Saturday, August 3, 2013

Saturday's Scribbles

Good morning to you from our corner of the world.  Iowa has been experiencing some unusually dry and cool weather and I, for one, like it!  It has made for some pleasant walks this past week.  We actually went to the city park and walked a couple of times.  So beautiful there!

Crossing a rock bridge at the park

Joel next......

Beautiful cascading waterfalls at the park

Speaking of walking, we were delighted to have a very small fawn scamper ahead of us leading the way  early one morning as we walked along the river.  The fawn went quite a distance with us following behind.  We expect mom was near by, but never saw her. We also had two doe with fawns come through our yard.  We had to put fencing around the small hydrangea in the back as the deer ate up two while on their way to the river.  We have had a lot of deer in the yard this year.  The neighbors had two fawns resting in their yard most of one day.  Don't know where the moms were!

We finally received notice to pick up Levi's ashes and on the day we did we had to chuckle.  Levi never liked the fire alarms when they would go off while broiling, or the chirping when one needed a new battery.  The day we brought home his ashes the alarm went off while broiling burgers,  AND another alarm kept chirping.  This had not happened since he died, so I am thinking Levi was at work letting us know he was home! Ha!

Last Saturday we headed up to the Twin Cities to celebrate my older sister's 80th birthday.  It was a fun day with people flying in from as far away as Texas!  I had not seen some family members for up to nine years. We did a lot of visiting and Joel and I both entered a bean bag toss tourney.  I was paired with my niece's husband, Jeff.   I think most people felt I would be an easy out and I am sure Jeff thought so to.  He is quite athletic and into sports, being his dad is a retired Viking player!  He was very gracious with this ol' gray haired lady~ once chronically ill......now slowly healing.....overweight and out of shape......dealing with glaucoma and cataracts.....never having played before.  Ever.  Guess what?  We won!  Not to brag, but I did surprisingly well, putting many in the hole and most on the board.  I had great fun surprising all the competitive ones as we played game after game.  In the final game I had to play against our daughter Beth and son Mark!  Three of our family in the finale.   Way to go!!!  My teammate, Jeff and I took home the trophy and I was given the MVP (Most Valuable Player) award!  What a hoot! 


Of course after driving 5 hours round trip in one day, playing five games while using muscles long dormant, and spending several hours visiting, I have had to rest more this week for sure.  We won't talk about the foot and leg cramps after the games were over.  Embarrassing.  Joel enjoyed watching me in the tournament so much he laughed until his sides hurt.  I am so blessed to have this man in my life!

Speaking of, Joel has been busy this week emptying the "half-down" room of storage and making it into a guest room.  We seldom have guests but now have a room if we do.  It is nice to have it so organized instead of piled with 33 years of Joel's office stuff and other stuff we needed to purge. Now we need to sort through all of that and purge and store.  That will be challenging.  Joel also ordered a new mechanism for our grandmother clock we had made while living in the Philippines in 76'.  We ordered in from Clockworks and it came without instructions!  He was able to get it mostly put back together but finally had to go online to find the instructions on how to set the chimes, etc.  No instructions?  What is up with that?!!

We have an oat field at the end of our block right in the middle of our association.  Joel has enjoyed watching the oats grow and change color.  They are swathing the oats today and he is delighted!!  You can take the boy out of the country but you cannot take the country out of the boy. 

I finished a Lauraine Snelling book and have been reading a true story of a missionary to Dutch New Guinea, Darlene Rose, who was in a Japanese internment camp during World War II.  It is pretty interesting.  Not much on TV and no movies this week.  What have you been up to?

Until next time..................

3 comments:

Gayle said...

What a wonderful week! We had a leak under the sink that ended up going into the sub floor and causing mold. The entire floor had to be torn out and dried, then they found asbestos in the old linoleum, and so we had another team come in. Yesterday I put my kitchen back together but I won't have a floor for two weeks. It has been exhausting! But on the good note, we found a contractor to do the floor, my husbands union isn't going on strike, and I'm making progress in letting go and giving these things to the Lord.

NanaNor's said...

Hi Renee, I always love hearing about your days/week. We used to get deer in our yard in Ca. and I got where I would only plant what they wouldn't eat. We don't have that problem here though. I lost my two beautiful Hydrangeas in the hail storm on Sat.-I was so disappointed but hopefully they'll come back next year.
Sending hugs your way. Keep on walking.
Noreen

Sharon said...

What a wonderful post! And look at you, Mrs. Trophy Winner! Sounds like a great time was had by all.

I've been doing a lot of reading lately. And this weekend, I completed a jigsaw puzzle. My husband and I find them so much fun to do.

Church had a wonderful sermon about the importance of singing (literally) as part of worship. I thoroughly enjoyed that.

GOD BLESS!