How Great This Feels

August 14 through the 16th my daughter planned and organized a Bake Sale. It took the efforts of many helpful hands in our community but let me tell you Deanna is a baking whiz! And Steve wins the Father of the Year award for volunteering to work at the sale for two days. The Bake Sale was for The Great American Bake Sale so google that if you are a baker or a willing volunteer. It is designed to feed hungry children. Deanna's hopeful goal was to raise $200.00 but instead ended up donating $400.00 to the Great American Bake Sale. People from our church and our community and our family generously donated baked goods, items for an auction, and baking ingredients. Then most of those that purchased baked items did so without accepting change from their purchase. And several threw in very generous donations as they purchased their baked goods. Deanna decorated the tables in our church where the sale was held with table cloths that had my vintage aprons added for a bit of whimsy and color. Steve and I are just so proud of her that she took on such a large project and was the impetus of having it be successful.

It has been a very busy Summer for us. That is a very good thing! We have had lots of time with our family which is so wonderful and rare for us. As a Minister's family we are located far from our families and time spent with them is so dear to us and just does not happen often enough.

This July our daughter had a visitor from Birmingham, England. She has been communicating with him for almost a year through e-harmony. His name is Elvis and he is originally from Cameroon, Africa. He was at our home for almost two weeks which did not seem nearly long enough. This was his first visit to America so we tried to think of ways to introduce him to American culture through our food choices, restaurants, and trips to the mall for his souvenir shopping.

We live in a very small city so there is a limited amount of things to do but we managed and he seemed very content. We also introduced him to our extended family which at the time lived in Grand Forks, ND. They have since moved. Sniff :( but that is one other part of our Summer. Our nieces and nephew participated in the Grand Forks SPA (Summer Performing Arts) and so they provided some very wonderful entertainment for us at the time Elvis was visiting. We were able to enjoy Bye Bye Birdie that our niece Mary performed in. And then an all girls musical performance that our niece Sarah performed in. And to not leave Nathaniel our nephew out I must say that Steve and I thoroughly enjoyed his performance in Damn Yankees!

We also took a trip to Itasca State Park which is where the headwaters of the Mississippi begins. I do have photos of this delightful trip to share. There are a couple of areas in the park that one can walk across the Mississippi and the water is so clean and clear that you can see the bottom of the river bed and there are three areas where you can walk across the Mississippi. It is truly a beautiful place to visit and I would encourage anyone that is going to be in Northern Minnesota to take the time to check this out.

We have also enjoyed two weddings this Summer of our dear nieces Sara and Brooke and we were able to take vacation time to travel to Madison and Illinois for this time to enjoy their weddings and time spent with family.

Summer isn't over yet thank goodness! I am hoping for a few more adventures or at least time around our fire pit toasting S'mores.

Dreams Do Come True

My husband is just crazy about bikes! He loves to ride them, to talk about them, to tweak them, look at me using bike terminology! He has recently starting riding again and he is so excited about this. On the 4th of July he rode 20 miles with some newly found biking friends who hope to do some riding every Saturday. It is part of his determination to become more physically active and fit and I am in his cheering section to help him reach his goals. For years he has had a dream of fixing bikes and then being able to give them away to those who do not have bikes. Those who can not afford them or for what ever the reason have not been able to own a bike. This dream is finally coming true. The only disadvantage to this is that our garage is now taking the form of a bicycle parts shop. I guess it is a good thing that we needed to sell our second car because now the bikes have taken over it's parking place. He is able to select bikes from a community resource and then cleans them, tweaks and repairs, and then finds new homes for them. I took this photo of his first attempt at this endeavor this past Spring. He advertised the availability of the bikes on our local radio swap shop and within minutes of the announcement he had received phone calls and all of the bikes had new homes. It means a lot to him to be able to pass on his joy of riding to others and especially to children. It would be his dream to have every child supplied with a bike. That would be a pretty large undertaking though so for now he will just focus on our community.

Wonderful Surprise On Sunday

I was greeted by a conversation on my Nanna's Knitting at Etsy this past Sunday that my scarf Tribute which was in a beautiful treasury had made it to the front page on Etsy. The creator of the treasury Jennifer Hewett of jenhewett.etsy.com was even kind enough to mail me a screen shot of that front page on Monday so that I would be able to see it. Her treasury featured beautiful gray items and it was the first treasury that she had created. So way to go Jen! Needless to say I was ecstatic about this news. Steve was out on the deck reading the Sunday paper and sitting in the sunshine when I was able to tell him. I couldn't even wait to get out to the deck to do my happy dance so I had to let him know through the kitchen window. Well there were significant reasons for this as to go out on the deck would require a change from my pajamas into clothes and I was much too excited to take that long. I will include a photo of Tribute and I will also show a button of this made it to the front page of Etsy. Well that is what I intend to do anyway. That depends on if my computer skills are up to the challenge. I must confess, I couldn't figure this out. It is a wonderful thing to have a daughter that knows how to use a computer!

Time to Rejoice

It is a beautiful day today. The sun is out. It is in the 70's AMAZING!We have watched as the Gold Finches have gone from a dingy gray to their beautiful Golden color which in itself seems to be a miracle of Spring. It feels like a season to rejoice. Spring is new life a burst of freshness in a way it is like Ready... Set...Go! Our family has been reeling with illness the past couple of weeks Steve with Pneumonia, Me with Sinusitis, Deanna with Cysts and Enlarged Lymph Nodes which was a better diagnosis than Appendicitis, though she is still having pain. So antibiotics for Steve and I and pain medication for Deanna and we are all more than eager to jump into a fresh new Spring.

As I am writing this the view out my front window shows little tiny pink buds on our flowering crab. In a couple of days that tree will be exploding with blooms. Our garden has it's newest layer of fertilizer on top and is ready for tilling. I'm thinking about which plants to put into our garden. Always tomatoes, there must be potatoes as this is one of the best regions for growing those. I'm thinking carrots, peas, yeww I don't know if I even want to fool with green beans though they will have to go in as my sweetie is the one who tends the garden and he does like these. I think asparagus would be nice though it can appear to be messy and if memory serves me I don't think you can harvest the first season. Any fellow gardeners reading this can leave a comment for me on gardening tips. I'm looking forward to seeing how large my herb patch will be this year. Last year my Rosemary did not make it through the harsh winter. The Lavender was growing wonderfully and every time I see it or take a whiff of the fragrance I think of the fields in Provence and dream of someday visiting them.

The Collies in residence Abby and Skye are even smiling as they have been diligently watching Steve pound posts into the ground to put up the fence in our backyard so they can run, leave it to the females to advise from the sidelines on building projects. I know that our neighbors must be giddy with joy as they see the fencing going up. As they have looked at that neon orange snow fence throughout the end of last summer until now. Well it was covered by snow for most of the Winter so at least they didn't have to see it then.

God is so good all I have to do is look out my window and see the gorgeous world that he has created for us and the abundance of beauty and eventually the provision of food that he will give to us through our garden. Life is good!

Why Didn't I Think of This Sooner?

I have a brain that is filled with wonderful ideas today. I just finished cleaning my refrigerator. And ewww....who wants that job! So while cleaning with an ever busy brain that likes to run non-stop I started contemplating that for the next Presidential election that will probably start up the campaigning sometime next week. Oh wait I think that I just shifted from contemplative thinking right into outright bitter sarcasm so forgive me as I wander back to my great idea. If the next Presidential candidate would promise little tiny refrigerator elves to every household in America so they could make sure that leftovers didn't get left. And they would make sure that anything growing fuzz that shouldn't be would be discarded immediately thus saving both face as in non embarrassment and nose as in PU! I am telling you this person would have a bi-partisan win that would be overwhelming like no other in history. Now you just try to tell me that isn't a great idea.

Learning New Things

Ask and you shall receive! I know that is Biblical and sometimes it is just so hard to ask. As a parent I know how much I would truly love to give to my children. I would not wish for bad things to happen to them nor would I give them something to intentionally harm them. Doesn't the Heavenly Father have so much that he would desire to bless us with? I am trying on this journey through life to learn to walk a little closer to God as he is always there for me. It is I who neglects to seek this close walk. I become distracted, disheartened, and sometimes I forget that he is just a prayer away.

My brain went to this thought of ask and you shall receive as I was reading a Blog by an Etsy seller whose shop is called ennadoolf you can find this shop at www.ennadoolf.etsy.com I have been seeing these great displays of Etsy shops on blogs but did not know how to put this feature on my blog. I left a comment on her blog asking how this is done. Within a very short period of time she sent me a note that gave a complete helpful explanation to walk me through the steps of setting up this feature. Guess what? It worked! I think that for the most part people want to help eachother. I want to believe firmly that there is a lot of good in this world to be found. It isn't always easy to ask another for help. I'm just thankful that there are many good hearts who are willing to step in if we just ask. I guess I'll be working on that skill. And many thanks to ennadoolf!