Country Roads Take Me Home

I love John Denver.  Yeah, he was a little goofy looking.  And in today's world, the music is a little sappy, but I loved him and his music.  I was a country girl (for which I also thank God).   I didn't go to Rocky Mountain High, but I would have if I could have.  Sunshine on my shoulders still makes me happy.  And country roads always took me home.  I'm a big fan.

On the way to work a week or so ago, amidst some tribulation that extends even to this very moment, instead of leaving on a jet plane, I decided to take my time and take some photos of my favorite country roads.

 I love this corner.  I especially love it with wildflowers added.

 I'm not much of a botanist. I don't know what the yellow flower is but the other one is an Indian Blanket.  Such a happy flower.

 Beauty.

 

Scissortails always remind me of my granddad.  They were his favorite.  Now they are mine too!  I was trying to get a really good shot of this guy when he disappeared.

 When I checked my shots, I saw this was the reason he flew away. Good call.  

 A little further along the way.  I just want to stop here and breathe in the tranquility.

Wild turkeys are not very smart, but they are very fast and hard to photograph.  I followed a rafter of wild turkeys down the road with my passenger window down trying to get a good shot.

 I love these trees.

 A friendly girl on the way catching some shade.

 Beautiful wheat ready to harvest.

 Combines had this field cleaned by the end of the day.  Wheat harvesting is a lot faster now than when I was a kid and had to help my dad.  They have giant harvesters and giant semi trucks not broken down combines and trucks held together with duct tape and bailing wire like ours was. 

My camera has some fancy settings that I have never used. I really wanted to try to capture the light on the tractor, but none of the settings I clicked would work until I chose "special effects" and painting.  I was surprised and happy with this shot. It's silly, I guess, but when I see sun rays beaming down like that, I think of it as God sending me a little hopeful message.

Just revisiting these photos has eased my mind some today. I know the Lord of Heaven and Earth has us in the palm of His hand.  "And we know all things work together for good  to them that love God, to them that are called according to His purpose."

All things?  Really?  Yes.  All things.  Even this.

May the good Lord bless you and keep you and offer you opportunities to feel His love on your face.

<3 Lori

Giraffing

The month of May was CrayCRAY!   Sophie being sick, new puppies, spring basketball, spring volleyball, awards banquets, middle school graduation, Baccalaureate, high school graduation and all the junk the goes into all of that plus a bunch of stuff I can't remember now.  It was nuts.  I thought if I could just live until the end of the month and then through the first week of June when the state monitors would be at my real job for our annual review, it would be approaching miracle status AND I could take some time off.  I lived, AND I'm off!  Yea!

What have I been doing with this unusual spare time?

Playing with puppies.

Purchasing MORE crafty goodness.  Not sure what I'm going to do with this yet, but it was my reward for making it through the monitoring week.

Catching up on my 1 Peter Bible study with #Shereadstruth

And making art.  This one is almost finished.  It's called, "Giraffing".

Maybe it shouldn't, but it still feels kind of miraculous when I make something I really like.  I really like this guy.  There's a quote from Robert Fulghum scratched into to the paint. It says, "Does the giraffe know what he's for?  Or care? Or even think about his place in things.  A giraffe has a tongue twenty-seven inches long and no vocal cords. A giraffe has nothing to say.  He just goes on giraffing."

I feel a little like that sometimes.  I don't know about my place in the world. And I don't really care that much because this world is not my home. I'm anxious for the next one!  Until then, I'll just go on doing what I do and feeling blessed beyond measure.

May the good Lord bless you, too, friends, better than you deserve.

<3 Lori

In Memoriam

Sophie Marie Leissner

4/7/07 -- 5/21/2013

We drove out on a Sunday afternoon to pick out our new puppy.  We had extensively researched the kind of dog that would work for our family.  We needed a breed that's independent, happy outside, protective of the farm animals, a good guard dog for the family, smart and easy going.  The Anatolian-Great Pyrenees cross seemed like a great dog for us.  We'd just lost our Annie (our first Anatolian-Pyre cross) to osteosarcoma, bone cancer that is common in big dog breeds.  Having just moved to our newly built house in the middle of what used to be a pasture, we'd already lost 4 turkeys to bobcats.  We knew we needed to hurry and get another guardian.

I don't remember how many there were, but the little building where they'd been corralled for our visit was teeming with wriggly puppies. Some of them looked more slenderish Anatolian, some more bulky Pyre.  All the all-white pups were eliminated from competition because Annie had been all white.   She had been fiercely loyal and kind of shy, preferring to stay under the porch of our old house and scare the pants off visitors by barking ferociously rather than trotting up for a sniff and pat. (More than once people called us on the phone from the driveway to ask if it was okay to get out of the car.)  I liked that about her and wanted to find another quiet, cautious, protective girl.  I saw a little girl standing apart from the crowd of yipping, jumpy litter mates and knew immediately she was our girl and we were her people.

She grew to be much more social overall than Annie had been.  She liked to hang out with us on the porch in the sunshine, play in the yard in the cool of the morning, noodle the cats with her snout, and occasionally full out chase the guineas, especially when they got too close to her food.

One springlike morning this January, Sophie was doing her puppy run where she would race in circles around the yard at top speed.  As she made a sudden stop, she let out a whimper and limped a little on her hind leg.  I thought maybe she'd just given herself a little sprain or something.  She was really too old to be acting like a silly 130 pound puppy anyway.  But the limp never went away.  We knew this could be very bad.  And it was.

Having already experienced osteosarcoma, we knew the symptoms. We also knew that by the time symptoms show up, it's too late to do much.  We'd taken a chance with amputation for Annie, but we really didn't want to put Sophie through that. We just decided to let her enjoy the time she had as much as possible. The vet said we would know when it was time.

There's been terrible tragedy in our country in the last few days.  I pray for our neighbors in Oklahoma and grieve for the families of those lost, especially the children.  In no way do I equate my animals with my people.  She was a dog.  But she was a sweetheart of a dog.  She made me feel special when she chose to jump up on the bench right across from my chair on the porch even though there were lots of other benches she could have chosen.  When she deliberately placed her paw on your arm, it seemed like a friendly gesture....a sort of doggie hug.

When she looked in the back window in the mornings while I made coffee, I'd raise my hand and give her a wave.  She'd give me a wag in return.  I'm really, really going to miss that.

We are so thankful for the six fun years we had with her.  We hope we made her a good family. I think she was happy here.  It was a great pleasure to be her human.

We know we can't replace her.  Just like Annie, she'll hold a special place in our hearts, memories and family album. But we do need dogs around to protect the critters and keep the cats in line.  We also thought a puppy now would help our other dog Samson not be so lonely for his almost lifelong companion. Finally, we thought it might help us bridge our loss too. We've been looking high and low across the state for Anatolian-Pyre pups and were about to make a deposit on some a two hour drive away when we just happened to see some at our local monthly flea market.  These two little fur balls came home with us this past Saturday.  

Baxter and Ellie Lu don't know yet how big the doggie shoes are they have been called to fill.   Right now, the sock nibbles and puppy breath are doing all we need.

May the good Lord bless you and your family today and hold you in His loving embrace.

<3 Lori

Facing My Fears

Well, technically, it's not fear.  It's not really hatred either, although that's closer. I'm not actually sure what it is, but some very strong emotion has overtaken me in the past when I have contemplated this: 

::cue scary horror movie music:::

I have test driven a lot of crafty hobbies over the years.  My (Great) Aunt Sybil taught me how to crochet when I was in middle school.  I did that for a long time, but I never learned any fancy stitches.  I made lots of square things. I tried to embroidery, too, because my grandmother did lovely embroidered pillow cases and cup towels, but it never caught on for me.  I liked latch hook rugs, but the kits went out of fashion and how many furry wall hangings does one person need anyway?  Then there was counted cross stitch.  'Bout made myself blind with that one.  At our tiny high school,  everyone was required to take both Ag and Home Ec, so everyone got to make a bench and an apron.  I was pretty good at sewing straight lines. I made baby blankets for my kids' nurseries and curtains for our first two houses.  But I'm bad at math, so I didn't really enjoy it all that much. 


Roben-Marie Smith is an artist who adds lovely sewing to her journals, mail art, and hand painted fabric.  She inspired me to get my old sewing machine down from the top of the guest room closet, try to remember how to thread it and make my first tentative stitches on paper.

And then I went kind of nuts making these book marks.  Do people even use book marks anymore?

 I don't know, but I love them.

No seam ripper required and so fun!  There'll be more paper sewing projects in my future. 

In the meantime, anybody need a bookmark?

Until next time, may the good Lord bless you with good books to read and cute bookmarks to hold your place.

<3 Lori

It's Been a Long Time

It's been a long time since I've been here.  I'm sorry.  I'm making things like a mad woman for the arts and crafts show I signed up to do in July, which seems far away on the calendar but is very close in my head.  So close it is sucking my breath from me.  When I take time to think about it, though, I feel pretty good that I now know I can create under pressure, something I was not at all sure of until now.

products piling up on the ping pong table

I've been posting some of the stuff I'm making on Etsy and on my Facebook page as a kind of bets- hedging method.  I'm sure all artists feel this way at one point or another..unsure if what they are making appeals to anyone but them (and their mom. :|)  I'm feeling some of that uncertainty as I pile up the things I'm making and when I go to Hobby Lobby for paint but come out with paint plus 10 new surfaces (albeit little ones!).  I really hope this works, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much in case it doesn't.  I'm trying to be brave.

And so we start another week and almost another month.  It's about this time of year that I get antsy for vacation.  We are not sure we are going to get one this year together since we'll have one high school graduate heading off on an as yet unknown adventure and another one entering high school.  Some friends of ours were headed off today to Myrtle Beach. I've never been there, but it's caused me to start thinking about a beach somewhere and to think rhyming beachy thoughts.

The Sea

I wish that I could 

See the sea.

And let the waves

Wash over me.

So very happy 

I would be

If only I could 

See the sea.

May the good Lord bless you until we meet again with things to do, people to love, and sights to see.


<3 Lori

Moment of Silence

I lay my hands on their faces.
Reaching through time and distance.
Pleading for God's grace
To ease their pain.

Silent images on a screen.
Touching hearts.

"Evening and morning and at noon shall I pray and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice." Psalms 55:17

Tidbit Tuesday--The Stuff of Nightmares

You are probably not going to believe this.  When I think about it, I think it must have been some kind of crazy, bad dream.  You might want to sit down.

I was in a beauty pageant.

Ha!

No.  Seriously. I wrote that, and it made me laugh out loud.

I really don't remember how it happened. I must have blacked out or something.  I would never have taken a dare like that. There's really no explaining how someone like me ended up on stage, even a tiny one like the one there must have been for the Miss Throckmorton Pageant.

When I was thinking about writing about this, I was so thankful that I don't think there remains any historical documentation of this event.  It went like this, "Dear Lord, thank you so much that there was no YouTube in 1983."

I sang a version, although perhaps not recognizable, of this song:

See...in the tiny school I went to, there was no band or choir. We barely had enough kids for a six man football team, six cheerleaders and a sad troupe of a pep squad.  I learned to sing in church....the Church of Christ ....where there are no musical instruments.  We sing a cappella.  When we went to practice with the piano lady, she basically ended up saying, "Just sing, and I'll try to keep up with you." 

For the love of all things holy....

That pretty much tells the story of my one and only pageant experience. I think there was also a group makeup lesson, a homemade dress, a crazy bad "sporty" ensemble (you mean that doesn't mean a basketball uniform?),  but I've blocked out most of the rest of it.

Dear Lord, thank you so very very very very much for the blessing of no cell phones, no YouTube, no twitter, no instagram, no blogger and no otherwise wireless or digital recording devices in 1983.  In Jesus' name.  Amen.

<3 Lori