Withywindle Wanderers

Good news! The doc is pretty sure Mum's lump is scar tissue from her lumectomy in 1995 and not cancer. I am SO relieved. Being a pessimist, I had convinced myself she was going to have cancer and die with me a million miles away over here, and it was dreadful. She has a biopsy next week, which is pretty awful, so please pray for her, and that the biopsy only confirms this good news. Thanks!! Coco and Emi just LOVE the trampoline! Eowyn declared yesterday that she is tired of being called Eowyn, and asked me to ask her teachers at school to start calling her Emi, which they did today!! She is learning her numbers and calls 100 'tenty'! I'm looking for cheap tickets to take Emi to Sun City, California to visit my dear old friend Didy, who shall fly there from Australia in April with her family, visiting her husband's family. Coco and I had lunch today with Margaret, our wonderful Australian friend here in Seattle. Did you know that Seattle culture seems to have stron...

...the most beautiful in all the world, to be sure!

My nephew Edmund David Jones!

Bens and Megs in Victoria, British Columbia, celebrating our 5 years together... (Bens is actually an inch taller than Megs, which is just PERFECT!)

Bens studying for his psychology exam tomorrow (key lime martinis by moi!) Hmmmmm - somehow, he's here 3 times ... perhaps this is symbolic... I've just put Coco to bed for the 27th time in a row. Super Nanny Megs.... is losing patience. I'm back .. make that 28! Bens and I are thinking of going to Mars Hill Graduate School together and doing a Masters in Counselling Psychology. He has two years left of his BA, and one quarter left of his AA. He's hoping to get into the University of Washington this Fall - please pray/wish/etc.!! I prayed today that God would show me what he really thinks of me, as he or she seems so nebulus and esoteric. And I have a feeling God is gonna answer me. My story group begins in a week, and involves reading Dan Allender and Lisa Fann's "To Be Told" and writing our stories and reading them in the small group, which shall be led by Lisa Fann , each Monday morning. I'm excited and nervous. Coco's out of bed again.......

Here's lovely Kat and her lovely Jim! Their story is delightful and romantic - after work Jim and his friends were relaxing and laughing, and Jim noticed laughter from the other side of the room, and gradually, over a few days, moved the group across the room to near Kat, so that they engulfed Kat ... and then they fell in love!!

As it turns out, I guess somewhere between 1970 and 1974, a cutoff occurred, so that people born in '74 or later can figure out how to edit links in a blog in about 10 minutes, whereas people born in 1970 or prior can spend unmentionable lengths of time trying to do so and get nowhere (don't you love the way the "g" lends so much strength to the words "length" and "strength"?). So I fixed lovely Megan's links for her. So now they are working. So now you know why the "utterly vexed" post is there, and the links section is working, all in the same blog. Benjamin. Now I have to read 7 chapters (150 pages) of my horrible psycho (oh, did I say "psycho"? I meant "psych") textbook so I can be at least a tiny bit prepared for my final on Monday. May I highly disrecommend John W. Santrock's "Life Development, 10th edition"? Thankyou. Have you seen the latest model of the universe based on Cosmic background Rad...

Grrrrrrrr. Living in this computer-shaped world can be infuriating sometimes, for those of us born in 1970 who grew up without little-screen-shaped-paradigms and all their RIDICULOUS ways. I have been trying for a length of time which I shan't tell you (as it is somewhat embarassing) to create links to others' blogs. And I can't dammit! So I'm going to write them into the text. Which means I win and the ****ing ******** computer doesn't. HA HA HA! Mum's excellent blog: grettajones.blogspot.com Rachel's fantastic blog: rachelpmq.blogspot.com Sam and Becca's adorable blog: samandbecca.blogspot.com Tom, Anita and Eddie's scintillating blog: fourzed.blogspot.com Gimena, Rodrigo and Felipe's darling blog: rapelita.blogspot.com Emma's woofy blog: emmadogblog.blogspot.com Victory is sweet, foul computer! AHA!

...from Eowyn's perspective! Elle est une artiste extraordinaire! qui je t'aime BEAUCOUP!

...from Eowyn's perspective! Elle est une artiste extraordinaire! qui je t'aime BEAUCOUP!

Wine Glass Bay Tasmania 1979 I grabbed the kangaroo from behind and reveled in the glory of conquest. My arms were stretched as wide as they could go to reach around her. She could be my pet. I could tame her. We could play. I would be noted for my amazing capacity to communicate with kangaroos. She hopped out of my grasp. She won. I lost. My dominion at Coles Bay was the little creek beyond the campsite, white sand, pale gums, blue sky, calling birds. In the morning I would eagerly run there, and sit and look around and feel happy. A bull-ant bit my leg as I perched in my spot, and the pain seemed momentous, noteworthy on a grand scale, to be recorded in the annals of history. Nobody else in the family seemed very interested in my bullant bite. A steep trail led through the bush to a saddle. It intrigued me to imagine that lofty hill as a horses back, and the image didn’t quite fit into my mind. That’s what Dad called it as we slogged our way up the hill, hot and tired and annoyed at ...

Did you know that Pluto may not actually be a planet? With the discovery of UB313 (See Picture!), Pluto's planethood has become dubious. The elderly astronomer who showed me the sky in Hobart, Tasmania, when I was 9 years old told me he had discovered Vulcan, the tenth planet. I was quite excited, last night, to meet UB313 at Bens' astronomy evening ... perhaps Vulcan is real!

Here are are beautiful girls - Coco at her school gymnasium and hugging Lillie, her best-friend-at-school, and Eowyn smiling her super smile and swinging on the tyre swing her mummy made! I'm in the process of signing up for a story group on Monday mornings, in which we'll read 'To Be Told', by Dan Allender, and tell our stories, especially the painful parts. It's scary, but good scary. The author of the work book, Lisa Fann, shall facilitate. We're really enjoying having guests at our new house. It's a perfect, cosy hobbit-hole-ish place to come for a cuppa tea (or an international adventure - we have a guest room) so feel welcome!! Love Megs

We're really excited to be celebrating Purim with Talya and her family on Monday. They are from Israel, and are all really lovely.

Here is my delightful and wondrous Benjamin!

"Days, weeks, months, years, Afterwards when both were wives, With children of their own, Their mother hearts beset with fears, their lives bound up in tender lives ... Then joining hands to little hands, Would bid them join together, 'For there is no friend like a sister In calmd or storm weather; To cheer one on the tedious way, To fetch one if one goes astray, To lift one if one totters down, To strengthen whilst one stands." Christina Rosetti (Especially for my sisters Sylvia, Rachel, Anita, Becca and Kat, and that fabulous sisterly pair, Eowyn and Cosette!) Thank you my sister Sylvia for making Eowyn and Cosette the delightful cape and dress and bags here depicted!!!!

Hello! Dear little Eowyn and Cosette are contently sleeping in their bunkbeds, Bens is out playing blackjack at Tulalip Casino, and I've just been savouring the delights of my Jones family's blogs, and thought 'Dang, I think I'm going to join the blogging throngs and cast off my antiquated previous life. Well, just the blogless elements of it!!!' Today Bens the computer savvy booked Eowyn, Cosette and I tickets to Australia for Xmas, from December 2 until January 18. He shall come too, during his uni break, but we're yet to discover which uni he gets into... University of Washington is our preference, as we could still live here. Apart from the foul weather, we really enjoy our friends here, the rugged mountains and icy lakes, and the kind of wacky artsy alternative feel to the place. I do miss Australia and all her lovely inhabitants terribly though. It's a difficult tension to live with, being far from so many I love, some being in Australia, others in Eur...