• Donors Choose…

    November 7, 2019 / No Comments

    Have you ever played the game what would I do if I won the lottery?  Sure you have. So have I. Obviously, I haven’t won the lottery.  It would probably help to buy a ticket (it does help the schools here) but I haven’t lately. I have discovered something that’s almost as good, except this time you’re giving.  You can donate any amount of money. I’ve done as little as $10 and as much as $100 but absolutely any amount helps.

     

     

    Donors Choose is a wonderful organization supporting schools all over the country. Teachers propose a project that is needed in their classroom.  There is a detailed list of exactly what will be ordered and from where.  The teachers describe their classroom and their students. You’re given a word picture of the students and the challenges they face daily. Most of the students are from financially challenged areas. Many of the students come from homes with severely limited incomes, not enough food and no books of their own. It doesn’t take a lot to break my heart but that will do it.  Imagine being a teacher and trying to teach without the needed supplies.  Yesterday, I gave a little to a nursing program that simply needs an over-the-bed table with wheels!  Such a simple thing but try nursing without it.

     

     

    If you want to help, here’s what you do.  Go to https://www.donorschoose.org  You can choose your city and your local school. You can check out needed projects all over the country.  Or you can click on “most urgent”.  There are several schools in Des Moines I’ve supported.  I support my youngest granddaughters’ school and their teachers as well as other teachers in their school. And by “support” it doesn’t have to be a lot of money but anything helps.  I also like to click on Iowa and rural. I have supported several projects that way. Once, I found a class in the Bronx with refugee children who needed seating for their classroom. For $20, I was able to complete that project. That is so rewarding when you get to actually complete the project. It’s especially thrilling, when you receive a notice that a project you have helped (with any amount) has been completely funded and is about to be delivered! The teachers have sent me photos of the children unpacking whatever their project was and it’s just like Christmas morning. I love it!  The teachers are given a certain amount of time to fund their projects.  There have been a few times when the projects weren’t funded in time.  You can choose to leave your donation with that teacher for a future project or move it to an urgent need.  It’s up to you.  And, of course, your donation is tax-deductible.

    Many of us are retired and on “fixed” incomes.  I always wondered what that meant.  Now I know.  Very few of us are wealthy (we’re not), but most of us waste enough money to help a student or a classroom with such need.  If I ever do win the lottery, I’m headed straight to this website and have so much fun!

     

  • An Autumn afternoon…

    October 18, 2019 / No Comments

    I’d spent the past two days cleaning out and reorganizing my walk-in closet.  I felt like a hamster spinning her wheels.  At least the Goodwill pile was growing and I had a little more room on my shelves.  The problem was – and is – there are too many things that no longer fit!  I’m nothing if not optimistic and, for years, have said I’ll keep it for when I lose weight!  Does that sound familiar to anyone?!

    Anyway, I had escaped this task and gone outside to help Doug work on the old, original shed.  It will just take twenty minutes he’d said.  If you recall from a previous post, Doug has a new shed that is rather like a workshop now, so this old one needs help.  He will store his riding lawnmower and a few other things in the old one.  Winters are tough here and Spring rains are relentless.  Between the two, the old shed is about to fall down.  I suggested we tear the whole thing down and start over!  Not without an attempt to save it apparently.  So, as Doug attempted to lift the 10′ x 12′ building, I carefully placed wooden braces beneath.  I thought we were doing great in getting the building up 2″ when he mentioned it needed to go up SIX!  The building sits on a hill and the Spring rain needs to go under the building.  I’m sure there’s an emoji that would resemble my face just then, I just can’t find it!

    About that time, Doug had a good suggestion:  let’s leave everything and go for a ride.  Perfect idea.  I was tired of working in the closet and didn’t think I had it in me to brace the building up another four inches.  So off we went.  We still needed to place Autumn flowers on his grandparents’ graves so we started there.  He had already taken flowers to his parents’ grave and to Johanna’s (his late first wife).  It is getting later in the season and I was glad we were going to be able to get this done.

     

     

    I’ve been working on Doug’s family history for several years and feel as if I knew his grandparents.  

     

    I love an Autumn afternoon, especially when it involves a drive in the country. 

    There were many farmers out in their combines harvesting beans and corn. 

    I really should have grown up on a farm because I love the countryside!

     

     

     

     

    I think Doug’s original goal for the drive was to stop by the shed company – the one where he purchased his workshop.  Well, as long as we were going to be in Ankeny, I suggested we stop by the ARL!  (The Animal Rescue League of Iowa!)  Doug actually helped create the water feature at the front entry there so he was all for it.  We started on the side that houses the dogs first.  There were three I could have brought home:  an eight month old American English Coonhound named Hank,  a six year old gorgeous German Shepherd named Ranger and an eight month old English Mastiff!  Needless to say, we did not come home with a single pup.

    Next was the Cat side of the building.  They have so many cats that need homes!  We held a little eight week old orange tabby kitten.  Adorable!  Wonder how Tiger would like a little brother?  In the end, we left the little guy there.  I have no doubt he will find a good home.

     

     

    Last stop was the shed company.  We went inside each one of their “samples” and at the end of the day, Doug decided to take off a lot of the bad boards on the old shed and bring it back to life.  Reasonable decision but I think he’ll need someone stronger than I am to lift the last four inches!

    Then it was home where we baked a pizza and relaxed for the rest of the evening…

     

     

     

  • Gerry…

    October 14, 2019 / No Comments

    Eight years ago yesterday, I was in Chicago meeting my new little granddaughter Maggie.  I can’t remember who called on the telephone, probably one of my nieces, Cindy or Sharon.  I just remember the tears starting as I realized what she was going to tell me.  My beloved sister Gerry had lost her battle with ALS.  I hadn’t said a word but Maggie’s precious mom took one look at me and her tears started too.  I was due to fly to Memphis in a week and spend time with Gerry.  It wasn’t meant to be.  I changed my flight and flew home for her funeral service instead.

    Gerry was one in a million.  I’ve written about her before.  If you’ve read my blog very long, then you know she was my guardian angel.  The one I fled to when my heart was broken.  Fifteen years older, she was the one who always made sure I had what I needed.  The one who saved an engraved, gold Elgin watch for me until I was twelve and old enough for it (she had won it for being President of the Mississippi 4H when she was eighteen).  She was so good to everyone, not just me, but I was her baby sister and that’s what she always called me.  Her baby sister.

    She loved the Lord with all her heart and I know she’s loving Heaven.  If there are angel biscuits to be made in Heaven, she’s the best one for that job.  Faithful to the end.  It was hard flying back to Oregon after her memorial service.  Back in Oregon, I would sit at my computer overlooking the beautiful mountains in the distance and I would cry.  Evidently, I cried too long for my husband at the time asked “are you EVER going to quit crying?!”  I didn’t know there was a time limit on grief, but I tried to cheer up.  It wasn’t his fault really.  He hadn’t known her very well and certainly not like I did.  We were divorced a year later.

    Each year gets a little easier.  I miss her and my sister Dot so much.  She and my oldest sister Dot are keeping Mama and Daddy company in Heaven.  They’re wondering when Eunice and I are going to get there but let’s hope it’s a little while longer.  In the meantime, I’ll remember the good times and cherish the sweet memories.  

     

    Below:  Gerry in front of the pond down from their “house on the hill”…

     

    Below:  Gerry, Bill, Eunice and Dot.  Just Eunice and I are left now.  The rest are in Heaven.

     

  • Yesterday…

    October 7, 2019 / No Comments

    Yesterday started out with bright sunshine and cool Fall temperatures.  We enjoyed a wonderful church service continuing the series on Moses.  I love the story of the burning bush…reminding us, once again, that God is faithful.  We came home for a quick bite of lunch then drove to Ames to watch our ten year old grandson play in a soccer game.  He puts his whole heart into it as he runs up and down the field doing his part to win the game.

    After the game, we enjoyed the Iowa countryside scenic route home.  We stopped briefly at a pumpkin farm and bought a pumpkin for the front porch and a few ornamental gourds and stalks of decorative corn.  I love this time of year…

     

    I think I’m a country girl at heart.

     

    Found this Williams-Sonoma roosters tablecloth new on eBay.  I love the farmhouse feel.

  • Mercy and grace…

    October 5, 2019 / 1 Comment

    You’ve read the news, just as I have.  After a long shift, an off-duty police officer returns home.  Unfortunately, she gets off on the wrong floor of her building and proceeds to what she thinks is her apartment – it would be, if she were on the correct floor.  She’s distracted, tired, sleep-deprived?  We don’t know.  We weren’t there.  Sadly, we do know what happened.  She shot and killed the twenty-six year old occupant of that apartment, Botham Jean.  An act she will live with every single minute of every single hour of every single day – for the rest of her life.  She was sentenced to ten years of her life.

    How would you or I feel if the young man who lost his life that day had been your brother or my brother?  Angry, confused, hurt, sad…angry.  No doubt, all of those feelings went through the mind of Botham’s brother, eighteen year old Brandt Jean.  After Amber Guyger was sentenced to ten years in prison, and during his victim impact statement, the young brother made a brave and surprising decision.  He asked to give his brother’s murderer a hug.  He had listened to Amber Guyger’s sobbing testimony when she repeatedly said how sorry she was.  He chose to forgive.  In a long embrace, Brandt Jean hugged Amber Guyger and forgave her.  I don’t know what she said to him but she wept in his arms.  Reportedly, Brandt Jean said “if you are truly sorry – I know I can speak for myself – I forgive you.”   Mercy and grace.

    This truly was a picture none of us will forget anytime soon…a compelling look at what Christ Jesus did for us.   Regardless of what we’ve done or who we are, God loves us.  Unmerited mercy and grace.  Our debt of sin must be paid. Amazingly, God sent His only son Jesus to pay for our sin – on the cross.  It is a gift but it must be accepted.  We must come undeserving to the foot of the cross – asking for forgiveness, repenting…believing in His gift of salvation and eternal life.  Thank God when Jesus walked out of that tomb, he had conquered death and purchased our pardon.

    I thank God for a Christian judge who gave her personal Bible to Amber Guyger.  I pray Amber reads it.  I pray she begins with John 3:16:  “For God so loved the world, that he gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him, shall not die but shall have eternal life”.  

     

  • Silver memories…

    October 4, 2019 / No Comments

    Years ago, Bobbie Allen, my precious mother-in-law for 39 years, picked out a special gift for me at Christmas.  It was heavy, beautifully wrapped and waiting for me under the Christmas tree.  It really was very heavy, so I had no idea what it could be.  She and my sweet, gentle father-in-law watched, smiling, as I picked it up and began opening it.  It was a large, wooden box and I was puzzled.  I opened it carefully and gleaming sterling silver filled the box.  Well, technically sterling silverplate, but back then, even silverplate was very expensive.  All the pieces were heavy, beautifully crafted and in a simple pattern I loved.  She knew me well.

    Through the years, that silverware has been used at holidays, special occasions, parties and even for a season, every day.  When Doug and I moved here to our home in Iowa, I found the heavy wooden box and the beautiful pieces inside.

    With the way the light falls, you can’t tell from the photo, but each piece is polished and shining.

    Today I polished each piece with silver polish.  Then I washed the silverware in hot, soapy water, rinsed and dried each piece carefully.  Tomorrow night, this silverware will be used at my fifteen-year-old granddaughter’s special homecoming dinner that she is hosting for her date and two other couples.  All high school students and probably all in the high school band she’s in.  My daughter is preparing one of her special homemade pasta dishes, a salad and french bread.  Eclair cake for dessert.  Sounds delicious!  Yesterday, my daughter, youngest grandson and I went to Hobby Lobby to buy Autumn decorations for the table.  No doubt, it will all be lovely and a memorable occasion.  Somehow, I think Bobbie Allen would have loved it…