Will Anything Survive the Tearing Up of the Yard? Yes!

In addition to the excavation of the new room, more excavating was done to bury the electrical cable, pretty much right along the line of some old daffodils. I moved a few things in the garden before construction began, but not all that much. Mainly sentimental items and a few plants I really love.

Blaise, construction supervisor

After the digging was over and the trench refilled this was about all that was left-- one little piece of a mangled bulb. I thought, Oh well, I'll plant some more.

When, lo and behold, a few weeks later these started appearing-- daffodil stems!! All the ends were cut off, but they kept growing. I don't know where they were in the previous picture, but somehow they found their way back to light.

Now a few are even starting to bloom. Amazing. Mind you, these are old bulb that have seen many a Michigan winter. Very hardy stock. First we saw this....

And then..... their little smiling faces!!

And more good news. Among the sentimental plants I "transplanted" were peonies I had brought from my parents garden at my family home. I have transplanted in quotes because I had very little time and I really just yanked them out of the ground with a shovel, breaking many roots and then threw them back in the ground in a relatively safe place, buried them again and wished them luck.

But here they are coming back up. Living things always push forcefully toward life.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you for the peonies. Thank you for life.

Finally We Have Space!!!

This is what holidays used to look like at our house. People everywhere. All people who loved each other, don't get me wrong. But there were always a lot of people in a pretty confined space.

 We used every chair in the house and some people would still sit on the floor.

 We would turn our Amish table sideways in order to extend it as far as possible. We still had two leaves we could never use because we never had space enough to extend it all the way.

And, no, you could not open the refrigerator with the table like this unless the person sitting in front of it got up. (which they were always quite willing to do.)

It was tight!! Now that the new room is finished we have two different locations where the table can be extended all the way.

We can put it in the new room.

 Or we can extend it from the dining area into the living room/ (Because we removed a half wall here and moved the piano to the new room.)

And, yes, those are just random chairs in the new room. Still trying to make decisions about furniture.

Finally, we can spread out. God is good. All the time. Thank you, Lord.

Barbara Bush--The Excellent Homemaker

On this the day of Barbara Bush's funeral I am reminded of the year 1990 when as First Lady she was invited to be the commencement speaker at Wellesley College. There was much controversy over this invitation. Some 150 students at Wellesley protested her speech claiming it did not uphold the school's feminist beliefs.

Their petition said, "To honor Barbara Bush as a commencement speaker is to honor a woman who has gained recognition through the achievements of her husband, which contravenes what we have been taught over the last four years at Wellesley."

Oh, please. So recognition through achievement was the standard for honor? I wrote a letter to the editor at the time of this protest. I argued that Barbara Bush could probably be credited as much with having achieved the position of First Lady as her husband could be with having been elected president. How would George H.W. Bush have fared raising six children on his own? Barbara maintained the family. Is there any more important job?

Barbara Bush advised the class of 1990 to do three things: Believe in something larger than yourself....get involved in the big ideas of your time. Find the joy in life. Cherish your human connections.  "...you are a human being first and those human connections--- with spouses, with children, with friends-- are the most important investments you will ever make.

Read the entire speech HERE.

Psychologist Phyllis Chesler said at the time (according to the New York Times), that the number of students who voted for Mrs. Bush suggests that "many women still want to live in the castle, still believe in the myth of rescue by marriage and still believe in Prince Charming."

Such a characterization of those who value children and family life is as profoundly offensive today as it was then.

As Barbara Bush once said, "At the end of your life, you will never regret hot having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a child, a friend or a parent." (www.goodhousekeeping.com)

Indeed. What really matters is not what your paycheck is, not what your title is and not how much status your work accords. As Barbara Bush said in her speech, "Our success as a society depends not on what happens in the White House, but on what happens in your house."

What matters in life is how much you have loved. Barbara Bush's life it would seem was a life well lived.