.  My heart  jumps as I hear  my 15-yr old son hum along.  He knows this music!  He likes this music!  Sigh.  But then, who can help but liking Bach?

Explaining the history of music inevitably includes the history of the world.  I am so thankful for the past 12 years of homeschooling.  I can follow and correlate, synthesize if you will, the lectures in a way that I can't imagine doing had I not had the learning that comes with teaching.  It is so satisfying to build upon previous learning; to add a room or a story to the edifice which is our life.  

Isn't this the most exciting thing?  Bring on the long nights; bring on bathrooms that need cleaning; bring on shirts which need ironing; bring on dough which needs kneading; bring it on, baby!  I. am. ready. 

A few years ago three young men in our small church left home to go to college in Washington, Kentucky and Florida.  Last Christmas each brought home his "beloved"  to our valley for a visit.  The three couples spent one day snowboarding together. This Christmas, within a space of three weeks,  these three young couples will be getting married in three different states.  It is such a joy to see how God has blessed these ones we've  known and loved and watched since they were young boys.  I've had each of them as students and one of these dear boys is my own son.  

In my daily reading, any sentences appropos to marriage get my attention like a flashing light in a rear view mirror.  I would enjoy sharing my gleanings on a weekly basis, as time allows. 

Funny story:  When my beloved and I were engaged we were given a list of books on marriage to read.  One of the books was Elisabeth Elliot's Let Me Be a Woman.   Curt was told to read this book even though it was written for women.  At the time he was binding cardboard boxes at the dump for City Garbage when he wasn't  taking classes.  His co-workers were rough, crusty, unpolished.....raw.  His lunch hour was prime reading time but he knew there was no way he would survive in that job if he were caught reading that title.  He removed the dust jacket and was always careful to hold the book so the spine didn't show!

                   The Helping Hand, 1881 by Renouf

A granddaughter helping her grandfather - doesn't she look determined? 
I'm posting this today because it's one of the lovely pieces of art in my
brother and SIL's house. 

You have to imagine me dancing; it's hard to catch on camera.  I won these socks on my birthday the day after Donna's birthday.  She picked a name from her comments section that day.  I've been gone and came home
to this lovely package.  Thank you, Donna!  Femina bona es.

The colors down at the farm in PA have been spectacular.  Spec. Ta. Cu. Lar. A camera lens can never quite capture what the eye sees.  Every conversation in the car was interrupted by the words, "Look at *that* tree!"

Tonight is my last night of a lovely lingering; by Wednesday I'll  be back to the books, back to teaching my son and back to real life in Oregon.  This has been an incredible time with my oldest brother's family.  I feel like now I know my neices. In truth, now I know my brother and SIL! My husband and son were deer hunting while I was gone. They were both successful and we have organic, range-fed meat in our freezer (*wink* to our earth muffin friends). 

Enjoy the pictures, my friend. Enjoy your family.  Pick up the phone and make a call.  You'll be glad you did.

Last Saturday we went to a Penn State football game.  I donned a borrowed sweatshirt and slipped into the life of a Penn State fan.  I learned the liturgy of PSU football, tutored by my beloved niece Anne.  First off, Joe Paterno is "Joepa".  One of the chants is "JoePa" with the other side responding "Terno". There is an abiding affection for this man that permeates everything within a 100 mile radius. 

This wall has a quote: "They ask me what I'd like to be written about me when I'm gone. I hope they write I made Penn State a better place, not just that I was a good football coach."

 The stadium holds 100,000 + people.  By the time the band comes onto the field, the stadium is packed with people.  The drum major wuns out and does a flip on the field.  He jumps high enough to make the flip without the plumes on his hat touching the ground.  The tradition is that if he makes the flip without muffing it, PSU will win the game.

The players do not have their names on the backs of their jerseys to emphasize that they play as a team.  My brother's extended family is very closely connected to PSU; consequently we had great seats on the 45 yd line, 15 rows up.  Sometimes I look straight ahead at the line of scrimmage.

 My brother's family are friends with two of the players.  They've had them down to the farm, fed them, and encouraged them.  It was fun to cheer for specific players and to follow them.  The final score was PSU 33 Northwestern 7.  Hooray!! 

I had a delightful experience in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport.  I discovered a lovely bookstore: tasteful displays, no magazines, a few deep chairs, and, best of all, book quotes posted all around the store.  After some pleasant, light  book talk with the employee, I took out my journal, settled into the deep chair and started copying quotes.  Here are just a few:

A book is like a garden carried in a pocket.    Chinese Proverb

What is reading but quiet conversation.     Walter Savage Landor

Literature is the memory of humanity.     Isaac Bashevis Singer

What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.     Logan Pearsall Smith

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.      Joseph Addison

'Tis the good reader that makes the good book.     Ralph Waldo Emerson

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.              Tennyson

I bought a book:  Good Poems for Hard Times edited by Garrison Keillor.  Several are already flagged for repeat readings. 

Coming as soon as I can figure how to upload pictures here in PA: My day as a Penn State football fan.  With, WITH, my friend, shots of the great coach Joe Paterno.  He is affectionately called JoePa by the fans here.

Yesterday we spent a lovely, sunny day going to Johnstown and seeing the two flood museums.  With David McCullough's The Johnstown Flood fresh in my mind, it was absorbing, but sobering.  My brother and I have already spent several nights up beyond midnight talking, talking, talking.  I am soaking up the girl time with his wife, three daughters and granddaughter.  It's so different from my male dominated environment at home, such a lovely change!