Assortment

High Kick

Several years ago, when we were young and newly married, we found ourselves soaking up the long sunshine of a summer's day as we walked along a graveled beach in Alaska.  Bald eagles, nearly as thick as seagulls are on most beaches, were perched and patiently awaiting a salmon's fateful hour.  Here and there, other people were strolling along, much like we were just then. 

A carefree band of teenagers caught our attention as they passed by.  After watching them for a while, it was obvious that one guy, in particular, was twitterpated over a girl in the group, and clearly, he wanted her to get that message. 

It was the way he went about showing her, that we've never forgotten.  He started high-kicking her.  Not really kicking her, of course, but kicking at her from a safe distance, just to show her that he could. 

Bam!  Ka-Pow!  Spin!  Bam!  Spin-Ka-Pow!

We watched the high-kick show all the way down the beach, and decided that the higher you high-kick a girl, the more you like her.  It was like a human version of an animal's strange mating dance.  This love-sick boy was giving it his best shot, and was desperately hoping that the girl would be impressed. 

We never knew what resulted from his high-kick dance, but for the sake of his little twitterpated heart, we hoped that she was impressed, too.

The high-kick.  The two of us have never forgotten it.  He hasn't.  I haven't.   

Every so often, as our years have run along, my guy will lean over to me and say, "I'm high-kickin' ya."

And I know. 

So, just the other day, when my phone rang with instructions to drive out to an open space between two fields, I did.

 

An easy bank left, and he came back again, from the other direction: 

  

And this, without my zoom lens, mind you.

He was high-kickin' me.

Patch

After twisting and turning down some country roads, our big yellow bus finally stopped.

An old red Hollis Allis-Chalmers was waiting to load us up into its wagon full of straw, and take us down a two-track road in a growly, puttery sort of way.  The blue sky let the sun shine its brightest as our ride wound between some low hills, and out toward a freshly plowed field.

Somebody started singing Old McDonald. 

When Hollis Allis-Chalmers growled to a stop, there before us was what we'd come for - PUMPKINS!

 

Acres of pumpkins to search and find!

I'm sorry, I can't help but say, "You can't do this in Florida!"

My sincere apologies to all Floridians.  I'm so thankful that there are trucks that haul loads of pumpkins down to you, so that you can have a pumpkin patch experience, too. 

A sort of pumpkin patch experience.

My advice to you?  Drink deeply of every photo here.  Lick up every drop.  This is the real deal.  (We're not going to even mention, here, that you have an ocean, and we don't.)

  

 

 

Those smiles there?  They lasted all the way home on the big yellow bus.

Quite a Ride

Hello, hello!

So good to be back here with you all!  Thanks for the little time away for rest.  I needed that, though by the end of the week, I was painting walls, sewing, straightening closets, trimming bushes, and washing windows - all in my head of course, but it was a clear sign that I needed to be well!  (Notice that laundry was not part of that list.  I don't do laundry in my head.)

I was able to muster my strength one day, at the tail end of the week, and go with the boys on a fun adventure, because I just couldn't miss this face:

You know how you have to experience them experiencing that?

 

Exactly.

 

 

Um, if I'm not mistaken, this boy's very first ride on a school bus is topping his charts!

 

 

Where were we going?  Ah, I'll show all tomorrow.  I just don't want to rush off to that part of the adventure, and miss this part.  Just look for a moment, at these bus riders.  Grandmas with grandkids, daddys with daughters, mamas with sons, buddies with buddies. 

 

I love the multi-generationalism(?) of it.  Love the anticipation you feel when you see the inside of this big yellow bus.  It's a story, right before your eyes.  If I'm not mistaken, it's a classic Norman Rockwell scene. 

Norman?  Norman!  Where are you?

Can you come back and paint this scene for me?

Or, Norman, how about this one?

Norman?

 

 

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P.S.  For those of you who came here looking for Funnies on Sunday! yesterday, hold onto your hats!  Beginning next week, a new, fresh, and funny strip called, The Wild Hairs, will be hitting these pages!  You just never know what a ten-year-old boy might come up with.  Keep your eyes peeled!  

 

 

 

A Little Step Closer

There's alot to be said for friends far and near who come by to help, as they can, when one isn't feeling quite right.  So, thank you to you all.  Really, it's helped, all of it has, the comments, the phone calls, the dinners, the prayers, it's helped me get to this side of that! 

And, just to make sure that I stay on this side of that, I'm going to sign off for the weekend a little early this time.  Need to make sure I take plenty of rest and get my feet back under me.  Little steps, they'll get me there. 

But, before I do, I wanted to give you this sweet poem to carry around as you enjoy the remaining days of this, my favorite month.

 

September

 

The goldenrod is yellow;

    The corn is turning brown;

The trees in apple orchards

    With fruit are bending down.

 

The gentian's blues fringes

Are curling in the sun;

In dusty pods the milkweed

It's hidden silk has spun.

 

The sedges flaunt their harvest

   In every meadow nook;

And asters by the brook-side

   Make asters in the brook.

 

From dewy lanes at morning

   The grapes' sweet odors rise;

At noon the roads all flutter

   With yellow butterflies.

 

By all these lovely tokens

   September days are here,

With summer's best of weather,

   And autumn's best of cheer.

 

 - Helen Hunt Jackson

 

Have a lovely weekend!

Heavens to Betsy

That's about all I can say right now. 

Either that or, "Whoa, Nelly!"

I didn't plan on lying around for two days in a row.  Actually, make it three days, now.  My birthday was one thing, but these last two days?

Not in my plan.

 

Going to the E.R. in the middle of the morning yesterday was most definitely not in my plan, even if I did get to meet the sweetest nurse named Susan, and the gray-haired doctor named Somethin'-somethin'-so-so-a-berger.  He was nice.  (Actually, I just looked at my ID bracelet, and his name isn't even close to that.  See what meds do to ya?) 

 

 

So was the man with the bald head and handlebar mustache (actually, it was more like a saddlebag mustache) who wheeled my bed down the hall for the CT scan.  I think he was the one who had driven the flatbed ranch truck that I'd seen in the parking lot as my husband helped me inch my way up from the curb and through the automatic E.R. doors.  The guy just looked like he would drive a truck like that.  I thought about asking him, but I was in too much pain.

Not quite childbirth pain, but it was running a close second. 

Without venturing into the area known as Too Much Information, let me just say that bodies are only meant to deliver soft, squishy babies.

I was clearly not delivering a soft, squishy baby.

It took nearly twenty-four hours, lots of pain meds, an endlessly attentive husband, three (sort of) quiet boys, some wonderful neighbors who took those three (sort of) quiet boys away, and an ocean of fluids, but I can finally say that I feel like a normal-ish person again.  A thoroughly scraped normal-ish person, mind you, but a normal-ish person, just the same.   

Heavens to Betsy.

It did help, though, to have nice things to think about during those dreadful hours.  Things like the fun antiques show I'd gone to on Saturday morning. 

Or things like the look of the evening sky through the trees as we'd sat in the park on our lawn chairs on Saturday night,

  

 

while we listened to three other ranch brothers, perform.  Yeah, there's somethin' about those three-boy ranch families.  Gotta love 'em.

These are the good things. The good things that get you through the bad, painful, scraping times. 

Whoa, Nelly.

A Gift of A Day

My weekend had little bits of fun strewn all through it.  There was an antiques fair, some thrift store browsing, lunch in an old brick building downtown, but I'll tell more about all that tomorrow. 

Because what I really want to write about today is the other fun that happened.

The fun that started with this, served to me before I had even slipped a toe out of bed:

And this was just the first course!

My, my, the biggest guy in my house can make a mean fritatta and some hot, tasty crescent rolls - he and the Pillsbury Dough Boy. 

I sipped, I tasted, I nibbled my way through my delicious breakfast, taking as long as I possible could.  Even after it was finally gone, I couldn't seem to push myself out of that warm, comfy bed, what with the rain spattering on the windows, my stack of new magazines, and all. 

So, I stayed.  Lollygagged in my pajamas til 1:00? 2:00?  Can't say that I remember, exactly.  Doesn't really matter anyway, because it was the kind of day where you weren't supposed to even glance at the clock.

Or think about lunch.

Or dinner.

Someone else did all that. 

For me. 

My afternoon tweedled by in a delightful sort of way.

Then, along about evening, I was summoned into the kitchen, to find this:

There was a banner, a gift, candles, cake, and four men of all sizes - excited men - grinning at me with their eyes while singing a rousing round of Happy Birthday, puncuated by an impressive rendition of party favor blowing.

There was a card that made me laugh, a card that made me cry,

And a gift, a day, and four men that made me smile thoroughly.

Funnies on Sunday!

Painting the Sunshine

Well, with all the sunshine talk lately, I don't think it was a coincidence that one of our recent art projects had to do with that very thing.

In this case, it was the thought of the evening and morning skies that got us painting, inspired by the poem, A Slash of Blue, by Emily Dickinson: 

 

A slash of Blue -

A sweep of Gray -

Some scarlet patches on the way,

Compose an Evening Sky -

A little purple - slipped between -

Some Ruby Trousers hurried on -

A Wave of Gold -

A Bank of Day -

This just makes out the Morning Sky.

 

Painting the sunshine in poetry?  It's goodness!

Sure

Yes, I looked yesterday.  I looked for sunshine.

I thought I'd find some, eventually,

because of the shadows.

If there are shadows, there has to be sunshine.

And, there is was, sure as ever.

It hadn't gone anywhere, I just couldn't see it for a time.

   

My heart, my soul, and I sat ourselves down right in the middle of it.

Sunshine, sure, since the beginning of time.

And, if you have a muddy five-year-old boy, walking all around you, seriously taking pictures, well, there's some extra sunshine right there. 

Hang In There!

Thanks for your calls and emails of concern about the current look of my blog!  I'm in the middle of doing some technical changes, so bear with me...hopefully the lovely design will be back soon!