Celebrating our Mom!

" I acknowledge and confess that all things come from Thee-

life, breath, happiness, sight, touch, hearing, 

goodness, truth, and beauty-

all that makes existence amiable."

From the Valley of Vision

Last month we were able to have my mother-in-law Bethel here with us for the better part of a week, celebrating her 97th birthday and Mothers Day. We had a lot of fun doing various things. I took her with me to a Ladies Night Out at our church, where we enjoyed a great dinner served by our men, and a comedian to entertain us. We attended a musical at our local Lutheran School, which we all enjoyed.

 We drove to Prineville to a local nursery and enjoyed the flowers while we bought a few baskets I had previously ordered. We enjoyed lunch at McDonalds and it made a fun trip.

One day she and I babysat for some friends who are foster parents. Mom had a good time playing with 'sweet pea' as we call her.

It is always a good time when we can be together. She is one amazing woman to be so active at her age. 

We are on our way over to her house this week-end. We are taking her to Ontario tomorrow which is where she was raised. We will be visiting four of her cousins and we are having lunch with them in a favorite restaurant. We are also going to the cemetery there to see the gravestone that was recently placed for my father-in-law. We will lay some flowers, and she will get to see it for the first time. 

I am sure we are going to have another good time together....that's what families do!

Have a great first day of Summer, 2019!

Beauty in Exercising

We enjoyed a great Father's Day.

We enjoyed a good Sunday morning at Church, followed by a great barbeque at home on the deck...with hamburgers, hot dogs, brats and buns with all the fixin's, homemade potato salad and wonderful fruit salad which starred a great, sweet watermelon.

The father in the house relaxed in his recliner and watched the end of the US Open Championship. Following that, we took short naps, then grabbed our tennis shoes for a hike along the Deschutes River Trail south. This is less than a mile away from the house, and we are so blessed.

This is such a beautiful, and clean river which affords great sights. Some of the trail looks like this, with the river being calm and peaceful. Lots of lodge pole pines line the river bank.

Some of the trail looks like this, where it follows the river but up the bank a ways... and some of the trail climbs small rocky hills where you can look down on the river rushing through rapids.

At the end of the trail is a bridge to cross to other side and hike back to the beginning and see the river from the other side. This trail is well used with walkers, runners, and mountain bikers (allowed on part of the trail) as well as dog walkers. One thing we particularly like is that it feels like a wilderness area, but is only literally minutes away from the city of Bend on both sides. Beauty in exercising....that's the ticket.

Burns, Boise and Gardens

 One last post about my 'spring' garden. I have been busy traveling, and when I got home I was exited to find that my little garden had fully developed. So, there are two kinds of daffodils, peach tulips and the blue muscari. 

We were in Burns for Easter where we visited my mother in law, my sister and brother in law, and two couples that we haven't seen in over 30 years. We had a lovely time at church and a great ham dinner after that. 

Next, I went to Boise, Idaho with my sister in law for a week. We stayed with my niece Deana and her caregivers. Deana has had MS for many years and needs constant care. Her husband takes a vacation/break a couple times a year, and my sister in law comes to help out. We had an absolutely lovely time, and I had a vacation to boot. It is always good to see Deana and spend some time with her. During the days my sister in law and I spent time with other friends, had some nice lunches out and did some shopping. Then we came back to Deana's in the afternoon and spent the evening until she was ready for the night. On Sunday we accompanied a friend to her Catholic Church and attended Mass. I had done that once before in college, but this was a large and interesting service.

We also visited with my other niece Kellie and her two daughters, Tiegan and Alexandria. It was prom weekend, so we went with them to the park for some photos.

There was lots going on. I usually spend most of my time at home, so this was a nice change.

Spring is bringing lots of activity this year, in spite of the rain we have enjoyed. 

Now, we are off to the coast for a couple of days...6 of us. Hope you are having fun too!

Then Sings My Soul

This is exactly how I feel when I am outside in my yard and/or garden. Then sings my soul to Thee, O God, in praise for the works of Thine hands.

I have been outside off and on for the past three weeks, and it has felt so good. This bed has now popped up, and will be a mix of daffodils first, tulips second, and muscari (wild grape hyacinth) last. I can't wait! 

One thing we can do over here is grow large crocus, and they are in full bloom now and thank goodness for the colors, as the rest of Central Oregon is pretty well brown. But just working in the dirt, and cleaning away debris is fulfilling.

I have chosen a word this year to work on in my life. The word is 'authentic'. I want to be truly known, and truly know others. I want to be who God created me to be. It has helped me so much just to relax, and not worry what anyone else thinks or if they like me or not. My whole perspective is lighter and happier. I am an authentic flower gardener. It took me years of growing various vegetables to find this out, because everyone else thought vegetable gardening was 'serious' gardening. But now I have found my true delight, in growing beautiful flowers, and basically flowers only. It is hard here. People in the Willamette Valley or Treasure Valley would just laugh at what I call 'my garden'. But I don't care. Not anymore. It's what makes me happy and healthy and brings a little patch of beauty to our Central Oregon landscape. There are various ways of great beauty here: tall old growth cedars and ponderosa pines against a majestic blue sky, wildflowers along the Metolius River in June and a wide sky as far as the eye can see. But not so many flowers. And so I garden and go to sleep at night happy.

A New Bathroom Makeover

A season of renewal, that's spring.

We are in the last phases of updating a small guest bathroom on our main floor, cottage style. We decided to get new fixtures and trim. This however is the same window and wallpaper that I love!

A new toilet....

new towel bars....

a new sink (and an older insurance man)....

a newly re-purposed storage cabinet....

and a new mirror above the sink.

We took off the old wallpaper border and replaced that with new white chair railing, still in process. The only thing left will be to add a grab bar. We are reaching an age where we have decided to start adding some handicapped accessories to the house for future use and hopefully that will make life a little easier for guests and for us.

A fun (for me) springtime project, and it is nice to have a project with a short turn-around time. After all, it's time to be out in the garden!

Dreaming in Central Oregon

FIRST DAY OF SPRING!

There are at least a couple of blooms out there to see. First crocuses.

But the rest of the garden beds look like this:

I just had to get out there and do something though, so I cleaned out two beds.

This one has a lot of spring flowering bulbs just coming up. (Stay posted)

I helped them by uncovering them to the sun, a good spring thing to do.

And this one is empty, ready for the dahlias we will plant in May.

Both beds were covered with pine needles, pine boughs, pine cones, pine cone skeletons and pine cone leaves in a thick layer. I think eating the cones has been the way our squirrels have survived the recent storms. Just wish they wouldn't throw their remains down on my garden!

Someday we will have green again and lovely blooms. Dreaming of spring over here in Central Oregon!

Remembering March 12, 1946

March 12, 1946... the day my parents were married. A newly returned Air Corp soldier from the Pacific Theater of WW II, married a shy high school graduate from Queen Anne Hill in Seattle, Washington.

This morning I grabbed a cup of coffee and a small tape recorder and tape and listened to my Dad tell about his war adventures and then meeting my mom and getting married on this day 73 years ago. It was great to have a 'visit' with Dad and hear his voice once again. They were both present, and together they said "March 12" and then Dad repeated 1946. A special day in our family for sure.

A quick update on our trip to the Willamette Valley. We had a great time reconnecting with family for sure, and remembering the life of a wonderful woman of God. But seeing spring blooms? No way. It was cold, raw and muddy. I did see a patch of daffodils where the stalks were above ground, but quite a ways from blooming. Guess Oregon spring is still mulling over making an entrance, while winter still has a firm grasp on things. The good thing is that we know it's coming. It has always come, and the signs of spring will once again show the hope of resurrection.

Came in Like a Lion, Going Out Like a Lamb?

 Well, March did come in like a lion, more like a pack of lions. We have lived here for over 30 years, and I have never seen such a late series of winter storms. Let me be clear, I LOVE snow. I can never usually get enough of it. But these last weeks, even I cringed to wake up to more grey gloomy skies letting go of yet more snow flakes.

 We have been in a frozen pocket of gray freezing fog for two weeks, plus the snow. Cold temperatures, that I think the lowest was 4 degrees, and the usual highs were under 20 degrees. We got an initial dump of 3 feet of snow at once, then it added up over days to 4 1/2 feet or so at our house. 

 Oh for childhood, when we had no responsibility for the snow, just the fun. People struggled all over town, to shovel or snow blow homes and businesses, and later to get snow off roofs and chip away ice dams. Let alone just drive anywhere. Schools were down all week and many businesses for at least two days or more. 

 Even I, snow lover that I am, got down and tired of all the struggle. The insurance man was out every day shoveling, and caught a bronchial bug that he tried to ignore, but managed to share with me. I think if this had happened in December, deep winter, like it's supposed to, it wouldn't have been quite so bad. But my daffies, tulips and crocuses had already broken ground and I was looking forward to a bit of spring bloom. Who knows when all this ice will melt and we will see ground again? 

 As I write this, at least the cold and fog have lifted, and we are seeing sunshine and blue skies. What a treasure that is. Hope once again for rebirth and springtime. We are also headed over the mountain pass (feet upon feet of snow) for a memorial service, and should see some blooms in the Willamette Valley. I snapped this photo two weeks ago, on the Oregon Coast, to reassure myself that spring blooms do still exist somewhere.

Here is to hoping that March goes out like a lamb!

Season of Contentment at Home

GRATITUDE

unlocks the fullness of life.

It turns what we have into enough,

and more.....

It can turn a meal into a 

feast, a house into a home,

a stranger into a friend.

Gratitude makes sense

of our past, brings peace for today,

and creates a vision for tomorrow.

NOVEMBER

is the pearl-grey month,

the changeling between warm, crimson, 

October

and cold, white

December.

The month when the leaves fall

in slow drifting whirls

and the shapes of the trees are revealed.

When the earth imperceptibly wakes

and stretches her bare limbs

and displays her 

stubborn, unconquerable strength

before

she settles uneasily into winter.

November is secret and silent.Alison Uttley

First Snowfall

We have had an extremely dry summer and autumn and beginning of winter. Lately it has been crisp and cold with sunny clear skies. Beautiful days, with no sign of a cloud. But I have been growing restive for some white snowflakes to make their appearance. Then this week, the weatherman said yes, it was going to happen! So....I have been going about my business, getting exited for that first glimpse.

And finally we saw the first fat white downy flakes falling on Wednesday morning. Not at night, while we were blissfully snoring our way through a winters sleep, but in the morning when we woke up so that we could see and enjoy it! Not a lot, just several hours of lightly falling snowflakes, coating the grass with a thin cover that would melt at the hint of a sunbeam. But enough for now. Enough to make me feel like Wednesday was a magical morning, a special time. 

And then the sun came out, and shone on everything and everyone. And it was beautiful. And now the weatherman says it will really snow on Christmas day....how about that for timing! But it won't be the first snowfall, not quite the same.

And I will leave you with this poem by James Russell Lowell. Get a handkerchief ready...

THE snow had begun in the gloaming, 
And busily all the night 
Had been heaping field and highway 
With a silence deep and white. 

Every pine and fir and hemlock 
Wore ermine too dear for an earl, 
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree 
Was ridged inch deep with pearl. 

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara 
Came Chanticleer's muffled crow, 
The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down, 
And still fluttered down the snow. 

I stood and watched by the window 
The noiseless work of the sky, 
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds, 
Like brown leaves whirling by. 

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn 
Where a little headstone stood; 
How the flakes were folding it gently, 
As did robins the babes in the wood. 

Up spoke our own little Mabel, 
Saying, 'Father, who makes it snow?' 
And I told of the good All-father 
Who cares for us here below. 

Again I looked at the snowfall, 
And thought of the leaden sky 
That arched o'er our first great sorrow, 
When that mound was heaped so high. 

I remembered the gradual patience 
That fell from that cloud like snow, 
Flake by flake, healing and hiding 
The scar of our deep-plunged woe. 

And again to the child I whispered, 
'The snow that husheth all, 
Darling, the merciful Father 
Alone can make it fall! ' 

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her; 
And she, kissing back, could not know 
That my kiss was given to her sister, 
Folded close under deepening snow. 

Quirky, Beautiful and Amazing Critters

Last spring I posted some spring baby animal photos I had collected from Pinterest. I decided today to post some of my favorite winter animal scenes, collected from Pinterest as well. It is fun to see the critters out in the midst of a cold snowy winter in their natural environment. The photographers do such an amazing job of capturing these animals so close and quirky, fun and beautiful.

Enjoy!