Holiday Expectations

I am a day late but I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas from my home to yours! I was hoping this year would be a normal Christmas but, expectations do not always come to pass.

All the kids and grandkids were supposed to make it to our house for Christmas day. The day before Christmas our son called and we found out our daughter in law was not feeling well and had pneumonia.

We did make it to my parent’s home for Christmas Eve and it was a house full of laughter and love. Four generations all under one roof; make for a very special evening. Food, games, gifts and fun were all rolled into 5 hours and is a memory to be treasured. Watching my dad, who just turned 89 and my mom, watch their herd of great-grandchildren was a blessing.

Before we left their home to head back to ours I received a call from son #2….we found out the second daughter in law had stomach flu. We told my sister to make sure and come for dinner on Christmas day as we had a 17# turkey that was way more than we needed for 4 adults and two children.

My husband informed our 10 year old grandson that he would need to eat 2 1/2# of turkey. The grandson did not miss a beat and replied, “I can eat 2 1/2# of pumpkin pie!” (And I think he really could!)

Christmas day came, my sister joined us, we gathered around the table, joined hands and gave thanks for family with us and family that could not be with us. The day was a blessing. We laughed, we talked, we ate, we did a zoom call with those not able to be there, and presents were opened. (some of them were opened.)

There will come a day in either January or February that the rest of those gifts will be opened when we attempt to all gather again. My husband has decreed the tree will not come down till that event occurs….good thing it is an artificial tree!

The photo above is the aftermath of a Christmas well spent….a Christmas where the true meaning was celebrated and gifts were a by-product. It is good to be reminded to be grateful for what we do have. We had a day with our oldest son and his family and my sister….and that was a true gift.

May this day find you feeling blessed by the love of family and friends. May your holidays be wonderful even if they do not turn out like you had planned. May you know the blessing of Christ’s birth and the grace of God.

Merry Christmas!

 “Love without motives.
Give without expectations.
Forgive without conditions.”
Unknown

Happy New Year

It is hard to imagine that 2019 has already come and gone. I have a feeling I say that every year…..but every year it always does surprise me that another year has come and gone.

This past New Year’s Eve we celebrated; as we always do…with friends. Each year 3 of the couples are in charge of coming up with the evening’s theme, food and games. This year we chose the 20s as we were ringing in the 2020s.

The photo does make me laugh, as our parties are held in our church youth building and alcohol has never been involved. I also have to grin about the candy cigarettes dangling from some mouths. We had candles on the tables that could not be lit, as no one had any matches or lighters…..no one smokes in this group!

Through the night we discovered many new facts about the 20s…..games that were introduced during that time (Yahtzee & Bunco), foods that showed up (Baby Ruth candy bars, Oreos and Red velvet cake), and what people were famous for (I had no idea Corrie Ten Boom was also famous for being the first licensed woman watchmaker during the 20s).

There was lots of laughter and the sharing of stories. The conversation flowed easy, as is normal when friends get together. There are so many memories with this group of people.

Through the years we have shared parties, births of children and grandchildren, deaths of family members, sickness, surgeries, health, weddings, funerals and everything in between. We have shared life and been made better people for that sharing.

The older I get, the more I value friendships. Friends…true friends…get us through life’s hardest moments. Friends know when to help “fix” things and when to sit and listen.

Friends share joys like the joys are theirs and grieve when you grieve. A really good friend allows you to be stupid and doesn’t let you look stupid alone. Friends are family of the heart. This group of people are those type of friends.

May the new year find you with friends. Friends that “stick closer than a brother.” (Prov. 18:24). May you be richly blessed with relationships of the heart and bless those friends in return.

Happy New Year my friends!

 

The greatest gift of life is friendship,
and I have received it.

— Hubert H Humphrey

Vacation – Part Two

Wyoming Landscape

There are days when it feels like you are hours behind before you even get started on the tasks for the day. Today was such a day….Actually the last weeks seems to be running in that same vein.

I finally had time to start mowing the lawn again. It was about 5 days past due, so the grass kind of blew out of the mower in clumps. I do have to admit that pushing a lawn mower is not only a great workout, but it is also a great time for thinking.

As I mowed I did think about playing the chore catch up game and how that ties in with having been on a vacation. Do not get me wrong…I LOVE vacations. For some reason it just seems that the time spent preparing for them is a lot funner than the time spent catching up from taking them. At least when preparing for a vacation there is the anticipation.

I did a bit of pondering on how I prepare and how my husband prepares. My husband usually makes sure to take tools for any mechanical issue that might happen. I am thinking a plier, hammer, and a few other things are probably good. (Pretty sure I am wrong on that one!)

I tend to worry about having enough clothing for every weather event….food for any possibility…and everything that falls in between. If my husband was in charge of packing he would walk out the door with a plastic grocery bag containing a change of underwear and a clean shirt, a toothbrush, toothpaste and a towel.

He would also make sure to pack the Johnny Horton CD so he could belt out the favorite family traveling song, “North to Alaska” while traveling west.

I did pack lighter for our last vacation as I knew we could wash clothes before my husband and I went on the second half of vacation. I call it the second half because our children left on a Sunday to head home and we stayed a few days longer.

We pulled our camper further north (I guess we do head North occasionally) toward Deadwood and Spearfish. We decided we would again do dispersed camping. We found out about this a couple years ago and really liked it.

The national forestry has Motor Vehicle Use Maps that are available and those maps show where you can camp for free.  Of course you are on your own…no water…no electric. You also often camp on a logging road. It did make it interesting watching the trucks go past with all those logs.

Bridal Veil Falls 

On the second half of our vacation we spent time driving through Spearfish Canyon, It is a beautiful drive any time of the year. Bridal Veil falls is always beautiful and the water in the stream is always cold enough to make your feet go numb if you choose to wade in it to cool off. We had thought of hiking to a place called the Devil’s Bathtub to swim; but after freezing our feet we were reluctant to freeze our entire body.

Time was spent in Deadwood watching the reenactment of the shooting of Wild Bill by Jack McCall. There is a lot of history in those towns that are in the Black Hills.

We also decided we needed to do a day trip to Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. It had been 25 years since we had been there and it did not disappoint. (We also decided that at our age we probably should not wait 25 years again before we go see stuff!) As we hiked around the tower we ended up talking to a couple who were there with their 10 year old grandson.

We found out how small this world really is…..they were the in-laws of a gal who was raised in the same town as us and had attended the same church as us!

Our entire week of vacation…with our kids and with just the two of us was a wonderful time of reconnecting. It was great, to just spend time and be together.

My husband I have come to realize that time and vacations spent with those you love are well worth the investment. At the end of the day; or the end of a life; it does not matter how much money you made. It does not matter what position you held in the company. It does not matter if you never missed a day of work…..what matters is the relationships you leave behind and the legacy that is your family and friends.

“Nobody ever has,
“He was a good worker”
written on his tombstone.”
John S. (aka~my dad)

 

 

 

More Than a Quilt

 

Last week my husband and I had the fun of watching our granddaughter graduate from pre-school. (My husband doesn’t quite understand the concept of graduation at that age but I have assured him that it definitely is a thing now.)

I was able to give my granddaughter her quilt that I had made from blue jeans and flannel shirts from her dad, uncles, grandpa, grandma, great grandpas and great grandmas. I am not sure she totally understood the memories in that quilt but she did enjoy using it to sit on outside and play with her brother.

It did make me smile inside and out just watching them sit on that quilt playing. It made all the hours of making it worthwhile.

I love the thought that new memories will be made sitting on top of all those old memories. I love the fact the fabric in that quilt has a history. Maybe someday, if that quilt holds up, my granddaughter will want to know what some of those memories are. If and when she is ready to ask I am going to be more than willing to answer!

When she decides to ask, I would love to tell her about her Great-Grandpa who served in the military and came back home to farm and raise a family. I want her to know her Great Grandma who raised five children and then went on to cook at the local Christian high school for many years.

It would be good for her to know that her other Great-Grandpa wanted to go to the military but could not; due to stepping on a pitchfork as a child. It would be good for her to know that he worked hard and took care of the family he loved.

She should also know about the Great Grandma who sewed pretty much all the clothing her children wore. I would love to point out the pieces of flannel in the quilt that came from baby blankets that were sewn by that same Great Grandma for the grandsons who would become her dad and uncles.

I want her to know  what her Grandpa did for a living and what he did for fun. I am hoping she wants to know what her dad was like as a boy….the things he enjoyed and the things he did not. It would be a wonderful thing for her to know about her two uncles and how they looked up to her dad, their older brother.

There is so much history in that one small quilt. We are much like that quilt….there is so much history in all of our lives if we just stop and think about it. Good history, sad history, and all the stuff in between.

It is good to pass on those stories for the next generations. It is good for them to have a connection to what makes up their past. If it takes a quilt to pass on those stories….it is a wonderful thing.

It will be a wonderful thing to see all the new memories made on that quilt. Memories that someday can be passed on to the next generation of this family.

Each day of our lives
we make deposits
in the memory banks
of our children.
Charles R. Swindoll

 

Raining Petals

The other day I drove past my in-laws home. I should have stopped and taken a picture of their flowering crab tree; but I was in a hurry. The tree was absolutely beautiful that day and loaded with rose-colored flowers……overloaded actually. I made the assumption that I could take a photo when I went to town the next day and had more time…..so I kept driving.

When I stopped the next day; I found the next day was too late. The wind had picked up during the night and many of the flower petals had blown off and lay in drifts on the driveway. The slight breeze was still making it rain petals and we stood and watched as the petals twisted and drifted on the wind, then dropped to join the drift on the driveway.

The day of the “petal drift” was spent with my husband’s siblings; sorting and dividing the lifetime of memories in their parent’s house. There was much laughter and lots of stories told. The good times were discussed and the not so good times were discussed.

We reminisced and also caught up on each other’s lives; as siblings came from other places and other states to help out. It was also heart-warming to see that treasured pieces were going to kids and grandchildren who would also treasure them, and the memories they held.

Much of that day was like the drift of the petals of that flowering crab. The time was taken to enjoy the relationship of family before the wind would blow us too far to be gathered up again.

There are things to be learned from that rose colored petal drift…..life does not stay the same. Overnight things can change and life looks totally different…..not always bad…but different.

There was a beauty to be found in that drift of petals. Like life, it was just a different kind of beauty. Life changes and it is good to look for the “different” beauty to be grasped. Usually that new beauty is not of our own choosing, but is still okay.

There is also the lesson, for me, that I should not always assume that life will not change. There are times when the wind will take what you know and blow it into a totally different shape when you least expect it. That new shape is not always bad…it is just sometimes uncomfortable. For me, it makes me rely on God more than I would if life were going smooth.

In visiting my in-laws in their new apartment in assisted living; I am learning that change can be handled with grace. I am learning that each new place has a joy of it’s own and there is always something new to be learned.

We may drift and we may twist like rose-colored petals in the wind. We may not be sure of where we will land once the breeze lets us go….but we can be sure, we have the choice to enjoy where we land…..and that is a good thing.

For everything there is a season,
and a time for every matter under heaven: 
Ecclesiastes 3:1

 

Socks and Sisterhood

There are times in life when you meet someone or several someones who just seem to “click” with you. The weekend of the women’s retreat I attended, was a great time to gather with those special someones and also get to meet some more new someones.

What really ends up being wonderful, is the fact that so many of those “someones”  turn into friendships….a sisterhood of sorts. That is a real blessing!

I think I love going to that particular retreat because of the very fact of all those relationships. It is a great place to reconnect with women who share in the joy of praising, singing, laughing and serving. It is also a great place to build new friendships.

This year, I ended up working in the same room with a gal who is a fellow chicken owner lover. (She may be even more of a chicken lady than me…..Her girls sometimes get their toenails painted!)

At one point in the weekend she came up to me with an envelope, stood 2 inches from my face and informed me I needed to open the envelope she held in her hand. She then gave strict instructions that what was contained in that envelope needed to be used that very day. I am here to tell you, that it is impossible to refuse a woman who is that determined!

I should have had some premonition that the package was going to contain something unusual. I also should have known that, knowing Vickie, I might be doing something I was not totally sure about…..a journey of sorts without knowing your destination!

The package was opened and out tumbled a pair of socks…..not your typical pair of socks….but a pair of socks. I had already agreed to her terms, so I did have to wear them, for a time, that very day.

I will say it made for a lot of fun, a lot of laughter and memories were made. I have a feeling that some of those memories may come back to haunt me. I also have a feeling those socks will become standard apparel for at least part of a day the next time I work that retreat weekend.

Looking back, I realize that part of the reason I agreed to those terms was trust. I was trusting the bond of the special sisterhood of this group of “someones”. Over the years I have grown to know these women; and to love these women as family.

Like sisters, they may tease, pull pranks and push you out of your comfort zone…but like sisters….they will always have your back, always love you and always hold you accountable. They may not be sisters by blood….but they are sisters of the heart.

Everyone should have that special set of someones in their life. I pray that your life contains a few of those someones and that they form a wonderful sisterhood or brotherhood for you. It is indeed a blessing.

 

 

Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.
Herodotus
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/herodotus_402187

 

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ralph_waldo_emerson_105261?src=t_friendship

 

Dinosaurs and Love

 

There are times in life that you agree to do something that you later wonder what possessed you. Maybe you have never had that experience but, for some reason I seem to have that every so often.

Last August, when I went to my children’s home to babysit my grandkids…I had such a moment.  My son had a stuffed dinosaur that he thought would be great as a bigger stuffed dinosaur…..I am sure you can already see where this is going.

For some reason, at the age of 33, he still thinks his mom can do things. He requested that I make a larger version of this stuffed dinosaur. My daughter-in-law and I, dutifully went to the fabric store and roamed the aisles looking for the appropriate colored fleece that was closest to the original dinosaur.

I took that fabric home and for the longest time it sat….in the same bag…..in the same spot by the sewing machine…..it sat…..and sat some more. I was reluctant to start on it as I had no pattern other than the original critter to go by.

One day I decided to just take the plunge. I hauled out some heavy paper to use for a pattern and cleared the kitchen table. I soon found out that it is pretty hard to make a pattern from a 3 dimensional object. That fluffy dinosaur would only squish down so far so that I could draw around it. It had a alarming tendency to spring back to it’s intended shape every time I took my hands off of it.

I ended up making a drawing on a hand drawn grid. Then I made a larger hand drawn grid and transferred the dinosaur drawing to that. If you are struggling to grasp what I am talking about…do not fear…..I am still not entirely sure I understand what I was doing!

I had thought to iron some fusible stuff on to the green fleece for the spots. I thought if they were a little more solid they would sew onto the orange body a little easier. Did you know that if you iron fleece, even with a dish towel to cover it…..it will melt? This gets very messy on your iron! I do have to point out; the upside of that, is the fact that you can still learn things at the age of 60.

After much trial and error I did manage to produce a larger version of the original. I am not sure how true to scale it is but I have a feeling there will be no complaints. l did fulfill the basic requirement….it is a bigger version of the original.

I often wonder why I agree to take on projects like this for my kids. I think it is because they are my kids and I don’t want to let them down. I want them to know that know matter how old they get, no matter what good or bad choices they make, no matter how successful they are or how unsuccessful they are, no matter how far away or how close they live….they will always be my children. I will always love them and if at all possible I will try help them out.

Sometimes, a mom’s love can take the shape of a large fleecy orange dinosaur.

Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.
Charles R. Swindoll

 

 

Reliving My Youth

This past weekend my husband and I did something that brought back memories of my youth, and also memories of us being young parents with three little boys.  What we did was decide it was time to brew some homemade root beer!

A couple things combined to make us decide it was time to give it a try again. My son built us this awesome rack to hold our brewing bottles of pop. We also are helping host a baby celebration for the upcoming birth of our newest grandson. We decided it would be kind of fun to have homemade root beer as one of the beverages.

 

Somehow during the years, since we last made root beer, we had managed to bury the bottles and equipment in a back corner of the garage. My husband dug out the crates and boxes of bottles from that back corner, and I spent an entire afternoon cleaning, cleaning, and cleaning those bottles. I was never so glad to own a bottle brush, as that afternoon!

The bottles, themselves, brought back lots of memories for me. As a kid, my Aunt Jean always brewed root beer. We begged and pleaded with my mom to give it a try also. My siblings and I spent countless hours going through ditches, looking for glass pop bottles. (This was in the days before the nickel deposit for bottles….and long before pop cans.)

Once we had amassed enough bottles, my dad purchased a bottle capper and we were set to go. That root beer was some of the best around on a hot summer day. When we were kids; pop was a luxury and our folks didn’t purchase pop very often, so we savored every sip we took. It always had a slightly yeasty taste but we thought it was wonderful.

When our sons were small we inherited the bottles and the capper. Through the years we also gathered more bottles to add to the collection. The bottles ranged from 7 ounce bottles to 32 ounce bottles. It is kind of fun to see where those bottles come from. Places like Fort Dodge, Ia, Spirit Lake, IA, Sioux Falls, SD, Mississippi, and who knows where! It is rather like a collage of old pop bottles.

Our sons fondly remember drinking ice cold homemade root beer on steamy summer days. My husband and I remember, not quite as fondly, the sound of a bottle blowing up in the middle of the night during the brewing phase.

The sound of a bottle blowing is slightly like hearing a cannon go off. At that time we lived on a different acreage and had the bottles brewing on their sides, on the steps in the upstairs stairwell. It took a long time to get the sticky, sugary root beer scrubbed off those stairwell walls. I do remember it smelled wonderfully to root beer for a long time.

This time my husband and I decided we should fill bottles in the garage as we could hose off the floor if we spilled too much. It worked great and was kind of a fun thing to do again. We ended up with 70+ bottles of root beer.

The real test will be at the end of this week when we do the taste test on a bottle. Hopefully, it is as good as we remember!  I have a feeling this is an acquired taste as this root beer always tastes a little yeasty. I guess there is a great reason it tastes that way; as yeast is what is used to carbonate homemade root beer.

I am hoping that the first sip will bring back memories of years past. Memories of time spent drinking root beer with cousins, time spent making root beer with our sons and new memories to be made with family and friends.

When I was looking for quotes on homemade root beer (and not finding any!) I discovered that August 6, 2017 is National Root Beer Float Day in the United States!  How amazingly cool is it that? That is the day of our baby celebration complete with homemade root beer for root beer floats.

“Life has an odd way of making things work out in the end.”
Unknown

“…root beer floats are the stuff that toasts are made of.” 
― Sandra D. Bricker,
If the Shoe Fits

  I am editing this post to add the recipe I used.  I had a request to do that so here it is:

Homemade Root Beer
1- 2 ounce bottle Root Beer Extract (I used Schilling)
 5 gallons water
5 pounds white sugar
1 large teaspoon dry yeast
1 cup warm water
Put the yeast in the cup of warm water with 1 teaspoon of sugar
Mix the extract with the rest of the sugar
Pour the rest of the water into a large bucket (not metal)
Add the sugar/extract mixture
Add the yeast mixture
Stir well
Bottle in clean sterilized glass pop bottles.
Cap with bottle caps (can get these from bottling companies).
Put bottles on their side in a warm place for 2-4 days.
Move to a cool place to store.
Chill well before serving.

 

 

 

Signs of Spring

“It is spring again.
The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke

 

It feels like it is officially Spring now!  The apple trees are in full bloom and are absolutely beautiful. It is hard for me to imagine how one tree can be covered by so many blossoms at the same time.

I have to keep reminding myself that these blossoms should be enjoyed fully right now. Like so many things in life, they will not last. It won’t be long and a breeze will pluck them from the tree and they will float down in a soft rain of pink petals. They might be fleeting, but they are truly a wonderful gift while they last.

I decided to take advantage of the gift and took the time to wander through my backyard and see what other signs of spring I could find. It was kind of a mini scavenger hunt and it was a refreshment for the soul.

The other day my husband discovered this robin’s nest in one of our White Pine evergreen trees. I thought, as the nest was not so far up the tree, I should attempt to capture a picture of them before they get to big.

Mama Robin was not really impressed with me getting close enough to photograph them. In fact I think I made her downright crabby! She kept a very watchful eye on me from her perch on my garden fence and the minute I backed away she went right back to the nest to make sure everything was okay.

One of my favorite perennials around here is the bleeding heart bush I planted two years ago. It was a tiny slip of a plant when I put it in the ground. I remember putting a small fence around it to protect it from the rabbits and the chickens.  I babied that plant along with the hope that it would survive and someday bloom.

The rabbits probably would have eaten it if they had a chance and the chickens definitely would have scratched around the plant and totally destroyed it. (Things you learn living out here!) It is best not to leave tender seedlings exposed to rabbits and chickens.

I kind of think I love bleeding hearts because they are such an old fashioned flower. They are a plant I remember my Grandma having in her flower garden. It is also great it is a perennial…..I love the fact they come back year after year. There is something comforting about a plant that keeps coming back even after the harsh Iowa winters.

When you look at a  field of dandelions you can either see a hundred weeds or a hundred wishes  – Unknown

 

There is one other “perennial” that we seem to have in abundance……the Dandelion. For many years I fought a battle with those bright yellow flowers. I tried spraying them, digging them out and mowing them off….constantly. Nothing stopped them from coming back.

Since those years I have come to a truce with the dandelion. I discovered one morning while pondering those dandelions that is was better to let them grow. I found that my lawn was filled with bright yellow gold finches. They were feasting on the dandelions that had gone to seed.

I decided at that time that I would never have a lawn that makes the front cover of a landscape magazine. I also decided that if I couldn’t have that kind of lawn I would have one that invited wildlife to come and have some lunch. To be very honest it was much more fun watching all those finches hopping around my yard than it would have been to see only green smooth grass.

I have also seen magazine articles about all the wonderful things you can do with a dandelion…..I have not tried any of them….yet. They say (I am not sure who “they” are) that you can eat the leaves in salads. I do wonder if they would taste good or if they would be kind of bitter?  I also have a friend who has made dandelion wine. (I do wonder how many blossoms she had to pick to make that gallon of wine.)

Those yellow blooms bring back great childhood memories of picking fistfuls to bring to my mom. The downside of that was that our hands were stained for days with the stuff that oozed out of those stems and onto our hands. Fortunately, as a kid, we were not too concerned with dirty stained hands.

It is a wonderful thing to be able to look at that bright yellow bloom and let your mind wander back to that time called childhood. What brings back those wonderful childhood memories for you? For me it is Spring with it’s yellow dandelions and the wonder of blue robin’s eggs hatching into baby birds.

 

The day the Lord created hope
was probably the same day he created Spring.
Bernard Williams
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Wanderings

“Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.”
― Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam

Today was one of those odd days where it seems like you are busy, but when you look back at the day you realize you haven’t really got much to show for it. I did get the dishes done. We did get to town and get some groceries. It just felt like we worked so much harder than that!

It has been rainy, gray and drippy here the last few days. Maybe that is why everything seems like it is harder and takes longer to do. It might just be a whole mental attitude thing.

I was at a loss as to what to post today so I went on over to the dailypost to check out the  prompts. It is always a helpful place to give you some ideas to get your brain working. The words for the last couple days were gray and roots. This did make me laugh out loud as my first thought was of my own hair!  Only…..mine is gray on a lot more of my head than just the roots.

After thinking on those words awhile I knew that in my digital files of photos I had some pretty cool pictures of tree roots. I am going to share a few of my favorites with you. They were taken on various vacations through the past years.

The tree pictured at the beginning of this post was photographed on a family vacation years ago to the Black Hills in South Dakota. (My husband’s favorite place!) The roots on that tree were so amazing to me. They just seemed to snake around the rocks and hang on. Eventually the tree died but those roots spoke of such determination to anchor themselves firmly into something solid.

It kind of reminded me of a song we used to sing in Sunday School about the wise man building his house upon the rock….when the rains and winds came…his house stood firm. I suspect that tree stood pretty firm through many storms.

This picture was taken at Lake Thompson, South Dakota. I just could not pass up taking a picture of this huge ball of roots. It made me wonder what it actually took to bring that tree down! Even in it’s present state there is such a rugged beauty to it.  The roots have been worn smooth by the rain and bleached by the sun. It may no longer function as a living tree but I have a feeling that it is probably used by many people as a place to sit and rest. It has been repurposed and made beautiful again by time.

This grouping of three pictures, are probably some of my all time favorites. They were taken at Gooseberry Falls, Minnesota. Just seeing these pictures gives me a wanderlust to go back and wade in the cool waters of the falls, marvel at the twisted trees that are still alive and feel the texture of the lichen covered rocks that line the stream.

It is the perfect place…..running water, sparkling waterfalls, gnarly trees, multi-colored rocks and pebbles, and there is always a refreshing breeze on a hot summer day. It is a joy to watch the little kids (and the old kids) splashing in the water and just enjoying being outdoors.

I am starting to think that if tomorrow is also a rainy day it might be time to get out the well-worn Rand McNally atlas and do some vacation dreaming! I have found that sometimes the dreaming is over half the fun.

Perhaps just planning a vacation and dreaming on one can be like taking a vacation and never leaving home. Perhaps the slow pace of our “gray, drippy” day was a mini-vacation of sorts. I may need to rethink vacations in general.

Vacation memories can be like those tree roots that are sunk deep into rock……those memories are firmly and solidly rooted in shared experiences with family and friends….shared joys, laughter and fun……..and that is a blessed, wonderous thing.

The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.
Cesare Pavese
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