A MESS OF NOTHING: FOR ALL YOU MONGERS OF NOTHING

The audible backdrop to these bony letters is the nearby weeping of a mourning dove. If you lack real, live musical mourning, go here and click on the sound link for some of your own. And if you are, as I, displaced from an area in which crows keep up a constant, croaking barrage in every hayfield, then click here for 20 seconds of nostalgic, raspier-toned song. If neither of those strikes your fancy, travel here to choose from a wonderful lot of feathered friends. (I rather liked the Masked Booby, myself. The female just laughs and laughs at the whistling male trying to show rude appreciation.)

These sights and sounds appear courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Their payment for hours of compilation? A fleeting mention on a barely-there blog. (Sags, you can thank them properly for me--perhaps with a home-heated meal...)

And what I planned to write, before the dove opened its beak, starts NOW.

Huh. I forgot it.

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Several hours have passed; Millie is at her desk (a garbage-picker's dream) with markers spread out before her. I just overheard her reading aloud as she wrote. She said, "Dear Abbydail, I hope you feel better soon, Abbydail." I'm almost over this burdock of a cold, but I guess she thinks I need a little pick-me-up. (And no, she doesn't call me by my first name, but lately she's fascinated by her discovery that John and I have names other than "Mommy" and "Daddy."

Telemarketers are such a nuisance. (One just called.) John's most recent remedy for our pest problem is to put Millie on the phone. After a few minutes of her intermittent chatter and "um's," most of them give up. (Feel free to steal his idea. We'll loan Millie out at peak hours for a nominal fee.)___________________________________________________________________

Today is my laidback, super-talented brother Luke's birthday. He's probably intelligently avoiding schoolwork right now--a boy after my heart of the distant past. If you're reading this, Luke, "Happy Birthday!" I'm going to call you RIGHT NOW!

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Luke's changed a lot since we last talked. His voice sounds eerily like an answering machine. So what did I just send him for his birthday? A free invitation to join the g-mail team. It was the lamest gift I could come up with on such short notice; trust me, if I'd started thinking about a gift earlier, I could have given him something much more lame. _________________________________________________________________

A few hours ago, I finished the last of the clothes-sorting marathon. Mountainous heaps jutted forth from every space. Life in a one-bedroom apartment is generally lovely, except when two girls are determined to muss up newly tidied piles, and no room exists into which I can temporarily shipwreck them.

Those piles were a nuisance, but today I was struck afresh by God's bountiful provision. Last fall, John's boss gave us 2 big bags of her granddaughter’s old clothes for Millie. I'd had hardly any warm clothes for her, and no spring and summer clothes for this year, but now Millie's drawers are plump with both! (Adding extra plump are some beautiful outfits recently purchased by Grandma Owen and some lovely, handcrafted items from my mom.)

Our apartment is filled with virtues. For one, its small size, with little room for hiding away things, makes the glut of material wealth we enjoy too apparent to ever ignore. It also underscores the need for a simple lifestyle, especially if God gives us a dozen more children to fill in space, as we hope He does. Wherever we live, John and I will probably always have too many books (if there can even be such a thing), but serious weeding out of other belongings is in order before our next move. (If only for less cluttered minds when we arrive at wherever the new place will be!)

May we be as grateful for God's goodness in sparse times as we are in times of great plenty.