Growing up, Saturdays were all about preparing for Sunday... 

 our shoes were polished,  our hair was shampooed, our tithe envelopes filled…

and in the evening, a light supper of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a bowl of tomato soup,

and a glass of sweet tea with fresh lemon, followed by Hee Haw and Lawrence Welk.

As I grew older, we all pitched in cleaning the house…vacuuming our rooms, cleaning the bathroom…

There were always fresh cut roses from the garden, the furniture was polished with Lemon Pledge, 

and the floors were mopped with Pine-sol.

Mom would prepare her Sunday School lesson, Dad would prepare his sermon, 

and I'll never forget how he would rake the shag carpeting in the living room. 

It was the 70's. It's what we did.

That routine has stuck with me…parts of it…

(no shag carpeting to rake, these days)

There's just something about cleaning house on Saturday, preparing for Sunday, that feels so good…

So this is how our Saturday began...facing this playroom….

This little girl, with her beautiful, creative mind, can turn a room upside down 

in no time.

I walk through, and I find her little vignettes of play…the puppy dogs lined up in front of tiny plates..

a plastic bowl filled with water, and a tiny fisher price doll bed floating…

there had been a pool party, she says.

The "Frozen" tent lying there in front of the washer and dryer, 

cardboard boxes turned into houses for tiny dollies… 

rumpled blue tissue paper across the floor.."No, don't frwow it away…dat's da water!"

And then I remember my creative imaginative play, when I was a little girl. 

I remember the things I didn't want thrown away…

And so we sit in the middle of the floor, and I help her learn to find order… 

How to find a place for everything and everything in its place. 

I remember my mother doing the same with me…sorting through my closet filled with Barbies and boxes and baby dolls. 

Finally, there was order, and she played contentedly, at her tea table, as I moved on to the laundry and the dishes and the vacuuming.

She joined me, when I approached the back porch…

her with her little broom, sweeping along with me and mine.

Quilts and rugs gathered up for laundering…

and more hydrangeas harvested…

and then it was time for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches…and a hot bath and shampoo..

and a viewing of the old Disney movie from 1973 "Robinhood"

I slip out to the porch for a few minutes, to drape the freshly laundered quilts and rug…

and reflect...

I'm thankful for these Saturdays…preparing for Sunday….

Blessings, friends.