Five Quotes, vol. v

Each Friday I'm sharing five quotes from my reading during the week that stood out enough  to make me stop reading and write them down, or at least take a picture with my phone.  I haven't included a verse from my Bible reading before now, because I wanted to use this weekly post as a place to share quotes making it in my Commonplace Word document, and I don't record scripture there.  But this week I'm including Paul's prayer from Romans 15, because I read it yesterday, and it seemed a fitting anchor of hope in a world of injustice and anger.

"Now may the God who gives endurance and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, according to Christ Jesus, so that you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one mind and one voice." 
- Romans 15:5-6


"The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo:  adventures, as I used to call them.  I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, as you might say.  But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind.  Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually--their paths were laid that way, as you put it."
- Samwise Gamgee, The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien


"Well, no need to brood on what tomorrow may bring.  For one thing, tomorrow will be certain to bring worse than today, for many days to come.  And there is nothing more that I can do to help it.  The board is set, and the pieces are moving."
- Gandalf, Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien


"The hasty stroke goes oft astray," said Aragorn.
- The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien


"Winston Churchill, now Prime Minister, has made another broadcast.  It gave us a clear understanding of the gravity of the hour and of his absolute belief in the British people--that we will never surrender.  His news was petrifying but I felt braver for his words."
- To War with Whitaker, Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly

Five Quotes, vol. iv

This week's quotes include four from The Two Towers and one from Sally Lloyd-Jones I loved.  Happy reading, and happy weekend!

"Maybe there is no right choice," said Gimli.
- The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien


"But do not despise the lore that has come down from distant years; for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know."
- Celeborn, The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien


"But rest, if you must.  Yet do not cast all hope away.  Tomorrow is unknown."
- Legolas, The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien


"The counsel of Gandalf was not founded on foreknowledge of safety, for himself or others," said Aragorn.  "There are some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end may be dark."
- The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien


"...once you've chosen your story, remember:  you don't need to add to the story.  Whether that's by turning the story into a lesson or feeling you have to summarize and explain.  Trust the story.  Let the story be the story.  Let the story do its work.  A story is like a seed.  It grows beautifully if we give it time, if we give it room; if we leave it alone and don't explain it to death.  I learned a long time ago that rules and lessons can't change you, but a story can."
- Ten Tips for Reading Aloud, Sally Lloyd-Jones

16 Years of Marriage

Tomorrow is our 16th wedding anniversary, and I feel like K.J. and I have 15 years of low-key anniversary celebrations under our belt that have prepared us for an anniversary taking place during a pandemic when restaurants and cinemas are closed.  

Truly, we've always celebrated in whatever avenue felt natural at the time, no fancy dinners required.  Our celebrations are on a scale from last year's Starbucks date all the way to our two weeks in England on our 7th anniversary.

Each year on our anniversary and Valentine's Day I play a game that K.J. hates:  "Let's think about what we did on this day for the entire time we've been together!"  K.J. has a good memory, but it does not record that particular information.  I thought I'd be kind and do some digging through an old hard-drive.  Now we'll always know.

Year One

K.J. was cutting his own hair, I was young, and we were both a little pink from a day at the beach on Dauphin Island.  We went to visit my grandparents in Mobile and see friends after his sister's wedding.  It was our first year living in Louisville, Kentucky, and we are eating my Papa's famous shrimp and rice.  

Year Two

This is about a month before our second anniversary, and I only have this picture thanks to my dad!   I'm pregnant with Ella, and K.J., my dad, and I just loaded up a moving van with our belongings so we could move to a townhouse.  We also unloaded everything in the same day, and my body was so achy at the end of it.  No photographic evidence of our second anniversary exists.  Did we go to that Mexican restaurant down the street from our new place?  Did we go to Cheddar's?  Both seem possible, but no one knows now because the iPhone wouldn't be on the market until the next year.

Year Three

Again, I have no idea what we did to celebrate our actual anniversary.  My sister and brother-in-law were living in the Louisville area then; did they babysit for us?  Did K.J.'s brother baby-sit, because he was in college there at the time.  Again, no one knows.  I am sensing a theme here in how amazing the advent of the iPhone was in helping us remember things.  I know we went home to Alabama in May for my youngest brother's graduation, but I don't have those pictures here.  But here's our family of three at the Louisville Airport.  K.J. is picking up his girls who took the $69 Southwest flight from Louisville to Birmingham to celebrate his grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary.  K.J. had to stay behind and work, good man.

Year Four

May 2008 K.J. graduated from seminary, and we moved back to Alabama.  Photographic evidence says it was a low-key anniversary.  A new friend let us borrow the key to her neighborhood pool, so we took Ella.  I have another picture of Ella holding up a picture to the wall in our new house to see if it would look good there.  I feel sure we must have gone to eat or to a movie, though.  After all, we had just moved to the same city with K.J.'s parents.  Surely we took advantage of free and glad babysitters.  Prince Caspian was in theaters then.  I bet we went.

Year Five

Now I completely remember our 5th anniversary, though there is no photographic evidence of the day of course.  This might be the first year K.J. planned something that was tailor-made for my delight.  Maybe it takes five years to really get to know your spouse.  

I was pregnant with James and was just reaching the point of needing new clothes.  K.J. planned a night away at a hotel in Birmingham.  We left Ella behind, and the best part was he told me not to pack anything; I could go shopping for everything I needed when we got there.  We ate dinner at P.F. Chang's at the Summit.  We went to Old Navy and Barnes and Noble.  The following day the shopping continued at the Galleria.  It was the perfect gift to me.

Year Six

Year six K.J.'s brother ended up marrying on our anniversary, and I will for.ev.er remember this day, because that woman in the picture only slept about two hours the night before because a 7-month-old James had just learned to press up on his arms.  He slept on his stomach at the time, so each time I put him down asleep in the crib he would immediately wake up and press up on his arms and cry.  I finally grabbed a couple of hours with him sleeping on my chest in the bed.  I can vividly see myself in the shower at my grandmother's house that morning before a full day of wedding parties and pictures leaning my head on the wall and praying, "Oh, God, I feel like I'm going to die."  But God was gracious, and weddings are exciting and fun, so I made it.  And K.J.'s cousin Hillary baby sat for us when we got back home so we could go out, so double picture time.  Double picture time because guess who finally got a good camera and started taking pictures and never stopped?!

Namaste sign because the series finale of LOST was the night before, and we had a viewing party.

Year Seven

The day of our anniversary fell on a Sunday, and we went to Olive Garden after church with friends that night to eat.  I think the kids were with my parents because K.J. had just arrived back home from Cuba, and we'd had a wedding the night before.  But our big celebration was our Year of Jubilee trip to England in the fall of that year.  It was a life-changing, life-forming trip.

Year Eight

Apparently Ella graduated from Kindergarten on our 8th anniversary.  This picture is with K.J.'s grandparents the night before graduation.  I feel like we took her to the McDonald's at Wal-Mart beforehand?  I told you we weren't fancy restaurant people.  I'm sure we must have marked the occasion in some way, but all I remember is Kindergarten graduation and learning Ella had the highest GPA in Kindergarten.  I love the matching sneers Ella and James have in this picture.

Year Nine

After a mission trip to serve Emmanuel International Church in Paris we stayed an extra week to celebrate our ninth anniversary.  When the occasion presents itself, K.J. outdoes himself.  We drove around Normandy for three days, staying in different places, but the main anniversary surprise was staying at this chateau with a Marquis and Marquess.  It was a dream...but I left a new sweater there that I still miss.  This trip would also turn out to be life-changing and life-directing.  It really cemented in our hearts that we felt called towards Europe.

Year Ten

Ella made me the necklace I'm wearing for our anniversary, and I wore it to a retirement party for a dear friend of ours.  After the party we had dinner at Panera Bread and went to Barnes and Noble afterwards where I had a coffee frappe.  It wasn't fancy, but it was us.  

Year Eleven

Anniversary eleven we were six months into living in England.  Friends kept our kids for us, and we drove to York to keep up with American culture and had dinner at a French restaurant after I turned down the crazy first restaurant K.J. tried to take me to with a lot of animal heads on the wall.  I had Camembert for dinner, so I was happy.

Year Twelve

Ella made K.J. and I these matching badges to wear to church.  In England kids often wore badges to school on their birthday.  It was the day of the family bike ride to a neighboring village, and Ella and K.J. took off only to return a little later because Ella had a stomach virus.  But I had just discovered Marks & Spencer in a neighboring town, and I bought one of their weekend deals, so we parented and ate individual desserts out of small jars.

Year Thirteen

Look, another Marvel movie!  The kids were in school, so we were able to go to brunch in Harrogate and then to our first movie on a sofa where we ordered snacks and drinks from a waiter.  Fancy.

Year Fourteen

A lot happened in a year.  On our 14th anniversary we'd been living in Paris for four months, and Lua and Seth were visiting.  They oh, so kindly hung out with the kids for us, and we went to Five Guys and to a movie.  I don't remember what, but I feel like it had to be another Marvel movie, doesn't it?  It's just that time of year.  Yep, it was totally Black Panther.  We got caught in the rain walking back from the Metro and took this picture to document in the courtyard of our apartment.

Year Fifteen

Last year we started out dreaming big--fly to Venice for $50?, go see Hugh Jackman perform, dinner at the Greek restaurant in our town?--and ended up going to the mall, ordering iced coffee for me and chocolate chaud for him.  It felt right.

If you stuck with me for that marital history, you're a dear.  This is mainly for us to remember, and it was fun.  It's good being married to K.J. Pugh.  He loves me well, and I'm grateful.

How to Make a Proper Cup of Tea

Finishing the school year strongly feels like a mighty task this year, and Sarah Mackenzie at Read Aloud Revival put together a fantastic end-of-year offering to help:  six videos by authors teaching kids how to write in various formats.  Since I'm always wishing I still had teachers giving me writing assignments, I did the first project along with the kids:  writing creative nonfiction.  Children's author Miranda Paul instructed us to pick one cool fact that interested us, to ask some questions, and to present our cool fact and what we learned about it in a creative format.   

A couple of weeks ago I made a cup of tea for Noreen and she gave me the highest compliment by saying it was such a good cup, but of course, "you've lived in England," she said.  

When we first moved to North Yorkshire I was very intimidated to make tea for people, but I paid attention and learned a lot, and though how you make tea can be a matter of taste, and the English have strong opinions about it, I feel fairly confident in my basic tea-making abilities.

And now I will tell you how to make a proper cuppa in haiku form, per "my" writing assignment.

I've found British black tea to be much stronger than black tea I buy in America, so especially if you're adding milk, it comes out much better if you use British tea.  And thankfully British tea is pretty widely available in the U.S. now.  Yorkshire Tea is definitely worth searching out; it's strong, but I like my tea strong.

I'd heard that it was important to always begin with fresh water in the kettle, and I remember my mom saying even with making iced tea that the water shouldn't boil too long.  If it boils too long the water loses oxygen, and it will make your tea taste flat or bitter.  When Noreen makes tea for us, she turns off the kettle as soon as it begins rumbling good.

If you're making tea for one in a mug, black tea should steep for at least three minutes.  I prefer five, and if you're using American tea, it should definitely be five.

If you're having sugar, add that first so it can dissolve well, and then add milk to taste.  The above is a pretty good color to me.  But what if you're making a pot?  Well...

One thing I definitely didn't know before living in England was the practice--some might say the necessity--of warming the teapot before brewing the tea by adding warm or boiling water, swirling it around and then pouring it out.

The formula I learnt was to have one tea bag per person and "one for the pot." 

Now, go forth and make a good cup of tea! 

Five Quotes, vol. iii

It's time for this week's round-up of quotes that I'll be recording in my Commonplace Notebook.  I'm still spending my mornings reading The Fellowship of the Ring, so that features heavily again this week.  Tolkien can flat-out write, though.  He deserves his place.

"You have come and are here met, in this very nick of time, by chance as it may seem.  Yet it is not so.  Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of the world." 
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring


"The future, good or ill, was not forgotten, but ceased to have any power over the present.  Health and hope grew strong in them, and they were content with each good day as it came, taking pleasure in every meal, and in every word and song." 
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring


"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater."
 - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring


"...then, as she held out her hand, their eyes met and all doubt was swept away in a glad certainty.  They belonged to each other; and, no matter what life might hold for them, it could never alter that.  Their happiness was in each other's keeping and both were unafraid." 
 - L.M.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams


"Everything stops for tea."  
- Noreen Riols (a true statement I felt like recording)

May our homes during these days be places where our health and hope can grow, where we'll be made strong to work in the dark places of the world and where we'll find joy in all that is fair.

May Flowers in Paris

The last time I saw Paris was on Leap Day, but I thought it would be fun to re-visit the city through pictures from May Day 2018.  

The first of May is France's Labor Day, and on this holiday I walk to meet friends from church to play games in the park.  Parc Monceau is so green and filled with bright flowers of all colors.  I pass a stand on our street corner where a lady sells Lilies of the Valley.  I learn these delicate white flowers are given as gifts on May Day here.

The stone bridge and big knobby trees are perfection.

James always finds a stick wherever we go.

I miss the green leafy trees hanging over the streets of Paris, though I am happier living with more of the sky than what can be seen between buildings and trees.

À bientôt, Paris.

Five Quotes, vol. ii

Three guesses what I started reading this week.  Maybe you'll find something to encourage, inspire, make you think, or laugh. 

"Speak your joy. Mean it.  Sing it.  Do it.  Push it down into your bones.  Let it overflow your banks and flood the lives of others.  At his right hand, there are pleasures forevermore.  When we are truly like him, the same will be said of us." 
- N.D. Wilson, quoted in Randy Alcorn's Happiness


"...for hobbits were easy-going with their children in the matter of sitting up late, especially when there was a chance of getting them a free meal.  Bringing up young hobbits took a lot of provender."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring


"That is a chapter of ancient history which it might be good to recall; for there was sorrow then too, and gathering dark, but great valour, and great deeds that were not wholly vain."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring


"I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was MEANT to find The Ring, and NOT by its maker.  In which case you also were MEANT to have it.  And that may be an encouraging thought." 
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring


"The wide world is all about you:  you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Five Quotes, vol. 1

A few weeks ago I received an e-mail newsletter that referenced a Commonplace Notebook, and though I hadn't been calling it that, I realized I'd started one years ago:  a collection of quotes I've organized by category.  I write down quotes that make me laugh or that I think are true or beautiful.  Here are five quotes that caught my eye this week.

"For who scorns the day of small things?" - Zechariah 4:10a


"But courage, child: we are all between the paws of the true Aslan." - The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis


"The weariest nights, the longest days, sooner or later must perforce come to an end."  - The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy


Teaching seminary students about preaching, Spurgeon said, "When you speak of heaven, let your face light up with a heavenly gleam.  Let your eyes shine with reflected glory.  And when you speak of hell--well, then your usual face will do."  - Happiness, Randy Alcorn


Six days of work are spent
To make a Sunday quiet
That Sabbath may return.
- from Sabbath Poem V 1980, Wendell Berry