Of Landscaping

First of all, I have to show off my lovely trillium. I've been drawn to them since I discovered they are our state flower (I really hadn't paid any attention to that till I was teaching state history to my firstborn during our homeschool era.) I dug up some plants in the woods which I planted in a flowerbed around our house. They've struggled a bit to get going, but this year they are taking over that bed. I'm not mad about that at all. 

Yesterday we had a landscaping work day at our son's house. Is there anything more satisfying than freshly groomed flowerbeds?  

The grandchildren worked hard- they were good mulch-shovelers! 

I think I'll hire them to come work for me. 

Especially if they work for "peanuts" aka cupcakes...

Of Loneliness & Friendship

More than 30 years ago, God called some girls from all across America to volunteer at a nursing home in Arkansas. Living together, working together, playing together, worshiping together... makes you become one big family. Naturally you can't get that many girls in a dorm without the occasional "cat fight", but overall we developed solid friendships.  

The thing that sets us apart from other Hillcrest alumni is that we still get together regularly. At least once a year, if not twice. (Not counting the unofficial times a few of us congregate here or there.) Our friendships have deepened as we support each other through hard things that life throws our way- cancer, accidents [several of us have almost become widows], seizures, divorce, deaths, etc. We are a very tightknit group! We always laugh till our sides ache, cry and pray together. What we have is special. 

This week we were together specifically to support the latest cancer warrior. 

And squeeze in as many trips to the new café -owned by one of us- as we possibly could... 

We managed to pull off our 2nd annual Diner en Blanc, too. It was fabulous! 

Reportedly the number of Americans who have no friends has quadrupled since 1990 (when we did VS together) and 20% of the population of certain European countries feel lonely. I read that in Japan, some elderly folks have resorted to crime so they can have the companionship of inmates in jail. Entrepreneurs have come up with the solution to this loneliness epidemic- Rent-a-Friend. You can hire a "friend" by the hour to meet you at a café to talk or attend a party with you. 

Ecclesiastes 4:12 says that a cord of 3 strands isn't quickly broken. But neither is it quickly woven. True friends can't be rented and it takes time to form deep friendships. With God as our 3rd strand, friendships can be tightly woven, to stand the test of time and distance. I'm forever grateful that I have that in this group! Grateful to God for calling me to service with these ladies in particular, grateful to them for accepting & including me. 💕

Pieces of our Weekend

Cooking for 400 (school fundraiser dinner)-

and the newest grandbaby met his great-grandparents from out-of-state.

The Back & Forths of Life Lately

Once again I'm running late with my weekly post. I'm starting to think this was a bad idea to try post weekly! 🙈

The last days of March, Richard & I attended the truck show in KY. I believe it's our 24th year. Over the years, we would say the show has changed- become more family friendly and wholesome.  

Here Richard was playing cornhole at the Mudflap booth to win a fuel credit. 

We enjoyed the workshops... partly for the information, and partly for the chance to rest our aching feet.

and for the first time ever we stayed for [half] the concert. 

It's the 100th anniversary of Freightliner. The original model!  

I was home last Monday, to get caught up on the mountain of laundry and babysit my precious grandsons. "I want to be in the picture too" -Colton 

Last Tuesday I grabbed some groceries for my family before catching a flight east. The biannual house-cleaning and weed-pulling at my parents' house. Richard came Friday evening and we attended the annual Easter family gathering with mom's side of the family on Saturday (not pictured), before driving home. 

Yesterday {Easter Sunday} started early with a [chilly] sunrise service (picture taken before most of the people showed up)... 

...followed by breakfast

...followed by Easter lunch at Josh & Ang's house.

I refill this Easter basket for the grands every year. Next year I have to cut back on how much stuff I buy because it didn't all fit in this year, now that there is 3 of them. 😳

Followed by a 50th bday party for one of Richard's sisters.

 

And THAT is why I haven't had time to blog lately. It's time to stay home this week and get caught up around home! 

Movie Nights

 I didn't have time to get this posted last week... "better late than never" as we used to say. 

My granddaughter planned a movie night for us last weekend. She had detailed ideas of what movie we could watch, what snacks we could have, who would be invited... she knows how to plan a party! After she had talked me through the whole deal, she said "well, Grammie, should we just have it at our house? That would be easier." 😁 (Considering we don't have a screen in our living room, that sounded good to me.) 

But the movie night with grandchildren got me reminiscing about watching movies at my grandparents' house when I was growing up. I don't know how common it was in the 70s, but I was fortunate enough to have a grandpa with an 8mm reel-to-reel movie projector. (I tried to find a photo of one like it online but couldn't find the style he had.) At family gatherings -especially Christmas- we cousins would watch movies that would wind from one reel to the other in front of a bright light that projected the pictures onto a screen. Walt Disney's  Three for Breakfast  and an Abbott & Costello Racecar Driver movie were our favorites. I would've sworn they were longer than 7 minutes, but I'm sure we made them last longer by playing the reels backwards and forward at key moments. Like in the Laurel & Hardy movie where he would trip, but we'd play it backwards to make him un-trip. Several times over before we let the story go on. 

I remember at first Grandpa always ran the projector, but as the grandsons got old enough, they were entrusted with running it. If the winding mechanism was glitching, the film would stall in front of that hot light, which would quickly start to burn the film strip. If the film burned, it was ruined. So I recall being stressed about keeping the film running, and all the grandsons knew how to shut it off quickly and someone would go get grandpa. After the film was finished playing, the end of it would flap until the winding mechanism was turned off. And then we had to rewind it onto the reel so it would be ready to play the next time. There were no sound effects; we created our own. Some of the movies predated color film even. It was a very different experience from what my grandchildren have now. Kids these days don't know the hilarity of running film strips backwards. Or the simplicity and purity of 1940s film plots. Back when there was no gender confusion or purple hair or foul language in films, no hidden twisted psychology. I'm fairly sure we had the better deal.