Serenity

Today was one of those days.  You know the one.  It’s the one that at the end of it every thing just feels right.

It wasn’t a day of vacation.  It was a normal work day for me doing the normal bookkeeping stuff, visiting with customers, answering phone calls and cleaning up cars.  It wasn’t extraordinary in any particular way but it felt right.

After work I took the top off the Corvette and drove a half hour through beautiful countryside to meet friends for dinner.  Wires must have been crossed because when I got there no one was there that I was supposed to meet but it was okay because it was a beautiful evening for a ride.

When I got home I stood outside taking clothes in off the clothesline and just listened.  In the distance I could hear the kids singing from the local bible camp across the road, loons calling in the distance, and an occasional fish jumping in the water.

I watched the changing colors across the lake as the sun was setting and a bat swooping down to the surface collecting bugs for its dinner.

It’s been a while since I’ve taken the time to appreciate all that surrounds me.  It’s beautiful and serene.

 

Life goes on and on…..

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything here.  Life has been busy since last year when I spent a month in the hospital after a ruptured brain aneurysm.

Life is good.  All the headaches are gone after the surgery to place the two stents and two coils last November.  I recently went back to Milwaukee for my one year checkup and they threw in an angiogram just for fun.  After the angiogram I met with the surgeon and he told me see you in five years.  I was expected it to be an annual event.  God is so good!

I’m back working full-time for the past 9 months.  My oldest daughter got married and bought a home in October.  My youngest daughter will graduate from college on December 21.  We made our final college tuition payment the first week in November.  Twelve years of tuition payments were at times difficult to do but well worth getting all four of our kids through college with minimal debt.

Looking ahead my husband Dean and I will be taking a 8 day mission trip to Jamaica in July.  I can hardly wait for the trip.  It was something we’ve wanted to do for some time but college tuition made it impossible until now.

In Minnesota the weather is changing from cool to downright cold.  The lake was busy making ice last night and this morning.

Hope to be posting occasionally and catch up with all my favorite blogging buddies!

 

Wildflowers with some Fiddle heads thrown in for fun.

Each spring I delight in looking for wildflowers in our area of Central Minnesota.  This year it has been difficult because of the late spring.  I have a few favorite places where I know I will find wildflowers each year.  I visit those places each week in search of the flowers I think should be blooming at this time of year.

This morning I visited one of my favorite spots along the Mississippi River in Little Falls, Minnesota.  I was searching for Bloodroot which is usually one of the first wildflowers to bloom in our area.  I found White Trout Lillies first.  Here is what they look like growing near the Mississippi River in a wooded area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next I found the Bloodroot.  They were not as plentiful as the White Trout Lily but they are some of my favorites.  Before their flowers open they remind me of miniature tulips.  I wish they bloomed longer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After I found the Bloodroot I got a couple of shots of the ferns starting to shoot up. and that’s where the Fiddleheads thrown in for fun comes in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next I headed over to another favorite wildflower place in Little Falls, Minnesota, Pine Grove Park.  It was there that I found the Trillium just starting to bloom.  Next week they should be in full bloom which is always fun.

 

Last but not least were the Hepatica.  I love how these wildflowers come in various hues from white to blue with a little bit of purple on occasion.

Have a great weekend.  I am hoping to enjoy the rain we desperately need this weekend while reading a good book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shoveling Buddy

Life is good.

I admit that I am more than ready for spring but this past week has afforded me a few opportunities to spend some time with my grandson outdoors doing some of his favorite activities.

We have trudged up and down our hill several times after trips down on the sled.  I have to admit that I am out of shape and am constantly bargaining with a 3 1/2 year old about the number of times we will go down the hill again.

Yesterday we spent time shoveling.  He is delighted to help and has his own shovel.  Today we are getting hit with another snow storm mixed with rain.  It is still beautiful to look outside and see the snow falling but I’d like to see a little more green and blue than wihite.

After warming up from being outdoors we spent time doing puzzles on my kitchen floor and playing football with a green balloon in my living room.   We have a regular football but he has a foot on him that will break windows if he is allowed to kick with shoes on.

This is the view out my living room window this afternoon.

Time to head out on another tow call.  Seems nobody wants to stay home on a snowy day.  Stay warm and dry 🙂

 

Good Morning Sunshine

 

 

 

When I went to bed Friday evening I was excited to wake up Saturday morning for the sunrise.  I woke up several times during the night because I was sleeping away from home from unusual sounds like a train whistle in the middle of the night and sirens.

I woke up well before sunrise.  I got showered, dressed and camera in hand to sit by the lake waiting for the sunrise.  I was excited because where I live I don’t see sunrises over the lake because of the terrain around the lake and our home.

While I was sitting on the shore I watched as the ducks on the lake were swimming past and diving below the surface to feed.  They were busy for over half an hour in front of me.  I loved watching them disappear below and trying to predict where they would surface.  In the distance I could hear gun shots.  The ducks by me seemed oblivious to the fact that there were duck hunters at the other end of the lake.

It was a beautiful unseasonably warm sunny weekend.  Perfect for walking, sitting and just being outdoors. Hope your weekend was as delightful as mine.

 

Selah, A Time to Breathe

In the Psalms of the Old Testament you will find the word Selah within the individual Psalms.  I had to do some checking into what that really means.  There are different interpretations depending on where you read for a definition.

One definition of Selah that I found was this, “The Selah is there to signal the believer to ‘measure’ carefully the meaning of what has been said. i.e., here is some deeper wisdom, reflect on it and understand its true meaning.”

Another definition of Selah is to pause…consider…take time.  This is the one that I think of when I look at this picture of Bond Falls that I took last fall.

 

Life has been busy this past year.  This weekend I’m looking forward to a time to pause.  Selah!  A change in scenery, location and schedule.  Nothing as grand as a vacation but a time to enjoy my surroundings and people in my life outside of work and home.  The weather is supposed to be great so I am looking forward to taking some pictures along the way and some time to rest, read and revive to finish the year well.

 

Just another brick in the wall…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The year was 1974.  We had lived in our new house in St. Paul for a year and it was finally summer vacation.  The past school year had been difficult.  Starting a new school in the eighth grade was not fun especially when I didn’t want to move.  One good thing from the school year was I finally had a new friend and her family invited me to go with them on a camping trip for a week.  My parents agreed to let me go.

My friend invited me to go and her older brother invited his friend to go.  We slept in one tent and her brother and friend slept another tent and their parents in a small camper.  It was one of the best weeks of my junior high days.  All day long we spent time on the Cannon River either swimming or fishing and just laying in the sun.

My friend’s brother had discovered Pink Floyd as his new latest, greatest band.  He played the cassette tape over and over all week-long.  I’m sure everyone in the campground was tired of it by the time we went home.  The words of Pink Floyd will forever be etched in my brain like Just Another Brick in the Wall and song Money.  I can still hear the sound of the cash register from the beginning of Money.

The brick wall pictured above is downtown Detroit.  It was next to a parking lot for a bar we ate lunch at last fall when we visited Detroit.  It was unlike any other brick wall I had seen because it didn’t look like they took any pride in their work.  It was still unique to look at along with everything else nearby the bar.

 

 

In the Passenger Seat

Early this morning my husband and I a trip to the Twin Cities to pick up a car he bought for our car lot.  I was playing with my camera while riding in the passenger seat.

It is so easy to just set my camera to the auto mode and let the camera decide what my picture should look like instead of trying to learn the manual mode for my camera.

I love the artsy look to the freeway traffic this morning.  It wasn’t my intention to get the traffic in my photo but the right sunrise exposure.  I didn’t get the sunrise picture I was looking forward to but I did learn a few things about the manual settings on my camera.

Any day I learn something new is a good day!

 

 

Stickwork

This afternoon I was picking up by sister at St John’s University when I saw this incredible display called Art on the Prairie.  It is called Stickwork and it is the work of artist Patrick Dougherty.  For more of his creative work see http://www.stickwork.net

The structures are made entirely of sticks and branches.  They are large enough to go inside and look out.  It is also possible to walk in between the structures.  The structures remind me of artwork from Dr, Seuss’s books, whimsical and a little off-kilter.

I wish that I had one of these structures in my yard.  It would be a kid’s play land dream come true.  They said that the structure will most likely last two years of being exposed to the elements. It is well worth the brief detour south off I-94 to see Art on the Prairie.

 

What Would Ma Ingalls Do?

This morning I was standing in Wal-Mart looking at fall decorating ideas.  I love to decorate for the seasons but have been desperately trying to downsize in all aspects of my life.  I stood with a new table-cloth for fall in one hand and an apple cinnamon scented candle in the other while I looked at a pumpkin table decorations with votive candles on the shelf.  I decided to place them back on the shelves and head home with about $35 still in my pocket.

When I got home I had an email in my inbox from a blog that I have followed the past couple of months”The Year of Less”  .  I clicked on today’s blog http://theyearofless.blogspot.com and it was so appropriate for my dilemma for decorating.  She was talking about looking at things in her home in light of whether Ma Ingalls (The Little House on the Prairie) would have the item in her home.  I loved her perspective in the blog.  Keep it simple!

This is what I came up with for decorating my table for the fall.

They are all items that I already own.  I picked the Hydrangea from my bush and placed them in a flowering can that I have had for some time and placed them on top of a doily that a friend gave me for a birthday a few years ago.

I don’t plan on over doing the decorating this year.  I plan to keep it simple and natural if possible using things I already own or in a new way to make them seem new to me.