Lest I Forget

Packing her carefully in a tissue-paper bed, straightening her ears one last time, I closed the box and drove to the post office so that she could begin her long journey from Germany to the west coast of the United States to a new little baby. This little elephant was knit with many prayers and lots of love. I heard yesterday that she made the trip safely and is with her new owner. Once again, the pattern for this little sweetie was very detailed, just like the ones for her little bunny friends that I have made. I had such fun making the elephant.   I have been reading "A Long Way from Chicago" by Richard Peck to the kids. Oh my goodness! How had I not read this before? Grandma Dowdel is one of the most hilarious characters ever! For my own reading, Amazon Prime sends me monthly free selections for my reader. I have never seen anything that sparked my interest until this month. It was historical fiction. "The Moonlight Palace" by Liz Ros...

For months I have been measuring and measuring, hoping to see the magic number appear. Today was the day. I made the appointment. Excited, yet nervous, I drove to the salon. The stylist asked what we were doing.  "Donating."  Before I could change my mind, she made a quick cut and there was no turning back. She did a wonderful job.

I am joining in Ginny's yarn along today. I have one project finished and on its way to the recipient. I will wait until it is received before I post pictures. The other project can be revealed, even though I am not finished. It is for Sophie. She saw it while I was visiting the states, so she knows what she will be getting eventually. I need quiet for her shawl because it is a lot of cables and twists and it would be easy to lose count. It is this pattern that I found on Ravelry. So far, a very well-written pattern. What we have been reading/listening to is "Arthur and the Invisibles". It is read by Jim Dale and is most enjoyable. I am still working on "Death Comes for the Archbishop". In other news, my sweet Anna turned 10 years old on Sunday. In the military world, this is big because you get your ID card on this birthday. Poor Anna had been looking forward to this day for quite some time. Not only did her birthday fall on a Sunday this yea...

Well now! What a long time since I sat down to write. I wanted to, really, because I didn't want to leave out anything, but traveling without my husband overseas left very little time to myself. On August 7, we began our attempt to get on a Space A flight from Germany to the states. I had heard horror stories of people camped out for days, waiting. We were still in the middle of the "busy" season, so I knew our chances were small to get a flight on the first day. I packed our bags, but I didn't really think it would matter if I missed anything. I fully expected to come home and try again the next day. On the last flight out that day, we made the list. Only, its destination was California. The wrong coast. I had only a minute to decide. Tony said go and so we did. The plane was a cargo plane but it did have regular airline seating inside, but little else. Including insulation. It was so loud that you could barely hear someone talking to you. It also got very cold s...

"Doctrine is well enough for the wise, Jean; but the miracle is something we can hold in our hands and love." - from Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather. The priest is speaking of the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe to Juan Diego. This simple line spoke to me. I recently joined a Catholic Discussion Group on facebook at a friend's suggestion. It is a lovely group of women who are very knowledgable on doctrine and the discussions are most of the time very informative. But I have felt... lesser. I try to fully live my faith each day. It is a struggle for sure. From my view, it seems that others find it more in their nature to be holy, where for me, I desire it, but it seems against my nature. I struggle mightily to align my heart with the Father's will sometimes. I think that is why I am drawn to Our Lady of Guadalupe. She came to Juan Diego, who was a simple man, trying to live a simple, holy life. He was not a learned scholar, nor did he try to b...

I am just wondering. Take, for instance, the seemingly simple task of booking a doctor's appointment for a child. I called this morning, all cheery, and tried to get Therese in to see the doctor, as she has been having frequent nose bleeds. The one yesterday at the pool, during her swimming lesson, lasted almost half an hour. The also cheery voice on the other end told me there were no appointments available, but she would put in a request to our clinic and they should call back within 2-4 hours. Fine. I really think they should just book appointments and not play this game, but fine. So I waited. Seven hours later, and close to the end of the business day, no call back. I called to see what was going on. They tried directly connecting me to the clinic (why didn't we do that this morning?) and once it began to ring, the line disconnected. We tried again. Same result. Apologetically, she offered that if I really felt she needed to be seen immediately, I could go to the ER. No,...

A few weeks ago, we came back to our car after shopping to see that someone had scraped the door while backing out. A nice, long red scrape down the left side of the car. At the time, I thought it looked terrible. In our village, along the sides of the street are little blue poles that mark the walkway for pedestrians. I have mentioned before that there is not enough room for two cars and when two cars meet, one pulls over to allow the other car to get through. Well, I pulled too close today to one of the poles to put it mildly. Now, to go along with the red paint on the left side, now I have a nice blue dent on the right! And I thought it looked bad before! But to keep it all in perspective, no one was hurt (except my pride) and as Tony always refers to the little scrapes and dings, I have added a little more custom detailing to our vehicle. Oops!!