"Love, is a many splendored thing...🎜🎝 "
& so true. Love is many. Many kinds of love. I know it can be overworked a lot & used to describe our affection for so much. It just has so many different categories, facets, levels. But can it ever be wrong when it's from a pure & honest heart? I myself have many loves.
Like chocolate...
Classical music like 'Humoresque', 'Romance of the Gadfly', theme from 'To Kill a Mocking Bird' , 'The Mountain King', 'Clair de Lune' to name just a few. I loved 'Clair de Lune' so much that in my 30's I decided to learn it on the piano. I have always played piano by ear, but I was learning how to read music from my sister-in-law. It took me one full year to learn, practicing every day for about an hour. I'm sure it must have driven my kids to distraction. Especially every time I would get to one spot I would make the same mistake. Augggh! The night of my recital (which I did with a group of kids under twelve years old 😲) was the only time I did it perfectly! My husband & kids were nervously waiting for the usual mistake. I think they were praying for me. A friend said he could see my legs trembling under the piano. They were! I think my family were the loudest in the clapping, but that was probably partly due to that fact that they would not have to listen to me practicing the same song every day for a year!
It is so satisfying to achieve a goal. & that was one of the things I promised myself that I would someday learn & perform. What added to the moment also was that I got to play it on a Steinway Grand Piano!
I also love Mexican food & Pizza aaannd...
Another one of my loves!
I love beauty & sparkling!
Especially on Valentines Day from that special 'someone' going on 42 years now. 😘
A few of my piggies collection....
Don't you love his piggie eye's & nose?? Adorable. 🐷
& this is who started my love affair with piggies.
Our Pot-bellied pig, Hamlet.
He may have started out what was called 'miniature' pig, but when he was grown, he was anything but! He was the 'King Kong' of miniature pigs! But so adorable. He was a house pig ( yes it's possible to house-break a pig), & had his own little spot in our mud room where he stayed at night. Otherwise, he joined the family in the living room. In the winter he loved to lay in front of the woodstove. When he laid down, it was like watching a ship listing, oh so slowly, until the weight & gravity took over & plop, (a minor earthquake) & grunt, grunt until he got completely comfortable, smacked his porky chops, & before long, 😴. He inspired the song, "Pig O' My Hearth" which was quite a hit in our family. ( It was taken from the song "Peg O' My Heart", a song from the 40's. 🐷 Heehee!)
His favorite Christmas song was "I'll Be Ham for Christmas, but only in your dreams. ''
😇
Actually, he was quite an amusing & entertaining pig, our Hamlet. In the summer when he would go outside, we would put his blankie on the ground, & he would make several trips down to the barn, would get a mouthful of hay (we had horses) & lumber back up to his blankie (dum de dum) & where he made a comfortable nest to snuggle down in. He was barely visible in his little straw home.
Chocolate is supposed to be deadly to pigs, pot-bellied pigs anyway. We had gone to church & I neglected to put the chocolate bunnies away that I had gotten for Easter. When we got home, there were empty bunny boxes strewn around, I'm thinking at least four. I rarely ever respond to a calamity with calm. (my youngest daughter reacts to these situation with cool aplomb, alas, nothing like her mother!) I was frantic, almost hysterical, although Hamlet did not exhibit any distress whatsoever. I called our veterinarian who had never treated a pot-bellied pig before. They were still quite a novelty. He said the only thing he could think of would be to give him Pepto-Bismol. Naturally, we didn't have any on the premises, so my husband jumped in the car & high-tailed it to the closest convenience store to find some. I coddled & loved on Hammie, prayed for him, cried & spoke lovey-dovey words encouraging him to hold on. He was still exhibiting no signs of distress but I certainly was. Finally my husband got home with the Pepto-Bismol liquid. Then came the dilemma of, how do you give a pig 'the pink stuff' & how much??? Well, we just had to guess the amount, got the largest syringe in the house, which was a horse syringe & plunged 'the pink stuff' into his mouth. He seemed to enjoy it for a moment, then, he stopped & it seemed he was thinking about it, "Huh"? then threw his head up & spewed the pinkish-flesh colored goop all over the kitchen, us, himself, a literal geyser! Then he grunted, & looked at us calmly, shook his head & the expression on his face was one of perplexity, "what the...", either because he wondered what in the heck-o-la were we doing or who in the world were these pink people. Well, still thinking he was in denial about how stressed he really was, my husband said, "You know, he's a pretty independent pig so it probably has to be his own idea." So we put some of 'the pink stuff' in a saucer on the floor & walked away with a "couldn't care less" guise, but out of the corner of our eyes, watching to see what he would do. He very eagerly went over to the bowl & began slurping it up. Ahhh! Success.
NOT!! It was a repeat performance only this time he sucked up a whole lot more so it covered the cupboards, the stove, the refrigerator & in fact looked like a Pepto-Bismol grenade had gone off in the kitchen. We tried to grab him, & chased him around the kitchen, determined to somehow get the goop inside him. If he wasn't in distress before, he certainly was now as he eluded the grasp of these demented pink people time & time again. We finally realized that it was futile. It's just not possible to hold a pink, (before this he was black) slippery pig! When he realized we surrendered, he once again, shook himself, showering us with droplets of 'the pink stuff', forgave us, & promptly went & laid down in front of the woodstove, completely contented, although probably comtemplating what would cause his folks to become temporarily deranged. We stayed up until the wee hours of the morning cleaning 'the pink stuff' off of everything in the kitchen although not completely successful because I would find it in the weeks to come in the most peculiar places, resolving not to ever give 'the pink stuff' to a pig again. It took awhile also to shower all of the pink residue out of our hair & off our bodies. & he didn't seem to mind the 'wash' we gave him by the fire either thank goodness. I stayed up the rest of the night though, just to make sure he didn't suffer from the trauma of 'the pink stuff' episode. The chocolate didn't bother him at all.
Hamlet was a great forager too. Especially in women's purses. I forgot at times to mention to them to not put their purses anywhere within a pigs reach. Once our Pastor & his wife (we were also good friends) came over for dinner. While we were in another room visiting, Hamlet sauntered into the room sporting a very becoming color of lipstick, although not applied with any decorum, kind of chunky here & there. Evelyn broke out into hilarious laughter, a good sport through & through! It WAS funny. Just imagine it.
Another time when my Mom & Dad were visiting, Mama left her suitcase unguarded. Exit Hamlet from the bedroom, his mouth covered in denture cream! Unlike Evelyn, my mother was not amused. She could not see the humor in it at all & I suppose if you aren't a 'piggie person', & I imagine we are a rare breed, especially having a pig in the house, ( & let me say here that pigs are clean! They will clean up everything if you don't watch them!) Hamlet should be outside like all decent pigs.
Also, one more idiosyncrasy I suppose from a human standpoint, Hamlet loved popcorn & ice cream! I trained him to come by his name using popcorn. He preferred his own bowl of course. & once he was waiting patiently for our small grandson to finish his ice cream & his piggie patience ran out. He snatched the bowl out of my grandson's grasp, put it on the floor & began gobbling the remainder of the ice cream thus qualifying the term as 'pigging out'!! ( He was put in solitary confinement for that little escapade.)
I have many other stories of Hamlet that I will share at another time. I wasn't planning to go this direction at all, but he brought us so much amusement, fun, & laughter, that he should have his moment of immortalyzing glory. He's gone home to heaven with so many of our other animal family & I know is enjoying all the eternal bowls of popcorn & ice cream his piggie heart can hold. Boy, talk about 'Pig Heaven'. & thank heaven, there's no pink stuff there!
here, that as I stated before, loving is never wrong or wasted if done with a pure heart. Love always stretches our hearts to make room for loving more. Everyone, animal folk or people folk, needs love. Of course it leaves us open & vulnerable to pain & loss, but the wells that it digs are deep & everlasting & even when we don't realize it is enriching to our souls. & in the words of Samuel Coleridge,
"He prayeth best who loveth best
all things both great & small.
For the dear God who loveth us
He made & loveth all."
I did a counted cross-stich with this poem on it & a sweet picture many years ago. & isn't it true? & aren't we incredibly blessed to be loved by our dearest Creator, Who made & loveth all?
A many splendored thing. Thank you, thank you
JESUS 💗
our best Valentine.
"...but the greatest of these is love."
Jesus
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