A Vase of Flowers ~~ another Richard finish

It seems that I'm reporting on Richard's great work rather than my own work. This finish is too pretty to not report. 

So Richard decided to make a vase to put flowers on his dad's grave. He used some of the cypress wood that he recently acquired. It's beautiful, even without the flowers.

Each side is just a little different because of the wood grain, but every one also has a perfect little cross. 

According to the guys the cypress wood won't deteriorate for many years, even though it's exposed to the elements while sitting on a grave.  

I haven't yet, but I'm thinking of asking him to build another for my grandmother's grave. What do you think?

More Old Memories

Continuing from last night's post of old photos from my mom's house.

In this photo three of the grandsons as little boys sitting on the front steps at the parents' house.  My oldest son, William, is the one in the middle; the other two boys are Angie's, Chris and Philip.  

One of the things we noticed right away is that there are no shrubs around the porch.  Mom planted flowers every year, but they didn't do well because there were always kids jumping off the porch.  When these boys got big just a little older, she tried to deter them by planting holly shrubs because they have serious stickers.  That just taught them how to jump high.  We got lots of laughs about mom's shrubs. 

This is mom wearing some crazy glasses.  She loved doing outrageous, crazy things.  We have photos of her with all manner of craziness going on.  Dad was the stodgy one: he wouldn't even laugh at her!  We girls, on the other hand, encouraged all the craziness she could muster.  Her favorite comediennes were Carol Burnette and Lucille Ball.  Is there any wonder?







Christmas at mom's.





 


An ordinary day for dad...relaxing on his recliner with the newspaper.  He loved to read every bit of the paper and had a subscription all his life.

Angie, her two boys, my son Will, Jeanne and Lisa.  I must be the one snapping the picture....look how blurred! 



Feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think.  Do you have old photos?  What do you do with them?  How do you share them with others?

Old Memories

These old photos were some still left at my parents' house.  I promised to scan them for my sisters and post them so they'd access.  Some of them are recent enough that I'm able to at least identify the subjects.  Some have short notes dating them.  

Some are just old photos: there's no way for me to identify the subjects, the dates, the backgrounds.  They are still interesting, though, and we decided that we wanted a way to share them.

First up: three photos of my parents on a trip to Colorado when they were still young enough to venture into the mountains.  There are no children in the photos, so Iassume that the youngest of our family, Jeanne, was already in the Air Force and living in ND.  Chances are pretty good mom and dad are on their way to or from a visit to Jeanne's.


Next: the oldest photo of them all, in sepia!  I have no clue who the gentleman is, who the children are, when or where this was taken.  I like to think that maybe it was a great-grandfather, but I have no idea how to figure it out as there's no information on the back.

The next is a black and white of six friends posing in front of the Andrew Jackson statue in Jackson Square in New Orleans.  I think my mom is the second one from the left in the white glasses.  

Then we have this darling little baby sitting in a 1950's chair.  I'd guess this is my sister Courtney, but I really can't say.  The timing is right and the baby sure looks like Cookie did.  I'd venture a guess that she's sitting in Uncle Tat and Aunt Velma's house but, again, I can only guess.  This is one cute baby, though!

The characters in this next picture are easily identified: My dad is surrounded by several of us.  I'm going to wait for my sisters' to help identify the girls.  I may be the blond squatting at his feet, but that's all I'll guess for now.

Don't you love old photos?  I have a few more that I've scanned but I'll have to post those later: I have a test to finish up and lesson plans to write for tomorrow, so it's back to work for me.  
Have a great week! 
Mary

Threads of Encouragement

Some time after Daddy died in January, a wonderful friend sent this book to me in the hopes that it would encourage me through my grief.  At the time I was in the middle of a novel, so I set it aside intending to pick it up next.  I've said many times that I'm a wolf-reader, devouring books once I get started.  This book, however, is not a wolf read.  There are short stories of three to five pages, divided into themes that mostly deal with needle work.  Perfect for a grieving quilter, right?

One gloomy day I picked it up and read a story or two.  A few days later, I picked it up again.  Then again.  The heartwarming, quick reads are immediately followed by a line of scripture or a quote.   The writers honestly share moments when faith was tested, when times were especially difficult, or when the world was not right.  Since I've experienced the sense of loss, especially during mom's long illness and right after dad died, it helped to read how others have coped.  Certainly, it's been helpful just to know that others have traveled the hard road and kept going.  And it's humbling to read how much more difficult the road is for others.

Of course, there are times when I've picked it up and wolfed-down several stories, but that hasn't happened as much as I expected.  Guess it helps to fight the urge to gobble it down quickly and to keep telling myself that I don't have to finish it right away.

I even put it aside for a while to read another novel, and I found picking it back up not difficult at all.  I've finished with the book, but I think I'll give it one more go.  I've decided to read it sort of backwards.....I'll look up the scripture in my Bible first, and then read the story.  This may help me to use it more for meditation, rather than as a quick read, like a magazine article.   Honestly, doesn't my friend know me really well?  I would not have picked this book up for myself, but I have certainly gotten so much more from it than I could have hoped.

One more thing that it's encouraged me to do: pick up those NICU gowns again.  (more on that in a day or so)  A common theme, I've discovered, is that when we're hurting, it's especially helpful to do for others, and I so love making those tiny little gowns! 

Reminder: if you haven't signed up for my Red, White and Blue fabric giveaway, you might want to do so......go here for the details!