Third Coast Colorista

The "Bless Her Heart" Gardener

2011-07-21T07:29:00.000-07:00

Around the first of the year I got riled by an article I read that disparaged the making of "New Year Resolutions". It characterized the making of resolutions as a masochistic exercise in failure guaranteed to produce nothing more than low(er) self esteem.In fact, it spurred me on to fulfilling more of my resolutions for THIS year than probably any year to date.

I had "primed the pump" for one justification of our counter cultural move FROM a wonderful condo back into a big house last fall. While our focus was on remodeling the interior of our new digs, I knew myself well enough to take action's last fall outside to hold myself accountable to resolutions this spring. In November, my friend, Donna helped me dig out a huge patch of lawn taking the first step to putting in my first vegetable gardens in twenty five years.

Good plan. When Spring rolled around with trips to California and weddings and new grandbabies arrivals, had it not been for that indicting patch of raw earth threatening to go to weeds, I'd have procrastinated and rationalized supporting the Farmer's Market instead.

I pored over Mel Bartholomew's "All New Square Foot Gardening" book, purchased recommended, recycled plastic raised bed kits at Costco, and we were off!

I am having so much fun!

I felt such accomplishment when the planting itself was completed...as though, 'There, that's done!' DUH!

We've enjoyed salads from our garden for a month and a half as we watch and wait for other things to begin producing....and here it comes!

If blossoms are an indicator, I may have to open my own booth at Holland Farmer's Market...or perhaps a give away table!

Mel Batholomew says he guarantees you will plant your gardens differently NEXT year. I am already looking forward to getting seed catalogs and planning my gardens while the snow swirls outside my windows.

"Bless her heart". I love the south; love the civility and charm....and that sweet, kindly phrase.

The other day I read a delightfully sarcastic article that revealed the translation of "Bless his/her heart" for northerners. The author asserted it's true definition as "idiot".

Bless my heart: I planted Ichebon Eggplant only to later find it described as a "massive producer". Anyone have some good eggplant recipes?

Bless my heart: I didn't even start liking tomatoes as anything other than catsup until about five years ago. The plants are 4' high and covered with blossoms.

Bless my heart: some beetles are even bigger basil lovers than I am.

Bless my heart: I look out my kitchen window and spy cucumbers that seem to materialize hour to hour.

Bless my heart: from four little Mesclun lettuce transplants I have bulging bags of salad greens, far more than two of us can eat.

Resolutions made in the dead of winter, FULFILLED:

freezer full of strawberries and bottles of freezer jam. freezer full of fresh, Michigan asparagus. freezer full of 25# of blueberries from the wonderful farm across the street from our new home.

Summer in Michigan may not last long, but it's ...so fulfilling.

How Much Good Stuff Can You Cram Into One Day?

2011-05-10T06:56:00.000-07:00

There have been several days out here when we've been amazed at how many different activities have been crammed into short periods of time. Saturday was one of those. We got up very early to throw ourselves onto the freeways again. "Merging" onto the freeway system reminds me of the carefully orchestrated, rhythmic leap in your moment of opportunity to enter the open ropes of "Double Dutch" jump roping. There is NO opportunity provided for hesitation. "He who hesitates is lost".

Anyway, we were on the roads early to pick up Christian and Emily in Claremont and drive to the Azusa Pacific campus where the School put on a wonderful breakfast for graduates and families before heading to the stadium for Commencement ceremonies. Pomp and Circumstance played as graduating students filed into the palm tree surrounded space with the San Gabriel Mountains serving as background for the stage. Surreal...it is all surreal out here.

After graduation we wandered around the beautiful campus, oh-ing and ah-ing at the blooming exotics. Then we hopped into the car and headed south to San Juan Capistrano. We celebrated Christian's graduation with our second, great, authentic, Mexican meal in less than 24 hrs. Really, Margaritas in San Juan Capistrano...does it get better than that? We headed over to the Mission after lunch to discover that YES, it DOES look totally different in May than in January! The place is one big incredible garden. We all wandered around the spaces enjoying the history and the beauty and the heady smells of flowers. The Lantana that are sprigs in Michigan summer floral planters are hedges out here. There are huge, volently blooming Jackaranda trees here and there that look like giant purple bouquets. But along with the breathtaking beauty there is a reverence and peace to this place. We talked about how relaxing and peaceful it felt. An Oasis where the push push push of the freeways and schedules seemed to melt away.

We finally made our way outside and re entered the real world with coffees from the Starbucks across the street and headed back north to end the day in Claremont helping CJ and Emily with wedding planning details, then back onto the freeways to sleep....before getting back on the freeways to start another big day here.

Just Lunch at the Local Mall

2011-05-06T11:00:00.000-07:00

Whenever I travel out here I understand why people put up with ...well, what they put up with to live here; the freeways, the mind boggling traffic traveling at such a break neck pace. It is breathtaking for me to be in sunshine all the time. To someone from the Midwest STILL awaiting Spring at home, the vegetation here is simply unbelievable. May in California IS very different from January/February. If you see a hedge...it's blooming. If you walk outside, you smell the blooming of the exotic, everywhere. I find myself being stopped by intoxicating smells to look around and identify it's source. I've never experienced this anywhere but here in Southern California. ( except for the grape myrtle in Nashville)

Yesterday my friend, Martine picked me up for lunch at Panera. Everything here seems an adventure, even lunch at the mall.

Unlike our malls, finding a parking space here is more of a challenge. The traffic in the parking lots is crazy and reminds me of the bumper to bumper gridlock of people leaving a concert or something similar. I am sure this makes me sound like some kind of "country bumpkin" out on the town or something but SERIOUSLY life is so different here! I think the biggest "game changer" is the weather. I love things here that could not exist, at least not without substantial compensations to the concept, back in Michigan. To have lovely, expansive outdoor "living rooms" in stone courtyards complete with comfortable upholstered cushions, large metal coffee tables anchored by huge, hearthed , free-standing stone fireplaces...just leaves me, well, coveting. I want to grab a cup of coffee and sit on an outside sofa in front of a fireplace outside. OH, but there is that one other thing that could be a deal breaker. There are no BUGS here.

If it weren't so potentially embarrassing I would be taking photos all over the place to document all sorts of UBER creative landscaping to emulate in my gardens back home. If only I could get some of these more exotic things to grow in my climate, like the heavenly low growing eucalyptus grouped with heliotrope. Well, and all these beautiful varieties of palm trees.

Having lunch with Martine was a wonderful way to begin my first full day here. I LOVE laughing with her. There is something about our getting together that always ends in hearty laughter...to tears, giggling, and yesterday, at least once I know I involuntarily snorted.

Thanks, Martine for the gift yesterday was for me!

Cinco De Mayo:"Home" Again in Santa Ana

2011-05-05T09:09:00.000-07:00

Winter never challenges summer in this place. There are magnolia like blossoms the size of dinner plates blooming on a tree outside this window, and white doves circling the "mission style" hotel. I will re read the earthquake instructions ( because I am me) and then get on with vacation. We are actually calling it vacation!

Steve gave me my first Mother's Day gift yesterday. Delta upgraded him to First Class on the two longest legs of our flight west and he gave ME my first experiences of that pampering while he sat back in "steerage".

WHOA! It almost made me forget being the one person the pimply, 49 ish, geeky TSA agent singled out for special surveillance. "Female Surveillance Assistance needed" he yells, after snarkilly barking "Ma'am. Over here!" to me. He literally pointed to a spot on the floor at his feet as though directing a dog to "sit"! If I had verbalized what was going through my mind I'd be in a jail cell in Grand Rapids....for a long time. I had been thinking to myself how nice the GR TSA agents were compared to agents in other airports I have experienced. Then I ran into this jerk. It was impossible to look at him and listen to him and NOT feel he'd been a nerdy kid bullied his whole life and NOW he had a uniform and some power. DUH!

All was soon forgotten as I nestled into my first class seat with it's cheerful red blankie and little pillow and was introduced to my new friend, a 70ish woman who was more than willing to share wine, her wisdom ( she a psychologist practicing with her psychiatrist husband for 30 years in Vermont. That fed my psychology "junkiehood") and her indignation at what a pain travel had become due to the TSA. She knows what she is speaking of as she told me over the hours in the air of their travels all over the world. The conversation began with her very casual mention of politics in Mali experienced on their boat trip to TIMBUKTU! That was the beginning. As she began to warm to her subjects, not to mention her third glass ( and it was a GLASS) of Argentine Pinot Grigio, I heard about their canoe trips to visit her husband's brother, an Irish Catholic priest whose mission on the Amazon extended 1000 miles to the edge of Venezuela; of how the Bishop had a dinner they attended which featured PIRANHA cooked 28 different ways! She said it is a firm, white meat, pretty good taste and gestured with her hands the variety of sizes of piranhas. She said they'd swim with them and that unless there is blood in the water ala sharks, they don't bite. Good to know. As she talked freely of her family , of the two nannies she had had for her four children as she worked, I was pretty certain that flying first class was NOT an airline upgrade for this couple but rather the way they ALWAYS travel...when not in a canoe on the Amazon or on a boat to Timbuktu or on an Air France plane suddenly diverted to a small airstrip in North Africa where with no explanation the plane took on a group of white robed men wearing lots of jewels before taking off. ( They never could get information on what they'd seen from Air France but believe it was France helping air lift these leaders out of a military coup...no doubt to France where they could begin to live off siphoned monies deposited in Swiss Banks.)

It was a surprisingly smooth flight. The Cabernet MIGHT have had something to do with it but obviously, sharing hours of flight with this woman was a most excellent distraction for someone who hates to fly.( and these anecdotes are only the tip of the conversational iceberg which rambled from her husband's upbringing in Ireland leaving a pub five minutes before it was blown up by the IRA to her early visits to Salt Lake when you couldn't get a cup of coffee because Mormon's don't drink stimulants ,opinions on polygamy...and politics. Politics. Oddly, for some reason, this woman assumed that our "politics" were the same. WHOA! TWICE in one day I had to keep my big mouth shut! My delightful travel companion was a flaming liberal, a rabid Democrat and I would never have thought of sacrificing a second of our wonderful time by doing anything but nodding and nodding as I sipped and sipped my first class wine kindly refilled and refilled by the handsome, fliratious and well tanned male flight attendant. I do not think it was my imagination that in the first class cabin I noted the flirtatious and very attractive blonde female attendant served all the men and the guy with the dazzling dimples plied the females with drinks ( "Oh you' re not driving let me fill your glass again!") and chocolate, and hot towels before our "inflight snack". It was only a snack he said rather apologetically as he offered our menu choices. This snack was something I would be proud to serve for my next dinner party. It was PERFECTLY prepared.

My travel mate even provided free psychological insights into dealing with my lack of enthusiasm for flying, gave me methods to use and suggested goals to get a passport and travel more before we parted ways.

"Just HOW MUCH does it cost to upgrade to first class when one flies?" I asked Steve when he finally de-planed several minutes after me in Salt Lake City.

The Italian Widow Travels...but not lightly.

2011-05-04T10:30:00.000-07:00

Here I am at Gerald R. Ford International airport ready to begin our California adventure. Normally, I accompany Steve to So. Cal. on his annual meeting each January or February. I gobble up his frequent flyer miles and sit in the hotel in complete silence for a week while he is in meetings for Open Doors. Sometimes I revea my identity as one from the Midwest, land of long lingering winter, by sitting, SOLO at the pool, my pale whale belly legs exposed for all to see. Last year I was joined by a sole middle aged man who displayed an equally white but quickly pinking body as he actually swam in the pool. ( I could feel the Californians sneer!) But hey, it's the SUN!!!!
I have always been mystified by my Californian friends' comments, apologies really that what I am in awe of blooming in February is their dead winter. I have been told that this trip in May will open my eyes to real southern Californian vegetation. Like. ( ...that's as close as I get to facebook.)
Recent weight loss coupled with the switching of seasons has had me on the hunt for clothing. I've had problems lately with the grandbabies ( the one's who can walk) grabbing at my skirts and the skirts sliding down my hips. not cool. This hunt revealed again my seemingly irresistible , magnet pull toward any clothing of BLACK. I hit the jackpot early in my search finding newly tagged Clearance merchandise in a downtown shop and had piles of chic but newly cheap clothing stacked ready to be tried on in a dressing room. The helpful clerk, eyes half closed, quietly mentioned, "It's looking pretty BLACK in there..." Well, no surprise to me; the Swede disguising herself as the Italian widow....without a babushka.

I recall a special occasion as a little girl being taken to the "Tiny Tots To Teens" store downtown to pick a special dress for a birthday I think. My choice...( think '50's people) was soft turquoisy sheer fabric with black velvet polka dots and black velvet skirt. I loved it, instantly. I still recall how much my MOM hated it! My mother hates black clothing...especially on babies or children. I can still see that dress with it's little puffy sleeves and the black, patent leather Maryjane's and white anklets. PERFECT!

Fast forward to the '70's and learning the importance of proper presentation to Interior Design clients. Do Not distract or taint the true colors of the product you present to your clients with flashy dress. In other wards...wear black. I was in heaven. Did I tell you how much I like BLACK?
Unfortunately there is a price to pay...all those fabric books and sample lugging make an Interior Designer dressed in black a walking lint brush. truly.

So, now I can't seem to break the habit. Even though I purchased some colorful new pieces of clothing I have a humongous suitcase packed with black and white and a very little khaki. And five pairs of black shoes/sandals to cover every occasion: Lunch with a friend on Cinco De Mayo, our youngest son's Grad School Hooding ceremony and dinner following at Azusa Pacific University, adding to our collection of Presidential Library visits with the Reagan Library, dinner with bosses, and best of all, time spent visiting my favorite place, the Mission of San Juan Capistrano with Steve , Christian and Emily ( soon to be Mrs. Fredericks ).
What can I say?

Stillwater B & B Now Open For Business

2011-03-22T14:22:00.000-07:00

Actually this room and it's bath were the FIRST rooms tackled in "the White House" (...the ALL white, all the time, everywhere white white white house). I always tell Design clients as they move into new homes to remember that they don't HAVE to hang and display every single thing they had in their former digs. Now I've lived that experience myself. It is difficult. I have big boxes of "stuff" earmarked for a garage sale this summer, but there are still some old favorite things I felt the need to have around me.

This room, the real, honest to goodness GUEST ROOM provided the space in which to cluster all those dear things together. Like... an old table from my Grandparents ( great Grandparents?) painted white used as a night stand; a wonderful desk given me by a dear aunt also at least a generation older; favorite bedding, long of tooth but still loved for what the blue and white palette always does for my soul.

There's the flotsam and jetsam of accessories that have swirled through our many different households; Antique plates gifted us by friends and family, hand painted lamp shades and an all time favorite delphinium fabric which has made a circuit from our Winter Pine Way home to a friend's home and now back to me again . ( THAT'S a friend!) A sampler wisely advising "Bloom Where You Are Sown" reminds me of the days when I produced one elaborate sampler a year...years when my eyesight was far superior to it's present state and babies were in bed by 7:30 p.m.

I LOVE the room. It is comforting and sweet. It was the first stab at new colors in the new, WHITE house. The walls are Benjamin Moore Beacon Gray 2128-60...doesn't look gray to me. It's light and cheerful and a new favorite shade.

If you're in the Holland area we've a sweet place waiting for you!

One New Thing.

2011-03-06T12:16:00.000-08:00

"New Things" seems to be God's theme for us in the past year. I vaguely recall days and years when I was nursing and diapering babies... when days and months seemed to run together in much sameness and routine. I am no longer living in those times.

It was my intent to blog as each room in "the white house" we moved into at the end of last August was transformed. I never envisioned the whole house being changed simultaneously....but better to get it all over at once. What's alittle more chaos when you've been living with your belongings in a storage facility for two months as you progressively sell the roofs over your head?

So, for those who haven't seen it in person, here is "the big reveal."

In many ways, this "great room" was the most difficult because other areas in the house formed first and this big open space, the first encountered by visitors, really stymied me.

The room has so many windows that I found myself actually avoiding walking through it. It hurt my eyes when the sun was shining. The first inspiration was an already "tried and loved" favorite Benjamin Moore paint color on the two storey's of walls... "Sandy Hook Gray HC-108.

I like to pat myself on the back for spending months sifting through greys years back and finding this wonderful color years before it became a Pottery Barn favorite color this year.

Another interesting challenge was presented in that the buyers of our condo requested purchasing many of our furnishings. This meant less to put in storage for a still unknown home we didn't know would fit the old furnishings AND presented a truly "clean palette" when we finally landed wherever.

It was good until we realized we had nothing to sit on once we arrived here .

It's eclectic, and the acquisition of the elements in this room were without rhyme or reason. Interior Design ADHD to be sure! It is still a "work in progress", which my homes ALWAYS are, but with the addition of the grey washed thick wicker chairs it all "clicked".

It's eclectic alright, with the felt penny rug, my antique platter collection and Paula Dean's funky, over sized table. ( THAT was practical...on clearance and huge enough for our whole extended family with it's two giant leaves...LOVE it!)

I love the room at night with the lights on the garland ( which I MUST remove with Easter approaching ) and the light in my china cabinet. And the lamp on the antique chest lighting my sampler collection.

So, here is the Third Coast Colorista's first "reveal" for your viewing!

How To Get From There To Here

2011-01-31T11:30:00.000-08:00

How shall I begin to blog again?

How DID I get here from there?

I've thought hard on this...not long, haven't had the time. As a former "24" fan I've often characterized the last four months of my blogging life as "going dark." I mean, I am sure that when Jack Bauer disappeared into thin air he also neglected the sending out of Christmas cards. I can't stop thinking about all those people we communicate with each Christmas who think we've fallen off the face of the earth, or those who've attempted to contact us to ask what's happened to us.

Maybe I will send Ground Hog Day cards and try to explain the story of our last nine months.

In a nutshell, after a summer of selling off our properties and storing the stuff not sold along with our old places, we spent three weeks living with our son and daughter in law before moving into our new home; the property which intrigued us with it's spaciousness, neighborhood and white on white on white interiors. For two days ( or was that minutes?) the Third Coast Colorista thought about what living in a completely white world might be like. Restful? Calming? Peaceful? But then I began to unpack the furnishings and boxes stored through the summer...and recall how vitally important COLOR is in my life.

After a period of creative paralysis, the remodelling plan and process burst through like that old television ad where the Drano pushes the plugging clog through the glass drain pipe. With Avery and Tawe's help the white white white white turned into Sandy Hook Grey, Semolina, Dark pumpkiny Dried Mustard, Beacon Grey, Pale Avocado, Oxford Grey and Soliel. Blues, pale and dense cadet, yellows, sunny and deeply golden, coppers and greys inspired by the beautiful little red breasted nuthatches and Titmice, and Chickadees eating all day just outside our new kitchen's windows. For a month and a half I personally experienced the process I have walked so many clients through for the last thirty years...up close and personal. I gained a whole new empathy for those people as I've lived through the dusts: drywall, wood, ceiling tile and others and the hot odor of soldering, scents of paints and flooring adhesives. My ears now ring with the LACK of cycling air compressors and although all the contractors who worked on the house were more than swell guys, it's kind of nice to dawdle over my coffee in my pajamas beyond 7am. Really I can't complain. In a shockingly short period of time, with guys sometimes working here late into the night ( or early into the morning...) we gutted and replaced the kitchen, finished off the lower level and repainted all but a couple rooms of the house. Amazing. Just amazing. We pretty much lived in the basement for afew weeks, and until a new stove was wheeled into the house with only a day or two to spare, Thanksgiving dinner looked pretty dicey. Even the contractors were shocked at the unheard ofturnaround from order to delivery/installation of new kitchen cabinets and Corian countertops, both arriving weeks sooner that the norm resulting in the impossible dream of pulling off the family Christmas with everything completed. Work was being done until almost noon on Christmas Eve and I literally pulled protective plastic off appliances and immediately pressed them into service.

Now the holidays are over and the dust is settling...AND blowing around (LITERALLY. We have to have the duct work cleaned for sure!). But I think the new "normal" is setting in. Pictures are hung, almost all boxes are unpacked, and cleaning the house is no longer a futile, counter-productive endeavor. I'm beginning to let my mind wander to what I will plant in the garden plot hacked out of the backyard sod late last fall and what shrubs and perennials might best surround the small courtyard patio we had poured as the first snowflakes began dancing in the air last November.

...and then there are those Ground Hog Day cards.....

Continuing to Live Life Spontaneously

2010-09-16T13:57:00.000-07:00

September has arrived and while I am feeling myself crushed with our attempts to unpack our things in an unfamiliar place while being deluged with the start ups of all the activities and responsibilities we shed along with our sweaters and socks last Spring, I will delay a blog on the outcome of our BIG ADVENTURES in MOVING until my mind and body catch up with Two Men And A Truck . Instead I will tell a story about visiting a storybook like place called, "The Blue Dress Farm".

Five days after two truckloads and several car, SUV, and van's full of our "stuff" was deposited at the new house, ( It won't be "home" until Avery has had his way with all it's walls, but that's a different blog as well!) ...anyway, we found ourselves pulling ourselves away from our frantic search to locate THE boxes containing underwear, coffee, toilet paper and the like to take a drive to Benton Harbor for a look at a potential wedding venue for Christian and his Emily. They had actually set up an appointment for us with the proprietor.

It was H-A-R-D to tear ourselves away from unpacking after having all our stuff in storage for months, but it was a beautiful day for a drive and the coffee tasted good on the way down the road.

We arrived early and wandered around talking to catering people preparing for the wedding to be held there that afternoon. We took scads of pictures and met with the owner to talk about some of the questions Emily had wanted answered. It's a beautiful place, absolutely what the kids described they desired to gather friends and family to for their wedding and I was anxious to get home to send off pictures to California and maybe Skype that afternoon about the venue.

The caterer's truck had left and another vehicle came crunching down the gravel road into the clearing. It stopped and it's occupants stared at us.

CHRISTIAN and EMILY! They flew in from California to surprise us!! I am not a cryer... but I was bawling like a baby. Suddenly we realized why Megan had scheduled a family potluck BBQ for Saturday night only a week following her big 30th birthday bash. It was the best surprise... TOTAL surprise that we have had in maybe forever. A long time at least. Good thing. We are "getting up there" as my Dad used to say, and shocks like this might prove unsettling.

You know what? Keep the surprises coming!

Thanks to all the faces in this picture who helped us in all sorts of ways to maintain sanity and made it physically possible for us to survive so many aspects of the last several months . (Only Derek is missing from the picture because he was working.) WE LOVE YOU ALL!...MORE!!!

Vern and Eunice, Two Marys and a Joseph

2010-08-10T16:47:00.000-07:00

It started with a sermon on putting your feet in the water, committing yourself to what you feel God calling you to do in your life. In a flash...SIX WEEKS ACTUALLY, we have transferred ownership of our homes and furnishings and gardens to Vern and Eunice, two Mary's and a Joseph. They are all thrilled with their new digs and accoutrement. I'm happy for them, really I am.

Yesterday I packed the last box, cleaned the last place to an immaculate status, left instructions to smooth the new owner's transition along with a bouquet of my garden's ( soon theirs) cut flowers and a bottle of wine to enjoy as they consider the killer view. We loaded the car and left Sandy Pines. Adam and Caity and Lola have taken us in for our three "homeless" weeks.

Three doors closing, one after another in rapid succession but soon, NEW doors opening.

Taking A Breath and a Quick Glance Back.

2010-07-29T04:30:00.000-07:00

Got Mr. Kozak's for lunch...but got no table or chairs...or bibs?

NO PROBLEMO!!!!

This is a shot of the cousins sharing a tasty gyro on the floor of the empty dining room on our last day in the condo.

It seems SO long ago, but you could count it in days.

It is good to know that we survived that door closing...and the closing of the door as we sold our older place at Sandy Pines...

...just as we will survive as we pack things up and move them out of our sweet place on this little cove full of Kingfishers, Herons, and wonderful sunsets, leaving it to the new owners.

I'm happy that there are three sets of people that are SO excited about the new places they are inheriting from us.

I'm thankful that once again, God has accomplished a maximum of molding and adjustment in our lives in a remarkably minimal time frame.

I'm hopeful that in a month's time we will find ourselves unpacking our things in our new home.

We are blessed, truly blessed!

but God Meant It For Good...

2010-07-13T11:26:00.000-07:00

After all the hubbub of the last two months we finally find ourselves with our whole family ( even Emily and Christian who flew in for the week from So. California) at the Fredericks' cottage at the "tip of the Thumb" of Michigan for a peaceful week of vacation on the shore of Lake Huron. And, as always, we spend time appreciating the gift that Steve's parents gave us in the wonderful summer times spent here for all these decades.

Things here have changed over more recent years. First, one winter a burst water pipe resulted in a lengthy and extensive remodelling . By the time it was completed, Nana and Papa were for the most part not able to live up here any longer.

These two circumstances have resulted in a different look here. Mom loved gardening and the window boxes dripped with annuals. Little strips of garden boasted her favorites, dahlias and snapdragons often cut and arranged with tall gladiolas purchased from the local grocery. For years and years, we'd dig out huge clumps of her ubiquitous varigated hostas and orangey red Gaillardia to take home to start gardens at all our homes.

Mom "deadheaded " her Gaillardia and pitched the heads over the foot low cement block wall separating the lawn from the sand dune shore of the lake.

Last summer FOURTEEN of us, three generations, returned for a week of vacation thanks to the graciousness of Steve's brothers who took over ownership after Mom and Dad's passing. We again marvelled at the spattering of Gaillardias flowering in the sand on the beach side of the wall along with the two " Baby's Breath" plants which at one time had been true "specimens"...tall and broad, more easily considered shrubs than a flowering perennial plant, now all surviving rooted in sand with only an occasional drink of rain. We commented on the miracle of their subsistence....and were crushed when the landscapers hired to mow the lawn methodically moved to the beach side of the wall, turning these brave "volunteers" to sand and close cropped stubble.

Imagine our surprise to be greeted upon our return for a week THIS summer by a thick garden of orange and burnt red flowers periodically studded with healthy Baby's Breath plants! It's a powerful relearning of the concept of pruning of plants and people. It always seems so painful and harsh...but the longer term rewards are stellar!

I found myself thinking of the Biblical story of Joseph, now powerful and ruling Egypt, reassuring his brothers who feared his retribution for selling him into slavery in Genesis.

God is in control. There is NOTHING He does not either allow or ordain. He promised ALL is ultimately for good.

"What you meant for evil, God worked for good!"

Genesis 45:5

And...That's That AGAIN

2010-07-08T12:29:00.000-07:00

Ten days after our closing on our home in town, we found ourselves sitting in another closing at Sandy Pines. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I am getting used to this emotional upheaval, but I did sense a certain numbness as we walked through "K4" on Sailboat Cove for the last time; at least as it's owners. I really like Mary, it's new owner. I am so happy that she and our wonderful old neighbors are getting EACH OTHER.

I liked hearing her say that after being shown twenty other places she "fell in love" with mine. I am so happy for her excitement to move her vanful of things into my dear little yellow "cottage on the lake" ( we hesitate to use that "T" word) and for her looking forward to her family coming to visit this weekend. It makes it all seem as though it is exactly the way it was always meant to be.

After driving over to our old place to turn on lights and get everything up and running for the new owner's "walk through", we returned to the only roof remaining over our heads to find a park sales agent just finishing a showing with a prospective buyer.

It's a good thing to remember GOD is in control. That there is NOTHING HE does not allow or ordain in our lives.

For today, we look forward to a dinner at Uccello's tonight to celebrate paring ourselves down to one car, one elderly motorcycle, two storage units full of "stuff"....and only ONE trailer on a man-made lake in Allegan County. LIFE IS GOOD

And That's That.

2010-07-01T16:18:00.000-07:00

And then, suddenly all the packing was over; the mountains of boxes all transferred to a storage unit...OK, TWO storage units, a mile from home.
NOT our home anymore.
The parting was made slightly less jarring by the new owners purchase of the larger pieces of our furniture on the main level, so the place wasn't so entirely, sterilely empty when I closed the door for the last time.
But I know that already my former space is being filled with stranger's things...it's THEIR home now, afterall.

We've moved more than most and my leave takings have usually been hasty retreats, no backward glances only itching to start unpacking at the eagerly anticipated new digs; new homes whose walls often began as pencil scratchings on my sketchpad.
Not this time.
This time is different.
This is obsessively poring over the MLS between packing marathons. Trying to imagine our things in....a 1923 farmhouse with a small barn and chicken coop. Or a 1956"Jetson" house...which was one day quite stunning, but not alas, today. There are new houses with the shockingly hard colors and black brown cabinetry we started out with in our very first home in 1978. I think I've been there and done that. There are dear old, hopelessly outdated homes that I long to revive...I feel their sense of rejection "How long have you been on the MLS? How many changes of Realty agents ?"....but I'd love to do that transformation for someone else, not for me!
There was a two story "barn", 30'x60' down a winding road in deep woods that a builder tempted us with a creative and practical reworking of space. But taking down the trees necessary to get a yard and some sunshine would yield enough firewood to last us years but tree felling and stump grinding would gobble up a budget.

On the Internet, two houses made my heart go pitty pat. They were both filled with wonderful "creature features" and the MLS photos looked great...but Onsite visits revealed that these homes had broken their family's hearts...water damaged and filled with black mold they sat empty and abandoned; just existing to disappoint MLS mavens who think they've finally stumbled upon "THE" new home for them.

On Tuesday, at 7:50 am, the moving truck pulled up and eight hours later I found myself all alone in my emptied and spotlessly clean FORMER home. Really, it looks like a brand new home. God gifted us with a beautiful, cool day. The breezes grabbed my pretty Martha Stewart lace curtains...I know it sounds hokey but it was as though they were waving goodbye. I AM going to miss them. I WAS tempted to "forget" that they were included in the sale....but if that had ever been a serious thought, which it wasn't, at our closing on Monday, their new owner asked once again, for good measure, "...and the window treatments are all staying?" yes,theyallstay.dang

...but I digress. It was so quiet. No one but me and the waving laces and the ceiling fans swirling lazily. I lingered. After so much rushing around running from detail to detail, I lingered, alone. It was difficult to leave, but I turned off the fans, latched the windows, denying the sweet breezes. I thanked God for all the blessings I so don't deserve, and I locked the door and drove away for the last time.

The Full Moon and Peonies, Saying Goodbye.

2010-06-10T07:56:00.000-07:00

It's always been one of my little secrets. I ascribe human characteristics and emotions to inanimate objects. My perennials have always been personal "friends" welcomed back each Spring, mourned in their winter sleeps. I have a heart for "adopting" abandoned furniture and old dishes. I have offered to forego payment for design consulting services receiving instead, furnishings my clients were ready to "kick to the curb"...or a dear but partial set of old, crazed glaze Homer Laughlin dishes some young bride was so proud to display in 1898. I tell myself that I am providing them with a home...maybe even cherishing them more than any previous owner. Sick! I know! Don't start with the sermons, I've run them all through my head.

And so I am finding myself in an emotionally precarious place. Packing boxes that up to this moment are going...nowhere?...a storage facility (location also unknown)...a new hobby farm, forest retreat, suburban tract house. We've never been confronted with the offer to buy our furnishings before. It is sensible. They "make" this wonderful home we are leaving and may well NOT fit in our new home. I know the new owners to be extremely kind, already appreciating these (let's get real!) THINGS!

I am sure it's my imagination. NO! It's real. My peonies outdid themselves this month. They appear to be triple petalled and nary an ant on the counter below their immense bouquet. It's as though they are saying goodbye in the best way they can.

It's that time of "the lasts": a game I play whenever I move or we go on a big trip. This is the LAST shower I will take before leaving. This is the LAST time I will clean out these drawers. This is the LAST time I will watch the raccoons wrestling at my bird feeder at night. This is the LAST time I will bake a pie in this oh so well designed kitchen. This is the LAST time I will drag a pillow and blanket from the bedroom, open the windows to crisp breezes and fall asleep watching the full moon and bright stars from my dear, dear sunporch.

ANTIDOTES:
To be used to counteract the sometimes irresistible desire to look down, panic, and sink as I "walk on water" in faith:

* Accept any opportunities offered for coffee with friends and family.
It's so easy to say I have no time ( and I probably don't) but spending time with friends to vent and hear what's going on in their lives is a calming island of sanity in the unsettling maelstrom my life has become.

* Strive to NOT procrastinate, but rather methodically pack and dispose of STUFF in a timely fashion to head off any "marathon of panic" on June 29th.
Identify afew favorite things: a coffee mug, a favorite blanket,book, kitchen wares to take with me in the interim. The comfort of alittle "familiar".

*Focus on all the ways, some quite miraculous through which God has clearly affirmed this adventure of ours.

* Stop myself from the obsessive compulsive practice of going over the Multilistings online over and over again in hopes something will change. Make a physical list of criteria for our new home so that we are not susceptible to the constant temptation to find a HOUSE in order to have an address as quickly as possible ( and a home for all the boxes)...but fall short of fulfilling the perceived needs of this move.

* Kiss and hug on Grandbabies whenever I can and remind myself that they will NOT go in boxes but will be the best comfort in the coming months of exodus.

*MOST importantly. Make time alone with God to talk to Him and LISTEN for HIS guidance in this unsettling and unsettled time.

Eighteen more days of "Good Byes" to 1620 High Pointe Drive.

Taking A Step Away From The Third Rail.

2010-05-29T11:50:00.000-07:00

As the shock of the warp speed sale of our condo begins to couple itself with the rapidly approaching closing and potential move out date, I finally raise my head from a half packed box. It just may be time to consider a question many are posing, namely, WHERE are we going?

Organizationally comforting and familiar to me, I had eagerly launched into the packing,cleaning,packing ploy....the perfect distraction from that nagging, persistent query...where ARE we going?
Although God has moved the majority of our homes in this manner; that being, receiving generous offers to often the first people to walk through, we have personally always had an idea of WHERE we were going. This time is SO different!...and this mountain of packed boxes has to ultimately go SOMEWHERE!
Our initial plan is to store our things and move out to Sandy Pines for the summer. When you think that we don't have to move anywhere until they turn the water off on October 15th, you can be lulled into sense of there being no real rush. But I tend to forget that in the middle of the night when I have trouble sleeping. When I WILLFULLY forget the miracles God has already done in this housing situation.

We've picked up the "Old People" habit of going for drives. We drive and drive looking for FSBO's and Realty signs in the areas we think we are interested in. I really wish God would just put an address on a slip of paper inserted in our mailbox. THAT would be sweet. I scour the Internet for house listings, old and new. We check out new leads which so far have been eliminated for one reason or another.

THIS WEEK'S MOST PROMISING CANDIDATES:
A surprise in the running, a REAL paradigm shift for us, my eye kept falling on a "short sale" listing of a low, brick, "Mid Century" home in a nice Southside neighborhood. The more I looked at it, the more I thought of creative ways to transform the sow's ear to a fantastically appealing "silk purse". We gathered with our realtor in the backyard to discuss the obvious...an in ground pool. This be COULD be fun, not to mention a terrific Grandchild magnet. We could do this!...then we stepped inside. The new roof and aluminum fascia work belied the disaster within. Too suddenly I understood why the owners had "walked away" from this "beauty". I had had such sweet plans and they were dashed, I tell you! You would have had to rip the entire house down to the studs and you'd never ever get the investment out of the property.
(A note about those "studs". After we left and I glanced at the disclosure page of the listing just handed to us I found TERMITES and STANDING WATER in the basement "disclosed". Really sad...I had such hopes to score on this 115K "beauty".)

Then there is the idyllic, 8 acres overlooking rolling farmland. Unfortunately the house is perched at the edge of the rolling part and has no..."front", just a double garage door with a service entrance. Nope

And what ABOUT living in the country for the first time, speaking of "paradigm shifts"? We are truly "city folk" and not "handy" at that. (Insert Butterfly McQueen from "Gone With The Wind" here) "We don no nothin'bout propane tanks...or septic fields or wells..." Steve came home with a great idea the other day, one with the potential to make the re-entry shock of going from a condo where we have enjoyed landscape care as a SPECTATOR sport to something less painful. "Let's plant dune grass!" I actually kind of like dune grass but have heard stories of vermin setting up occupancy, not to mention I doubt a neighbor would accept the alternative. But I digress...

Yesterday, though we felt we were "beginning to follow the light" to center our thoughts on a house plan and finding an appropriate lot, we arranged for a showing of a home that sounded interesting. (You KNOW it had to have some positive attributes to make a proud MSU fan even consider setting foot on Wolverine Street!)
Well, it DID. And let me tell you, a lovely garden turned this girl's head big time! It was not our style in almost ANY way EXCEPT for those gardens and the fact that it was immaculate. I was ready to sign on the dotted line...my mind running ahead to ways to "make it ours" (...just how DO you soften a contemporary into "cottage" and might this be,afterall, a matter for an Interior Design Board of Ethics???)
It was a potent brew seeping into my mind: The challenge of recreating this home to make it ours, the irresistible temptation to NOT have to double move and pay storage fees and live in limbo for months. We were getting excited, creative juices gushing into replacing "medium oak" with glass fronted creamy cabinets, bead board here there and everywhere...punching MORE skylights into the roof.
Pause.
Suddenly I saw Jimmy Stewart enjoying the cigar, sitting across the desk from Old Man Potter when that smallest shaft of light, that "too good to be true" hits his consciousness.
The longer I stood in the house, the longer the liability side of the ledger got. Not for my husband who has always and often proclaimed that he could live happily in a double wide. But for me, who NEEDS light and lots of cross ventilation, for me my decades of doing this for other people refused to allow me to ignore the pool of dread beginning to spread in my gut. Listen to the dread...listen to the dread.
the small windows and lack of A/C...the realization that sunlight doesn't flow into this house save through a few skylights. Can't do it. Sad Sad Sad but good bye to rising hope, again.

So here I am. A wise and dear friend reminded me this week of how easily we shake our heads at the thankless Hebrews of the Exodus, so quickly forgetting the miracles of God's repeated and dramatic provisions for their deliverance and sustenance. Yet in a few days they were shaking their fist at Him and asking why they ever left Egypt.

Time to take a break from the frenetic scramble to "find" the place and "find it NOW"...and also from the distraction of mindless packing and cleaning, to spend some quiet time focusing on gratitude and faith that in HIS perfect timing He WILL reveal our new home. Having one and two year old sister's for their first overnight away from Mom and Dad should also prove an adequate diversion from my misplaced frettings.

"She said,YES!"

2010-05-25T08:19:00.000-07:00

I was jolted by my cell phone ringing later than usual Sunday night. After locating and retrieving the black covered phone from the "Black Hole of Calcutta" which is my purse I rushed to make contact with whoever was calling before it went to voicemail. The response to my "Hello?" was an exuberant voice..."SHE SAID,YES!"

On Sunday afternoon, at Joshua Tree National Park in Twenty Nine Palms, California, my baby boy, Christian John got down on one knee, pulled out the beautiful ring and asked his sweet Emily Kay to marry him. WOO WOO!!!

It was so fun to listen to them both bubble over with such delight. Emily said she was so excited that she was now going to become a "real" member of our family. Truth is she's been one of us from the start. When I mentioned that she was going to become Emily Kay Fredericks, she exclaimed that she hadn't even thought about that!

Emily and Katie were the girls' names in the running for our last two babies, which ended up Adam and Christian. The furthest thing from my mind in those days of managing four little ones five years and under was that these baby boys would bring an Emily Fredericks and a Caity Fredericks into our family. I am getting my Emily and Caity afterall! God is SO good, all the time He is good. These sweet young women are such blessings to our whole family. They and Becky's Derek and Megan's Avery are wonderful "gifts" to our family we could never have imagined back then.

Oh, oh, oh...now the planning begins...even for the beige-clad Mother of the Groom.

Congratulations to Christian and his Emily Kay!

On the Road ...again.

2010-05-18T07:40:00.000-07:00

I love analogies. For me,analogies have always seemed the most effective way to more accurately convey a thought. Not unusual to have had one pop into my noggin to provide a starting off point for this posting....Not that it will make our newest adventure seem any less crazy to all those in our lives who are, once again, shaking their heads at our latest "adventure".
Do you know what it's like when your radio is on the outer edge of reception for a station? You carefully turn the knob ( OK, I am old!) to the right and left trying to get a clearer signal. THAT is how a nagging "nudge" has seemed in our lives for the past couple of years. The spiritual "poking" seemed to tell us that we should leave our beautiful, comfortable home. We resisted the continuing nudges.(..it is a beautiful home that "works" well for us. It is very comfortable...did I tell you about our sunporch? The Tempurpedic bed? right..)But the taps on the shoulder kept getting more persistent.

We had been drinking in eight weeks of teaching by Ray Vanderlaan on Sunday nights at Central Wesleyan Church. His topic, "Let My People Go", a deep and fascinating preaching /teaching on Moses and the Exodus, of God leading the Hebrews out of Egypt. One Sunday night Ray taught on Exodus 14:15. The Hebrews of the Exodus were at the shores of the Red Sea with Pharoah's Army of chariots pursuing them at full speed.TRAPPED.

"Then the Lord said to Moses, "Quit praying and get the people moving! Forward march!" Exodus 14:15 (Life Application Bible)
RVL taught that God was saying," Show me YOU are IN the water"..and then watch for my mighty works.

This is what I wrote in my journal ( Do YOU journal...you should!!!) just below in my notes on that Sunday night:
? Are we waiting for God to act when WE haven't stepped into the water?
We talked about that.
We called our Realtor.
We listed the house late on a Tuesday afternoon
....and it was sold on Friday of that week.

We We We. Another thing RVL taught about was the habit we have of talking in terms of what WE are going to do or have done, completely neglecting the reality that GOD is totally and absolutely sovereign in all aspects of our lives. NOTHING happens that HE does not allow or ordain. The circumstances of this sale are certainly validations of those concepts. The market has plummeted. Several condos have been for sale in our small development, some for over a year, with no actions other than price reductions. How else can we account for an immediate sale for more than we were told to expect with terms that would not require a bank appraisal. It is GOD'S work. "We" sold nothing.
Then, just like Peter stepping out of his boat to walk on water, I looked down and began to "sink". We have no plan where are we going to go where are we going to live have I already forgotten what a pain moving is and how I was going to try to never do this again and by the way where are we going to go?...in one month why do I continue to be in bondage to all this stuff I surround myself with?pant pant gasp gasp...(Please insert picture of chicken running in frenetic circles squawking here.)

Yesterday the new buyers came to visit with us. They are wonderful people and before we knew it, four hours had passed. Here is their story:
They'd been looking for the right place since last fall, finding several places that "worked"...but just didn't seem to be "THE" one. The wife said as she walked into our foyer she told her husband, "this is a happy home" and knew it was "the one." That's right, Blog readers. Throwing all "Flip this house" rules to the curb, God brought someone who loves my "American Cheese" front room, my "Red Pepper half bath/laundry room and my softly chartreuse "Pale Avocado" sunroom with the pretty Swedish blues running between them all! She said she was surprised after her first visit that she couldn't recall any specific things she was going to check out about the home, but simply knew this was it.
But the most incredible thing these people shared with us was this: As they prayed and discussed whether to put an offer in on our home, whether to commit themselves to relocating here from another state and the comfortable home they built for themselves over three decades ago...the scripture that came to them was this same passage in Exodus and they determined that they were to "step into the water" and purchase this condo.
The squawking chicken is sitting quietly in a corner now. People still are shaking their heads, think we're crazy. We still have no clue as to where we will be living long term, but we are ABSOLUTELY certain, as we stand in the water, that GOD knows exactly when and where we will be moving.
Don't you just love Him?

Just so you know it's all true...

2010-04-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

The ad on TV says, " Ask your friends. Check it out on Facebook and Twitter."I don't know why I feel the need to do this, but everytime I see the ad on TV, with the small army of people saying "Ask me!" I want to jump up and be counted, too!
Everytime I see a Tempurpedic mattress advertisement on TV I find that I stop what I am doing and watch it. Maybe it is because with all the hyperbole and political rhetoric ricocheting through the media these days it is a relief to hear something I KNOW to be absolutely true.

It all began several years ago when our oldest daughter and her soon to be husband invited us to go mattress shopping with them ("We don't know anything about these things and it's a big investment and you and Dad have purchased mattresses before") Well, if you know me, I would never turn down an invitation to walk through a furniture store! As the kids wandered the bedding aisles and were being serenaded with "Mattress 101" by their salesman, I found myself standing in front of the Tempurpedic. Normally I would feel self conscious, but no one was around and so I laid my body down.
Life stopped.
In a split second I realized that I had grown accustomed to the chronic aching pains of my Fibromyalgia...and that when I laid down on that mattress, suddenly, nothing hurt. Bang.
I went from being self conscious about laying on a mattress in public to Ally McBeal imaginings of salespeople forcibly removing me from the mattress and the store at closing time.
....When I was a little girl I remember "The Loretta Young Show" and in one drama she played a model whose job it was to sleep in a bed in a atore window...Maybe I could convince ArtVan that people viewing my enjoyment of their sample mattress would be good for business?
....Also when I was a little girl, my parents would take us girls to the local toy store before Christmas in order to gauge our "wish list" for Santa. On one such trip my younger sister took one look at the stuffed "Zippy the Monkey" and threw such a tantrum at the thought of being separated from it that they bought it for her on the spot....but the Tempurpedic is ALOT more expensive than a Zippy and I didn't think the tantrum thing would so much work with my husband.
So, with reluctance and a couple looks over the shoulder, I got up and walked away from this newly revealed obsession.

Fast forward afew years. I had come to realize that sleeping on the sofa wasn't as painful as our bed and though still hobbling each morning, more or less took my nights on the sunporch couch. Both of us were dealing with stiff necks and chronic backache and then, it happened.
One day, Steve returned from running an errand with a receipt and date for delivery of our own Tempurpedic! As the Dutch say, "Oh, Oh, Oh!"WHAT a husband!
This is our testimonial: EVERYTHING they say on those ads....it's TRUE. You will notice the ads themselves are soothing and relaxing and that is how I feel when I even think about that mattress waiting, serenely in the bedroom. As it gets later in the day, I begin to look forward to crawling into that bed and when I wake up in the morning, I am conscious of how absolutely comfortable and soothed my body feels and how much I hate to get out of it. With our old mattress I literally had difficulty walking upon getting out of bed and would grab at furniture and walls for my hobble to the bathroom. I pop out of that Tempurpedic like "Mighty Mouse" (...also from my long ago youth.)
It costs a "Kings ransom" but it is one of the best purchases we have EVER made because when you sleep this well, as in no more waking multiple times per night, waking refreshed and relaxed and painfree...other parts of life seem to go better.
We miss it when we're gone from home and have actually verbalized, TO THE BED, how happy we are to return to it after a trip.
Believe it. BELIEVE IT ALL and begin to save your pennies.
Those Swedes know how to make a wonderful bed.

On Guard While You Sleep

2010-04-08T09:54:00.000-07:00

I have always loved a powerful painting by Christian artist, Thomas Blackshear II called "Watchers in the Night". It portrays a young boy in bed asleep in a dark room with a guardian angel towering over him. The angel is massive, strong and handsome. He has beautiful and huge wings that protectively curl around the boys sleeping form. The spear held in the angel's left hand leaves no doubt he is there to protect, and a flame, representing the Holy Spirit's presence, hovers above the angel's cupped right hand. At times when I have been afraid, this painting comes to my mind and I am comforted by the promise that God is watching over me...and I recall the times in my life when I have been amazed at how HE grabbed me by the nape of my neck and plucked me from all nature of dangers...because HE is ALWAYS that close beside me!

Over the last four years we have been aware of a sweet example of "guardians" in our little dogs, particularly our little female, Idgie Threadgoode, named after a favorite character from, "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe" by Fannie Flagg. Our Idgie really has the opposite character of the heroine she was named for. She is slow, pudgy, extremely timid and gentle. When the grandbabies started coming we noticed that she took on a new role. She seems to feel the need to protect the youngest. We have five grandbabies now. The oldest just turned four and the youngest is a month, so there are lots of babies to keep sweet Idgie busy.Though reticent and withdrawn (sometime under the couch) around strange adults and other animals, she is comfortable approaching the little ones at play and often seeks out the youngest to snuggle next to during "tummy time". As they grow old enough to sit upright, she changes her position to curling protectively behind their little bodies like some fluffy, furry little Bumbo seat. She very patiently allows the little ones to touch her nose and eyes and play with her tail and doesn't seem phased by alittle pull or poke here and there.

When the babies take naps at YaYa and Boppa's they sleep in the Pack 'N Play in the bedroom. I have long ago learned to be watchful. Idgies aim is to silently, lest we adults notice, sneak in behind us and stay with the babies. I have often discovered the "missing" Idgie sleeping on the floor beside the napping baby's crib. Denied by the adults in charge, she sometimes stays as close as she can get...snoozing on the floor outside the closed bedroom door.

After naps or for special treats, we have movies for the kids. (Ask me for ANY line of dialogue from "Finding Nemo" which, really, is a favorite of mine). As the kids scramble up into their "theatre seats" on the sofa the dogs stand in line waiting their turn to join the little ones for the show.

And their only compensation?.... the occasional Goldfish or Craisin "escapee", the orts (word of the day for all of you who don't do crossword puzzles) landing in the overspray perimeter of floor beneath the highchair. There is no hazard pay for the occasional pinched paw. One thing for certain, I know that after a day around the grandbabies, these hardworking guardians sleep soundly through the following day. Shepherding little children is NOT an easy task!

More Control Over My Thyme

2010-02-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning, while reaching into my cupboard for something, a metal container of Ground Thyme fell out. Upon closer inspection, I noted spots of rust on it's base and flipped it over to learn it had an expiration date of 1979!! That's right, it became ineligible for use as a spice in the eyes of some spice authorities THIRTY ONE years ago! That coupled with a three day and three night "sleepover" with an almost four year old, Eden and almost two year old, Judah made me realize that despite my "kvetching" I actually have more time on my hands on a daily basis than I previously thought. SO I launched into an early "Spring Cleaning" of my kitchen.

To make this a more "festive" occasion,and because "waste not, want not", I popped the cap off a long forgotten Killians sporting a dubious date on it's bottle face.(Steve assured me that if it had gone "skunky" I would know it!) Back in 1979, cleaning ovens was a chore( remember the horrid smell of Easy Off Oven Cleaner? Talk about a potential hazard...better the filthy oven!) All I do now is flip a latch and turn a knob and my oven ends up clean as a whistle. I am as thankful for that feature as I am that my four children accepted toilet training.
As long as I had begun with appliances, I next approached the long neglected pull out freezer drawers.

A detour to start a big pot of water on the stovetop. My BEST soups are one of a kind "clean out the fridge and freezer" variations, loosely based upon what meat I can identify through the frosty ziplock bags....in this case the remainder of the Christmas ham..plop into the water with a bag of a variety of dried beans and left over veggies from the refrigerator bins. Dribs and drabs of leftover vegetables, globs of mashed potatoes and sometimes even gravies, residuals of meals all frozen in little packets to make the soup yummo....and the freezer emptied. So now the house smells great...the soup bubbling hides the hot smell of the oven searing the remnants of way too many months of baking spills AND reminds anyone in the house all day that there will be a good meal tonight!

And there is the aerobic segment to all this. The stretching of unused muscles. I actually used my big ladder and all 17' of my Dyson hose to vacuum above the kitchen cabinets which was as close to Cirque De Soleil as I will get! I make multiple trips to make deposits to the recycling bin and dumpster in the garage to keep my feet moving. I take great pride in the weekly stuffing of our recycling bin...some sort of personal challenge.

Let's toss some more balls in the air! I threw doing the laundry into the mix, more steps, more accomplishment...more good smells in the house. WHY does this make me so happy, content, energized???

"Finds" of the day: A forgotten bottle of Gherkins with an expiration date of 2000. The bottle wouldn't even open so I thought it best to just toss. THUD! The last of the green coffee beans from a coffee roasting experiment of several years ago. I've heard these now aged beans are even valuable in other countries...also THUD in the garbage. I carefully considered my options with leftover Taco Bell sauce packets. These have saved my butt many a time when I have started chili and found my chili powder supply depleted or totally gone. So I made an executive decision and pitched all the old purple "Border Sauce" packets...That seemed safer.

Our son, Adam displayed something of a phobia for foods past their expiration dates. I discovered that there were lots and lots of "elderly" items in my cupboards with NO expiration dates at all, leading the skeptical part of me to conjecture for atleast some items, this is a ploy to get you to pitch and purchase more.....but not the ten year+ old gherkins. And though there might not be an expiration date, the price stickers on the spice cans tell the story. $1.19 then, $4.29 now. I did find one can with only "1954" on the bottom. It CANNOT be the year...can it???

By bedtime, the kitchen gleamed. My copper pieces sparkled on the clean stovetop and a clean dishcloth draped the scoured sink, ready for use in the morning. I fought the temptation to just open the frig and freezer to admire the order....does anyone have a roll of that "Crime Scene" tape? I'd like to cordon the space off for just alittle while.....

Things Are Not What They Seem

2010-02-17T05:04:00.000-08:00

It's been a not so bad winter here. Actually, we've had more peeks at the sun and full sunshine than in recent winters. I have felt little of the claustrophobic sense of wanting to somehow propel myself upward, out of the clouds and into the blue skies above. Maybe I was actually successful in etching the impression of sunshine onto my retinas during those eleven glorious, Southern California days last month.

What do you see in this photo of my front garden? Monotone...snow and icicles?

Everytime I drive up to the house or go outside to let the dogs out or head to the mailbox, I am "seeing" something vastly different.

Late last summer my dear friend, Donna took the tangled overgrown mess of my "cottage garden"; at least what the moles and rabbits had left of it,and convinced me that I needed a space more Fibromyalgia "user friendly".( It pays to know a Landscape Designer who is also a Registered Nurse) Over the course of a few days she totally transformed the jumbled confusion of limping perennials into a new delight. She hacked and dug and evicted the out of control "old" and replaced confusion with an orderly, pleasing mix of plants I have never nurtured before.
Donna redrew lines, anchoring a garden bench with a lovely flagstone path. I couldn't get over the immediate changes and last fall would just stand on the front porch doing R.L.H.C.'s ( rapid little hand claps...thanks, Helen!)

But...the best is yet to come! Donna planted all sorts of bulbs....all will be surprises for me in a few months. For thirty years, when fall comes, I have "plant bulbs" on my to do list BUT the "tyranny of the urgent" takes over, as it always does. Spring rolls around and I look at mud left by winter snows instead of tulips, daffodils, and their ilk. I sigh and resolve to do something about it in the fall....and then "groundhogs day" happens, again. Not THIS SPRING!! I can't wait to see what surprises Donna has waiting for me under their temporary blanket of snow!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Donna for the treat of transformation last fall and the delicious anticipation of Spring that has lasted throughout the long, frozen tundra winter!

When California Gives You Lemons...

2010-02-07T12:46:00.000-08:00

As we took off from John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana a week ago, I tried to will my eyes to remember what the sunshine and blue skies looked like. I kept my face turned toward the sun's warmth radiating through the jet's window and craned my neck to keep the ocean and then the snow capped Mountains in view for as long as I could,then sighed and hit my sudoku. The entire trip across the country was in sunshine! We could watch cities,plains,canyons, mountains, rivers,lakes and farms on the ground with the occasional jet whooshing westward below us. The man in the seat behind us narrated what was passing below us..'And there's Lake Michigan!' Blue and visible until we hit the West Michigan coastline, which looked like an impenetrable mat of dirty grey cotton.

Christian has been asking for another California Blog and the past two days we have had bright blue skies and sunshine, such a GIFT in West Michigan at this time of year! It makes it easier to recall our last weekend in California. Steve was busy all day Friday and Christian came down to Santa Ana and took me back to Azusa. I had finally gotten so that I didn't flinch and call out while driving on the freeways, though we all marvelled at "splitting lanes": the legal practice in California of motorcyclists rocketing through freeway traffic BETWEEN lanes of cars! ( Can you say,"Death Wish"?) Christian was kind, warning me when he was required to swing rapidly across four lanes of traffic to switch freeways....so I had time to cover my eyes.

All worth it. It was a totally fun day. We went to Emily's house in Claremont. Oh to live in a place where windows need no screens and doors opened to the yard are left wide open to let the glorious outside in!!! We hit downtown Claremont, a jewel of a town with wide random "gardens" of trees surrounded by perennials between sidewalk and street curbs. Stores line the outer edges of downtown city blocks with bustling courtyards in the centers of the blocks. As you walk down the street and happen to look up you are stunned to see the Snow capped San Gabriel Mountains towering right above you! We ate lunch at a a brew pub, The Back Abbey, where we sat in 1940-esque, oversized chrome framed, leather easy chairs at concrete tables outside. The kids told me that at night if it gets chilly, they bring fluffy white throws out to wrap around diners. The outer "wall" of the restaurant was a long line of planters bursting with Horsetail Grass. We ordered a cone of homemade Pomme Frites served too hot to dip in four sauces, to eat as we waited for our meal along with our choices of delicious, exotic beers. I didn't want it to end. Sitting and laughing with the kids, in sunshine and warmth. We sauntered through some wonderful shops before driving through streets full of enchanting homes (to a design junkie like me). After rearranging furniture and making some paint suggestions at Emily's (could there be a day of more fun?),the kids returned me to the hotel in time for Steve and I to reconnect after his busy day and meet dear friends,Jerry and Carolyn for dinner. It was wonderful but just trying to find a parking spot in a GARGANTUAN mall parking lot studded with a forest of palm trees, completely filled with cars made us begin to long for home. More than once we heard that no one cooks in Orange County. An exaggeration unless you try to find a parking spot at meal time. Orange Country is clogged with restaurants. Every kind of restaurant you can imagine. Persian restaurants and Peruvian restaurants, Indian restaurants and Korean BBQ restaurants...We talked and laughed and closed the Buco de Beppo's which made finding our car much easier in the now near empty parking lot.

Our last day we returned to the foothills, to laugh at Christian's new pet: a squirrel who comes to scratch on his front screen door for bagels. Then we headed over to Emily's where we spent our last afternoon playing cornhole and euchre under the pergola in the sunny backyard with music and chirping birds. Oh, and plucking lemons the size of small grapefruits from the tree branches and making lemonade.

It is all so idyllic, breathtaking, particularly for shivering Midwesterners blinded by the sunshine and trees bursting with citrus and day-glo flowers too gaudy to be real. Yet as we drove through the Foothill communities "ohhing and ahhing" I was aware THESE are the towns we frequently hear of in television coverages of evacuations for wildfires and subsequent mudslides. I can see why they take the risk.

The shuttle driver taking us to the airport in the chilly pre-dawn hour the next morning, apologized for his knit hat. He appeared to be Indian, perhaps, and was curious about where we were flying. He was asking if water froze where we lived and we told him yes, and described cutting holes in the ice to ice fish. His quick response had a tone of concern. "Why don't you move here?" he asked.

Friday on the Freeways

2010-01-29T08:46:00.000-08:00

I'm waiting for Emily and Christian to arrive to pick me up to spend the day together. Christian has prepared me for traffic and speed on the freeways today being really crazy. I am bringing my knitting to distract me, willing to sacrifice ohhing and ahhing at more California exotica in order to preserve my mental health.

Our first full day in Cali we headed north to Azusa to Christian's apartment. He arranged a tour of the beautiful campus of Azusa Pacific University with a friend whose job it was to give tours to prospective students and their parents. It was a GREAT tour! ( Thank you Douglas Clay McCoy!) Douglas is a Californian and probably wondered why I was so frequently exclaiming over the trees and plants. He'd point out an original building to the campus...and I was impressed not by it's history but by the incredible bougainvilleas climbing up posts and stretching and dripping along the buildings edges in hot pink and oranges. The campus is like a giant botanical garden. Plants we singly place in pots and baby on a window sill at home grow is wild "patches". And this is the time of year when the locals are apologetic for how scrubby the vegetation looks!
The mountains literally begin at the edge of campus and students climb them. There are trails to hike and I learned through Google research that Azusa is called the Canyon City. I also learned that not too far from my baby boy's apartment is a place called "Rattlesnake Gulch"....so now when Christian tells me he's going for a hike I will worry about rattlesnakes on the path...and then there are the cougars up in the canyon...(the reason the APU teams are called "cougars"? You be the judge!) And the coyotes he's seen on the golf course right outside his front door.

I loved the campus.It is full of wonderful surprises. You turn a corner and look to the top of a several storey building to find in big letters at the top "God First", or an ivy choked wall in which a beautifully, but simply carved wooden door sits. Douglas told us that students post things on the door...opinions and thoughts and then other students respond on the door. Reminds me of Luther and nailing HIS thoughts on that church door in Germany.
Here and there around the campus are pieces of sculpture done by students. WONDERFUL pieces that delight you. AND....stained glass sky lites and hallways filled with art installations. Little architectural and artistic "surprises" to delight everywhere. I liked the long, broad stairway flowing from an outdoor courtyard, the edges of each step edged in a different colored tile; colors descending in rainbow order. I loved the prayer garden with a small "wailing wall" where students write prayers on paper and insert their prayers in the cracks of the wall just as in Jerusalem. Douglas told us that it was contributed by a benefactor who was felt so strongly about it and passed away the day after it was dedicated.
I was stunned to discover that Azusa has five fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls THE Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as other noteworthy scriptural artifacts.
All in all, I was pretty blown away, not only by what I could SEE, but what I HEARD about the programs and the integrity of the University. The growth seen all over campus and in the surrounding community they touch. I especially loved the new, state of the art Science building. Etched on the outside Glass walls facing the streets bordering the campus are words from the Book of Genesis, lest anyone passing forget WHO created science and all it's elements.

Several times during our visit this time I have found a confusing thing happening..at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood and at APU. We enter a door INTO a building only to quickly find that there is no ROOF save the beautiful blue sky above our head. Walls with no roof. I do not think this building concept would work in Michigan, but for here, it's magic. It would be a painful thing to waste time being IN a building when outside is perfect light and temperature and no bugs and lush plantings and fountains. So much of California seems to be one big, beautiful courtyard.

It is a great convenience that APU also has an excellent Masters program in College Counselling and Student Development because once Christian visited the campus there was no question of his becoming a Cougar. And I so totally understand this. I think I would like to be a cougar, too and live in this wonderful place.

"We're Not In Kansas Anymore, Toto!"

2010-01-24T13:01:00.000-08:00

It is Day 3 of our stay in So. California and I am getting reacquainted with my frustration that words and photos are inadequate to convey the essence of this place...though I am unable to stop trying. On our southbound route to church services this morning( A Presbyterian congregation meeting in a Jewish synagogue in Newport Beach!?!),Carmen Garmin, our GPS instructed us to get into the left lane and "make a U-turn when able". As we complied we looked up to see the San Gabriel Mountains covered with snow against a sky of Impressionist purpley blue in the distance. It was a breathtaking surprise. It was so beautiful we all gasped.

There's been alot of that going on. Saturday was a day of whip lashing from a contemplative and unexpectedly sentimental stroll through Yorba Linda's beautiful Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Birthplace, to touring the impressive campus of Azusa Pacific University literally at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains and finally to a totally surrealistic pilgrimage to downtown Hollywood after hours. At the end of the day I felt as though I was some sort of stroke victim whose vocabulary had suddenly dwindled to one word used over and over again..."wow!"

Wow!:
To the heavenly,exotically spicy smell of humongous California Pepper trees with their convoluted branches and clusters of cream and pink berries or to wondering WHAT smells so good and realizing you are standing next to a row of eucalyptus.
To city streets lined with towering palm trees or glossy leaved trees trimmed in the shapes of perfect, deciduous gumdrops as far as your eye can see ahead.
To the man selling sequined gloves out of a brown paper bag ten feet from where "Michael Jackson" and "Prince" stand talking to gaggles of teeny bopper girls (what the heck are THEIR parents thinking of???)
To Szechuan Green Beans and Crackerjack Shrimp at Hollywood's Ghenghis Cohen's
To wondering what homeowners do with the hundreds and hundreds of plump oranges and grapefruit hanging from the trees in their landscaped front yards?
To realizing as Christian's passengers on the freeways of So. Cal. that if he needs to find a new way to make a living he is probably qualified to consider NASCAR racing.
To a bird, with a tail twice as long as it's body sitting in a bush at Del Taco.
To small trees bursting with kumquats previously seen only in a little basket in the "exotic fruits" section at Meijer.

Everything here seems different. The light is brighter, different. The trees and plants are exotic; greener greens with flowers of such technicolor bright colors it seems they can't be real. The air has a spicy smell and all these things seem to draw people out of doors. Perfect temperatures, no bugs...I think it makes for the uncontrollable draw to be outside here. People hate to be separated from the Eden outside. The chapel we worshipped in this morning had outer walls of floor to ceiling glass panels giving the sense that we were all worshipping in the garden. And what can you say about snow capped mountains? Oceans? The fascinating architecture. You know the movie, "The Wizard Of Oz"? The movie begins in black and white until Dorothy's tornado spun and flung house lands with a thud in Oz...and Dorothy looks out the bedroom window and everything is suddenly in COLOR! That's what California is to me. WOW!!!

Reprise...by Popular Requests.

2009-12-29T11:19:00.000-08:00

Thirty years ago as a new wife, awaiting her first baby in her new home, I was attracted to a "Twelve Days Of Christmas" wall hanging I saw in a magazine ( Better Homes and Gardens?) Anyway, with all kinds of time on my hands I made one for our new home.
I didn't realize what a fond, childhood memory it had become before my now grown children, looking through the small mountain of Christmas Past photos I put out every year commented on how they loved it and "Where is it now?" There were howls when I said I had long ago sold it in a garage sale or donated it to Goodwill. I made a mental note that this might be a good idea for future Christmas gifting for the kids. ( These creative thoughts most often burst brightly in my noggin and then evaporate or common sense and reality remind me to "GET REAL!")
But...four weeks of THE flu and couch recovery time late this fall gave me plenty of time on my hands to take the plunge. I found an old photo of the original hanging on the wall in our first home and Steve blew it up and made a copy. I hand drew patterns for all the figures and details along with some of my own embellishments not in the original. Becky took my order for "a project for the kids" and picked out a variety of felt from Field's and I began cutting. ....and cutting...and cutting!
Thirty years causes one to forget painful circumstances...like labor and delivery. (We called it "natural" and did it totally drug free for our children in those days.) OR cutting 70 gazillion pieces of felt for three wall hangings ( The prerequisite for a child to get one of these is attaching themselves to a spouse...so I still have one on the drawing board. I borrowed my neighbor,Kathy's FIVE Harry Potter videos and along with other television, watched all five TWICE while I worked on these.) I did recall that the original had a felt backing which torqued and didn't hang correctly. I corrected that by gluing the felt pieces to a stiff canvas type fabric AND by inserting 3/4" oak dowels ( thanks, Steve!)in casings top and bottom.
These are big...36" wide by 42" long.
...and...all worth it on Christmas Day when Steve brought them from their hiding place and presented them to the Becky and Derek, Megan and Avery, and Adam and his Caity. Merry Christmas from Mom and Dad!
P.S. MY favorites are the "Eleven Lords A'Leaping"...blue with their little bright red vests and golden crowns akimbo.

2009-12-24T17:58:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time,in God's perfect timing, there was a young Jewish girl named, Mary. Mary was engaged to be married to a young carpenter from Nazareth named, Joseph. Mary and Joseph didn't have lots of money. They weren't important people, as the world looked at them, but they were both devoted to God and willing to be obedient to whatever God told them to do, no matter how difficult being obedient might be for them. When an angel came to Mary and told her that she was going to have a baby, THE ONE, God's own Son, the Rescuer of all people,Mary trusted God and said, "I am God's servant. Whatever God says, I will do!"

The angel was right! Joseph and Mary were on a trip to Bethlehem when the time came for Mary's baby boy to be born. There was no place for them to stay and they ended up in the only available place,an old stable. That's exactly the place God chose for His son to be born! Mary and Joseph wrapped him in cloths to keep Him warm and laid him in the soft straw of the animals' feed box. They named Him, Jesus, just as the angel had told them.
That same night, shepherds were camping in the dark, peaceful hills. The only sounds were the crackling of the campfire and the snoring sheep.ALL OF A SUDDEN!!!...the sky lit up like never before and an ANGEL appeared! Understandably, the first thing the angel said was, "Don't be afraid! I bring you the most joyful news EVER announced and it's for EVERYONE!" Then the sky filled with angels all singing so beautifully, "Glory to God in the highest and Peace on earth for all those pleasing Him!" The angel told the shepherds that they could find God's promised Son in, of all places, a manger in Bethlehem; that they should follow the bright star in the sky and run to find Him...and so they did. And so they found Him with Mary and Joseph, just as the angel had told them! They knelt down in the straw and dirt of the stable and worshipped the Baby because they knew He was The Light of the whole world... a Light to put an end to darkness forever!

There were, far, far, far away, kings, called Magi or "wise men" who studied the skies and when they saw the same star as the shepherds. They knew the star was a promised sign that a King had been born. They had been waiting for this sign and quickly packed special, precious gifts, gifts a king would give a great King, like frankincense, gold and myrrh on their camels and started out on the long, long trip to worship The baby King. Imagine their surprise when the great star in the sky unmistakably led them to a rundown stable in a shabby little town named, Bethlehem! But when they saw the Baby Jesus, they KNEW there was no mistake, and they took off their glittering, jeweled crowns and knelt in their beautiful robes in the same dirt and straw as the shepherds before them.
What an adventure Mary was on! The Bible says "Mary treasured all these things, and pondered them in her heart"

and for us, for ANYONE who seeks God's greatest Gift for us, His Son, our Rescuer. For us, for ANYONE who trusts God and responds to Him, "I am God's servant. Whatever God says, I will do."
For Anyone who will reach out to take it God will give them this wonderful ETERNAL Gift!...reborn to be the person God always intended us to be from before the beginning of time...OURSELVES, just as He created us!
Every other gift pales in comparison!

"Reset"

2009-12-11T05:58:00.000-08:00

"Re-Set" was a word thrown out by one of the kids this year. Originally it was an exclamation used just after the grand babies were put down here for naps to signal a rapid effort scramble to pick up and put away the twisted mass of pulled out toys and books affording the adults the optimal quiet, organized, oasis of peace that oh so precious nap time provides.
But lately, I have found myself appropriating the term for many other areas in my life. For example,the never ending,irresistible "re-set" of interior design; of putting away all the pumpkins, Indian corn, and colored leaves and pulling all the Christmas decorations from under window seats and staircases, from stacked basement storage, closet shelves and drawers to transform our living spaces to a Christmas "RESET"
After our vacation to Nashville we returned to Avery's meticulous handiwork...our lower level "re-set" in Benjamin Moore Sandy Hook Grey. It was worth the eight years of indecision to have the area, as Becky so well put it, "the way it was always meant to be." It was so rewarding to gather pieces of furniture and accessories from around the house to complete the metamorphosis.
In the midst of Christmas cookie baking mania this week, "reset" was a welcome intermission period of washing all the bowls and utensils, cleaning off the kitchen counters and putting away all the ingredients and clutter to afford a renewed enthusiasm to pull out another recipe and plunge back into the sweet smelling fray.
"Re-sets" can be physical and emotional, too. Two days after our return from Tennessee I came down with THE flu, and was down for four weeks before I returned to "life". Three weeks on the couch. Three weeks of wondering if I was really ever going to feel better. Three weeks realizing that for people with chronic and terminal conditions, there is little or no hope for the day they will wake without their symptoms. When my day of finally feeling better arrived it came with a much deeper sense of gratitude and appreciation.
Finally, but certainly most primarily (essentially, chiefly, principally!) I am noting the strong work of the Holy Spirit in a "re-setting" of spiritual aspects of my life. Last year I felt the clear, familiar sense of God "calling me out of Bible Study Fellowship" involvement for this year. As has always been the case in these "sabbatical years", God has filled my time with a variety of "Independent Studies". He is powerfully "re-setting" my spiritual frame of mind in a wonderful variety of ways, providing continual, profound instruction through my quiet times in His Word as well as through a stack of potent books, among them, "Let Go" by Francoise Fenelon,"Seeking Him" and "Choosing Forgiveness" by Nancy Leigh DeMoss, "God's Plan To Protect His People In The Coming Depression" by David Wilkerson,"Boundaries" by Henry Cloud and John Townsend, "Speaking The Truth In Love" by Ruth Koch and Kenneth Haugk, "The Love Dare" by Stephen and Alex Kendrick, and "The Practice Of the Presence of God" by Brother Lawrence. My journal has been filled this fall in an effort to record and remind myself of Him speaking to me through outstanding sermons and conferences and seminars on applying what I am learning in LIVING with a growing focus on Christ; filtering my challenges through His model for living, not the worlds'. Perhaps sweetest, in the past year, He has brought, one after another, no less than twelve old friends back into my life. The times spent with these special people have taught, encouraged, challenged and healed me. I am MOST in awe of this precious method of "re-set" in my life and reminded that God knows us better than we know ourselves and always knows the "key" needed to unlock the closed doors in our souls. I am so very thankful for the great gift God has given me in these interactions...these INTERVENTIONS in my life!
The concept is simple and exciting...just push that RE-SET button, but EVERYTHING is a choice and most correct choices in life are NOT easy or painless....just essential since acquiring knowledge without applying it is useless without hitting "RE-SET" in my life.

A Yankee Enjoying Southern Culture OR "I can't grow lemons on MY deck!"

2009-11-08T11:25:00.000-08:00

Ok. So who could conceive of it getting better? I don't think I am going to be able to leave here....Seriously. The beautiful colored leaves are on the trees and the sun is shining. All my fibromyalgia symptoms have subsided. And we are again reminded that IF we could convince our kids to move with us, we'd be here in a heartbeat!...Seriously....AGAIN!
It's everything, really. The charming homes with the rockers on long front porches and the twisting, narrow, grey rock bordered roads that weave up and down and around the hilly terrain. There are no shoulders on these two lane thoroughfares, only zig zagging cedar fences and in some places shallow stone walls built by slaves and former slaves long ago. The beauty on both sides distracts me from the fear I'd normally reserve for boarding a plane for a flight. People are used to the challenge of driving as though they are on a road rally. I mean, the two lanes are REALLY narrow, and there REALLY is no shoulder, just falls down into ditches or little ravines of brush, and when you approach the top of a hill, you hope, assume, pray that whoever is about to crest in the other lane is, in fact, IN the OTHER lane and not yours. Helen tells me that Eric sometimes terrifies her by turning his headlights off and speeding down the hills at night. That would be MY personal nightmare, but for today it is so unbelievably, glowingly gorgeous here that even I flip the "fear switch" to "off".
It's not only the leaves staying on the trees whose Michigan and Indiana cousins have lost theirs...it's the adventure of enjoying the more exotic Southern landscape. The impressive, glossy Magnolias and the storey and a half tall "nosegay's" of Crepe Myrtle. People here have taken their summer plantings out and entry gardens are now planted with pansies and kales and other hearty decorative vegetation to make winter not seem anywhere near as desperate as "up north".
Sleeping with the windows open here means waking to the sounds of unfamiliar birds. This morning there were two North Carolina Wrens on the deck railing. I've admired them in my bird books, but had never seen them. They are adorable with their little, perky, upturned tails and pretty, pretty song. The two of them sat together on the top of a deck post and sang at each other.
Last night we had the BEST adventure! Helen and Eric had been invited to their next door neighbor's home for Gumbo along with several other neighbors, and the hosts told them to bring us along. Oh, Oh, Oh! We are talking about AUTHENTIC Creole cooking...and two big pots of Gumbo File ( pronounced Fee-lay. A Creole spice made of powdered Sassafras leaves) rice, roast, collard or "glory" greens and an evening that was one of a kind in MY life to date. Our hostess, Lorraine is one of nine children, and three of her four sisters were in attendance. They'd all gathered in New Orleans for a reunion and then, with a car full of luggage and seafood, they headed north to Lorraine and Charles home in Hermitage. Having met these women, it had to be a WILD trip, and it is also hard to imagine what a house full of nine such animated siblings growing up must have been like! Hospitality and humor and vivaciousness to the max! There were two huge pots. One with Gumbo File with chicken, sausage, crab and shrimp....the other with all these PLUS okra and oysters. ?WHICH do YOU think I selected? Pearl, Lorraine's sister,( a 67 year old woman I feel obligated to mention had a body any 25year old would die for...REALLY) prepared my bowl for me and carefully explained the gumbo to me in her beautiful Louisiana drawl.
I will try to be succinct. You know that is not my style. I really don't know how to describe those hours, but must try because last night's "Gumbo Party" was something I will NEVER forget! More dreamlike than real to me since NOTHING in it looked like my life except, of course, Steve and Helen and Eric were there too. I sat in a room crammed with people of different colors and cultures, eating the most astoundingly "out of this world...there just aren't words" food, surrounded by people telling jokes and laughing to the point of tears. At one point I actually inhaled a piece of rice from my Gumbo File and was choking. I thought how embarassing it'd be to have to have someone to call an ambulance, but I looked around and everyone was howling at the joke and I thought the real trouble might be that I'd slip to the floor unconcious and no one would even notice as another, even more hilarious joke was shared!
What I really like is the civility of the Bible Belt South. The "Yessir" and "Nomaams"and the shaking of hands and the friendly waving on the street to strangers. The courtesy shown and expected. Extending a trusting friendliness, even to strangers as opposed to an aloof and defensive nature.
We're staying an extra day. Maybe we can use the time to come up with a plan to tempt our kids to move down here with us.....

Big Day In The Big City

2009-11-06T20:47:00.000-08:00

We're back in Nashville with our dear friends, Helen and Eric and I am sharing a final cup of Teavana "Jasmine Dragon Pearls/Rooibos Tropica" with Helen and deprogramming from the day.
We didn't waste a minute this first full day in "Music City", deciding to start our vacation by trying something new. We traveled across town to see the newly released "A Christmas Carol" with Jim Carrey...in 3D...in an IMAX theatre!!!!!!All four of us were impressed to say the least.Although I am an exaggerator, it truly is more accurate to say we were "blown away" by the experience. Five minutes into it, I didn't want the movie ( and it's effect on me) to end. About two thirds of the way through I admit I started to close my eyes in flying scenes because my stomach was beginning to flip in ways it hasn't since my last Ferris Wheel or Tilt-a-Whirl experiences. REALLY. After the movie, Helen took me to most definitely "upscale" Green Hills shopping area of Nashville. We had a wonderful lunch at "The Cheesecake Factory" and spent time caressing books in a terrific bookstore on our way to J.Jill.
Yes,Megan and Avery and Adam and Caity, I finally used my carefully hoarded gift certificates! I got a wonderful grey corduroy jacket that was SO SO worth the wait. I loved it so much that I wore it out of the shop...along with a new pair of earrings that look terrific with it ( and my grey hair). So, THANKS AGAIN for the treat! After walking past shops I've only heard of (L'Occitane!!!) we drove to a newer shopping development to make my first visit to ( ...drum roll, please...) ANTHROPOLOGIE!!! I don't even know how to describe that, except I was not prepared for the resulting "creativity overload" to my system. Colors, textures, whimsy, retro ( I mean the thrill of seeing the inspiration coming from the "30's and '40's...not the 60's and '70's. I've been THERE, DONE THAT, and don't so highly recommend dredging all of that up!) This was just the most incredible exclamations of delight, one after another ricocheting between Helen and I. It made me realize that I have been on a starvation diet as far as creativity goes for too long! This one visit to this wonderful place just may have given me enough motivation to power through the coming dark months. OH MY!!!! On our way home, we stopped at Vanderbilt so Helen could retrieve something from her office in the psychiatry building. It was nice, after all these years of imagining her working in a place to actually SEE it. I am happy that when we talk in the future, I will know what her office looks like. We trekked home and I chatted via Skype with my Australian pal, Judy who is kicking off her summer with a garage sale tomorrow. After Helen's wonderful soup for dinner, we played back to back laptops on the kitchen table and talked and laughed until the energy plug was pulled on this day.
I know that despite the total stimulatory overload, I will sleep very well. And tomorrow is another day! It's Eric's birthday so we are preparing ourselves for those festivities, and who knows what other big adventures!(Please insert R.apid L.ittle H.andclap's here) Steve was right. This IS going to be a wonderful vacation!

POST SCRIPT: Okay. I COULD NOT sleep. The last time I looked at the clock it was going on 3:30am. Maybe the delicious Teavana was alittle too high octane for late night, or laughter to the point of tears is too stimulating. Guess we'll have to think about acting in a more sober manner later in the day.

Too Much Fun

2009-10-31T04:22:00.000-07:00

Imagine my surprise to find this little vignette at the dogs' dishes following a visit by the little Pompettes and Hannekenites! Thirty year old Fisher-Price farm animals thoughtfully led to eat and drink by some little someone.To watch different styles and stages of play emerging in Eden(3), Ellis(2), and Judah(1) is more fun than I ever could have imagined. Even Norah is obviously eyeing up her sister and cousins and struggles to "engage" though at 6 months, sitting up and playing peek a boo are her biggest accomplishments.
Being a "YaYa" is more fun than I could have imagined, even with the over the top descriptions of grandparenting by friends who "passed this way" before me. What I missed in "participation" twenty five years ago as I struggled to keep up with four urchins, five years old and under, I am making up for now as I frequently answer the call to "healing" albeit through the strange doctoring methods of a toddler. (Best purchase of the last six months...a Target Dr's Kit. I figured before I purchased it that if I was the "patient" I would be able to spend some time laying on my back on the sofa as I was "cured"...I particularly enjoy these healing sessions later in the afternoons) The kids are all most fascinated by the hypodermic needle and often go for the plastic pharmaceuticals before doing any testing. Ellis will cycle once or twice through all the diagnostics, however,punctuating the examinations with," Now do this..."
We do lots of coloring, which I like so much that Steve bought me my very own,virginal,telescoping mongo Crayola set which sits safely encased in it's cellophane in "my room". It is fascinating to watch the little one's fine motor skills grow through coloring. Eden has moved into a phase of carefully drawing intricate small interlocking figures while Ellis has a more vibrant, Jackson Pollack style and requests that I "Draw Baby", at which time I am required to draw a circle after which Ms. Hanneken tells me the particular facial part I am to fill in next. It is clear in ALL these games, WHO is the boss and who is the "bossed".
Judah just goes for the (new) Fisher Price Nativity scene. It has EVERYTHING he admires in a good toy: Animals, music when you push a button, more animals, light on when you push the button, a monkey, building parts you must snap together at his direction, lots of dogs from several FP sets, Strawberry Shortcake character "pets, and finally...out come the Pretty Ponies ( he loves 'em).
Eden has recently taken to a fuzzy duck hand puppet my Mom made for the kids when they were ittle-bitty. She repeats his sad, sad story. He is "Duck-a-lor" and he is very lonesome because one night his Mom and Dad and sister and little brother all left him and flew "far far away to Old Mexico"....and it takes three days to get there. ( It is difficult not to guffaw at these gems, but you KNOW it'd break the spell. As it is, sometimes, when I start playing with Judah and make the donkey talk, he will stop and give me a look that ABSOLUTELY says, "You DO know you are making a fool of yourself, don't you? These are plastic animals, you know that, right, YaYa?"
We don't give Judah enough credit, though. He understands everything we say. Yesterday Steve mentioned that the Small Sesame Street finger puppet of Bert with the mangled black dread locks had been in mouths of innumerable children over the past thirty years...as we grimaced over the thought,he looked us straight in the eye and inserted the nasty thing in his mouth and gave it a good tongue bath.
I think I should do an ad for Fisher Price toys. I am so thankful I held onto the kids favorite toys for these three decades. It is so gratifying to watch these little ones enjoy the toys every bit as much as their Mom's did once upon a time. Of course I have to watch them more carefully as thirty year old "little people" are choking hazards. But to see Ellis pick up the FP camera with the rotating "FLASHCUBE"(remember those?) and say "Take a pitcha...Say cheeze...CUTE ONE!"...or to have Uncle Christian see his nephew, Judah enjoying a little Tomy gas pump and exclaim, "Hey, that's mine!" It's really almost TOO MUCH FUN...but I don't really think that is possible, do you?

All Buttoned Up

2009-10-25T15:54:00.000-07:00

Only complete color blindness could cause a person to miss the dazzling color reminders in the leaves. Every year I wish I could finally name the exquisitely dramatic color of the tree the Cardinals and Cedar Waxwings so love in our back yard... That and find some way to keep those breathtaking leaves on the tree to stare at for just alittle longer.
Just like a high school marching band after weeks of practice,the ragged, zig zag fluttering lines of honking geese are now sleek "V's" ready for the big trip south.
Steve's motorcycle is(safely) pinned into the nose of the garage by the golf cart which made it's way from Sandy Pines to hibernate in town for the winter.
Spring and summer birds have left, replaced by the Juncos, Chickadees and bossy Blue Jays. There are surprising new friends: male and female Rose-breasted Grosbeaks,a Yellow Shafted Flicker, and best of all a small colony of beautiful little Red-breasted Nuthatches.
The water is off at the lake. Three carloads of "stuff" that didn't get anywhere near enough use this summer have "come home" along with the contents of cupboards and refrigerators
Those brilliant Mercurochrome ( a good attempt at that perfect color name...)leaves are showcased by the grey skies. Time to begin early morning coffee "dates" with my little (life saving)S.A.D. Light Box.
All the shrubs and plants have been cut back. Following my Grandma's example, I am now enjoying my geraniums indoors on my sun porch. Best of all, my friend, Donna took what the marauding rabbits and moles left of my overgrown "cottage garden" and transformed it to a more Fibromyalgia friendly, minimum upkeep garden. Every time I look out the front door I see the new little flagstone path and bench. In the Spring, all kinds of new perennial "friends" will introduce themselves and finally, I will have DAFFODILS and new tulips that Donna has kept a "surprise".
The garage has been cleaned.The "flotsam and jetsam" left behind when Christian's Conestoga Wagon ( Ford Taurus) headed west to California has been absorbed into the basement leaving us ready to more effectively battle the trails of slush and dislodged ice chunks of the coming months.
The fall house cleaning has been done...even surprised the family with a turkey dinner with all the trimmings to further confirm it's "that time of year", and the huge bag of apples I "earned" in exchange for loving on Ellis and Norah while their Mom picked at Crane's Orchard has been turned into a stack of pies in the freezer to be parcelled out as comfort food as needed through the winter.
We are definitely "all buttoned up" for fall...and beyond.

"Now, an important message from our Sponsor"

2009-09-28T11:08:00.000-07:00

I love Sundays! I love the way the hours in Sunday School class and then worship rescue me from the maelstrom of my spontaneous weekdays. One day of refreshing and refilling and spiritual readjusting for the coming six days of chasing my tail. Often it is difficult to slow down and be grateful for the gift of this day rather than guilty for resting...to remember that my Abba knows we NEED this respite so much that He COMMANDS us to rest on His Day each week.

During my first year in Bible Study Fellowship, a study of Moses which included God giving His Commandments to the Israelites, I was "blown away" by a fellow discussion group member's comment about the Sabbath. She told us that she had been raised to honor the Sabbath as a day of rest. When she went to Nursing School ,though it had been challenging, she had diligently rested, never studying or doing any school work on Sundays through her entire college career. I remember wondering if my face exposed the shock I felt internally as I juggled this example of obedience...with the realization of how MY Sabbath Day looked. MY day...that was obviously how I thought of it. My "catch up day"..."Get a jump start on the week."

I am still a work in progress...God continues to chip away at me.

Chip...chip...chip...

Don't miss this video clip ...secure it firmly to the "refrigerator door" of your heart! (Thanks to Steve and Becky for enabling me, the technically challenged, to share this video played at our church service this past Sunday!)

Don't tell anyone....but we've escaped!!!

2009-09-03T16:51:00.000-07:00

Now this is alittle more like it!
This morning we got out of bed and before the phone could ring to call us to some important task....we escaped.

Since I was a little girl I was raised knowing that before you leave the house for longer than a day, you thoroughly clean the house, do all the laundry, empty your ironing baskets and water the plants. For me it was an OCD-ish habit but it was so gratifying to have Steve express such
appreciation when opening the door on a spotless, clean smelling home after a journey that...well, let's just say the habit was reinforced.

..Until this morning.

We escaped. We ran away from the summer that never or barely was. From the "unscripted", fly by the seat of your pants, spontaneous summer. It has been a month since we spent a night out here and that was a visit with the Nashville Hatfields squeezed tightly between Steve's trip to West Virginia and our trip to Wisconsin/Upper Michigan....followed rapid fire with Steve and Christian heading to So. California via Nashville, Midland, Texas, and Phoenix, Az.

But this morning, we grabbed the essentials; laptops, dogs,Bibles and journals and our travelors full of coffee...and took off for the lake. I'm telling you that if for some reason the police found their way into our condo right now, they'd label it "ransacked", no doubt about it. But for this one day it was so worth it. Spontaneity today was a surprise visit by Becky and the babies ( I wonder how long that big girl reading Cinderella on her Boppa's lap is going to allow us to call her a "baby"?) No schedules, just feeding little one's who tell us they're "Hun -geee" when they asked for it. And don't tell anyone, but we fed them what was here. ( I did tell you that we escaped with the basics) Those kiddos had all the nutrients one could scrounge from Goldfish crackers, lemon-poppyseed mini-muffins, Lucky Charms, Craisins, and applesauce. Because THIS is summer and THIS is YaYa and Boppa's place at Sandy Pines.

Tonight it is so quiet and beautiful...Many kids are already back in school. Traffic will pick up tomorrow as people arrive for the big, holiday weekend. The last fling of campfires, fireworks, cruising of pontoon boats and golf carts. But for tonight, it's just the tree frogs and crickets and an outstanding sunset in colors which really have no names. THE BEST.

Tomorrow we dash back into town for a funeral. Then Steve accompanies Becky on a road trip to Traverse City where she is photographing a wedding this weekend. I dive back into training materials and scheduling for programs beginning next weekend...and of course, redeem that "ransacked" condo...you get the picture.

But for tonight, THIS is the life. THIS is our summer night to remember in the middle of February when we think summer will never return again.

Summer Unscripted: Same State, Different World

2009-08-27T10:44:00.000-07:00

Near the end of the summer that never ended up looking like the summer I had planned for and imagined through the long, dark months of last winter, we made a pilgrimage to a land faraway, home to my clan. Although the same currency in your wallet buys you familiar meals at McDonald's (though they are counties away from the next rather than down the street...) and the same " Stars and Stripes" fly on flag poles, sometimes with a Green Bay Packer flag below it, you cannot shake the very real sense that you have entered another country..."da U.P."...and here is one of the first MAJOR clues to hit you on your first stop just over The Bridge. People talk differently.Your first restaurant or convenience store stop may result in a few "Excuse me's" as you attempt to understand what seems to be a different language. The dialect can be slight or so heavy that you worry you might be offending the locals as you acclimate yourself to the strange "tongue". SOME Yoopers have their own, distinctive pronoun usage. ( Examples: "What can I get for youse?" "How are youse guys?" "Thems good fish." The subject matter of conversations I found myself engaging in....'er listening to surprised me, too. Steve and I sat through a whole dinner as the conversation of the fourteen or so seated around the table centered...intensely, on fishing. Men AND women contributed to this conversation, sharing best spots on the river to catch certain fish they obviously prized. We kept our heads low and intently shovelled food into our mouths. IF we had somehow lost our "invisibility" and were asked, our only contribution to the conversation could have been...." Well....We EAT fish, sometimes...not often...none in our freezer...well, we WATCH people fish in the lake outside our summer place."

Nature plays a big part in it all. Nature is all around, controlling lifestyles more than it seems in metropolitan areas under The Bridge, in the land of the Trolls. The vegetation is lush and dense. The clumps of birch trees , expensive and temperamental in suburban landscapes, flourish for miles and miles along the sides of roads in the North. Rural buildings abandoned by once hopeful pioneers are rapidly swallowed up in vegetation as nature rushes to reclaim it's own. It's always impressed me as having such a sense of isolation. The Big Lake...Michigan, rolls in and briefly out of view, mile upon mile of breathtaking views, sans boats, sans people, sans anything but nature as it's always been there. It grabs your attention and humbles you somehow. The lake could be the ocean, deep and dark, beautiful and dangerous. We drove past the area my family always referred to as "Up on the shore". There, nature's harshness caused my great grandfather and his young sons recently emigrated from Sweden to throw their lot into commercial fishing with the neighboring Frenchmen when homesteading around the original sod home failed to support the family adequately.

And interestingly,"Cultural Diversity" takes on a new "complexion" when you drive over The Bridge, as well. It was never difficult for me to understand "Dutch Pride"and the tongue in cheek,"if you ain't dutch you ain't much" when we made the move to West Michigan because I grew up with pride in my Swedish heritage well blended with patriotism for America. But once over The Bridge, the sensitivities of anyone at all schooled in "political correctness" are quickly aroused. In the land of the Hiawatha National Forest, where roadways, lakes, and a multitude of town names point to Native American origin, there is grumbling about how the Indians ruined perch fishing with their indiscriminate use of nets, over fishing resulting in almost no perch left in the lake. Conversations with older people recounting some incident in the community will quite naturally add that a person is part Indian. Driving along a stretch of stunningly beautiful wilderness highway where signs warning motorists to watch for ELK pop up now and again also provides prime commercial frontage for "Honest Injun John's ReSale"... a rickety, hand painted sign in front of a rickety-er, unpainted house with heaps of all sorts of junk...'er "merchandise". Then there's the shock of contrast...encountering the offense of gaudy, blinged-up signs advertising the local Tribal Casino sitting in the middle of the stunningly untouched wilderness..the "forest primeval."

I'm not certain why this trip hit me in a more intense, emotional manner. Maybe it was the unsettling, totally "unscripted" nature of our IMPROMPTU summer leading up to the trip...or that I was attending my 40th High School Reunion ( how did THAT happen???). All I know is that a month later I feel as though I am still "processing" the powerful emotional dichotomy of being drawn to the incredible beauty and peace of the place ; hearing of old classmates retiring from careers around the country to return "home" ......with the sense that I needed to run as quickly as possible to escape the visceral pull of that undeniable peace and stunning beauty before I got somehow sucked back. It'd be so easy, maybe, really...to move to this very foreign land.

Don't Tell Me It Didn't Happen, I Was There!

2009-07-19T13:01:00.000-07:00

There are no dishwashers other than one's hands in the "Oz" known as Sandy Pines. As I was doing clean up from our bacon and eggs breakfast this morning, I found myself thinking about washing dishes...the old fashioned way. And other things..."the old fashioned way".

I don't mind doing dishes and never have. I remember the special "sisterhood" shared by the Mom's, Aunties, and Grandmas growing up in the times before automatic dishwashers ; Of sitting on a kitchen chair, listening to the snippets of laughter and conversation whipping around the sink synchronized with the flapping of rapidly dampened, hand embroidered, flour sack dishtowels in the hands of the aunties. Out at the cottage, the water was first pumped into a big white porcelain pail, then brought in to heat on the wood stove before being poured into the huge metal dishpan sitting on the table. I can still hear and feel the ubiquitous sand at the bottom of the pan...and see my little 4'8" Grandma open the screen door to fling the pan's dirty water on her thriving grove of lilacs. It was no small task to feed and then clean up after 20 people eating my Grandmother's Sunday Smorgasbords or Thanksgiving dinners. The more I think of it, while I don't mind the few dishes in my Sandy Pines sink after breakfast for two, maybe I WOULD mind the dishes tackled by the womenfolk of my youth!

This morning, however, my thoughts were focused on Ruth Martin and June Cleaver...Timmy and Beaver's Moms. My addiction to television isn't a new thing. I had a weekly date to watch "Big Top" and "Circus Boy" at my Grandma's before we got our own "glowing rectangle" ( thanks, Adam!) I was a goner. I truly believe my love of blue willow dishes stems from all the blue willow dishes I watched Ruth Martin wash in her farm sink as Timmy's Dad, Paul drank another cup of coffee before heading out to the barn to help Gus. When I finally got my own set of Blue Willow in the early '80's I honestly felt I could finally emulate Ruth. What a role model. I mean, did June Lockhart ever play anyone not trustworthy, sweet and comforting? She's Mom, standing by her sink with her hands in the dishwater, always with an understanding smile on her face. "The Madonna of the Blue Willow".

June Cleaver wore rubber gloves. This was doubtlessly to spare her manicure. Anyone decked out in those neat as a pin shirtwaist dresses complete with earrings and pearls around the neck HAD to wear rubber gloves! How very CHIC!!! So Barbara Billingsley raised the bar for me. I decided that one day my children would drink their everyday milk in goblets, just like Wally and the Beav.....and there was formal dining room for DINNER. Not supper, DINNER. Now that was something.

Manners were NON NEGOTIABLE! We shared this basic tenet with Timmy, Wally and Theodore. White anklets with shoes. White gloves at the very least for Easter and often on Sunday's when your very best clothes were always worn, freshly washed and pressed. June and Ruth both in hats. I have not worn a hat since one was plopped atop my fresh, and most offensively Toni Home Permanented hair and while I certainly don't think the white socks, gloves and chapeaus are a "salvation issue" I confess to missing the underlying message of respect those trappings spoke to. This summer I have been to three beautiful weddings representing months of planning and expense. Wedding parties dressed in carefully selected gowns and formal wear, looking their very best for the "day of their lives"....only to be met by a handful of guests wearing ragged bottomed cargo shorts, wrinkled shirts and sandals.

And here's my point: I think people make a big thing these days of dragging down and disposing of the icons of the past as not necessary and a bother. The banner of "Whatever works for you is just fine" in the effort to legitimize poor behavior today. The Martin and Cleaver families are said to have never existed...just a stereotypical image foisted on the public. For those of you who weren't there to experience it, I must tell you that isn't true. It was a comfort to live in times when right was right and wrong was wrong...and everyone knew which was which. It never felt like the dark ages before "enlightenment." Rather, it felt secure and comfortable... without pharmaceutical support. There was nothing wrong with aspiring to be "the Cleavers" or "the Martins". Now, just as then, inherently sinful humans continually fall short, but how can striving to present yourselves in the most decent light be a bad thing? What is so noble about settling for the lowest common denominator in life? ...or worse, setting about to establish a lower low? We weren't oddballs, by the way. Everyone we knew was emulating the Cleavers. Dads and Moms, Aunts and Uncles, Grandmas and Grandpas , everyone at work and school and church...all worked hard to provide the best food and shelter and clothing they could afford for their families. I expect families were all functioning with a better sense of the difference between "need" and "want" and there was never a question that sacrificing for your family and those in need around you always trumped something that might bring personal gratification.

I mean, just as you KNEW Lassie was going to run into that dangerously unstable mine shaft to rescue Timmy, was there ever a question of Ruth or Paul or June or Ward not doing the right thing...usually the hard thing? In that same way you KNEW you could trust your family to do what was right and best if it was at all within their power to do so. Remember the sad look on Ruth's face when she had to send Timmy to his room without his dinner? She was standing there next to the sink full of dishes, dish towel in her hand as she placed Timmy's plate of food in the icebox....

Speed Bumps

2009-06-24T11:17:00.000-07:00

I've often heard it said that the anticipation of something can be more stimulating and enjoyable than the actual event. Sometimes I think SUMMER is the greatest example of that in my life. Each year I spend the waning months of winter planning what summer is going to look like. I list in my mind all the things I want to accomplish; all the ways I want to enjoy "MY" summer. In those dark and monochromatic winter days "summer" looks like me, sitting on a chair in the 73 degree sunshine WITH a good book WITHOUT bugs or distractions.

Summer as a child stretched on and on in a seemingly never ending parade of empty days, hours, minutes it was my responsibility to fill with activities of my choice.

...Not so much summers these days. I admit to adopting a surly, completely anti-social attitude of late, frustrated by the constant egg timer ticking in my head reminding me that Michigan summer is short and slipping through my fingers and the plethora of obligations that drag me away from that winter dream of doing "nothing". Clearly I needed a change of attitude. I stood with a pout, arms crossed tightly across my chest until God threw afew "SPEED BUMPS" into my life to grab my attention.

The first "SPEED BUMP" came in the form of a large cherry tree outside our sunporch.On a calm, sunny day it was shaking as though weathering a wild wind storm. Closer examination revealed an amazing thing. The tree was FULL of Cedar Wax Wings plucking cherries from the tree branches as though competing in some sort of contest to see who could snatch and gulp most, fastest. I've only seen a couple of Cedar Wax Wings in my life. Here was a whole tree full of them right outside my window! A gift for nothing more than slowing myself long enough to wonder why the tree was shaking so...

But, we move on with all haste from these little "miracles" in our lives to the next tantrum over what seems to be an imperfection in our day. My next "SPEED BUMP" more effectively stopped me in my tracks.

Scooter, our sweet little dog very suddenly went from not being himself to obviously very ill. We were able to bring him to the clinic right away. The Dr. took Xrays and examined him but could not put his (very experienced finger) on what was happening. He sent us home with a couple of medications to treat the symptoms we had described. Scoot grew worse that night and I was truly surprised that he survived to morning. He stopped eating and drinking and a return Vet visit resulted in him spending a night and part of a day in the animal hospital to be re-hydrated and undergo more testing....which resulted in nothing...dog no better...still no diagnosis. We knew we would NOT go the route of a neurological consult at MSU. He is beloved but we are practical. So, he returned home on special food and four medications, still a very sick dog. The plan being that we would love him to pieces until his "quality of life" deteriorated to the point that we had to make THE difficult final decision. This episode stopped my life long enough to make me realize how I have been thinking of our two little dogs as something of a nuisance of late, and also how dear they truly are to us. We almost had to lose Scooter to appreciate how big a place Scooter and his fluffy sister, Idgie hold in our hearts. Which inevitably makes you realize HOW MUCH MORE IMPORTANT are the PEOPLE I am taking for granted in my life?

Slowly, day by day he has returned to his old, "normal" self. All the angst (and we won't mention the gobs of money spent at the Vet)... and we have no idea what the problem was....but we come away SO thankful that he is enjoying life with us and we with him again!

The third "SPEED BUMP" pinned me down for nearly two days in a row. Nasty, nasty storms went through our area . Violent thunder and lightning for a steady hour and a half the first night left people amazed at the amount of rain that fell ....until the second day when three storms "trained" their way through the area dumping "Once in a hundred year" amounts of rain which put "us" on the national news with washed out roadways, flooded basements and downed trees and power lines. We came through unscathed. Only a small amount of food pitched when power went out at the lake. A broken tree branch. A microwave oven zapped in the storm miraculously ( for one who is not technically inclined) reset itself.

"What I am trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving." Matthew 6:32 ( The Message)

Relax and Rejoice in what God is giving....Respond in gratitude for all He gives!

The Holy Spirit is ALWAYS tapping me on the shoulder, trying to get my attention, opening my eyes to what it really important around me.When I insist on ignoring Him and forging ahead, His "tapping" gets ever more persistent. How thankful I am for His never ending patience with my stubborn spirit! How foolish of me to be irritated by these things that are in fact blessings in my life..opportunities He places in my life hour by hour, day by day for HIS purposes, not mine.I am resolved to pay attention to that "tap". I truly want to CHOOSE to live life spontaneously, more in the moment, watchful for His assignments to fill my days, hours, and minutes.

......And We're Back!

2009-05-30T14:17:00.000-07:00

I know that it was a harsh, long winter in Michigan. I know we broke snow records. I know Michigan summers are so short, but when I look out my window and see the diamonds sparkling on the lake it is already difficult to remember the cold and darkness that was.

Moving out here for the season is always such a process. But because of the relative shortness of summer here we are determined to be out on the lake as much as possible...to squeeze out every last bit of warmth and sunshine and blooming gardens and barefeet on the beach and sunsets that look JUST like the old-timey pastel-colored postcards from the 1920's and '30's. And so, we load up carload after carload of clothes, food, books, knitting, laptop computers, coffee,dog paraphernalia, grandbaby paraphernalia, food, TV's, new plants for garden, food, games, wine, food,clean bedding and towels, toiletries, food and food and head to Lake Monterey.

We are in the second year of adjusting to this new place and slowly making it "ours". The inspirations...the things we want to do to recreate this place are exciting and daunting. There is no lack of inspiration . I have all sorts of wonderful ideas to make this the cottage of my (modest) dreams. But more often than not, when I consider the energy or funding necessary to pull these dreams off, it is easier to sigh and be distracted watching the Great Blue Heron fish for his dinner from the dock just across the cove from us. (He is there right now, beautiful and huge!) Or to find the nesting tree for which the female Oriole is so feverishly collecting materials.

Lake life teeters between the real sense of lowered blood pressure .....and ANGST over all the work that needs doing around here. Life slows and "obligations" back in town take a back seat to enjoying a new sense of multi-tasking: simultaneously enjoying a sunset, a sudoku puzzle and a glass of wine.

"Summer is so short and we really need to sit back and enjoy it!"
"Summer is so short and we really need to get these projects completed around here!"

For this weekend though I WILL BE CONTENT to:

Marvel at how quickly my Autumn Clematis is reestablishing itself on the trellis ( which I want to paint a cheerful color...oh oh!).

Become acquainted with our new neighbors who earlier this week dashed over to help Christian who was trying to get the dock into the water by himself . We will accept their offer to join them at their campfire...NICE people.

Go through my old design magazines to cut out ideas of fun things we COULD do to "scratch" my interior design itch AND make this place even more wonderful.

Watch the robins and orioles so busy with nest-building. And the chipmunks and squirrels gathering acorns and the little seeds at the ends of the "helicopters" fallen from the trees, dashing back and forth in such haste, as though there weren't ample oak tree treats for every rodent in Allegan County x10!

I really should do something...but I think I'll just have another cup of coffee, enjoy being able to have the windows open to the cool breeze off the lake, and watch the Blue Flag Iris spears open in my garden . As Miss Scarlett always says, "Fiddle de dee. Tomorrow is another day."

A Difference Of Day And Night

2009-05-09T05:31:00.000-07:00

Over the course of our thirty three years ( this week) of marriage ,we have designed and built more homes than most. In all of those homes I have always had a vision for just how I planned to use each room, just what furnishings would occupy which corners, just where all my treasures ( "another man's junk") would reside, colors, patterns from the time the rooms were pencilled on my drafting board. Our present home held the one exception. The developer had a "sun room" area on the back of the house. We chose to enclose this and give it "four season" usage, but having had no space like this in any of our other homes, I really imagined maybe we'd look out into it from our great room to the views through the many windows out into the backyard fields and trees.

It wasn't until we moved into this home that we discovered that this "sun room" is in constant use. It is roomy and comfortable and the windows on three sides of it offer cooling breezes and the views we anticipated. Here resides the "Mecca"...the toy stash the grandbabies migrate to within minutes of entering our front door. The bird bath and feeder are situated on the deck not six feet from the fingers tapping this posting, and birds come to eat and sing and preen apparently aware that we won't harm them despite our closeness. This is the room that I virtually live in. The home of my sweet little, red, Dell laptop, always blinking it's cheery blue lights at me. It's where I do my Bible study and day dream. It has been a sweet surprise to realize how much of our days are spent in this space.

But I think the sweeter surprise may be it's transformation in Spring and Summer nights!

The idea of "Sleeping Porches"is thought to have it's origin on the plantations where children would sleep on the upper porch "galleries" to escape the steamy nights of Southern summers. In the late 1800's and early to mid 1900's, with the invention of screening , Doctors urged sleeping in fresh air as therapy for people suffering from TB and respiratory problems. People began to build homes with "sleeping porches"...screened in rooms with multiple windows to provide maximum cross ventilation. If you drive through old neighborhoods, you'll recognize these appendages to front or back upper floors of many vintage homes.

There is nothing more magical than sleeping in my sunporch turned "sleeping porch" on a moonlit night. The moonlight floods in the windows and everything outside is so clearly visible. I love laying there watching the clouds swim across the "midnight blue" ( that was a favorite Crayola color) skies. The moon hides behind them and then pops out like a giant flashlight being turned on my face. The breezes are cool and fresh and make sleeping in any other room seem so confining to me. I almost hate to fall asleep it is so beautiful and sometimes I cannot help myself. I get up and wander to the windows to get an even better view of it all. It seems as though it's just me and God....and all the little animals I have sometimes seen skittering along the back hill.!Rabbits play, a huge skunk waddles on the sideways slant of the back hill, the occasional possum and woodchuck scurry faster than their odoriferous friend.(We can always smell him before we see him out there!) One night I had the strong sense that someone was out on the back deck and turned on the light to find two HUMONGOUS raccoons feasting on black oil sunflower seeds at the bird feeder. I haven't seen them but I know there are deer out there as well. I hope to catch them, maybe on some full mooned, snowy night NEXT winter. And there are all the sounds of the night. The frogs singing in the wetter areas of the fields, and the crickets, and what causes those little sudden outbursts of bird squawks? Bird nightmares ? The reality of a predator stalking them in the night? As tired as I might have been when my head hits the pillow, the magic of the breezes and moonlight passing through the open windows always serves to refresh me enough to watch and smell and listen for alittle longer before closing my eyes. It gives such a strong sense of peace that I find I sleep better, more deeply....and sleep is a great gift.

I have a lovely little "vest pocket" garden below the sun/sleeping porch. It has my favorites, lilacs, Rose of Sharon, peonies, ferns....I think maybe I should plant some "Moon Flowers" down there this week.

"On my bed I remember You;

I think of You through the watches of the night.

Because YOU are my help,

I sing in the shadow of Your wings.

My soul clings to You;

Your right hand upholds me."

Psalm 63:6-8

Down The Primrose Path......

2009-05-02T09:54:00.000-07:00

How many people actually HAVE a primrose path? Have you ever seen a primrose path? Now you can say you have because here is mine in all it's May glory! I have always loved primroses...primulas actually. Each Spring I'd be astonished by their beauty and after much consideration as to which of the gorgeous blossom colors to choose I'd splurge, buying a potful at the grocery to enjoy for afew days before they'd invariably croak. Imagine the THRILL I had to discover that Reatha, the previous gardener at our place at the lake had nurtured this beautiful spring surprise! They are so happy in this shady spot where they are flourishing with no help from any human. They truly smile up at me in yellows, roses, orange, purples and fuchsia.

...and they are not alone. A week ago there were only hints that life was returning to the gardens. There was the most wonderful surprise...that the deer, despite an unusually harsh winter and their annual habit of using my shrubs as their personal salad buffet, had left everything UN nibbled. This means that I won't have to wait until sometime after the fourth of July for areas in my gardens to look more normal. My old fashioned Bridal Wreath bushes will sport beautiful, long, cascading branches of the peppery sweet miniature bridal bouquets.

It's all coming back...From the incredible Redbud tree whose breath taking blooming I often miss because it happens before we actually are out here to see it ( I'm enjoying it this weekend, YEAH!)....to the Autumn Clematis whose little beginnings of growth will result in a trellis bending with the weight of it's tendrils and multitudes of sweet smelling white star flowers always AFTER we've moved back to town in the fall.

Maybe most heartening is the return of all the shrubs and perennials we planted and transplanted last summer as we sought to make this new place more "ours" by transforming the back lawn into yet more perennial gardens with a curving pea gravel and stepping stone path from the parking area to the front porch. Beside the dollar investment in new plantings which I would be sick to lose, I will admit I played "musical plants" moving some favorite perennial "friends" and a lilac bush way too big to expect survival. Yet, there it stands, big enough that you'd think it'd been growing in front of our little house for many years and it's leafed out and is chock full of tight dark purple blossoms ready to stun me.

My greatest anticipation was to scurry out here after the snows to see how my two biggest investments had fared. Twin hydrangea bushes which , if they make it, promise to grow to a nine foot privacy feature between the yard and the road. They did, and I am now able to look forward to bowers of beautiful parchment, spring green and pink panicles ( that's your new word for the day from me)...maybe not so much this or next year, but you know what "they" say about the third year of a garden plant!

The Lily of The Valley is going bonkers! There are pips of it as well as stray daffodils spilling out of the garden bed into adjoining areas. In afew days the leaves of the two dogwood trees in the middle of the ocean of Lily of the Valley will complete their opening process and by the time the beautiful white stalks of flowers of the lilys appear they will be shaded by the baby dogwood leaves and pink flowers.

I'm looking out my window, down upon a small sea of Iris...packed in tightly in both front and back gardens they are sporting bulging, tightly wrapped flower buds...like so so many deep purple turbans! Next to them, grows a patch of short, slender green shoots; looking like a horticultural overgrown "crewcut", these will soon be a happy little plot of the teeniest, tiniest miniature irises in bright orange with yellow throats speckled with red!

I go through this every year, but as I mentioned, it has been a LONG LONG and harsh winter with record breaking snow fall. It only results in my (really) wanting to try to do a cartwheel to express what I feel seeing my bleeding heart plants already imitating shrubs, begging to have their picture taken....my new hosta plants poking their clans of pointed asparagus green tips out of the bark promising to soon fulfill their covenant to edge my walk each year.

Oh, and there are my coral bells...three different colors, golden green, deeper green and the beautiful red grapey colored ones. All will shortly send up stalks of tiny pink flowers to swing above their shiny leaf collars. Can there possibly be a better season than this?...a better time of this season that this week when we KNOW there can be no more snow? Don't you just KNOW that HEAVEN will be a garden? I cannot wait for that!

Beware Of The Crayola Nazi!

2009-04-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

I remember gasping out loud the first time I saw the display of circular 150 count Crayola sets. I looked around...not to worry. I was in our local Kmart and quite alone in the back aisle. No need to worry about wary sidelong glances from strangers as I picked up and caressed a pound of waxy delight. Halfway into my cart I thought of Dave Ramsey. Do I need this (yes? NO! But I have never seen such a wonderful array of crayons. I think it might BE a NEED. ?. And I have felt cheated by the smaller packs I already have. I miss many of the green tones of my youth. What happened to them?) But I was strong. I put them back and walked away.

Within two weeks I stumbled upon them at Meijer and quickly placed them in my basket and headed for the checkout. Oh, the SMELL!!!!! The wonderful smell of Christmas mornings ! Brand, spanking new, perfectly tipped Crayola Crayons, ...but BETTER! This circular wonder telescopes upward into three tiers of waxy, Technicolor wonder. It has it's own demilune shaped sharpener ( ...but we don't tell the babies about that option.)

I couldn't wait for Eden's next visit to show her my new...."Precious" (are you seeing me as Golum hunched protectively over my treasure?) Let me tell you, at the very least, I have company in my OCD behavior with Crayolas. Eden immediately took charge of the situation. This was a two year old who could name and select her favorites: "Sky Blue" and "Periwinkle" and "Scarlet" out of the 150. We play interesting games atop gigantic drawing pads. Each crayon's color must be read and marvelled over. There are the crayons we stop and coo over for their "creamy" application to paper, and the less favorites which scrape across the pad, usually hindered by silvery glitter actually embedded in their wax! Sometimes we take them all out and arrange them in color order...OH, the Thrill of it!

Eden's OCD goes beyond mine. As a two, now three year old, she doesn't worry about how she will explain her sense of Crayon Etiquette to others....This is just how it is, do not question her. First off, white crayons are useless. They don't, afterall, show up on white paper. After putting up with my returning the three white crayons to the storage tower, she'd had it with me. She didn't make a fuss, though. Just walked the three offensive crayons into the living room and banished them to live in a dark drawer with the euchre cards. Also not allowed to co mingle with more favored "Caa-Yahrs" are the "Cornflower Blue", "Salmon", and "Spring Green" which somehow, perhaps in an escape attempt,found their way under the sun room sofa and were discovered and partially eaten by Idgie and Scooter. They no longer have a home with their WHOLE brother crayons. There appears to be no political correctness or compassion in Eden's crayon world. Only the best need apply!

This may be different with the others....Ellis is just beginning to color, but she loves to put the round, plastic cover on her head and walk around the house quite proud to sport her clear, plastic "fez". Judah can now pull himself up to stand beside the coloring table. His eyes are BIG and he reaches out for crayons, when his big sister is preoccupied elsewhere...slowly he looks at the beautiful, wax stick in his pudgy hand....slowly he inserts it into his mouth and slimes it

...OH NO!!! To the Euchre Card drawer with you!

A LISTING OF COLORS NOT UNDER THE CHRISTMAS TREE IN 1959:

Mango Tango, Tumbleweed, Mauvelous, Manatee, Outer Space ( I love this one!), Sonic Silver, Wild Blue Yonder Asparagus, Blush, Fern, Big Dip O'Ruby, Tickle Me Pink, Purple Mountain's Majesty, Bittersweet, Shadow, Purple Pizzazz, Mountain Meadow, Razzmatazz, Shimmering, Wild Strawberry, Timberwolf, Razzle Dassle, Eggplant, Steel Blue, Cyber Grape, Illuminating Emerald, Magenta Electrasant, Shamrock, Sheen Green, Macaroni and Cheese, Fuzzy Wuzzy, Metallic Sunburst, Jazzberry Jam, Blast Off Bronze, Alloy Orange, Pink Sherbet, Razzmic Berry.

Silver and Gold or Feasting on the Word

2009-03-26T09:41:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking that it's time for me to purchase a new Bible. I admit it, I have drooled over the stacks of sleek new Bibles at the Christian Book stores. They are slim and smart looking with cheerful covers of pink and seafoam and limey green leather . They ...smell..new!

When you open the cover of my old Ryrie Study Bible, New International Version to it's cover page you see my name and FIVE addresses; four of them with big "X's" through them. But this Bible is only 21years old.....

I still have my first Bible. When I located it in the basement I looked at it's crumbling, faded blue cloth cover and thought to myself,"Hmm, that hasn't worn well." That was before I opened it to it's "Presentation Page" and was reminded that it was a gift to me from Bethel Lutheran Sunday School...Christmas 1959. It is FIFTY YEARS OLD!!!!! I still remember what a milestone it was as an eight year old to receive my very own Bible. All of it's technicolor illustrations of "Lot's Choice", "Joseph Sold By His Brothers","Ruth", and "Jesus Teaching His Disciples To Pray" are still familiar to me.

Next stop. "Presented to Joanne Christine Edquist by Bethel Lutheran Congregation, Menominee, Michigan Rev. Donald L. Berg, Pastor. January 30, 1966 Ps. 119:105"

The Confirmand's Bible. Black leather cover, gold edged pages ( now a Mercurochrome pink). The illustrations have been replaced with washed out photographs of various sites in the Holy Land and a Concordance. This Bible travelled to Fortune Lake Bible Camp with me for many happy summer weeks and was then relegated to a dorm room drawer in the college days of my "falling away". It was brought into the light of day in 1979 when God grabbed my heart at St. Michael Lutheran Church in Canton, Michigan. The new me, "reborn" and feasting on the Word. I pored over this Bible carrying it everywhere along with my journals until one fateful Christmas Eve Service. That particular night, in my efforts to shepherd our four little ones through a rain storm out to our car in the church parking lot which, as I recall, always held rain water to a consistent one inch depth due to drainage issues. With a sickening "Plop" heard over the raindrops falling on the current Baby's snowsuit ( I recall this distinctly) my Bible fell , submerged in water. (!) Bad results.

Enter my Ryrie. Almost twice the physical size and at least four times the weight of my previous Bibles...and that was before I purchased a new option at the time...a zippered, purse strapped, multi pocketed, fashionable Bible cover. It has 248 pages of additonal maps, concordance, synopsis of Bible Doctrine, Bible Archaeology, Tabernacle layout, Messianic Prophecies, Parables....well, you get the idea...definitely UNabridged add ons. It has served me well, and travels with me everywhere I go. But it's so heavy...and not pink, or seafoam or limey leather, or slim.....

THIS is what is does have...that the flashy new Bible's wouldn't have:

Outrageous highlighting, underlining and even once in awhile my own little illustrations. There are multi color inks, some of which have separated over the decades as they wicked into the pages. And the pages themselves: dog earred and curling and slightly soiled from so much use. Some Books are so often used that their pages have turned to translucent parchment, while others...the Prophets and Revelation are clearly seeing less "visitation".

There are plastic tabs at each book for quick traveling from one place to another...these are reglued, taped and re-taped, so brittle that some have split...and afew are gone all together.

(This because I have always ALWAYS had a mental block against memorization and Lutheran children in the land of Lake Woebegon did not learn the cute Sunday School song reciting the names of books of the Bible in their order that the Reformed kids in Western Michigan did!)

And there are the notes I've written in the margins over the years. These are the most dear to me. They chronicle the "good the bad and the ugly" of these decades of my life...and my family's. There are notes that recall reading a particular Psalm as the sunrises over the lake at Sandy Pines...or "the first robin of the Spring sighted today" with a date. There are dates noted of weddings and funerals. There are little prayers I have written to God, all scrawled in the narrow margins.

Here and there are questions I want to ask God when I see Him in Heaven someday. Like why He couldn't have cut His faithful servant Moses who put up with all those wretched, complaining Israelites some slack and allowed him to enter the Promised land? There are powerful Biblical lessons on parenting and self discipline that are so pertinent to my life that I have placed big red stars beside them to catch my attention whenever I slide over the page.

There are the sweet and personal places God's Holy Spirit has spoken to me through the pages of this particular book...like the realization that GOD HIMSELF was the first and most wonderful Interior Designer. I see this over and over as He describes in such beautiful detail how He wanted every thread woven, every blue tassel attached, which exotic woods to carve, which precious stones and metals to use in His Tabernacle and later His Temple. HE created color and beauty for our enjoyment and gave me the wonderful gift to work with these things to make other's environment's pleasant.

With all this, how HOW can I possibly think of replacing this heavy, old, very used Bible of mine?

.......even if there are some major portions of Ephesians, Philipians and Colossians gone...literally eaten by our two little dogs, Idgie and Scooter many years ago. (They MIGHT not BOTH be guilty of "eating the Word"...but neither one has ever 'fessed up.)

Don't ask me why, but I Googled "Girl Scout Songs" one day and suddenly found myself recalling some favorite song sung by circles of little girls with gold Brownie pins proudly attached to their cardigan sweaters.

"...new friends are silver...old friends are gold."

A Hug for Helen...Use As Needed.

2009-03-05T05:11:00.000-08:00

This may be my favorite 2009 Resolution completion. I have long been in love with the concept of library shawls and decided it would be the perfect gift for my dear Helen. She is one of those people who often feel "chilly"...perfect candidates for something light and warm on the shoulders.

I'd optimistically purchased a book of beautiful "Folk Shawl" patterns to knit. When I received it and looked at the instructions I had to assess the likelihood of my successfully completing the shawl pattern without the potential of a visit to Pine Rest. I found myself asking, ALOUD ,"What was I thinking????" ....the answer to that is, the SAME thing you were thinking when you purchased "I Can't Believe I'm Knitting Lace!"....What I CAN believe is that I will NOT be knitting lace...at least anytime soon! But, as usual, I digress.

Chris to the rescue! My sister-in-law, a constant source of wonderful new inspirations in knitting, sent me a photo and instructions for "The Mistake Stitch". What an unfortunate name for such a lovely pattern. It is simple but has such a wonderful look to it. It is a perfect stitch because it graciously allows the shawl to expand as you wrap it around your shoulders. I loved working on it, loved folding it into the gift box, and most of all LOVED it on Helen.

It was alittle scary...it always is when even simple math is involved. But hey, it is basically a rectangle and I'm good at knitting rectangles of all sorts ( dishcloths, scarves, afghans of all sizes) I just started casting on stitches and soon I was on the road. When the shawl was what I deemed a suitable length, I picked up stitches one and a half inches from the bottom of both shawl edges and knit up to form the two pockets for eyeglasses, paperback books, kleenex or cold hands.

It makes ME feel warmed to have found a way to give my dear friend, Helen a "hug" even when I'm not able to visit her wonderful home in Tennessee!

French Fry Spam Casserole

2009-02-16T11:22:00.000-08:00

I kid you not, "French Fry Spam Casserole" is the recipe d'jour posted above the email communications my cyber savvy laptop has clairvoyantly labelled as "spam". I usually click on "spam" once a day or so and give it no thought, trusting my Dell to decide who is friend and who is spam. But for those of you who lived in a household where this Hormel product in a small, garish blue can stretched into supper for four in the '50's and '60's...well, let's just say, I can STILL conjure up the taste of brown sugar and mustard glazed, baked spam.

So, "French Fry Spam Casserole" twisted my stomach and held my attention long enough for me to become curious about my "spam friends". What if I have been automatically jettisoning something of value? I mean, I suppose it could happen.

Hoa Carin wants to inform me..."BUY a degree...a new way of "earning" a degree. Michael Vincent extends an invitation for something called, "Underground Cash" ( that ALMOST makes me want to click....but no!

Melva Yatta, my good friend, assures me she can hook me up with the cheapest Viagra, but I think she is wrong, because a better friend, Mina Malka claims ( her spelling, not mine) CHE4PEST 20 pills viagre+Cializ =Generic Cialix $73. 2.50....but I don't think I will click on either of them just to prove who would in fact offer me the BEST deal.

Russian Brides. HAVE YOU SEEN THE WOMEN IN RUSSIA? Click here and meet HOT Russian women who are look.... I guess if I am interested I HAVE to click , darn, not going there, although I have always thought a wife might come in real handy at times.

Fanny Milligan tells me that I can "Find Love NOW- locally, close to home"

DELETE FOREVER! That is the option I always select, condemning my spam friends to a never to be "refreshed" status.

Have you never tried Spam? You really should, just to say you HAVE. You can fry it which gives it a hot rubber taste as I recall....and you don't forget tastes like this. Or you can just cut it into fatty, thick slabs and eat it with alittle Miracle Whip between two slices of Bunny or Sunbeam Bread....actually the glazed, baked way probably IS the best.

Please pray hard for the chair lady.

2009-02-08T05:42:00.000-08:00

About a year ago, in the dead of the last "bleak midwinter", I decided to combine housecleaning with exploring my computer world. I gathered my rather large hoarded horde of miniature chairs for a photo shoot and posted the collection FOR SALE on Craig's List. Like, who is even going to see this, and who wants these???

Surprise, instant hit! A woman was very interested and we began our negotiations. How could she get the chairs, was her question. Craig's list is locally based and I am thinking," well honey, you get in your car and drive over from Hudsonville and I'll be glad to box them up and help you to your car with them."

Imagine my surprise to find that my "CHAIR LADY" lived in AUSTRALIA!!! Over the next few days, our emails of negotiation grew warmer and I got past my initial thought that the shipping costs were easily going to be three times the price I was asking for the dear chairs. We began, slowly to reveal little bits of information about ourselves and one day I found myself telling Steve how much I was going to miss chatting with Rosalind when our business transaction was completed. The very next email from her ( she goes by "Judy". When she was born, behind her convalescing mother's back, her Dad signed the birth certificate naming her Rosalind after a movie star fav of his, Rosalind Russell...actually one of my favorites, too...but I digress) JUDY asked me if I would think it too strange or forward to suggest that we become email penpals!

For the last year we have become closer and closer as I marvel at how exotic Judy's ordinary is to me. Reading the melodious names of the former gold rush hamlets near her and Wal's home. Names that seem, to me, so well suited to a pet dog "Here BENDIGO, come here boy!" To think that when some people decide to go for a quick vacation in their "neighborhood" they think Figi, Tonga or Hong Kong...wild! But I have also learned about their daily anguish over living through the worst drought in 130 years. How all the trees are dying and there hasn't been grass for a long time. Judy has sent me pictures of a kangaroo caught in a rare swim in the ocean, and another of a koala bear that wandered into a nearby neighborhood looking for relief. There he is, sitting in a pail of water with his little elbows akimbo, resting on the sides of the pail as though he's relaxing at some swank koala resort complete with a darling little blond haired girl on her knees next to him, waiting for his order for a pina colata.

The BAD came when I checked my mail this morning and found a heartbreaking missive from Judy. Their worst fears are realized. Terrible fires, the worst in history have broken out. It truly sounds like hell on earth. Temperatures are 115 degrees ( thanks to Google I was able to convert from Celsius) with terrible winds. People are being burned alive in their cars attempting to escape. Judy and Wal have their car packed with important papers and photos, ready for them, and Clive their big, old, dignified cat to jump in and take off. Her email is heartbreaking and makes me feel, oddly guilty for the beautiful morning I awoke to here.

PLEASE PRAY!! Please Pray that God will stop the fires quickly and protect those in danger. Pray that He draws people closer to Himself in this and and all circumstances.

An eighty year old lesson I hope never to forget.

2009-01-31T17:48:00.000-08:00

All the participants in the tableau are long dead. What survives is a second hand memory of what happened; the testimony of the witness, my father, as told to me...and of course the sweet, sweet souvenir of the lesson taught some eighty years ago.

I could always imagine the scenario so clearly. I grew up in the house two doors down from my Grandma and Grandpa's house. The last house on 1oth Street, across the street from the slough of marsh and cattails and wild asparagus that lay between us and the Menominee River which ran into Green Bay, the "thumb" of Lake Michigan. Between our house and the river were the railroad tracks. I grew up exploring the same fields, climbing the same willow trees that my Dad had twenty years before me. I spent endless hours in my Grandma's kitchen watching her bake and cook. And although the early 50's addition of the shiny chrome legged, dinette set wouldn't have been a part of the story, I know what the light coming in the kitchen window over the sink looked like and how my Daddy as a young boy would have sat at the table with my grandparents and his three older brothers. I know the pattern of my Grandma's dear old dishes and I can smell the Swedish egg coffee...it would all be the same, as familiar to me now as it would have been if I was there on that day back in the Great Depression.

In those dark times of homelessness, and closed businesses, and massive unemployment and hunger, hordes of men took to the rails. "Hobos","Tramps" hitched rides on freight cars of trains. They formed loose squatter's villages, camping here and there surviving on handouts and maybe if they were lucky, a small job in exchange for something before hopping the next freight. The hobos even had a cryptic code, their own hieroglyphics which they would scrawl on fenceposts or foundations of homes informing members of their brotherhood passing that way in the future that a compassionate housewife likely to share a slab of bread lives here....or a bad tempered husband with a gun leaning in the corner of the back porch. The slough was a haven for the hobos, and my Grandparents must have been approached frequently.

Tap Tap Tap...Tap. The hobo standing at the bottom of the back stoop humbly and respectfully knocked at the base of the back door, providing some sense of security for the housewife, my Grandma as she opened the door above him. The hobo, so the story goes, asked my Grandmother if she could possibly spare a bar of soap for him. My Grandma agreed that Yes, she had a bar of soap for the man....but wouldn't he also join her family for a meal? My Dad remembered it all vividly, because he sat next to the man who carried on a conversation with him about how Palmolive Soap was the best because you could get a good shaving lather from the minty green bars. After the meal, the hobo and his new bar of Palmolive disappeared through the cattails in the direction of the river.

The story continued. The next day, standing in her kitchen Grandma heard, ...tap, tap, tap, and according to my Dad, wondered what her previous day's generosity might have brought upon her as she opened the back door to find yesterday's supper guest.

He offered up his gift.

He'd returned to the campfire between the river and the railroad tracks and had constructed a little table from the end piece of an old wooden apple crate and finger thick willow branches which he nailed together with nails probably pulled from old crate boards salvaged as firewood to warm the men as they slept on the damp ground . He'd even used a jack knife to carve decorative notches up and down the table legs. I know that man could never imagine how very sweet and beloved his table is to me.

Relegated to the family cottage along with other family castoff furnishings whose worth today, if appraised on Antique's Roadshow, would doubtlessly stun my Grandparents, the little table was used for imaginary tea parties by my cousins and me. The inevitable march of life brought fewer and fewer gatherings as little girls and boys became teenagers and moved on...the Grandparents passed away...then some of the sons who had sat around the kitchen table sharing the meal with the stranger. The dear cottage and it's contents were lost in the garish 60's. Forgotten.

Then, one day,with my parent's home as it's return address, a mystery in a large cardboard box arrived at our house. What could it be? As I opened it and pulled aside the protective packaging I peered down inside to see the familiar scars of the apple crate table top and gasped. How could I be so fortunate to possess this treasure? The treasure of the sweet little table, certainly. But it's the story, the ability now as an adult to have such insights into my Grandparent's moral compass, to realize how the generosity of their response to their unexpected guest shaped my Dad and his brothers' way of "doing life", THAT is the treasure. But it's also the unsolvable "sudoku" of what was behind this stranger's gift of gratitude..what was his life story...it's beginning and it's end?

So, I find myself the unworthy custodian of the little table and it's lesson.

"Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it."

Hebrews 13:1-2

Finish...Finish?...FINISH!!!!

2009-01-25T04:43:00.000-08:00

A thought has been ricocheting around in my head for several day now, and keeps surfacing despite all the distractions I try to throw in front of it. I know the signs. I've "been here before". This is a Pop-Up from God, no doubt about it.

It all started two weeks ago today as I was showering before church. (Look for a future blog on "Shower Chronicles") This scripture popped into my mind:

"being confident of this, that HE who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus"

Ok. One of my favorite scripture verses. Thanks for the reminder, God...You and I KNOW there is alot of work to be completed in this girl! Now, knee-highs or full on panty hose today?

Later, in church, after a wonderful, joyful ( it's the only place where my heart is so full I am pushed past the barriers society places on me NOT to share my singing voice!) opening to the service, Our Pastor got up to begin his message. With a scripture. With a scripture from Philippians....Now, from the Living Bible:

"And I am sure that God who began the good work within you will keep right on helping you to grow in His grace until His task within you is finally finished ..."

Ok. Again, Ok. Hey, that's interesting! Now, settle in and open my journal. Which color pen do I feel like taking notes in today?

Home from church and time to settle in for a Bible Study Fellowship "marathon"...completing my lesson for Monday night's meeting. All is in readiness. Lesson on clipboard, colored markers and pen at the ready, journal open to a clean page for insights the Holy Spirit really wants to press upon me.

And there is was, this time in black and white on the lesson page:
"And I am sure that God who began the good work within you will keep right on helping you grow in His grace until the His task within you is finally finished.."

OKAY. Wouldn't THIS get YOUR attention?

God has spoken to me in this way many times before.... To draw me to join with Him in the work HE is doing in me. To invite me to pay attention and slow down to spend time with HIM...to LISTEN to what He is saying and to be obedient. I use the word OBEDIENCE because I realize it is not only being thankful that He is reminding me that He is at work within me, but also that as a believer, I am to follow His example. I am made in His image am to reflect Him in my life and actions.

So. Back to that ricocheting thought. WHAT does FINISH "look like" in my life? What could that mean?

FINISH... all those dribs and drabs of projects around the house...well, sure. First one that comes to mind is a miniature chest I had promised to my niece. It is to be my version of Swedish rosemalling on a small blue chest for her American Girl doll with her name painted among the flowers.

FINISH...all those half finished letters, or those only begun in my mind, to elderly aunts and good friends. I construct and diagram the letters in my mind but get distracted before actually putting pen to paper and stamped envelope in mailbox.

FINISH...New Year's Resolutions. This comes to mind as it IS January, and they are fresh, and in some cases actually being worked out this year....Not so much the exercise and better diet ones.....

FINISH...What about all the "We should get together...Let's make that happen"s? In the past four months I have made some wonderful re-connections with old and dear friendships that in my Lexapro haze, content to sit on the couch and knit with my TV "friends", I allowed to lapse.

I have been SO convicted that while I wasted time watching and sometimes REwatching old movies with knitting needles clicking away in my raggy hoodie...these friends were going through various rough spots in life that as a FRIEND I could have been hugging, praying, and helping them through. Wasted opportunities.

FINISH...This hit me, even the annual "catching up" with old college friends in this year's Christmas card epistles brought word of not only the introduction of grandbabies to some of our lives, but sad circumstances in employment and relationships...with the sadder promise that these look as though they will worsen. What keeps us from actually planning to get together, FACE TO FACE after all these decades? THAT is a thought I am convicted to finish in action.

FINISH....In the past two weeks as I have thought about it, I have become aware that I think alot. I get ideas and flesh them out in my mind and then pat myself on the back," GREAT idea! That would be so neat, and it can work! You go girl!"...but I don't. I congratulate myself on my ideas, but often don't put any legs to them at all...and they evaporate into thin air...no one else even hears the idea...poof. SO NOT finished.

And most importantly, aren't all the many ways I DON'T FINISH based on my thinking that my time to work in these many situations...that my time on earth, is limitless? How ridiculous is THAT? I also love the scripture that tells us that God planned all the details of each of our lives, His purposes for us, BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF TIME! I don't think He so much planned how many stitches I would knit in front of HGTV somehow.

I want to FINISH well. I want to accept HIS invitation to join Him in the work HE is doing in my life. Hey, that's from our small group "Experiencing God" study discussion for tonight...Go FIGURE!

In the bleak midwinter....

2009-01-14T04:49:00.000-08:00

In the bleak midwinter

Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone:

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter

Long ago.

Christina Rossetti, 1872

Except it's not "long ago", it is NOW. The cold is literally radiating into our house through windows and doors. I am staring out white framed windows,hung with white slatted blinds at everything covered in a thickening slather of white, white snow. This morning it is not the soft fluff of a snowglobe slowly falling like feathers....it is insistent, tight little ice pellet snow, urgently throwing itself to earth with a purpose.

I hate the fact that the calendar is forcing me to give up the cheerful bits of Christmas decorations around the house....I am putting up a fight. I've cleared away the Santas and most obvious Christmas themed frippery, but the white lights ....I NEED them!

How to counteract the effect of bleak midwinter:

Paint your rooms in stimulating colors to contrast the outdoors. ( Seriously, It really is looking alot like "The Shining" outside my "sun" porch....I am waiting for Jack Nicholson to pop into my back deck window...)

The Benjamin Moore paint names describe what I'm talkin' about. I've a BM 1307 GERANIUM laundry and half bath ( I talked myself down from "Habanero"). My front room is BM 2019-40 AMERICAN CHEESE ( go to your refrigerator and look at your Kraft Singles...then go up two steps and you're there). BM 828 AIRWAY BLUE flows through the main parts of the first floor living areas. This actually is a beautiful, soft, comforting blue.

My latest, and presently most loved antidote to bleak midwinter, is the repainted sunroom. I considered colors, literally for years before coming up with BM 2146-40 PALE AVOCADO. Well worth the wait. It is perfect and I LOVE it. It is the bright shade of the center of a stalk of asparagas or a creamy quacamole. It somehow energizes me whenever I look into the room and reminds me of Spring....which will return.

So, as January insists upon ripping cheerful Christmas from the tight grip of my frozen fingers, I'd like to thank Avery, my partner in painting adventures for all he's done to help me survive what Christina Georgina Rossetti so accurately described...long ago.

Holidays Negotiated...Important lessons learned

2009-01-06T20:18:00.000-08:00

Amy Grant in Grand Rapids for a Christmas concert with her husband, Vince Gill, was quoted as saying that she has come to realize that we "negotiate" the holidays. I don't know why I found this terminology so intriguing, but the longer I considered it as related to our holidays this year, the more I found myself embracing that concept.

NEGOTIATE, v., 4. to move through, around, or over in a satisfactory manner: to negotiate a difficult dance step.

Early in October, I saw the clouds forming on the horizon. I admit it. I have considered the holidays as an annual obstacle course. I hold myself responsible to make the holidays everything everyone around me WANTS them to be. THIS year I was determined to not merely survive the season, but to ENJOY it.

I started planning...and baking early. I prioritized and made certain there was time for not only the things expected but also for some special "extracurricular" activities I wanted to make happen. As much as possible, I didn't allow myself to think ahead, but rather planned and worked to accomplish whatever was necessary day by day.
I simplified and only put my favorite Christmas decorations ( Maybe 1/3 of my stash!)
I found ways to prepare foods for big meals ahead of time, ready to slide into ovens, or uncover and serve.

WE NEGOTIATED THE HOLIDAYS!

The Last holiday-ish event, a wonderful wind down cup of coffee and gift exchange with our next door neighbors happened yesterday afternoon...a relaxing hour of catching up and looking ahead.

THESE WERE AFEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS...

A candlelit Swedish Smorgasbord dinner with two other "Svenska Flickas"...and their husbands ( made a major discovery that a meat market in town with an Italian name is actually owned by SWEDES who make potato sausage just like my Grandmas!)

Decorating and hosting a table at our church's annual Ladies' Christmas Dessert program. It is always a beautiful night of meeting new friends and focusing on God's greatest Gift to us, His Son.

Attending the breathtaking "Imagine" presentation with almost our whole family. The wonder of how it makes me feel like a small child whenever I see it.

A wonderful Grandmothers, Moms, and babies lunch/playdate with all the Fredericks and Campbell women, on a snowy day at Megans.

An overnight road trip to Detroit with Becky, Megan, Adam and Caity. We spent Santa Lucia Day in the IKEA is Canton shopping and eating Swedish meatballs and lingonberry soda.

A quiet Christmas Eve with Christian and Emily here for the evening of dinner and euchre .

Plenty of spontaneous coffee klatches with friends, handcrafting of some Christmas gifts, catching up with old friends in annual Christmas card notes...and watching the wonder of three Grandbabies enjoying Christmas.

WE ARE BLESSED!!!

First resolution....CHECK!

2009-01-02T10:53:00.000-08:00

January 2, 2009

After many months of being so inspired as I've meandered from blog to blog to blog , and with alot of help, I'm jumping in! I'm not sure where this will take me, but any creative outlet for someone living in the "lake effect" affected shores of Lake Michigan in the winter HAS to be a good thing. I wonder how many other newborn bloggers are taking first steps this day?

Yes, I am 57 years old, for crying out loud. It is time to ACT on my many threats (read: resolutions)...Who knows where I will go from here? FINALLY learning more about using my laptop...experimenting with new recipes.... designing and sewing clothing, taking up my paintbrushes...moving from watercolors to oils....Tai Chi...opening and READING the stack of wonderful books stacked and waiting for me...learning to speak Swedish...becoming a marathon runner...Whoops definitely delete that.

The sky is the limit.

Come on in, Helen. The water's fine!