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Peace and Pekoe

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7 Quick Takes: Well, that escalated quickly.

7 Quick Takes: Well, that escalated quickly.

Last updated on: January 18, 2017 at 5:59 pm by Kate Cousino

7 Quick Takes: Well, that escalated quickly. 2017-01-18T17:59:59-04:00 Kate Cousino

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— 1 —

We want camping last week. Somehow, it’s taken this long for me to take my kids camping. It was a blast, despite a bit of wet weather.

Aetheline, Pascal, Gui, and their cousin Daniel.

We shared a campsite with my brother and sister-in-law and their son, which worked out well, and my parents were camping at the same park, so there were plenty of adults around to keep an eye on our little ruffians. It was only a three-day trip–sort of a test-run–and I think we’ll likely try to manage something a little longer next summer.

— 2 —

Why I wouldn’t want to go camping alone with my kids:

Remember how I said it was a three-day trip? Pascal went through 3 bandaids before we’d been there two hours—in two separate incidents (ankle, then knee). He got through the second day intact, but on the morning of our last day at the park, he managed to split his eyebrow open—by running into Gui’s teeth. (Gui’s gums were a little sore, but he didn’t lose his teeth. If you’ve ever made contact with Pascal’s skull, you know why I had to check).

Fortunately, the campground was only 15 minutes from our doctor’s office. I was able to get an appointment, leave Aetheline with my parents and Gui with his uncle, get Pascal glued up, and get back to the campsite in time to pack up. Our plan was to spend the rest of the day after checkout at the beach. Pascal was pretty sad that he wasn’t allowed to swim—there’s some natural consequences for you—but he wound up playing in the sand and we pushed him around a bit in a inflatable dingy. The accident didn’t slow him down a bit.

— 3 —

Something that’s been making me smile:

Serenity and serendipity

A couple weeks ago, I bought that tealight glass (with the blue birds) on a whim at the dollar store to go with this little candle from my Welcome Wagon basket. I got it home and realized it matched this little robin’s-egg-blue plate. The plate came with a delicate teacup that sadly broke a couple weeks after I bought it. Then (hot knowing any of this) my brother surprised me with the most perfect mug, glazed on the inside with a matching blue!

Not only was it serendipitous, it was just plain thoughtful. The tea-mug says “Sereni-tea” on the outside (in what I think might be Garamond), and around the inside it says, “n., the absence of stress while drinking tea.” Considering my blog name, it’s just about perfect, isn’t it? Sereniti-tea. Peace and Pekoe.

And a friend pointed out that it is also reminiscent of a certain science fiction series about a certain Firefly-class ship that I love, so there’s that, too. 🙂

— 4 —

I’ve been fighting a battle of late—a battle against the rose worms that stopped the gentle tide of cut roses that adorned my house at the beginning of the summer. Creepy crawly green little monsters that denuded by rosebushes into sad spindly looking things, all thorns and no lush greenery.

I don’t know where roses get this reputation for being delicate or tricky. The pests are tricky, I guess, but the rose bushes are amazing. Every day I go out there to pick off worms and spray my roses with a soap-and-hot sauce spray that is supposed to discourage them, and every day I find denuded limbs, and every day I find fresh little spring-green leaves unfurling on a limb that was bare just the day before. They just don’t quit.

I was just starting to think I’d gotten the last of the rose worms when I went camping. I came back, and my bushes looked like bushes again. Then, within a couple of days, they were back. I’ve put Gui in charge of rose-worm-picking and leaf-spraying, paying him with tokens for computer time, and I think we’re getting on top of it again.

There is even a new rosebud on the bush that was hit the hardest–for some reason, one bush the worms left the buds almost entirely alone, and the other they barely touched the leaves and went after the delicate stems just below the buds. So this is the first rosebud on this bush in a month.

I’ve just got little rosebushes with what are supposed to be pretty hardy variants. I’m sure not every rose is so resilient. But I want to get more next summer and find out, even if it means I spend every day picking worms off and spraying them. I’m rooting for the roses.

Plus, the neighbor’s cat stopped using my garden for a litter box when I planted a spiny rosebush right in his favorite spot.

— 5 —

Roses were the emblem for our wedding. With all that has happened since, I feel somewhat like that denuded, chewed up rosebush myself sometimes. I hope that I have some of the same hardiness and vitality as my roses. If I just keep putting out new-green leaves and picking the blight-worms off my soul, perhaps I’ll get the chance to bloom again.

— 6 —

A couple of months ago, I went out with my best friend and sister-in-law and got this:

Faith (cross), hope (anchor), love.

It doesn’t show in most of my outfits, but it’s there to remind me. Even when I feel like I’m just keeping my head above water, there’s always love, hope, faith. These three remain.

— 7 —

There are a lot of scary and awful things happening in the world right now, and good things too, many of which I simply have no idea how to think or talk about. Meriam Ibrahim met the Pope and made it to the US. Many others–Christians and others–are suffering still. Iraqi Christians have fled or are dying. Children have been beheaded. There’s too much, and none of it is about me, and it seems shallow to go on living as though others aren’t suffering, and egotistical to even try to find a way to understand or relate to it from my position of safety.

Fortunately, Tom McDonald has said all that could be said.

We broke the world, and the only response is the love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Faith, hope, and love. These three. And the greatest is love.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

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