And The Two Shall Become One

Every morning when I go out to sit on the deck these two wild ducks come over to have breakfast. I don't know where they spend their nights but I think it must be in the marshy area on the other side of the lake. At least that's where I see them coming from every morning. I look and see them swimming from the other side in a direct line to my yard where they have breakfast every day. They are so graceful and look like they are just gliding across the water. They have a short flight to get from the water up over the sea wall and onto the grass.

Walking up from the water to the middle of the yard they lose the "glide" they have on the water and they waddle. Their back ends sway back and forth as they sashay slowly across the grass.

They are very cautious little things. They keep one eye on me at all times. Sometimes she eats and he watches. Then he eats and she watches.

Sometimes they both watch and they stand so still you can't see them move a feather for the longest time.

They are always together. And it's always just the two of them. They don't seem to have friends and, so far, they don't seem to have children. It's just the two of them. Always the two of them. Never one alone. And they don't get much farther apart than you see in these pictures. They remind me of an older couple, kind of like my husband and me, a couple who's been together for years and years and don't really seem to be two different people any more. "And the two shall become one" takes on a whole new meaning when you've spent the majority of your life together. You watch out for each other, you don't get too far apart, you know what the other is thinking and which way they're going to turn and you know that if anyone attacks one of you they also attack the other, and you give each other the choicest worm. And you don't "glide" any more. Sometimes one of you has a hitch in his/her git-along so the other ones helps. And even when there are friends and family surrounding you it's still the two of you. Always the two of you. Just the way God planned it.

Grandma's Rain lilies

My Grandmother A lived in Sanger, California...a small town near Fresno if you know where that is. When I think of that area I always think of driving down a two lane highway with orange groves on both sides as far as you could see. Grandma had a screened in back porch where she kept her flowers. One of the flowers she had there was a Rain Lily. When she died somewhere around 1975 my cousin Carol took Grandma's Rain Lily home with her. Carol visited me this spring and when her husband came to pick her up he brought two Rain Lilies her sister and my cousin, Patty, had potted for my sister and me. I put them on a small table beside my front door in a courtyard area which gets sun only in the middle of the day but shade most of the time. Today they bloomed!

From Grandma to Carol and Patty to Sherry and me and, someday, hopefully on to our children. Isn't that a wonderful legacy?

Does This Ever Happen To You

Yesterday I took a deep breath, hitched up my git-along (according to my grandma this means you got yourself ready to do something) and went into the sewing room to do something about my overflowing scrap bin. I throw my scraps into a plastic tubby. Only for the last few months I have to mash down the scraps with both hands in an effort to keep them from spilling over. That tubby, by the way, is about the size of a rectangular laundry basket. I know that my Grandma would have used up every bit of those scraps so something inside of me just won't let me throw them away. Twelve hourslater (in a two day span) every piece had been ironed, about 1/3 of them had been trimmed and they were all sorted into piles. I have piles for 2 1/2" strips, wider than that strips, narrower than that strips, big pieces, big/medium pieces, medium/small pieces. They are in smaller plastic boxes with lids that stack on top of each other. I'd have been through sooner except something happens to me when I get started organizing....it's like I'm possessed or something. Some people call it OCD. :) I moved stuff and vacuumed, moved stuff to new places and believe it or not threw some stuff away. I find it hard to get to a stopping place. Does that every happen to you?

Can You Believe This?

I have the best neighborhood - it's a very quiet area with mostly older couples like us living here. There are a few children but not many. My street is a square....it would be a circle except there are corners and one side has a different street name. Did that make sense? Anyway, I've made friends with several women here and we have the best time. One of them, Betty, rides to quilt guild with me every month. She does the most beautiful hand quilting and applique you ever saw. Today her husband went to a town a couple of hours away to buy fresh corn on the cob, picked this morning. I had asked them to get me a bag (72 ears) and Betty dropped it off late this morning. This afternoon I went down to Betty's house to give her the money for the corn and to take her a loaf of bread I'd just gotten out of the oven. She and her husband were still working on their corn since they bought twice as much as I did and it takes a long time to blanch it and cut it off the cob and get it freezer ready. She and her husband lived in the same town I grew up in and so we know a few of the same people. Her husband asked me today exactly where I lived. And here's the part I couldn't believe - they lived in an apartment right next door to my house for a year when I was about 10 years old! Of course we didn't know each other then...they were young marrieds and I was a child running and playing in the neighborhood along with a dozen others. Small world, isn't it!

Remembering Mama

My aunt and I spent hours and hours "visiting" this weekend while I was in San Antonio with her. Much of our time was spent laughing and talking about Mama. I've told you before that she was quite a character. This picture of she and I touring one of the bath houses here in Hot Springs is one of my favorites - it was back before I let my hair go white and I know we would have looked exactly alike if I was white headed too. Mama had the biggest heart of anyone I know and couldn't stand for anyone to be hurt. But she also loved to tease and play jokes on people. Her primary target was always Daddy.

This picture of Daddy was taken in my back yard right after he caught this huge catfish - he had the best time that day!

Daddy loved to brag to people that he had two sisters and he was the apple of their eye. Mama would immediately agree with him and add that both his sisters were blind. And they really are blind!

When we were little Mama and Daddy never went to church but sometime in the eighties they had a long talk with a Baptist preacher at my aunt's house in Texas and decided they wanted to be baptized. They were living in a little town called Placedo at the time, near Victoria in south Texas. While this was certainly a serious event Mama was never one to take herself seriously and definitely included Daddy in that. So to forestall either of them becoming too proud the towel she included in Daddy's bag for him to dry with after the baptism had the large letters HOLIDAY INN on it. Notice that was Daddy's towel - not hers!

One time when Daddy was just a little too full of himself Mama decided to play a trick on him. Daddy was a salesman and traveled all week, leaving on Monday morning and coming home on Friday evening. Of course over the weekend he expected Mama to get his clothes washed and ironed and ready for him to pack. This particular time, with tiny little stitches, mama sewed up the fly of all Daddy's boxers. And then giggled all week every time she thought about it. Daddy had to rip those stitches out with his pocket knife!

Mama would always take a dare. I remember once her good friend and neighbor, Doris, dared her to put on a bikini and walk around in the backyard. That wouldn't have been so bad...except we'd just had a 6 inch snow. We have pictures of her posing in that bikini. :)

When we traveled, which wasn't often and was always to California to see my grandma, it was almost a joke that mama would have to stop to go to the bathroom every 30 minutes. (I've turned into her!) I remember once that she fussed and squirmed and finally told Daddy he would just have to pull over on the side of the road - she couldn't wait. We were in west Texas I think and there was a little hill just beyond the road. She ran up the hill, went behind a billboard, dropped her shorts and squated down. Only then did she hear the laughing behind her - a field full of folks were picking cotton right behind her. She nearly fell over laughing...but she didn't stop!

I'm nearly 63 years old and if I live to be 93 I'll still miss her.

I've Been Thinking About Trees

This past weekend my husband and I drove to San Antonio to visit my aunt and cousin. It's a long drive, 560 miles, but we can do it in about 10 hours. Near where they live is a park where there are all these magnificent trees with the most incredible shapes.

I'm not sure what kind of trees they are - maybe mesquite? Anyway, some of them lean to the left, and some of them lean to the right.

At first I thought it was hard wind that made them do this but one leaning to the right might be right next to one leaning to the left.

Some of them split at the ground and make two trees, or three or four.

Some of them lean one direction but the branches all go the other direction.

There are a few that actually stand up straight and spread out all around like you expect trees to do.

There are some that nearly lay on the ground....and some that actually do!

There are some that have these knobs or protrusions....sort of hard places where they've bowed out but then tried to come back to their original spot.



They made me think about life and people and how much we are like the trees. Don't you think we're just like the trees? Sometimes life blows us one way, and sometimes another. Sometimes we just have to lay down and rest a while before we get up and start over. Sometimes we have hard places in our lives, places where we go one direction and then, oops, decide we want to go back the way we were. But the trees always keep reaching up for the sun. There's so little water for them, so little nourishment where they live, but still they seek the sun. And they survive and they become beautiful and they even create a shady place for people and animals to rest. When we seek the Son we too survive and become beautiful. We might not be the tall, majestic tree...we might be the one that lays down on the ground part of the time, or the one that leans to the left or to the right. But He will spread our branches so that we too might give others a place to rest and to bask in His light.