been thinking lately

      If I had been an only child, I'm pretty sure that, by now, the only place you could visit me would be on exit 91 in Alabama at the mental facilities.  Some people know how to cope with that lonerism.  I am not one of them.  Don't get me wrong, I like my time box where it's just me and space, but you keep me in there too long, and things start getting nutsy.  This past week Mamsie and all of 

     my sisters (with the exception Anne) have been gone and the house has been quiet something odd.  Daddy has been very sweet and has shown his colors once again.  He's made sure I've been up in time to leave for work, fixed Anne tea and took it to her while she was in bed, fixed breakfast, (with the fried eggs just right - not to much soup, not to much hardness) and warmed up the car for me so it wouldn't be cold when I left.  Besides that, he made chili for church,  read my book to me by the fire and kept Anne and me laughing by singing very boomingly and quoting  Mr. Collins from Pride and Prejudice.                              

 

 Daddy is tremendously kissable and has figured this out after having five girls who bombard him with the things every day.



THE MERRY
   SQUARE...
Chris has dubbed her so. (So let it be written, so let it be done.)  I think she must have inherited our ancient Cherokee grandmother's genes for concentration, details,  determination and spunk.  If they had lived at the same time, I believe they would have been found together, sewing buffalo skins in their tepees with their long hair in braids and woven with feathers.  Merry is a blunt little thing and keeps us in line.  But she has a compassionate heart and seems to sense other's hurt.  She knows how to comfort, and has had a good bit of experience doing so already.
  
Oh Milly!!!

 Once, I found Melody.  But that was only once.  She is a rather floaty spirit and blows in and out of a room as quiet as you please.  Only, sometimes, her tickle box gets knocked over and then she laughs, and when she does that, it's silly to think you won't as well.  I sometimes compare Milly to a well.  Deep, calm and lovely.  She thinks heaps, and you can see it in her eyes, but seldom do things disturb her surface waters.

 Dawn and gold teeth.  Well, this tooth wasn't gold.  It was silver, and one of her best prizes.  Dawn was so forlorn when the last of her six silver teeth were gone.  She expressed herself to be "mentally attached" and made a new life goal to work up to getting at least two or three gold teeth with diamonds right in the front of her mouth so that she could #1. Be rich.  #2.  Be like miss Cocoa, the mail lady, and #4 put her name in the gold so that when someone asked her her name she could just smile.

MAMSIE 

I shan't lie and say it's been peaches and cream this week.  Mamsie makes so much of a difference that nothing's quite the same when she's not home.  

 

It's pretty amazing how much Mamsie does, in fact.  I realize this more and more each time I'm given even a portion of the responsibilities she has.  Cooking, cleaning, teaching, arranging schedules, planning graduations, parties, birthdays, trips abroad, being a pastor's wife, and delivering babies.  This, and lots more that it would be impossible to name, she does with a smile and still has time to have deep life conversations, drink hot tea, bake bread, play piano and ride her bike.  Yeah, pretty muchly she's a superhero in disguise.

   There's a mix from the stewing pot.  I can't go through the whole family today, for I'd be old and grey by the time I finished, but there's some for now.

  - gabrielle
 21 years
#5 in line.