At Considerable Cost

This was one of my first writing assignments as a college freshman.   We were instructed to write a descriptive essay.   It's one of my favorite things I've ever written.   It's not some great literary work and it took tremendous restraint not to correct the many things I'd like to change now.   I cringed at some of the cliches and my tendency--overuse-- of repetition is evident.   Then, there are the tense issues.   It is a favorite, though, because, as I wrote in the previous post , it was one of the first essays I ever "saw."   It is also a favorite because it is a description of the storms I regularly witnessed growing up on our farm.   I loved watching the approaching storms and taking shelter during their short reign over the land.   I post it as part of my mission to record a part of myself on this blog, for myself and my children. I am standing in the middle of a yard.   A large brick house is about twenty feet behind me.   Directly in front of me

In a previous post , I mentioned that I found a folder of writing from college days.   I decided to re-type one of my favorite pieces in my next post.   It was the first thing I wrote where I was conscious of how my brain worked in relation to writing.   It was the first time I was really able to see how I was weird. I was identified as Gifted and Talented in fifth grade.   In Louisiana, that meant an evaluation primarily based on an IQ test, with other evaluations weighted to lesser degrees.    I was "serviced"--school district's term--through a pull-out program.   That meant that on Tuesdays, a special G/T teacher came to school and took us out of our classes for the whole day.   We met in our G/T classroom that was in a portable building and did enrichment-type lessons that usually included a novel study at their core.   The last time I checked, in Louisiana, teachers who teach gifted classes, at any level, must be certified by having a Master's Degree in Gifted

  ~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~ Every Thursday, at Like Mother, Like Daughter !  I'm having to combine two weeks on this post. {pretty} I was blessed to go on a girls' weekend with four amazing women.   It was a grand time with great conversation, food, fellowship and much laughter.   We were able to experience the first cold front of fall as it blew in and attend mass together in a beautiful little church.   We also shopped at the local trade days event.   Near closing time, we came upon a booth with some beautiful religious statues.   One of the owners said her sister had started hoarding statues and she managed to get her to sell some of them.   "Make us a deal!"   was her cry.   So we did.   And she accepted our offers.   I thought of Mama as the seller let me get boxes of more statues from under the tables.   Mama loved to be the first one to unwrap things before they were set out for others to see at a sale!  

Today is the feast day of one of my favorite saints, St. Therese, known as the Little Flower.   Along with St. Jeanne d'Arc, she is Co-Patroness of France and one of only three women officially given the title "Doctor of the Church" because of the profound truths and teachings contained in her spiritual writings and more importantly, in her life.   Her writings are few, memoirs of her life and spiritual journey she wrote under direction from her superior at the convent.   Her life was short, only 24 years, ended by tuberculosis.   However few and short her writings and years, the love, power, grace, and glory contained in them is limitless.   She is still teaching and touching lives today, 115 years after her death. I began a devotion to this great saint before the birth of our oldest daughter.   We gave her the middle name, Therese-Marie, when she was born so she would have the intercession of two powerful patrons, St. Therese and the Blessed Virgin Mary.   It'