it's been a good week

Highlights include:

Grampo and I picked 20 lbs of apricots and then canned them.

Our church did worship in the park and we rode our bikes there.


I got to watch Em do her thing on the ropes course at Sherwood.




Other good moments not photographed:

--a 28 mile bike ride with Brad to Farmer's Market, around town, and through Fort Washington Golf Club (where we were kicked off the grounds for not being members--I think my ghetto bike baskets tipped them off)


--a long-awaited phone/skype (sp?) conversation with Melody Joy

--a long walk on the Woodward Park bike path and a smoothie with my daughter Sarie

--coffee and a good talk with my best friend Katharine

Summer is good.

outpost

Outpost was amazing. God was there and very big.
So many stories...so much love, peace, and joy.

'Surely goodness and mercy will follow us...all the days of our lives...all the days of our lives. And we will dwell in the house of the Lord...forever, forever, forever amen.'

Thank you Jesus, Calvin Crest, Tony, and staff.

ruth graham is with jesus...

"My Mother was in love with Jesus and that love was contagious. She wasn't caught up in religion or tradition or rituals -- she was caught up in a personal relationship with Jesus. And she developed that relationship through hours spent reading and studying her Bible, hours spent on her knees in prayer." --Anne Graham Lotz

see article here.

moses malone barker, hunter at large

Remember this sweet little kitty? Baby Mo. So sweet.

Yeah well he no longer exists. He has been replaced with this evil version.

My friend Mel has cats she calls 'feral', but frankly, all I've ever seen them do is lay around on her bed, and occasionally lick her running shoes.

Mo, on the other hand, spends his days hunting in the backyard. He is Public Enemy # 1 with the bird population back there. Yesterday there were about 40 anger-crazed sparrows screaming death threats to Mo, who simply couldn't be bothered with them. He was too busy
torturing one of their own.

I wouldn't actually mind if he was killing the birds instantly and eating them. But he's not. He seizes the little birdies, injuring them so they cannot fly away, and then bats them around and chews on them. If they lay still, faking death to avoid further brutality, he sort of punks them with his paw, until they try to get away. Then he pounces on them again. It's seriously twisted.

And THE WORST thing he does is bring his booty into the house in order to show off. Many a morning I have awoken to the sound of bird bones crunching in Mo's teeth. ON MY BED. There are just so many ways this is wrong.

Yet...I love that cat. I do. Do not ask me to explain it. Shaddie--who cowers and skulks around the house now, never knowing when he is going to be attacked from above--just looks at me and shrugs. Mo rules. And everybody knows it.

Happy Birthday Grampo

Yesterday was a good day. Grampo turned 95, and I had the privilege of putting on a celebration for him at his house.

I got to Grampo's early and started cooking. I made a berry pie, an apricot pie, six loaves of zucchini bread, and sauce. Grampo and I picked and cooked beets, greens, onions, and string beans. All the while I had the company of this man I love, who told me the old stories of his life with a gleam in his eye.

Throughout the day visitors dropped by to pay their respects with a drink and a bit of food, and they heard the stories, too. I floated happily about in the kitchen, listening and laughing, and occasionally either teasing Grampo or receiving it from him.

"She gives me trouble," he likes to tell people, with his big wide smile.

I dragged tables in from the summer kitchen, hunted through ancient drawers for tablecloths, and picked flowers from Grams' garden, filling mason jars with blossoms coaxed from the ground by her own hands.

Grampo's house filled up with family and friends, and we all celebrated this man we love so much. This first birthday without Grams was hard for him. But Grampo has a love for life that has not been extinguished--even by this deep sorrow he now carries.

Thank you God for the gift of Grampo. He brings me joy.

and so it begins...

Emily is off to Calvin Crest, where she will be an events coordinator at Sherwood.

They way it happened--her being up there this summer, I mean--looked so suspiciously God-like I could barely contain myself as it unfolded. In fact I believe there was a moment when I was dancing around the living room as Emily looked on, shaking her head, with that look on her face.

Thank you to certain persons--with and without beards--who were instrumental.

Jesus--use her, speak to her, grow her. As You know better than I, she is a most beautiful treasure.

puddin is a big girl now

x-ray specs

I totally remember this ad from when I was a kid. I ran across it the other day, and it took me straight back. I was ten again, sitting on the floor of my room, staring at this image and forming some ideas, questions, and issues.

It freaked me out a little.

It still does, if you want to know the truth.

my good morning

One of my very first memories is of picking string beans in my Grampo's garden. I remember reaching way up high to pick them... so I must have been just a toddler.

Today I spent the day with Grampo. We headed out to the garden while the morning air was still cool, and he and I stood there just sort of surveying things. Breathing in the smell of that little patch of earth is comforting to me. When I was little it was my whole world.

I put my coffee cup in the old wheelbarrow and reached down (not up) and picked a string bean. "Hey piccolina," Grampo said. "We'd better pick those, before they get too big."

So we squatted down together, making our way down the row, our fingers fumbling in the leaves to find the slender fuzzy beans and snapped them off one by one, until we had a basket full. I had my cell phone in my pocket--my telefonino, as he calls it--and I took a picture of him. He was very proud to have his picture taken with a telephone, and gave me a good smile.

Even as I was in the moment I was aware of its fragility... how dear, and fleeting these times are. I thanked God for the blessing of such a morning, and put my arm around my Grampo, who asked me if I still remembered how to make zucchini bread now that I live in the city.

I do. And we did. And it was good.