From My Eulogy- Homemaker Skills

One of the things I talked about at Mom's memorial service back in Febrary was what she taught me about the role of homemaker.  

"I learned so many things from Mom: how to cook, how to embroider, how to set a table, how to make a bed. But not just how to cook - to make a combination of foods that was pleasing to the eye as well as the palate. And not just how to make a bed - to make it with hospital corners, so the sheets and blankets stayed in place."

Some of these things I took completely for granted - until I started meeting those who couldn't cook and didn't know how to make a bed.  Thank you, Mom!

ABCs Of Happiness

(from www.thehappyself.com)

Equal Pay Day

Today is Equal Pay Day.  

As Senator Jeff Merkeley says, "We have narrowed the wage gap over the last few decades, but pay discrimination remains a major issue that must be addressed. Women in America and in Oregon earn less across all sorts of occupations and all educational levels. This is unacceptable. It hurts women and it hurts their families, whose pocketbooks rely on their earnings."

This is a great reminder that it is long past time we make equal pay for women a reality.

Tulips

                                                                            Tulips
                                         by A. E. Stallings

                                                    The tulips make me want to paint,
                                                    Something about the way they drop
                                                   Their petals on the tabletop
                                                   And do not wilt so much as faint,

                                                   Something about their burnt-out hearts,

                                                   Something about their pallid stems
                                                   Wearing decay like diadems,
                                                   Parading finishes like starts,

                                                   Something about the way they twist
                                                  As if to catch the last applause,
                                                  And drink the moment through long straws,
                                                  And how, tomorrow, they’ll be missed.

                                                  The way they’re somehow getting clearer,
                                                  The tulips make me want to see—
                                                  The tulips make the other me
                                                  (The backwards one who’s in the mirror,

                                                  The one who can’t tell left from right),
                                                  Glance now over the wrong shoulder
                                                  To watch them get a little older
                                                  And give themselves up to the light.