Fun Monday - Wherefore art thou?

Our hostess this week is the lovely Sayre. Her request?

If you could live anywhere, where would it be? What would you do with your time? Who would you live with? How would you get there? What accomodations would you be living with? Tell me about this life you have fantasized for yourself!

OK, this is pretty easy for me since this is a VERY old fantasy of mine. Let's start off with some lovely lyrics from Lerner and Loewe:

"A law was made a distant moon ago here:

July and August cannot be too hot.

And there's a legal limit to the snow here

In Camelot.

The winter is forbidden till December

And exits March the second on the dot.

By order, summer lingers through September

In Camelot.

Camelot! Camelot!

I know it sounds a bit bizarre,

But in Camelot, Camelot

That's how conditions are.

The rain may never fall till after sundown.

By eight, the morning fog must disappear.

In short, there's simply not

A more congenial spot

For happily-ever-aftering than here

In Camelot.

Camelot! Camelot!

I know it gives a person pause,

But in Camelot, Camelot

Those are the legal laws.

The snow may never slush upon the hillside.

By nine p.m. the moonlight must appear.

In short, there's simply not

A more congenial spot

For happily-ever-aftering than here

In Camelot."

All right. Now we know where and, as I sit here in the falling snow on the first day of spring, why. With whom? Ah, that's easy. I would live in Camelot with the very delectable, very listenable, and very easy on the eyes Sam Elliott. It would not matter if it was the young Sam or the current Sam. No matter at all. There would be no Lancelot in my kingdom. There would just be Sam.

I cannot think of too many changes that I would make to the original (Lerner and Loewe version) Camelot. There would definitely be indoor plumbing and enough ice for decent refrigeration but that's about it. Oh, wait. I would own a printing press and an absolutely amazing library.

That's it. Chivalry and heraldry and honor and no snow after daylight. What more could a woman want?

Fun Monday - Why Tuna Fish?

Our hostess this week is Faye from Summit Musings.

Our assignment?

... to share your memories of school lunches. What kind of school did you attend--public, private, parochial, city or country? Did you bring lunch from home or buy in the school cafeteria? Or, did you go home for lunch? What did your lunch look like? Who prepared it? Who did you have lunch with? Was this a happy part of the school day? What did you do during lunch time other than eat your PB & J sandwich?

I went to school back in the day when, by today's standards, our parents were trying to kill us. There were no car seats, no seat belts, no bicycle helmets, no pads except for professional football players and we drank warm milk at lunch time.

I went to Catholic school. Our school had no cafeteria and no gymnasium. We had no lockers and there was no lunchroom. Our lunches lived, in brown paper bags, under our desks until lunchtime, At lunchtime, we put our school materials inside our desk, took out our place mats, said grace, and ate lunch. There was milk available for $.10 but it had been sitting out in the breezeway since the milkman delivered it early in the morning. Most of us chose to just have water after lunch from the drinking fountain.

My mother made my lunch. Even after she started working nights, she still made our lunches. My dad always got lunch meat and cheese and us kids got peanut butter with homemade boysenberry jelly or jam. I so wanted store-bought Welch's grape jelly. I never got it. Mom also included a couple of homemade chocolate chip or peanut butter or oatmeal cookies which I always tried to trade for Oreos, This even though we were not allowed to trade food or even talk to each other during lunch. There was also a piece of fruit.

This menu only varied on Friday. Friday fasting was not contained to Lent when I was growing up but was an every Friday occurrence. On Friday, the peanut butter sandwich was exchanged for tuna fish. Yep, tuna fish that had been sitting in a bag on the floor in the classroom for 4 hours. It was warm and soggy and smelled nasty and everyone had the same thing. On rainy days, you could add the smell of wet wool sweaters for a truly memorable olfactory experience.

It wasn't until I was a grownup that I wondered why I could not have just had peanut butter - it's not meat, you know. Oh, well.

My grandson is in Catholic school now. His school not only has a cafeteria, it has some of the best cooks in town. They pride themselves on never repeating a menu during the month. Parents and grandparents alike stop in to have lunch with the kiddoes. Sometimes progress is a great thing.

What a good girl

Stations of the Cross

and he did not set the church on fire! Good job, Moose.

Update

I have now completed a week and a half at my new job. I love it! I come home after working my shift and, instead of heading directly to bed to collapse, I now cook meals, carry on coherent conversations and just generally get to live.

When I went in for my physical, my blood pressure was a little high, which surprised me. My blood pressure has always been on the low side. Turns out it wasn’t the fried food or the grease or the salt. It evidently was stress. One week later, back to normal. Life is good.

My husband, God love him, has picked up all of the stuff that I don’t have to try and cram into my day. Since his retirement, the laundry and the dishes are evidently now his domain, along with grandson wrangling.

My life right now is just so blessed. Yeah, there are bills. There is enough money to pay them. Yeah, there are conflicts. There is enough grace to solve them. It is all just good.

Class Projects

My grandson’s school had their annual auction on Sunday. This is the major fundraiser for the school. In addition to sheds and 4-wheelers and sides of beef (this is cow country, you know) each class does a project.

For Moose’s class this year, each child had to bring in a verse, Scripture or something else spiritual, that either has meaning to his family or that spoke directly to him. Moose and I googled “saints” and “quotations”. The results were amazing.

After reading just a few quotes, we came across this one from St. Francis of Assisi.

Moose instantly said, “That’s it”.

I asked if he didn’t want to look at some more and he looked at me like I had rocks in my head,. “But, Grandma, that one’s perfect. Why would I keep looking?”

Why, indeed.

Moose has always had a very close relationship with God. He is very sure of God and His love and of his love for Him. He is also aware, because we (his mom and me and his teachers and everyone else) tell him, of his faults.

Maybe it’s time to lighten up…or maybe, it’s just time to recognize God’s work.

I am so confused

Remember this? Okay. Then this will make sense. Sort of. Not really. Maybe. Ah, heck.