How Do You Like Them Apples?

First of all, I was young; you need to give me that.  One of the things my mother-in-law and I like to do is look at decorating magazines or coffee table books on Southwest decor in particular are so much fun.  When I visit, I look through her magazines and/or catalogs, new books, etc. for inspiration or ideas I can copy.  In lots of areas of my life I am not as much creative as I am a good…..well, in scrap booking they call it ‘scraplifting’, so I guess I am good at idea lifting, all the way around, but I digress.

If memory serves me correctly, I was enjoying a Country Living magazine one afternoon, when I got so excited because I saw a silver chandelier with blue crystals hanging down from it.  I didn’t think I liked chandeliers because the only type I was familiar with was fancy, formal, and brass, more often than not, with the diamond-like fobs draping off and hanging heavy from the ceiling.  This had simple, clean, lines and the most gorgeous blue glass crystals hanging from it. 

My mother-in-law was on the sofa next to me, looking through her own choice of magazine, when I’m sure I made some sort of exclamation.  I too rapidly was trying to describe what I was looking at and what I liked about it and you guessed it, I said something to the effect of – ‘and I just love the little crystal blue dining balls hanging from it; I’ve never seen anything like that before.  Well of course she had to see for herself, and at about the same time I realized what I had said and we had a good (and I mean long) laugh over it.  Sometimes when we’re both tired we can laugh A LOT over almost anything, or would that be everything, or maybe nothing at all!  To my chagrin, it has stuck.

Actually, I like familial things that are unique that get passed down for so long as sayings or traditions that eventually no one remembers how it even started.  Of course having a story (like this) to pass along with it is even better!  It brings to mind another conversation I was having with my sister-in-law about a person I knew born in a town called Horseshoe on Friday, the 13th (true story).  Incredulously she said, “Well everyones birthday falls on Friday the 13th, at one time or another.”  More laughter; different year!  I’m sure she was thinking how birthdays regardless of date fall on different days of the week.  You know we all have excuses!  What resulted from that day on however is that she gets a birthday card, not only on her birth date, but every single Friday the 13th, throughout the year.  We won’t say what this does to a woman’s age!  By the way, they don’t come as often as you think they might and there are 3 this year, one of which occurs in just a couple of weeks.  SO for those of you who know her and have her address, feel free!  This is not the end of my ‘blue dining ball’ story, however. 

Now I don’t know if I was thinking maybe I could take a hanging light fixture and hang blue glass balls from it (idea lifting) in my head or why I came out with that particular set of words, but that side of the family has been scouring for ‘crystal blue dining balls’ to give me ever since.  This year, I received not one, but two, from said sister-in-law!  I have acquired a few of my own in the past, but they are never quite right.  These are the best yet.  I am submitting a picture as proof.  Now, I wouldn’t really hang ‘crystal blue dining balls from this kind of a fixture (but I think I really will at Christmas each year), and of course ‘dining balls’ have no where near the quietly stated elegance of crystals.  My tastes in decor have changed over the years; more like tweaked, but I still have a picture of that original light fixture in my mind’s eye and I still adore it.   And now my friends, you know “the rest of the story.”

What about your family or friends.  Do you have any peculiar sayings or traditions that you would like to share?  Let’s have some fun with this.  I’m open to the poignant too.  What do you say?

Here it is January 22, 2009, exactly three weeks after New Year’s Day, and I feel like I’m just a week into my year.  How could I be two weeks behind already and so early in the game?  I guess you could figure that the Presidents, former and current, have just started their year.  Looking at it that way I’m not in such bad company.  Good company or not, I need to get this post in if I’m even going to bring it up at all or it’s going to look ridiculous written 3 months into the year.  You may get a follow up though. 

Remember how I stated in my first post how I work very well around themes?  I’m still not ready to dissect that subject. Truth be told, maybe I don’t know why.  Anyway, for several years now, I have had a theme for the new year that rhymes with that year.  For instance, my theme this year is “On His Word I will dine in 2009”.  I must confess I got this idea from a dear friend who has been doing so for far longer than I have.  Her theme this year is “We are to shine in 2009, no matter the circumstances”.  It is specific and very well chosen for her, not that anyone couldn’t use it.

I hope that mine is as well chosen for me, not that anyone couldn’t use it.  Right now I’m involved with a Bible study in Isaiah, and I’m loving it, but I want to do more than just study it for the sake of insights and answers.  I want it to feed me.  I wanted to use the word feast but alas it doesn’t rhyme with the year 2009.  It is for this same hunger and resolve that I have also chosen to memorize two verses a month.  By the end of the year I should have added 24 that I know and that are for me. 

That’s not the only reason I picked that theme, though the primary one.  This past year was a hard year concerning words in my life.  Words said out of  turn; words interpreted wrongly; hurtful words; not speaking up when necessary; too many words; do you know what I’m saying?  And what do you do with not hearing the words you desire to hear?  I so want to get the whole thing right:  hearing with discernment, really listening, correctly interpreting, saying the right thing, the right way, at the right time.  I confess that I’ve already blown it.  I blew it last night by interrupting, trying to get my words in over another, but I’m not giving up.   

Words are really important to me.  I like to find quotes that speak to me.  I enjoy reading books that resonate or paint pictures or tell a good story.  I sing, and the lyrics of songs have always been important to me.  I was even excited to start this blog to be able to express thoughts into words but then when it actually was set up for me (computer genius, I never claimed to be), it took me a week to get up the nerve (and the time, frankly) to put it out there and write something.  I can be both critic and intimidated by words. 

Back to my theme for this year.  Does it sound similar to a resolution to you?  I guess it could be, but rather than a set of specific goals it is more like where to put my focus during the year.  I’m curious to know if you  have a theme (focus, emphasis, priority) for this year or one or more resolutions?  Is it too late to ask that?  Want to share?

Isaiah 55:2  “Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?  Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.”

When I first got married, I had no collections of anything per se, but some how, along the way, I started acquiring things with apples on them and it evolved into a collection of apples. 

A little further down the road I was homeschooling my children.  There many resources available for free or a small fee to schools, but you have to have a letterhead established.  While trying to come up with something, we were studying a unit on pioneering in “the old west”.  My husband had somewhere along the timeline started a blacksmithing hobby.  He worked swing shift at his paid job and he often did the messy science projects with the kids while I went to Bible study one morning a week.  This did not classify as a science project, but he took the boys out in the garage to make branding irons (like the real thing, mind you).  I don’t remember now what our daughter’s pioneering project was.  One of the boys came in with the letter k inside the shape of an apple.  My name starts with K, as does my middle name, and the street that we live on.  I thought it was great (both branding irons were, by the way)!  Our house is a cape cod style, which I love.  From that time on we were Apple K Cottage.  I loved the name; I still do.  I started using it for our letterhead, my return address, and any way I could.

So now I’m starting a blog, and I have to have a theme to everything…hmmm, I might have to write about that later.  I was again trying to come up with a name that ties in, but not be the exact same.  As we were discussing it around the table one evening while my daughter’s family was here over Christmas, my son-in-law, said “How about them apples?”  I loved it.  I still do! 

I write down a lot of  ‘apple phrases’ to keep handy, such as:

– As American as apple pie

– An apple a day keeps the doctor away

– Like apples of gold in settings of silver (from Proverbs 25:11)

– You’re the apple of my eye

I have others, but I want to hear yours.  Do you know any ‘apple phrases’ you could share with me?  And so, How do you like them apples??