Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Thankful For What We Have


Like one, very old computer. Brad has been the only person using this computer for his school work and study and "The hunting game".  That is, until last night when we decided to see if it would actually still send a command to the printer and create a successful copy. Driven by sheer need and too much pride to ask one of our better equipped children to help, we gave it a try.  I even got Word to work. And the printer even had enough ink in it to make seventeen copies of our needed document. Wow! The computer is an old laptop using Windows XP? Really? I don't know, I think so. Amazing. The whole keyboard is functional. But we have it ponied to a newer screen on the side because the laptop screen is cracked or smudged. That's one of the things I am deciding to be thankful for. 

I took these pictures with my new Android and loaded them to a new post from there and saved it. Then I came over here to the old computer and logged into blogspot and found the draft.  Lo and behold I can edit/write/post.  Thankful for that, too.

And for the rain. It's the middle of August and the lawn and garden are lovely, green and beautiful.

   

This picture does not really show off this row of flowers properly. I am inordinately proud of this but I have to give the credit to where it is due. Many years ago we were at Lester and Katie's house to Sunday lunch and she had a row of foundation flowers done exactly like this with the red mulch and the same variety of flowers. I have never forgotten how elegant they were. These are a perfect, too.
  



Contentment had completely eluded me the last couple of days. Our basement bedroom bugs me. We can hardly keep it decently dry and the spiders love that. Looking up cottage master bedrooms on Pinterest wasn't helping much. Imagine that! But I did see one picture that inspired me to go down there and take my cleaning stuff and vacuum sweeper along. You never know what a good cleaning will do besides reduce the spider population. One thing led to another and I soon had clean surfaces, fresh dresser scarves and tidy-ness. Except that rusting, dusty stove looked terrible. I don't know why it has taken me so long to realize that a little stove blacking and a lot of elbow grease would restore our beautiful fireplace to loveliness again. It's the old discontentment problem. And I believe I have found the cure for it. Oh sure, I would still love to have a new, north-woodsy, decorated master bedroom with floor to ceiling windows and white carpet and a huge stone fireplace with a carefully appointed bathroom attached. But the truth is, even then I'd have to decide when enough is enough and be content. I can save Elv a lot of money and headache just by getting straight to the point, today. It's not half bad anyway, after it's been cleaned and rejuvenated. 


                                          Church picnic on the patio at our house. It was great fun.

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Everyone Has A Story

Yours truly in Glacier Park. We never get enough of it, but I have this picture to prove we drove through, anyway. And stopped for ten minutes.


Home from Idaho (the Kauffman family reunion) as of Tuesday evening. Only ninety-three of the four hundred of us were in attendance. Even so, we had amazing talk times and fun.
  Kauffmans laugh a lot. Especially the old Aunts and Uncles show us how to laugh at ourselves.

  Elv and I are listening for stories everywhere we go. I suppose that is because of our growing awareness that everyone has one. Especially riveting are the lessons shared by people in our own family who have had experiences similar to ours and have "lived to tell the story".
    Back at our cabin at night we would compare our collections. We found out that there is no temptation but such as is common to man, and that we have all been provided a way of escape. I especially appreciate the realness (honesty) of our K family. That same forthright-ness gets us into trouble too at times. I am not saying we are always nice, if you know what I mean.
  Tears and triumphs are what good stories are made of. Thanks especially, Dean, Michelle, Valora, Wayne, Samantha, Amy, Shilah, and all of you for your encouragement. And Aunt Nita, I hope that when I am your age that I can be as cheerful and fun as you are to all of us nieces and nephews. You give me courage and I love you for it.


Afterward, Elv and I delighted in climbing the mountain behind April and Jay's with them. Route 2 runs over that bridge you see there.  We all talked fast between Elv and I gasping for enough of that thin air, to tell each other's stories while we climbed.




Saturday, August 1, 2015

Date Night


 We went on a date. Just the two of us. Life after weddings is fabulous. There's time for play. And I am reading a novel this week; something I haven't done in ages.
There's time to play with my phone camera. And brain space to consider some fall perennial planting. Jung's catalogue came in the mail last week right in the middle of our wedding hub-bub. Having tucked it away for later; I thought of it it when we found these beauties growing by the shelter at a park near Hayward.
 This picture is much darker because I discovered the iso setting on my camera in an effort to capture the color, better. Imagine my delight in learning something new and nice. I really wonder sometimes if the camera geeks in our family realize how ignorant I am.
Elv was snapping pictures, too.


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