CULMINATION SUNDAY

Just as Friday signals the week's end, I look upon Sunday as the culmination of the week. It is the beginning and the end. It is the pivotal time of being. Saturday is the time for replenishing my physical resources. Saturday is the ketchup (for you non-Bancroft people that is catch up) day of the week. Laundry, sleep in, mail, read, relax, run errands, anything, everything.

But Sunday. Sunday is the most special day of all. Sunday means church. Sunday means being with God in a corporate way as opposed to the solitudinous way of the week. Solitudinous -- it's a word, an adjective, I just looked it up in the dictionary and it means what I want it to mean. Sunday is the high point of my week. It carries me forth to the middle and carries me forward from the middle.

Church is the liturgy. Church is the people. Church is my corporate connection with God. Church is where Jesus welcomes me to table to share the blessed meal. Church is music -- today it was "I Walk In The Garden Alone." My mother was a Methodist. Her father was a Methodist minister, of sorts. She sang the old hymns. The Presbyterian Church where I sometimes did Sunday School also did these old hymns. The 'garden' is one of my favorite places to be with God and it was a special moment for me in today's service.

Sunday morning church is a 'high' for me. A beautiful, natural, God-given high that sends me forth into the Kingdom to do God's work. Do I always do it? Not always. Do I want to? Yes. Do I try to? Yes. Am I successful? Sometimes? Does it matter? Not at all. What matters is the caring and the effort.

WEEK END

It is Friday. The end of the week. I am weary. No energy. No spark of interest. Just a lackluster being sitting at the computer reading other people's blogs. I have always been drawn to human interest stories and there are certainly a myriad of them being blogged.

You will note on the side bar 'Blogs I Follow' that there is a variety in the blog topics. I usually check in on them daily and sometimes, moved by the Spirit, I will leave a comment. People offer so much of themselves. I am astounded at how open people can be with their thoughts and feelings. Some of the bloggers write anonymously, others quite publicly. I congratulate those who are able to write openly and share their lives with us. I applaud and delight in their accomplishments and am encouraged to get on with my own creativity.

And I cherish the writings of the anonymous writers who are struggling with personal life issues. These struggles reach my heart and enter into my prayers

As for me, I will blather on in my mundane way until one day I will stumble upon a natural thread that will lead me into some serious blogging.

SPRING BREAKS

It rained today in Connecticut. All day. A gentle rain that clung to the trees in heavy droplets. Tiny buds just barely bursting forth. The promise of leaf. The grass is greening. It is daylight at 6:30 when we get up in the morning. We have supper in this light of day. Our spirits lift. Spring!

And in the front yard the maple towers above with its own swelling red buds against the bleak gray sky. Soon they will burst forth, spilling onto the ground, staining porch and steps with their redness. Spring!

Indoors, however, things are really bleak. The Brugmansia that I brought in when the fall weather came on are not doing well. In fact they are doing badly. I won't even take pictures of straggly, leafless stems. They are constantly bug laden even though I frequently spray them with soap insecticide. Spring can't come soon enough for these guys. I just hope they survive.

The good news is that the brugmansia cuttings that I took in the fall are doing fairly well. At least they are green and growing. Of the fifteen, six have survived. Of the four cuttings that I brought back from Indiana, one has survived. I hope it makes it because I want to see that wonderful peach blossom and smell the intoxicating aroma. Spring is hope.

WAVY HAIR

On Gabriel anyway. Heretofore he has always had straight hair because I either took him to the groomer or shampooed him and blow dried him myself. But I decided that if shampoo wasn't good for me it probably is not good for him either. And he hates being groomed -- the wetting and the drying. So at least I am eliminating one half of the torture.

By eliminating the shampoo, I have eliminated half the wet time also. Just rinse with warm water, apply conditioner, another short rinse and then a towel dry for as long as he will allow -- which isn't long. He wants to be out and about shaking the wetness away, rubbing his head on the rug to dry it, and then he goes and sits on the back of the couch in the sunshine.

The snarls that he gets in his long tail hairs are not as bad now because I have been getting at them right away with more hair conditioner. He also gets snarls in the fine hair on his underside and he HATES when I pull on those but with the hair conditioner I can work them out with my fingertips.

It is amazing what one article in the news paper can do to change habits. I am speaking, of course, on the Devacurl article about curly hair and hair products that was in the paper over a week ago. I just took off on the ideas. I read many articles every morning on a variety of topics - gardening, cooking, home design, new products and new ways of doing things. This article is the first in a longa, longa time that left an impression and encouraged further study and action.

Well, this is my 100th blog posting. I hope it won't get more boring than this.

LEMONS

Okay, so this picture itself is pretty much of a lemon but I was in a rush this morning and hurriedly snapped it before taking it downstairs and tossing it into the compost on my way to work. Actually the lemon is left over from last evening's shower. The juice went into a cup with a little bit of hair conditioner and after thoroughly rinsing my hair under the warm shower water, I used this mixture as a scalp cleanser. Then I rubbed the open half of the lemon on my face as a cleanser. That felt so good that I just scrubbed myself all over with the lemon.

I've been reading again. In my past life, my then husband would jestingly threaten to take away my library card -- we had library cards then, no computers. Periodically, I would suddenly get an interest in some whacky thing and do multitudinous reading on the subject. I have became fairly knowledgeable on goat husbandry, solar heating, breadmaking (which I actually did), and lots of other stuff -- too much to list right now. I have now added 'Googling' to my resources.

The latest reading is curly/wavy hair. And I haven't really done all that much reading. I fell onto this subject through an article in our local newspaper about a hair stylist that specialized in cutting, styling, and teaching the care of curly hair. It mentioned a 'devacurl' demo. I Googled 'devacurl' and found that this was a hair product - plural, There was such a variety of hair products available that I was over my head in offerings.

At the library that same evening, I took out two books on curly hair. There is still something very special about books -- oops, that's another blog post. Anyway, the book Curly Girl by Lorrain Massey with Deborah Chiel is the one that makes sense to me. I do a lot of reading and research, throw out what makes no sense, is too expensive, or just doesn't fit my way of thinking or life style. Usually there isn't much left. I learn a lot through the process though.

So: nix on shampoo, blow dryers, hair spray. That all works for me. My hair had become stiff with hair spray, dry from shampoo and hair dryer and just plain blah. So week one into the new regime and there is actually a little body and a little wave, maybe even some half curls. Of course, my hair is very short and needs to grow out a bit and the top layer is too long for the lower layer so I have a bit of an adjustment period ahead. But, hey, why not?

PICTURES

I am going to have to start putting pictures on this blog. Many of the blogs that I read are made all the more interesting with pictures. The thing is that it is time consuming to download them from the camera, choose, sort, name, file and Blogger is awkward to maneuver text around pictures.

Sometimes as I am writing I think of a picture that would be perfect for the text. But then I don't run off to take the picture. Don't take the time. And possibly it is past the time for that particular picture anyway. I think I need to form some new habits. Like keeping my camera handy and just take pictures. DO IT, Barbara.

Does anyone have some helpful hints that would make this chore quicker and easier?

YOGURT

Frugal is a word that is sometimes applied to my spending habits. I like to think of myself as innovative. Novel. Prudent. Bill would sometimes like to say 'cheap' but I don't hardly allow that.

Anywhohow! I make my own yogurt. I have it for breakfast every day. I do the kind with the "unique probiotic strain of bifidobacteria" as found in Dannon's Activia. The website says it plays a role in my intestinal ecosystem. I didn't know my intestines had an ecosystem. I do know that yogurt is good for the digestive system. And I do know that it is expensive. And most yogurts contain a lot of stuff unnecessary for my health. When I make my own, I know what's in it. Almost. I haven't as yet just ordered some plain garbage free starter. I use one container of Light vanilla Activia to a half gallon of fat free milk. And the fat free milk is Hood's Simply Special, but I assume that any fat free milk will do.

I put a half gallon of milk on low heat and bring it to 170 degrees F. Then I take if off the heat and let it cool to 110. While the cooling process is happening, three quart mason jars are half filled with water and heated in the microwave for seven minutes on high. Then I dump this very warm water into a cooler that is just the size to hold the three mason jars.

When the milk mixture has almost reached 110, I stir in one cup of dry non fat milk granules, one third cup Splenda, and a dribble of vanilla extract. This combination works for me. A container of Activia yogurt is dumped into a two cup Pyrex measuring cup and some of the milk is poured in, stirred to mix and then poured back into the milk and stirred slowly, just enough to mix it all together. Distribute into the three mason jars, screw on the caps, place in the cooler -- which is now a 'warmer' -- and close.

Leave the warmer someplace where is will not be disturbed. I put it on a stuffed chair in the sitting room and cover it with a comforter. (My house is cold. 67 degrees.) Forget about it. Well, forget about it for several hours anyway. I have actually forgotten about it and finally retrieved it after thirteen hours. But it was still perfect. Six to eight hours is good. Then it goes into the frig.

When I have used the fourth of the Activia containers of yogurt, I save half a cup from the top of the third container of yogurt to be the 'starter' for the next batch. I think you can do this three or four times before it peters out. A batch of yogurt lasts me about ten days, maybe a little more. The process is time consuming only in the fact that you have to be around and watch the temperatures. There are a cazillion combinations of this process, I just put together what I had and what I could do. Works for me!

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