Space Shuttle takes flight...

Well, I sold the Space Shuttle Sparrow. I named it that because it was about as big as a Space Shuttle, and with me driving, it reminded me of the phrase from a song, "His eye is on the Sparrow, so I know He watches me."

I owned the Shuttle for 11 years. It's maiden voyage was to Florida to see my sister and her family. It has been to Arkansas, Tennessee, Illinois, Missouri, and who knows where else in the state of Texas! It's been to Sea World, Six Flags, camping trips, local excursions, and uncountable trips to church and church functions. It has shuttled friends, family, and even a few folks who were neutral, but rode with me anyway. :-) It has provided comfort to our family and friends and a graciousness of hospitality afforded by few vehicles. When we bought it, I was resistant to purchasing a huge van, but Daryl wisely said it was best for the family for a while. My hands had to be pried off the steering wheel to sell it, and if I had gone car hunting before I sold it, it would probably still be in the driveway! May it be wonderful for your family, Fidel and Debbie!

My kids are good to me....

I have the nicest kids (this does, by the way, include my daughters-in-love and a girlfriend). (Note: I have nice grandkids, too, but this one is for my kids.) Even as adults, they still let me do things for them. And they do stuff for me. They care, they call, they help, they console, they laugh (sometimes with me, sometimes at me), they include me in their lives, they give me grandchildren, they pray for me, they seek out my company, they honor their parents. I'm a blessed woman.

Thanks, Matt, for today. It reminded me how you all look out for me, even when I'm resistant.
Love you all....MOM

Life's Via Points

Hi. Daryl's upstairs blogging, so of course, I have to get my blog done at the same time! We had a wonderful trip to Arkansas last weekend. It's awfully easy in the midst of health stuff to fail to plan to have fun. It's easy to lose sight of the freedom you DO have to do stuff. It can be consuming.

So, we planned a trip, thought we wouldn't get to do it, but DID get to do it. It was refreshing and fun to get away. We have been going to Arkansas by our current route for probably about 26 years. As we go, we pass the Crater of Diamonds State Park, and DeGray Lake State Park. Two very enticing places to go, but when you have a destination, you seldom do via points.

This trip, we did the via points. We stopped Thursday at Crater of Diamonds State Park, and sifted for pretty rocks. No diamonds, but lots of fun. I kept moving around, hunting here and there, digging from different spots, shoveling up various rocks, not sure how to use the sifter. My system was pretty useless, and I was wondering where the fun was. Finally, I got the hang of using the sifter (not having the sense to ask Daryl how, and him figuring ANYBODY could use a sifter) and started having fun. (I do know what Jasper looks like now.) It was kind of like gold fever must have been, only less successful. I ended our time thinking..."next time....".

Then we hustled on to our next via point...DeGray Lake State Park. VERY pretty place...it sits on a literal island. (I hope my kids note that their Mom crossed a bridge to an island....) We had a nice dinner with a lake view, and afterwards sat outside and watched the geese (and made some ministry phone calls, and worked sudoku) and took a walk along the trail behind the lodge.

Our final stop was Heber Springs, where we had a great visit with Jim & Ginny and 2 of their grandchildren, Vanita & Terry, and Mom Bennett. Mother was in a good mood, and was perky and alert. (One picture has Daryl and Vanita with Mom, who was pointing at me for pestering her, the other is Jim and Gin's grandsons. We took her out to where the family had donated some Bradford pear trees 3 years ago. They have grown well. I like to think the trees inspired some other improvements the nursing home has made to the sitting area. They've added flowers, some nice wicker furniture, a little garden. It's the nicest spot on the nursing home property.

We were talking later about how hard it is with Daryl's cancer and back problems to know how to plan. To know how to dream. I guess what one has to do in life, regardless of its challenges, is to learn where the via points are. How to find those places of fun and rest that enhance the trip. As a result, I'm going to start trying to find life's via points along the way. They can be pretty fun!

Blooms of Friendship

The flowers in this picture are Camellia's. Over the years, we've made a lot of memories with the Hensley Family. One of those memories was a trip that Kathy, her sister Julia, and myself made to a Camellia garden. At the end of the trip, I bought 2 Camellia plants to bring back to Daryl, who loves to make our property bloom and who financed my trip to Georgia so I could see Kathy.

Over the years, they've gotten to be a bit of a joke. We get one, maybe 2 blooms a year, and those usually have a brown tinge to them that isn't good.

This year, I was in the backyard and realized the plants were FULL of blooms! Daryl had told me they were blooming, but never did I imagine more than the one or two brown blooms we usually got! They were loaded, full, beautiful blooms! I cut a little more than half of them, and put them inside in a vase. The humorous thing was that I found out I was allergic to them, so I put the vase on the back porch outside my kitchen window, where I enjoy them while I clean the kitchen.

Just thought you'd want to see them, Kathy!

Legacy of Love

It's been a while since I posted. We've been a little busy! After a wonderful November with the Illinois Bennett's, and a fun Christmas, we hit the new year. My Aunt Margaret passed away the first bit of January, and I was blessed to get to go home for the funeral. (Thanks, Daryl!)

Mom and I took one morning and went to my Aunt's apartment to go through her things, since Mom wanted me to choose a quilt for myself and Teresa, and some things to bring back to some of the other females in the family.

We have been through a similar set of visits to Arkansas, during which we and Daryl's siblings have gone through the stuff of his folks' house. It's been rewarding to share memories and stories, and to sort through the "stuff" together.

As I thought about the scavenger-like feeling of going through someone else's life collection, I pondered the right/wrong of it all, and came to a conclusion or two.

At the end of one's life, you need to have invested enough in others for there to be someone who wants some of your stuff. There needs to be someone out there who wants to have something of yours to keep alive the memory of things you did together, to have a piece of your legacy in tangible form. Someone needs to see the treasure in your things, just because they were yours.

Something else I learned is that even though you may not have met the people who owned some of the items, a sense of family is carried on through the legacy left in "things". It becomes a connection to the people whose names grace your family lineage.

From Margaret, I came home with a beautiful quilt that she made. She loved to quilt, and to give them as gifts. I have one she made me when Daryl and I got married...it had fabric from all sorts of clothes I'd made as a younger girl. I ended up with a picture of my grandparents holding ME as a little baby! I have a coffee table runner now that my Grandma crocheted the border for, as well as one to take to Whitney. Julia now has a lovely broach that was Margaret's. Emily and Hannah have a piece of jewelry each. Margaret will be remembered each time we enjoy these things, and her legacy will live on. What is the legacy we will remember? Margaret was always willing to play, to do, just to peacefully be. She never worried about winning games, and always had an "available" heart. She taught me to have an available heart, too.

From Mom Bennett, I have her old nut chopper. I remember her using it for all those wonderful desserts she made for every occasion. At one time, she wrote down what everybody's favorite dessert was, and tried to have it made when they arrived at her house. She also mistakenly thought Daryl loved Lazy Daisy Cake, but that's another story! I got the pickle bowl and the Cranberry Fluff bowl, and the silver set that was "the one thing she ever won". Where Vanita could have appropriately claimed anything she wanted as the only birth daughter, she open-handedly shared those memories around the family. We shared things that Mom Bennett had from generations who went before her.

I guess the final analysis is that I hope someone wants my stuff when I pass on. That there will be a few things that my kids and off spring will sit down and remember me as they go through them. That the funny stories will be remembered, and that my life will have been such that there are good memories to be had when they look at those things. I have little doubt that MY Aunt Margaret's quilt and Mom Bennett's things will be among those things. May my legacy, like Aunt Margaret's, be a Legacy of Love.

We should all live like our loved ones have cancer...

When the cancer hit, one of the things I told Daryl was that I was not going to patronize him, and that when I get irritated with him, I will treat him just like normal, and not tip toe around like we can't disagree anymore. I figure life as normal as possible is good.

One event, however, has taught me that we should all live like our loved ones have cancer. The results are really pleasant, and, I suspect, pleasing to the Lord.

There is a picture that is a treasure to Daryl from his childhood. It was an expensive picture for the times, and his dad (who we have always jested could squeeze a penny till Lincoln yelled "Uncle!") bought it over some cheaper, less appealing pics, especially for Daryl's room when his older brother moved out. It is nicely framed, has a gold plate with the title of the picture on it. It is also not particularly my taste, and I was dreading finding a place to hang it.

Daryl also told me that he enjoyed looking at it while he had rheumatic fever as a child, and had to spend a lot of time in bed. It's a train station, and I can just imagine him thinking about places to go, and imagining stories of where he went and what he did.

Sooooo...this time, I did let cancer influence me, and determined that regardless of my personal dislike for a train pic in my pretty blue living room, I was going to find a place of prominence and defer to my dear husband's preferences. The story surrounding it was just too sweet to do anything else.

Well, I truly believe God blesses good attitudes, and I figured I'd get the attitude in line, and trust God to make the feelings follow along. I should not be surprised that God led me to the perfect spot for the pic, a spot where Daryl spends time listening to his music, a spot in the living room, and a spot in which the picture not only looks nice, but fits in with the decor. It's in what used to be a conversation pit, where we have a music entertainment center. On top of the center, we have an old chiming clock from his Dad, a collection of old books, and a pool ball in a wooden triangle from the folks pool table. Even the smoky coating from the old stove in the folks garage looks good on the pic now, giving it an antique haze. I love the way it looks. A warm connection to family and good memories.

So, I contend that we should all defer to one another occasionally in areas we would rather not, and take those emotional plunges on a regular basis that we normally reserve for loved ones who have cancer. It might be a nice way to live!

Lion King

Daryl is always coming up with fun things to do. His latest was Lion King. (Okay, the latest was No Time for Sargeants at the local play house, but unfortunately, I fell asleep through most of it...it looked hilarious, and the actors were well cast.)

Lion King was an incredible feast for the senses...the music was, of course, the standard Disney music, but live music is so much richer than recorded music! You already knew the music, and the story line, so you could just sit back and be amazed at the costuming and the actors plying their trade. For instance, the elephant was composed of 4 adults moving as the legs, with the rest of the elephant above them. You had to take your field glasses just to see the details (okay, we decided if we sit in nosebleed sections, we can justify going to more things...it means you take your binoculars!).

Daryl, during intermission, while I was being herded through the ladies room, was making friends with the kid in front of us. It was interesting...the parents sat in two different places. We think they got good seats for two people, and the other three sat in nosebleed section, where we were. There was one younger kid who wouldn't have settled down for a nearer location (this was the one Daryl connected with). The two older boys took turns sitting with Mom in the nicer seats...one before, one after intermission.

Anyway, Daryl connected with the younger, more active kid. I had had fleeting thoughts of sharing my binoculars with him, but dismissed it...his brother had a pair he could have shared, and Daryl spent good dollars on me having a great time. Which meant, use the glasses myself. By the time I got back from the ladies' room, the kid had Daryl's glasses around his neck. (predictable, I might add!) Daryl was jabbering away with the kid. I quietly let Daryl know I was not sharing my glasses with him, and he ought to get his back for the production. (uncharacteristically uncharitable of me, but it was the only way to see the costumes.) Of course, Daryl chose the high road, and let the kid keep the glasses. His reward was that when the kid laughed, instead of turning to his Dad, beside him, he turned around and gave Daryl grateful grins. Daryl won on that one!