Showing posts with label home-makers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home-makers. Show all posts

Monday, November 15, 2021

Like My (almost) Pet...


Some days.
Seriously!!

 I like to reserve Mondays to climb the
domestic to-do-ladder before another week of childcare starts.
Today required a morning+ away 
for dentists appointment, groceries and other errands
inspiring this rather wry ditty as I tried to get my bearings
when I returned to 'exactly like I left it!



Dear Almost Pet...

You’re always here to greet me
As faithful as can be
I think you think that I would miss
Your loyal company

You’d sit and wait forever
For when I go away
You do not flinch one teeny inch
Or take a holiday

You hide in any corner
And wait in every room
Amused at frantic antics that
Require mop and broom

Sometimes I think you giggle
When, laden, I walk in
With my arms full of groceries
Heaped right up to my chin

You are a little like a pet
That wears me to the bone
If I ignore you, you can bet
You’ll make your presence known

You’re not a playful puppy
No bunny, nor a cat
You’re my faithful trusty housework
Now what do you think of that

© Janet Martin

And what good housewife would leave the kitchen like this??!!!😂
In my defense...Monday morning is Jim's checklist morning
before his leaving for the week which involves Wife...
Let's see!
Do we have
Hat
coat
pills
phone
wallet?
yup...
"hey Janet, where did you put my heel cream?
I need it this time of year!'

um. I think I threw it in the fruit bowl on the table...

okay, where was I??
oh right!
thermos full of coffee
2 foil-wrapped omelets
cheese, sliced
2 sandwiches
meal/meals (dinner leftovers) in a foil tin for his truck oven
foil-wrapped pizza slices
fresh muffins
fruit
yogurt
cereal
bananas
h-m-m-m...
did I miss anything
oh, yes
3 sets of clean clothes
Hug
Kiss
see you Saturday
drive safe!!
headlights out the driveway as he backs up
Sit down 
pray
read devotions
make more coffee.
Make Matt's lunch
start laundry
write poem
look at clock
gasp.
YIKES!!!
I need to get ready for the dentist
That's my excuse😁

Thursday, March 11, 2021

Happiness, Heaven-on-earth and Love


This poem was written with young parents in mind but
has something in it for us oldies too😉😄
(yes, it's muddy boots and wet-everything season!)
(because I do childcare some 'memories' stay quite fresh😅)


"Me? Trouble?!! 
How can you even think it?!"


It doesn’t always look like much; the noisy thick of it
Can spill and spread in such a way to make you ‘sick’ of it
Yes, you confess the mess is often quite more-than-enough
It doesn’t look like happiness, heaven-on-earth or love

You slip on the spaghetti that your darling toddler flung
Next week you’ll find one dried to the ceiling or a chair wrung
The toy-box you replenished at Christmas with eager joy
Is like a decoration ignored by dear girl and boy

Between lost socks-boots-mittens, you find scribbles on the wall
Where budding artists practiced while you answered a phone call
First signs of spring are tracked across the fresh-mopped kitchen floor
‘Enjoy these Best of Days’ says ‘Mrs. Old’ who lives next door

The sink is full of dishes while fridge and cupboard run bare
Baby is teething so you do not have patience a hand to spare
You sure could use the nap your youngster refuses to take
It would work such sweet wonders for your arms, back and headache

The bills are due, there are a few you had not counted on
Thank God for work and by His grace you’ll keep chugging along
…where Something steals your breath as only Little Tot can do
And you forget all but the precious face looking at you

Yes, it can feel like quite a fight, the messy ‘stick’ of it
Keeps you from understanding quite, the tender quick of it
But some day you’ll look back and see (like we did) sure enough
That this really is/was happiness, heaven-on-earth and love

(Optional ending)

(…the point to this ditty I guess is, whether young or old
In the middle of muddle-cuddle-mess-blessed hug-and-hold
Or past the place of youth and grace as we embrace ‘what’s next’
And wonder at the mirror-face, half-laughing and half-vexed

…we ought to try to take and make the best of where we are
Nobody needs to be perfecto or a super-star
But learn to count the beauties and the blessings one by one
Because no matter where we are, where we are is soon gone!)

© Janet Martin



Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Let's Just Stay Home


 All schools including colleges and universities are closed today in hopes that people 'just stay home'!
It's much safer for those trying to keep roads clear if there is less traffic skidding about!





Let’s just stay home
The wild wind wails
and flails its tears like broken glass
Let’s stoke the embers into flame
and make Cozy;
this too shall pass
Let’s snuggle beneath fuzzy shawls
while Nature decks its halls with B-r-r-r
Let’s bake a cake (or muffins)
to celebrate
Time’s creaky gait toward summer-r-r!
 Let’s count the ways we love thee, home
Thy warm welcome
never wears thin
How sweet the tempo of thy poem
How dear the laugh-lines
of thy grin
How beloved thy roof and walls
They gather us closer a bit
And shelter us from brutish brawls
while Old Man Winter throws a fit
...and heaven drops its hints of joy
in cheery kettle-tune and such
In happiness of girl and boy
at ease near mother's gentle touch 
Let's picnic by the fireplace
Let's just ignore the roaring clock
No, let's look time straight in its face
and savor every tick and tock
Let's live life slow;
let's be ourselves
Ah, never mind what others think
Family-arity fills shelves
with photos, books and poet’s ink
that authors within wood and stone
the solace of love’s humble prayer
while we work fingers to the bone
lest home-sweet-home becomes threadbare
So, not without meek, thankful thrill
do we utter this sacred Tome
while wild the gale exerts its will  
glad, glad we say;
let’s just stay home

© Janet Martin



and then the irony; while writing this poem Matt, after hearing his school is closed went straight to work. "I'm not sitting around here all day!" he said to his anxious mother😊

I got a text from a neighbour asking if its okay if she comes over today.
(I guess she's not feeling the 'let's just stay home' thing either😁)

Victoria on the other hand told me she's so glad to be home today 
because she didn't sleep very well last night due to the fact 
that she kept dreaming there was a crow in her room that constantly flew at her head😂



Sunday, May 20, 2018

The High Call of Home-making...


From a grandma's vantage-point I can say from this...
 ...to this ...
is a blink!


 ...to mothers/homemakers and future mothers/homemakers

 Thou, Keeper of love's sacred springs
Where childhood's feet splash through
Thou, daughter of the King of kings
 The world depends on you

Thou, hand that rocks the cradle, oh
Though humble seems thy role 
There is no greater charge, oh no
Than that of a child's soul

Thou, matriarch with tender voice
Thou mother in the home
'Child makes a choice and then the choice
Will make who they become'
 
...so, thou with baby in thy arms
Or children at thy knee
Be of good cheer, thy presence warms
Both home and family

Thy gentle voice is like a song
Thy touch, like hope unfurled
Thy common toil should rank among
The grandest in the world

Thy confidence in God to guide
In pathways, true and right
Thy mother-mild to kneel beside
Thy little child at night

Oh, may the comfort of thy love
And faithful 'being there'
Be like a poignant symbol of
God's faithful love and care

Thou, teacher of obedience
May love's humility
Make home a royal residence
For God and family

Janet Martin
 
I cannot force you to listen to these messages below but I do ever-so-highly recommend it!(after hubby suggested that I might like them...he listens to this speaker sometimes while he is driving)
 
Messages by Jack Graham to exhort and encourage godly girls and women, esp. wives and mothers.




(the ending of this message directed to men)
 

 Have I not commanded you? 
Be strong and courageous. 
Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, 
for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” 
Joshua 1:9

Saturday, October 7, 2017

To Keepers of Home Sweet Home..


"What, no Thanksgiving Bake-Buffet??? but it's tradition"
said Victoria, after my suggestion of 'maybe not this year'
so I baked,
(if only to preserve a little sameness in life's constant change)

She tends the Flame, preserves a touch of sameness where Time’s tide
Is bent on change and the estrangements of its sultan stride
She keeps the kettle on, stirs supper-soup and hums a hymn
Turns on the lights of home sweet home when gloaming shadows dim

She guards the hearth where innocence of childhood days are doffed
Its laughter, sweet upon the lips spirals to echoes soft
As Time goes by she comes to learn how sacred-swift the role
Of discipline and cultivation of body-clothed soul

How small may seem the menial task that fills her résumé
And oft, when asked ‘what do you do?’ she knows not what to say
Strange how the mop-sweep-fold and keep of homespun commonness
Cannot convince the by-stander 'tis earthly heaven-ness

The plant and gather season is a smooth and subtle sweep
Baskets hold fruit and flowers; most of harvest rests heart-deep
She weeps for the full joy of it, oft caped in noise and mess
And treasures the kind measure of love’s humble happiness

She knows that she cannot afford to overlook her charge
Soon, far too soon young heads are turned by the wide world at large
And thus she bows her head, pleads for a Higher Hand to guide
As she tries to preserve a touch of sameness in time’s tide

© Janet Martin

This morning I am so thankful for what a good night's sleep bestows...
invigoration where weariness the night before felt eternal!









Monday, June 12, 2017

Blooms to Tend







Blooms to tend
They wend their way from bud and seed
To gardens, Hearts
Where innocence and wonder leads
Us back to where
Each journey starts

And we are gladder than we were
Before the days
That drew our thought
From innocence and wonder to
A place of
Simple joys forgot

But now with
Reverence and love
We thank the Lord
For days that send
Sweet innocence and wonder of
A little home
With blooms to tend

© Janet Martin






Monday, November 9, 2015

A Live-Laugh-Love-Home





Give me a home that’s lived in
A this-is-our-space
A mess-and-happiness affair
A put-your-feet-up place

Give me a home that’s laughed in
In spite of spills and ills
For oh, the home that’s laughed in
For all life lacks, fulfills

Give me a home that’s loved in
A humble thoroughfare
Of work-play-faith-forgiveness
And comfort for life’s care

Give me a home, though modest
To the cold Critic’s eye
Where live-laugh-love enjoys a wealth
That money cannot buy

© Janet Martin

My friend and I were discussing how Mess seems unavoidable in a very-lived-in home, but we agreed we choose messy and happy to sterile and still...
(although Tidying/organizing now and again is essential to maintaining order which helps to maintain happiness;-)