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Gently falling snow. New snow, softly touching the frozen world. It is very quiet. It falls and sound seems swept up to the heavens from whence the whiteness originated. The flakes cover over the mars of slush and pebbles strewn on rocks and heavy brown boot marks.
I wish the snow could cover over my recent mistakes. An error in checking showed that I had about $30 too much money in my account. That is better than a deficit, but I don't like an uneven balance sheet. The nice bank lady went back several months with me in search of a reason for the blunder. So busy with life and the holidays I left the statements pile up in my drawer. Then I redeemed the cause by fixing it to within $3.00 of the error. The new statement showed that I was worse off than I realized. So I just covered over the mess, wrote the correct amount and vowed to do better in the future.

Another mishap maybe. I tried to help someone who touched my heart, but perhaps didn't like the gift I offered. How could I as God's child not do something? But wisdom can help in future situations of that kind.

Beautiful snow, heavenly snow, God's amazing grace - cover me with your stillness, your hushed majesty, guidance, and love. Snow, continue to speak to me of beauty and not fear of slippery places. Hush and enjoy.

Refrigerator Art.

Before this weekend, I had all of my photo greeting cards on my refrigerator. It was so pleasant to see friends and family as I worked. I cleared most of them off and put them away. I usually save these. They are just too good to let go. As I was rearranging the new lean look of the frig, I thought of all of the refrigerator art that had been on our doors.

Once when I was in college visiting a family off campus, I noticed the designs by a very small boy hanging on the doors there in their kitchen with little magnets holding them. I wanted children so much, even then, and I thought, "I wonder if these people know how lucky they are to have such precious artwork on view." Many years later, I had my own little hand made wonders sticking out for all to see. There was the famous red hand waving to a blue figure. What was that you say? Why, it was Ronald Reagan waving to Jesus, of course. Then there was the airplane with one wing up top and one below. The one below had funny sticks coming from the wing. That was because it flew too near the cactus on the ground and some got stuck on the plane. Then there was the family of five drawn so that three of the people had bright red hair, sticking straight out. On each of the hands were five fingers of various lengths. These pictures I still treasure.

In the old days, you had to have these hard plastic magnets with heavy bases to hold things on. Sometimes the plastic fell off and then they didn't look nice. At times, the weight caused the whole thing to drop. Now, we have all of those wonderful flat advertising magnets to hold up our treasures. The bigger and the flatter they are the better. I like the little houses from building companies, the tooth from the dentist, the book from the library. A few of these can hold almost anything.
I'm in between and have no art coming from children anymore, but my grandson has discovered crayons and he loves to scribble, that is, color on his sheet of butcher paper. So, very soon, I will again have the best designs again gracing my kitchen in the form or refrigerator art.

Victorian Excursion

Friday was a very pleasant experience for me. I got to spend most of the day with a dear friend of mine who loves the same Victorian touches that I do. We first visited a lovely restaurant that served tea, sandwiches, crepes and more. I don't usually have hot tea, but my French Vanilla with honey was delicious. My Caesar wrap was better than the usual. They includes lots of dressing. We saw from the window that there was an antiques store across the way so of course when we were done we had to visit. It was mostly furniture, but I was intrigued by a bowl of fancy door knobs. Some day, I will have to go back and get some. We both purchased a door hanger. This is a tool that hangs over the door and has a hook for you to hang a wreath, clothes on a hanger, or you could put a picture on it as the store did. These aren't the plain kind you get in the discount stores. This one has twisted wire and fancy loops. I now have a great object to display my kimono.

We then went to another nearby town and visited a large antiques store. It took us several hours to get through it. We ended up getting various articles. She had a hard time deciding on whether to get a picture and I had trouble wondering if I wanted to start an orange juice glass collection. I decided to go for it since there seem to be so many cute ones.

We were almost done but went to a place called Frontier Town. Here was a great store and the first thing that happened when I walked in was that a golden retriever came up to me and tried to give me his Elmo doll. Later on, as I was browsing I felt a funny bump on my hand. There was my doggy friend greeting me again. I usually don't have this effect on animal, leastwise dogs. I loved the attention. I purchased the prettiest clear turquoise bowl which I had seen when I came in.

The best part of the day was the fact that I was able to connect with my friend that I don't get to see as often as I would like. We shared all of our news, good and bad. It's so great to have someone you have known for quite some time and be able to just pick up where you left off. She is just a wonderful person to know, one of my very few good friends, and she writes letters. You can't say that about just anybody.

Do you have lots of friends or just a few? Hope you get some time with them soon.

Normal

I got my Christmas tree and decorations down a week sooner than I had planned. I had time and it just seemed like I felt a need to get back to normal. One of my favorite things is settling down and getting back to some sort of routine. I also want my house to reflect this peace by having things where they belong. But then I got to thinking, what is truly normal?

When the doctors had diagnosed me with the recent illness, all I wanted was for all of my cells, organs, and body parts to be normal. I didn't look for greatness or anything special, just healthy.

When I see my grandson, he is healthy, does things pretty much on schedule and looks like the 18 month old baby that he is. But I wouldn't use the word normal to describe him. Why? Because he is extraordinary. He does things I haven't seen a baby do before. He makes me laugh at his antics and he melts my heart with his looks. When he was born he was declared normal and we all rejoiced, but oh, he is not normal. He is just so far above that. At a playgroup, other children are doing funny things you would not expect. Are they not normal, too? Perhaps every child, and my Ty tops my list right now, is somehow way above normal.

Before I even got through packing boxes away, I decided to leave out some snowmen, just because they are cute. I recently added a few valentine things a bit early since the big day comes so soon in February. My "normal" didn't last long, did it? It doesn't really matter. The things I left up or added are cheerful. The rest of the house is rid up and I am content.

I love words. Words mean something. But what does "normal" truly mean?

Sweet Fragrance

After Christmas and before New Year's Eve, the Intercessors at our church had their party. I had to step down as I work on their day now, but they are so kind to include me when I can come.

We went to a lovely house with a great kitchen and living room with vaulted ceiling. The dining room was set beautifully with green tablecloth, dishes, crystal, and a present at every place setting. We had a good visit and all received little hat shaped pincushions.

The big room was just right for our gathering and prayer time. It felt so peaceful in that home and so good to be praying together with others again.

We passed out out exchange gifts. I received a book by Stormie Omartian, The Power of Praying for Your Adult Children. This is the perfect season for this book. I have been burdened that I haven't been praying enough for my kids or the proper way. This book helps in that it gives good advice as well as sample prayers to pray and scriptures to go with them. A conformation that this is just the right time came when my daughter and I were visiting and she asked me to pray for her. How nice that with God, things fit together so well. I told my gifter friend how this book as well as her other gifts blessed me.

Not only was our party a sweet fragrance of Godly friendship, but I have a gift I can use for this year. It fits right in with my New Year's plans. Has God blessed you in a special way through a friend?

Over the River and Through The Woods To a Wonderful Adventure

My husband and I were going to take another bus trip to a resort, but it got cancelled. We decided to drive the four hour trip ourselves.

We finally arrived at Thunder Bay Resort and settled in our deluxe cabin with the blue interior. Then we headed out, all dressed up warm for the sleigh ride. It had thawed for a day or two in this area and to save the horses, we had to ride on wheels. Even though it was the same carriage, I was disappointed because I have always wanted a sleigh ride and it keeps eluding me. But when I saw the horses my heart melted. They were draft horses, about twice as big as regular ones. I wanted to ride in the second vehicle which had horses of dark rusty brown with tawny manes. They also had red collars which set them off. I learned that a sleigh in that weather would make these adorable animals work too hard.

We got in with our blankets and started off to find the elk. Whenever we turned a corner, I could see all the other wagons, about five, behind us and it looked so amazing. We went deep into the woods. It wasn't snowing, but there was a light fog that made the close-ups of the horses seem in a fantasy world. As we wandered over a one lane bridge and watched the horses' manes go flop flop when they ran to get up a hill, our guide (in a long leathery coat and broad brimmed hat) told us silly stories and details about the elk we were about to see. We finally had some sightings along the way. They are huge animals. We learned that their antlers grows about 1 and 1/2 inches a day. Wow! We saw some other elk close-up and got great pictures.

We arrived at our destination after about an hour. We went into a cabin all rustic and lit up for Christmas. Each table had real linens and red napkins, "crystal", and china. I love the contrasts. Here we were treated to entertainment, meeting new people, and an eleven course meal. We sat and chatted and watched and sang and ate for over four hours. I tried to pace myself, but I couldn't eat much of the entry which was course #10. And believe it or not, every course was good, somewhat unusual and very tasty.

So I ended my year with my best friend and we got to wish each other Happy New Year and we had quite an adventure. This was all somewhat unexpected and I just rejoiced in the way things sometimes work out. Am looking forward to January's fresh start. I love this time of year. Do you?