Saturday, June 30, 2012

Ya say it's your birthday? Well, it's my birthday, too!

Birthdays are lovely little jewels! Mom and I are birthday twins, and we have been blessed all week with sweet celebrations from family and friends. My dear friend brought her mom over and she brought delicious fondue! I didn't get a picture, but it was so yummy... We had little squares of angel food cake, strawberries, banana, Oreos... And the best-peanut butter- chocolate sauce.... Her birthday was that day, too.... So fun to celebrate together. It is nice for friends to get together... Time moves so fast, and we must do the beautiful things for ourselves! This was a treasured visit... Her mom and mine are such good friends, too.

 Then a fun pizza and spinner party with my son.... Not really for our birthdays... Just our usual Tuesday Time.... Then my cousins and family came down for breakfast. We had so much fun! Delicious fruit salad and muffins.... Deli tray.... Snacks....




 (These pictures have a golden tone to them....)  They came on the actual birthday.... That night was yet another party with my son.... We opened gifts, visited... Had Chinese takeout! Good time.... And finally today was the final party. We ate out with two more friends, went through Amish country and got produce, had birthday brownies and Sunrise punch from Pioneer Woman..... Yummy! I made that in my new blender... Sounds like we just ate all week, huh? I always make birthday resolutions! Guess what one of them is! Ha ha....

Friday, June 22, 2012

Living Deliberately

Authenticity. Living deliberately. I watched an interview with Ann Voskamp, author of one of my favorite books ever, One Thousand Gifts. One phrase that kept surfacing was to live deliberately. She said it was not her default nature to live with gratitude and joy. So making the deliberate decision to choose gratitude becomes her lifelong gift to her family and friends. This isn't the lying that socially correct women, myself definitely included, have decided to Implement in our daily lives. When someone asks how I feel, I don't think Ann meant.... Or rather God meant, for us to automatically blurt "fine" when our back is killing us, when a parent or child or both are ill.

 What should we say? One of my personal issues is the type of Minnie Martyr who details a list of ailments with a smile filled with pain and then says, "but it's okay...I'm just fine... Truly fine."   That reminds me of the cutest cartoon with a bunch of dead cows all turned upside down. The cows all had comments coming from their lips; they were saying one and all, " I'm fine.... Just fine,"  So to honestly determine what the question, "How are you?" really means----- that takes divine intervention to let us see what the good truly is all around us. By never negating the honest problems we face yet praising to high heaven for the marvelous gifts as well, we become just the grateful daughters God intended.


 Where am I headed with this? Nobody expected or wanted or deserved a rant or a lecture when you clicked here. I just feel blessed, that's all... I truly am very blessed to live on this beautiful part of America, to have lovely family, and supremely loyal friends. My wish list and cranky lists are full sometimes. I could sit here and chronicle hundreds of things I should do today or in the next five weeks.... A person filled with gratitude doesn't become blind or oblivious to pain around her. Or in her. But it's just not the focus of life any more if we choose gratitude. So, on this second day of summer I felt like talking about the good stuff... Have a beautiful day... 


 My latest artistic project has been to reclaim the little salesman sample ice cream churn from the top of Mom's freezer... What says summer more than hand cranked ice cream? If we can't eat it, we can decorate with it! Have a beautiful weekend....

There IS a cure for the Summertime Blues....




Welcome Summer!  Today my sweet cousin surprised me with a summer party outside in her yard.  Look at all the cute things she had for us.  When I drove in, it felt like the pages of a cool magazine....
 Everywhere her yard is filled with beauty...  Such a breath of fresh air!
Just the cure if anyone is thinking of having the Summertime Blues! or especially if you are not!


Tuesday, June 19, 2012

In the Wabash Valley of the "ho ho ho"

For the last post of our sweet trip, take a look at the small community of Santa Claus, Indiana....












 I loved it, but had to wonder if December was a drag...  The clerks assured my son when he asked them..."No we love Christmas here".....  They must!


Saturday, June 16, 2012

Riverbank Legend

Most families have legends, tales they have nurtured and treasured through the years.  One of mine is the legendary love story between my mother's parents.  Their marriage lasted longer than fifty years, and it began in Louisville.  My gramma always spoke the name with a kind of preferential reverence.  This was "her" town, I thought...  Although our family has always been very close, very much a communicative one, the story of her marriage and engagement is still a bit obscure.  I ran across a treasure in the form of a diary or journal.  There on the pages of a little pink corduroy journal, in my gramma's perfect up and down spikey script, are the words of her love story.

I have told this story before on my blogpost called "When a Man Loves a Woman," and I love it so much.  Her visit with a sister in law to get in touch with gramma's brother in Camp Taylor.  My son and I were there on the city streets where Camp Taylor once stood.  I found a website that showed the types of barracks.  On their visit, God had them get off the trolley at the wrong corner, where a young soldier, later to be called my Pawpaw volunteered to help the two lovely young women find the lost husband/brother.  In Gramma's journal, she writes that my grandfather hung around until they finally had to ask him to come to dinner with them.  Evidently they drove to the river, and there with the beauty of a new place, the exquisite expanse of nature, they fell in love...

Details about their later elopement have never surfaced, and they won't now...  But it was always a goal of mine to visit this magical riverbank, this awestruck town, this little bit of my history....  This post, on the eve of Father's Day, is dedicated to the love of man and woman, the inspiration they have to create a new family where there was none...  My grandparents, my parents...  all of you with beautiful dads both here on earth and in Heaven.

Here are the beautiful bridges spanning that River here and there around Louisville, bordering the Indiana where my grandmother was born.  We saw the top of a riverboat and heard its calliope music...  I can see how a young couple could manage to fall in love with each other surrounded by such new excitement...



Father's Day Wishes....

Happy Father's Day...

Friday, June 15, 2012

I'll Have Another

In this beautiful city lies the famed Churchill Downs, home to the Kentucky Derby...  our visit coincided with the announcement that "I'll Have Another" would not run in the third race and again there would be no Triple Crown winner.  The city seemed stunned, the newscast ran the ticker under all broadcasts...  This is horse racing country!



What a beautiful castle of a racetrack...  I felt underdressed without my hat!

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Frazier Weapon Museum


Before we left, we discovered Louisville is home to a cool arms museum....  Right now this summer they are hosting the Samurai Traveling collection...  My son spent several entranced hours in this three floor museum.  He has always loved swords and weapons, history and feudal Japan...  Check out a few of his photos.....


L'uhvull

We arrived in Louisville, Kentucky, and had a wonderful visit...  What a beautiful city.  We met a beautiful friend for some delicious steaks, visited some museums, and soaked up the tourist life!
 Louisville (they tell us it is pronounced L'uhvull) is a vibrant city.... with the most courteous drivers we have ever seen.....
 Performing Arts Center
The Louisville Slugger Museum....
What a great city!