Monthly Archives: July 2015

Another Summer Day

I have so been enjoying this Summer.  It is going way too fast.  In another week, many children will be going back to school.  I find that kind of sad. I remember when Summers were long and lasted for months.  My grandson told me he was kind of glad to be going back to school which made me happy.  If he is glad about it, then it’s okay with me.

I can’t tell you it’s been an eventful Summer.  One lazy day has melted into another.  David and I have been busy at many things and yet, it seems we have done nothing.   Many of our days include this….

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Someone is almost asleep on the turtle raft behind us.

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Someone told us once that it was like swimming in the Garden of Eden in our pool.  I guess it kind of is.  Flowers, birds and butterflies surround us as we swim.

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Belle enjoys being in the garden although she and Bonnie spend most of the hot days under the deck where it is cooler.

We watched this while swimming the other day.

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The most beautiful butterfly with a large wingspan.  We didn’t know what kind it was.  Maybe someone who knows could leave a comment.

It flitted from flower to flower all afternoon.  David and my daughter chased it with their cameras trying to get some good pictures.

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I post all these flower pictures because I know that before we know it there will be two feet of snow in our yard and I will think we will never have beautiful flowers again.

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David and I did manage to do some antiquing a couple of weeks ago. We found this really eclectic antique store in northern Indiana.  It had just about everything you would want to see or buy.

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Inside these doors is a wonderland of antiques and fun objects.    I could have stocked up on so much chicken paraphernalia.  We almost missed this place as we thought it was in town, but it was off the beaten path and we just happened to see a sign for it outside of town.

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This giant tin man stood sentinel out in front of the store.

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I baked again.  I love baking fresh bread.  It is so much better than store bought.  My favorite sandwich is a hamburger on fresh, homemade bread.   Can’t do that too often, but once in a while it is a treat.  We are getting tomatoes out of the garden now and that just adds to the lusciousness of a hamburger sandwich.  There is nothing better than a slice of a fresh tomato with a little salt sprinkled on.

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Made some potato soup.  I think I am getting hungry writing this blog right now.  Unfortunately, the soup is all gone.

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The last fresh rhubarb crunch of the season.   I froze a few packages of rhubarb and this winter we will have some more of this.

David and I have done something I never thought we would be able to do.  I can’t tell you what it is yet, but soon I will be able to write about it.  I am so excited that we have done this.  And no, I am not pregnant again!!  Impossible!

I will leave you with a couple of selfies I tried to take with Molly Marshmallow.   Let’s just say, she made it difficult as she kept licking my face.  Love that dog.

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Here’s to Summer, pups and beautiful butterflies.  Bye.

 

 

Molly’s Birthday and Porch Sitting.

Molly’s birthday was yesterday and I almost forgot it.  I looked on the calendar last night and saw I had almost missed it so I got a big spoonful for peanut butter and took it out to her and said “Happy Birthday, Molly,” and she licked almost all of it off and got it stuck to the roof of her mouth and I started laughing.  She is one year old now.  Almost passed all the puppy stage and all the chewing.  She still brings whole logs from the wood pile up to the back deck and gnaws on them.  I think she is part termite or beaver.

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She has turned into the sweetest dog.  She loves attention and playing with Belle.  As soon as I open the back door, she runs to get something to tease Belle with and the chase begins.  As soon as I go back inside, she drops whatever she has and lays down.  I guess she needs an audience.

Molly has a bark that would scare anyone.  I know I would not go into a yard with a dog that barks like her.  She sounds fierce.   Anyone who comes to our house hears it and wants to know if she will bite. “Only if I tell her to,” I tell them.  I don’t want strangers thinking they are safe to just come into our yard.  She is actually very sweet, but I would not guarantee that she would not bite if she thought I was in danger.  David was hugging me outside the other day and she got very upset and barked.  She also gets anxious when anyone waves their arms and yells.  She gets so excited at seeing anyone her whole back end sways back and forth.

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She loves kids.  She is still a little intimidating to some though because she jumps on them.

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Molly has been a good addition to our family despite all the destruction she did while teething.  David and she are pals.  When he is out in the yard, she ignores me and follows him.  I love her.

I have been sitting on the porch in the evenings.  It’s so relaxing and I can see so many things.  It’s a parade right out in front of our house.  Cars going by, ambulances racing to an emergency, police cars with their sirens blaring going to an accident, people walking, people riding bicycles.  I watch to see how many people are talking on their cell phones while driving.  A lot of them are.  Yesterday I saw a man driving with his left hand holding a phone to his left ear with his right hand while driving.  Now that can’t be safe.  Trains going by.  There doesn’t seem to be as many right now.  One day David counted over a hundred cars on one train.

Everyone who comes to our house to visit finds themselves on the front porch sitting on our swing.  It’s a good gathering place to sit and chat.    Even the children that come love to sit on the swing and  David will swing them real high.

Sometimes I read while I am sitting on the porch.  I use to do that for hours when I was a kid.  There is something about gently rocking back and forth on a swing and reading a book.  The world is shut out as you escape into another one.  I do some of my best thinking on the swing.  Making plans, thinking about family, praying.  Yes, I pray a lot on the porch swing.  I was looking at the clouds yesterday thinking that one day Jesus will return in clouds.  Will I be sitting on the porch swing when He does?   Where will you be?

I think if everyone had a porch swing and sat on it for an hour a day, most of the world’s troubles would pass away.  You can’t be angry while sitting on a porch swing.  I find I feel love for my fellow man as I watch them pass by.  I wonder what their lives are like.  I even pray for them that God is watching over them.  There is so much trouble and sadness in this world.  We all need a little porch sitting to slow us down, calm our nerves and get in touch with the One who created us.  He wants only the best for us.

We have three swings in various parts of our property. I can go anywhere in our yard and find a swing to sit upon, but I love our front porch swing the best because it is my seat onto the world.  Come sit with me and chat a while.  I guarantee you will find it relaxing.  Bye.

 

Forty-Seven Years

For those who are reading this and have not even reached the age of forty yet, you may think forty-seven years is a long time.  When I was young, anyone over twenty seemed old to me.  Then I became twenty and by that time I had been married a year.  I felt pretty grown-up then and was expecting a baby, so I was officially an adult.   Yesterday my husband and I celebrated our forty-seventh wedding anniversary.   Just three years shy of fifty years.  How did we get here?  How did our marriage last when so many marriages fail?

I don’t have any secret formulas.   There were times I could have left my husband because I was immature and was only thinking of myself and how things were affecting me.  I am sure there were times he would have liked to have just shucked it all and given up, but he didn’t and as a man of few words, I never knew if he ever was unhappy. But, we stuck it out.  We stood together through the hard times and now we are reaping some good times and feel it was all worth keeping it all together.

Love has a lot to do with.  I cannot think of a time when I didn’t love my man.  Yes, he can make me exasperated sometimes, but I can be pretty exasperating myself.  We raised three children together and if you have ever raised teen-agers,  you know that can be one of the most stressful times in any marriage.  Teen-agers try their parents and parents need to present a united front, but sometimes it didn’t happen that way and I blame myself for that.   I didn’t like to be the one doling out the discipline, but it usually turned out that way.    We made it through the teen years with a few scars, but our marriage still solidly in tact.  We have watched our children grow into adults, make some pretty poor choices at times and good choices in others, but still making us proud in so many ways and we love them all so much.

Forty-seven years ago I walked down the aisle at a little Methodist church where David and two pastors stood.  We had two pastors because we had just gotten a new pastor and I wanted our old pastor to take part in the ceremony as I had pretty much grown up while he was our pastor.  So both pastors took part in the ceremony.  I was shaking in my white satin shoes and don’t remember a whole lot about it, but suddenly the pastor was saying, “I now pronounce you man and wife.  You may now kiss the bride,” and I knew it was a done deal.

That night we stayed in a little motel on our way to Traverse City, Michigan for our honeymoon.  The next morning the motel owner presented us with a gift of new bed sheets which I thought was so nice.  The honeymoon was spent with David’s relatives and we had the most fun.  Plus I had to keep pinching myself that I was now responsible for myself, I was truly a grownup and free from my parents’ control.  Anything I did after that was going to be on me.  We boated, swam, walked the streets of Traverse City where the Cherry Festival was going on, eating French fries splashed with vinegar.  We went to the city zoo.  I met lots of new relatives.  We ran around all over town in our little Volkswagon bug enjoying the scenery and just being together.  We even got stopped by a policeman because David ran a red light accidently, but he just gave us a warning.

Back to reality and sharing a life together began.  I worked at a Stucky’s saving money to continue college.  David worked at a factory.   We lived in a little apartment in the middle of the small town where I grew up.  There was a pinball room directly below our apartment and we would go down and play pinball.  Then we discovered I was pregnant a month into our marriage and we needed to look for a bigger place to live, so we bought a tiny house outside town in the country and set up housekeeping.  The house had a tiny bedroom, a tiny living room and a tiny kitchen.  I was so proud of it. I enjoyed cleaning it and arranging the furniture as much as it was possible in such a tiny space.  We celebrated our first Christmas there and the next Spring, our first son was born.  Then we had to look for an even bigger house because eight months after the first son was born, we were expecting again!   We found a big house on top of a hill in Richmond and again I set up housekeeping in my bigger house.  We had enough bedrooms for us all.    Then our second son was born and I was busy.  David had begun working for the military by then and was in the military for thirty-seven years.

And so the years passed swiftly.  One year the boys and I went to Grayling, Michigan to camp with David while he attended guard camp for two weeks.   It was there that I had a sneaking suspicion I was pregnant again. I kept telling David I thought I was, but he said I was just imagining things.  Well, he was wrong!  I was, again pregnant and nine months later we had a little girl.  Having a girl was so different from having boys, but I loved it.  Dressing her up in all the cute clothes.   I was so happy on our hill with my three children.  I was also caring for two other children and keeping busy and happy.

Then one day David came home and told me he was being sent someplace else and my world fell apart, or at least I thought it had.  I was going to have to leave friends and family and go some place where I knew no one.  Our children would have to go to a strange school.  I was not happy about the move.   David and I took one weekend to find a new house which is the one where we now live.  I wanted an older fixer upper with some character and some land.  We got it all with this house, but I must say we have been fixing it up for the last thirty-eight years and still have more we want to do.   We made the move and I cried for days.  By and by things got back to normal, I met people and found a church and got the boys in school and they seemed to thrive so all was good.

We have seen so much through the years.  I could write an entire book about our life as a couple and what all we have done together.  We have traveled in almost all fifty states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands,Canada and Mexico.  We raised our three children to adulthood and they are productive members of society.  We have seen loved ones and friends pass away and babies born into the family.  As the song says, “Sunrise, sunset, swiftly fly the days.  One season following the other….”   Our seasons have flown by.  Here we are the elders in our family now and we still love life, God and family and look forward to more years together, but if it should all end tomorrow, I can say we have been blest and have had a wonderful life.  Just remember if you are married right now and think you cannot make it to forty-seven or more years, you can if you decide to and learn to love and care for one other person more than yourself.  That is what a wife and husband are to do.  A young man told us the other day that not many marriages make it as far as ours.  I find that sad because all it takes is love, a relationship with Jesus Christ, and a determination that your marriage will not fail. That it is your top priority.   It will all be good if you both do those three things.  Bye.

Feeling the Pain

I have never been a fan of going to the doctor.  I have a really great doctor and I don’t mind so much when I have to go see him.  Right now I am contemplating a trip to the doctor and this is why.

Yesterday David got thirty bags of mulch for the garden.  He was busy with something else, so I proceeded to lift them out of the truck and stack  them.  No problem.  I have stacked hundreds of bags of mulch in the past.

Then, last night I started to bend my left knee and an excruciating pain shot through it, clear up my leg.  Every time I tried bending my knee I was in tears.  I had pinched a nerve or pulled a muscle.  I took pain relievers and a muscle relaxer in hopes of softening the pain a little.

I took a heating pad to bed with me, but I spent the night looking for a comfortable position for my leg.  It was like it was its own entity.  Not a part of my body except for the pain.  I don’t think childbirth was as painful.  I finally ended up in a single bed in our guest room and fell into a restless sleep.

Now today I am sitting in a recliner, unable to bend my knee unless I use my hands to gently raise it.  I had to make baked beans and a cake for a funeral dinner at out church today and I managed that and drove to church, but had to get someone to help me get the baked beans inside.  I felt so puny.  I was so glad I managed to do it as the funeral was for a man I have known ever since we started going to our church thirty some years ago.  He was a godly man and a good man and we will surely miss him.  I am sure they are celebrating his arrival in Heaven.

This afternoon, David and I are going to look at some acreage in Brown county and I am hoping I can walk the property lines to see where it goes.   I am determined to do it as I really would love to own some property in Brown Country which is a wooded, hilly area in our state.   We shall see.  David says if I am not better in a day or so, I will go to the doctor.  I imagine him twisting and turning my knee and me screaming in agony as he does it and I don’t relish the thought.  I am praying the pain will go away before I have to see a doctor.

When I was a little girl, my parents took all us kids periodically to the doctor for polio shots.  Back then it was a real threat.  In fact, one time my parents thought I had polio because I got a very stiff neck and could not look up.  Those were the times when doctors made house calls and Dr. Barton came to our house and put me through a series of neck exercises.  He decided I didn’t have polio, but suggested we all have polio shots and we did.  My sister would tease me about how long the needle was and scare me half to death before I even got into the doctor’s office.  Perhaps that is why I have a slight fear of doctors to this day.

Later, when I was in school, I suffered with tonsillitis quite often.  I was absent from school for six weeks in second grade because I had such severe sore throat problems.  My mother would talk to my teacher and get my homework and I would lay in bed all day eating soup and reading and doing my homework.  I was so glad to get back to school with all my friends.  I still have my tonsils even though the doctor had recommended they be removed.

I am not a good patient and do not like being bedridden or chair ridden as I am now.  Perhaps this is God’s way of slowing me down and having me look to Him.  Anyway, I have empathy with those of you in pain right now.  It isn’t fun.  It’s humbling and there is nothing to be done but endure it.   If you are a praying person, say a little prayer for me that my knee might be healed.  Thank you.

I have sounded like a whiny baby here, but, hey, every day isn’t all sunshine and happy.  Bye.