Cranberry Tree
Monday, June 10, 2024
A smart bear
Wednesday, June 5, 2024
Turning the page
There comes a day when you realize that turning the page is the best feeling in the world because you realize there’s so much more to the book than the page you’ve been stuck on. — Zayn Malik
Well, somewhere in there I found it. Love, that is.
I was introduced to a wonderful man who very quickly and unexpectedly found his way into my heart. It was very easy to fall in love with David; his kind nature and sense of humor are irresistible. We’ve discovered we have the most important things in common: our faith first and foremost, along with our love of our wonderful children and their families. We have gotten and appreciate their blessing, so we’re ready to sail on, to enjoy life together for as many years as we’re given.
David has visited my home and surrounding towns, meeting some of my family and walking through my neighborhood and then a short hike (mosquitoes!) in Allemansratt Park in Lindstrom. A Sunday church service and a Monday night community dinner completed his introductory visit.
In turn, I was introduced to his town of Staples, Minnesota where we walked around Legacy Gardens and Dower Lake, enjoying the beautiful weather. He showed me the devastating effects of a tornado that went through Old Wadena, downing a countless number of trees and leaving bare land where they once stood.
On Sunday we attended services at his church. We visited a very good friend of his family in the afternoon. An evening visit from two of his granddaughters and their friend was a delightful bonus end to a wonderful weekend.
Having both experienced the loss of our deeply loved spouses five months apart, the raw edges of grief have at last softened for us and we are ready to turn the page to discover what’s ahead. We see the sun shining again and there are new, sometimes silly, smiles on our faces.
Thank you, God.
Thursday, May 9, 2024
Empty or full
You know the saying about one’s outlook on life: Do you see the glass half empty or is the glass half full? This supposedly determines whether you’re a pessimist (half empty) or an optimist (half full).
I find it a good way to check myself once in awhile when I’m feeling negative. Counting my blessings is another way to lift myself from the doldrums, but envisioning a glass partially filled with some kind of liquid and asking myself what I see there is pretty effective for me.
Here’s another one. What do you see here?
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Remembering
What makes this more noteworthy than other losses I’ve experienced lately is that she was my last remaining aunt and the last member of my father’s family, once consisting of seven siblings born to my grandparents.
The other noteworthy thing is that I admired—no, make that idolized her as I was growing up. She was only twelve years older than me so by the time I was a tweenager, she became the most glamorous and exciting person I’d ever known. Don’t you think so too?
She wore open toed heels and white sandals and soft sweaters and sundresses. She had a bedroom dresser full of perfumes and dusting powders. She had a boyfriend and was studying to be a dental hygienist. Ahh…sigh. I wanted to grow up to be like her. No, I wanted to be her. Well, at ten years old, anyway.
My sister Christine and I would “powder” her back. This became something of a ritual with my aunt lying on the top of her bed as Christine and I concocted a pasty mixture of Pond’s dusting powder with Evening in Paris perfume. This we would apply to her back, rubbing it all in and then dusting it further with the powder puff.
Saturday, April 6, 2024
Hello April
Spring is the most exciting time of the year, I think. It’s so full of promise as life starts again, renewed and ready for the warmth of the sun. The crocus opens its petals, tulips begin to pop up from the soil, ready to shake the dust off from winter as if to announce they’ve had their sleep and hello! dear April.
Yesterday I moved my deck furniture and rugs out to take their place in their familiar spots and now, in my mind’s eye, I can see the flowers I’ll arrange in their pots putting color back into my outdoor view.
But we still need to be patient, don’t we? Not get over anxious over what’s not quite ready for us. Garden soil still needs the sun’s warmth and here in Minnesota, with very little snow over the winter months, much more moisture. (I had to envy Arizona’s Easter Sunday all-day rain which would be so wonderful here.)
Yesterday as I was waiting in line for a car wash, I looked over at a bank of very dirty old snow from the last bit we got here. The top of the bank looked black and crusty, not attractive at all. Then I thought of the children in my neighborhood where we also have a similar bank of old snow. They had pushed and packed that old snow together to create a mountain with a plastic lawn chair perched on top. They took turns climbing up to sit in the chair and you could hear their delight as they played “king of the mountain.”
So, see…you can look at a dirty pile of old snow and simply see a pile of old snow. Or see that pile as a perfect afternoon of fun and entertainment for children who imagine it to be a mountain.
Today I will use my imagination to think of those flowers blooming on my deck, my tomato plant ripening, my herbs ready for seasoning.
And I decide that Spring is worth the wait.
Thank you for visiting and allowing me to share my random thoughts with you.
Friday, March 29, 2024
Good Friday
Today is a solemn day as we remember Jesus’ suffering at the hands of soldiers and a large crowd of Roman citizens who blindly joined in the fray perhaps not even having true convictions of their own. Simply because they were followers. Simply because since they heard accusations hurled at Jesus, they figured they must be true. Simply because they were angry.
We know there is a joyous ending to be celebrated in three days, but thinking about those roaring crowds watching the vicious treatment of a fellow citizen without fully understanding the so-called charges nor imagining the cruel outcome got me to thinking about anger.
There are parallels to the Good Friday account throughout history; many others, martyrs, who were unjustly denied any kind of trial, innocents who suffered because of the orders of a leader who at the root of it all, was angry, a crowd who blindly followed. And we know the accounts throughout ages of imprisoned and tortured victims of war, the power of angry leaders who put them there with seemingly no conscience whatsoever and not a single ounce of regard for humanity. An entire race could simply be annihilated in Germany. Another race could be bought and sold into slavery, treated as inferior beings.
In what we think of as our civilized world, has much changed? Would the people in Ukraine, Gaza, Syria say it has? We still have the crowds who blindly follow a leader, an angry leader. Look at the images we see today, study the faces. Here and in countries abroad, you will see anger. And the consequences are always in the end the same.
Perhaps we’re slow to learn, slow to understand, lessons from the past. Is our society really all that different from Jesus’ day, the Good Friday of long ago? Do we have any power or ability to change it? My personal belief is a resounding YES. We can be in that crowd that insists on justice, peace, equality, kindness, generosity, compassion. That will always speak louder than anger.
Thank you for visiting and thinking I have something worthwhile to say.
Friday, March 22, 2024
Ironing
Who irons anymore?
I’m reasonably certain that my kids and grandkids don’t own an iron or ironing board. And today I’m trying to figure out what about me says that I need to iron my freshly washed and wrinkled clothing, some of which I wouldn’t think of wearing until I’ve ironed them.
The problem is, I usually don’t have time to iron on laundry day so my clothes get hung on hangers awaiting my attention. But then another laundry day comes along. More hangers. And another. More hangers. So today, given that I’m running out of clothes to wear, I’m ironing.
Remember back when the ironing board was almost like a piece of furniture? In our house, it was always set up, never taken down, at the ready for Mom’s basket of ironing. For a family of eight, that darn ๐งบ basket multiplied until clothes toppled over, then another basket was filled.
And, as the oldest of six, take a wild guess at whose job it was to do the weekly ironing. Mind you, this didn’t always mean just the clothing we wore. No, pillowcases, handkerchiefs, kitchen towels and more went into the basket too (although those always got ironed first because they were easy).
But, wait. Before ironing, everything was sprinkled with water from a pop bottle with a sprinkler top held firmly in place by a cork. You sprinkled, sprinkled some more, then rolled up the clothing to supposedly stay damp which supposedly made the ironing easier. By the time I got to the ironing, I never encountered anything damp.
But when the iron was heated and doing its job, steaming away on clean clothing as it made wrinkles disappear, the smell was heavenly. And there was a satisfying feeling as you finished one of Dad’s shirts, a house dress of Mom’s, a stack of pillow cases, your four sisters’ dresses. By the time the basket was empty, you felt as though you climbed Mount Everest. And you gave yourself several pats on the back for this major accomplishment.