Ruth’s Reverie and Other Ramblings

We had an absolutely lovely holiday weekend.  What a blessing for John and I both to have time off together!  Lately, this has been a rarity.  On Friday, we spent the day doing a few odd tasks around the house and yard and relaxing.  We got out our little old charcoal grill, compliments of my BIL Tim, and grilled steaks.  There is just something special about grilling over charcoal.  Sure, it is not as convenient as using a gas grill, but considering our most recent incident, there are definitely pros and cons to each.  We even roasted marshmallows!

Saturday morning I was feeling domestic and did a little baking and cooking for our holiday plans.  Then it was off to Delaware (or is it Maryland? or Melaware or Daryland–where ever it is that Tim and Sarah live.  I can never remember which state I’m in when we go visit.)  to celebrate the Fourth of July with the whole Valiante family.  We were missing only Andy and Andrea to be complete.  What fun we had!  Tim was Grill Master and delighted us with his burgers and pork ribs.  And after dinner–oh! after dinner!–we had some of Sarah’s fantastic blackberry pie compliments of her blackberry bush!  May I just say you haven’t lived until you’ve tasted Sarah’s blackberry pie?   It’s true, you haven’t.   (Also, if you like strawberry shortcake, DEFinitely try the recipe linked above.  It was Yummy!)

Micah and Kiersten are growing cuter by the day, and it was such a joy to spend time with them.  Kiersten is toddling around and talking in her own little language, and Micah is silly and funny and cracks me up as much as he cracks himself up.  We stayed overnight and went to church with Tim and Sarah on Sunday.  As always, it was a blessing to join their church family in corporate worship.  We are always welcomed and made to feel right at home.  I was asked (in advance) to fill in on the piano for their morning service (Don’t laugh!  Actually… you can if you want.  I did.     But I did my best, and it turned out ok aside from the fact that I smashed my finger in the piano bench only minutes before the service began and I had to leave the sanctuary to keep from yelping in pain.)

This weekend I also added and completed a new book to my summer reading list.  The book is called Eliza’s Daughter  by Joan Aiken and is a spin-off from a character mentioned in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.  I was enthralled by the book, and finished it quickly.  The characters were rich and the writing was good.  I would have completely enjoyed it if not for one small problem: I completely disagreed with Aiken’s interpretation of Austen’s lead characters.  She took a rather cynical view of them, and consequently those characters acted in ways I could never have imagined the original characters to have behaved.  If I had read the book with no pre-conceptions, I could have enjoyed it more and liked and disliked the characters as this author intended.  As it was, I kept muttering to Aiken, “No, no.  I can’t believe Colonel Brandon would have done that!”  or “Certainly Edward Ferrars would not behave so unkindly!”  I do think it was a worthwhile read, but came away feeling a little sad at the outcome.