Shootin' the Breeze

We've been doing a whole lotta front-porch-sittin' this week. Grandaddy Norton is with us for several days while Ken's sister takes a much-needed vacation. Ken is shuttling him back and forth so that he can sleep in his own bed at night. Funny, how old age really does reverse the process...often, our parents eventually become our children, and then they become the infants. Sometimes we get lucky and die with our boots on, but maybe not as often as the alternative. I'm guessing that all of it is has something to do with sanctification. The temptation is to get crabby, and it takes a lot of resolute courage not to cave to our lowest common denominators. 

Thankfully, there are porches. We've had them on most of our houses. Long ago, all we had was a little stoop facing the street, maybe a 4x4 spit of concrete. We only had one baby at the time, and I'd sit there and watch him happily play in the little front yard. Wherever we've lived, the bit of porch had an important role. There's fresh air and free entertainment, even if there's no traffic. When we eventually built a house, way out in the country, we made sure the porch wrapped around the house. My morning coffee was had in our swing there, contemplating the deeper things of life and watching the wildlife while I read my Bible. The front of the house faced west, so the setting sun cooked everything to a crisp. We'd head for the back deck as the evening waned. Then we moved to our old Victorian gal in downtown Villa Rica. Right off the bat, it was obvious that folks knew how to build a porch back then. The house is oriented East-to-West, so the breeze runs straight across. When the sun sets, it doesn't scald you. We eventually installed ceiling fans, a curtain on the west side for really hot days, and party lights to get everyone in the mood. There are three different fountains bubbling, enticing folks to sit and breathe for a minute. Once you sit down, it might just be difficult to get back up. With our particular spot in town, there's always some sort of drama walking or driving by. This week, Georgia Power is sadly taking down numerous trees across the street, so we've been watching the circus. It has been slow-going and scary, with people taking their lives into their own hands. There was even a fuss yesterday between two of the workers. I guess things get a little tense, when life is on the line. 

Ken's Daddy has been entertained by all this, but we're also making the rounds with our children and grandchildren. Yesterday we had dinner with our "stoop baby" who is now 6'5" and has a wife and four babies of his own. Then there was a soccer game for the 5-year-old twins. Grandaddy laughed as he tipped backwards in his lawn chair and spilled onto the ground when Bennett came in for a big hug. I'm glad he's still got his sense of humor. We will be distracting him all week, with hopefully no broken bones. 

If you are sad or depressed, lonely or tense, find you a porch (or just a stoop) somewhere. Bring a cool drink and a friend. A dog or cat always helps, too.   

Anchors Aweigh

We spent the last week with family at our annual beach vacation, with a house of loud folks, from infants up to old people. When our children were young and behaving like so many dolphins, I spent our beach days in the water with them. As seasons waxed and waned, eventually there came that time when they married and began to have their own young ones. The labor of beach visits became tougher, hauling loads of equipment onto the sandy shore, just to make some semblance of comfort under the hot summer sun. I am eternally grateful for our annual trek -- it's one of the highlights of our year. We lay around, eat, nap, swim, enjoy grandchildren, and have evenings of hilarity after all the kids are in bed. We were missing one of our sons and his family this year, but still had ten of our twelve grandchildren along with their parents. It was loud, grungy, exhausting at times, but always blessed. One of the sweetest things is that now a lot of the grands are big enough to join me in the water; our boisterous flotilla was epic, running off timid folks around us I am sure. Papa was all the rage this year, with his dry, funny wit and physicality with them. He's not a water bug, but he's definitely a landshark. The grandkids think he's the bomb.com. He's a bit like Brutus, or maybe a bull in a china shop. I learned early on that it did no good to try to wrestle with him. You simply can't win. Instantaneous slam dunks are the order of the day; his thickly muscled arms and back are shored up with intense tenaciousness. Our four beautiful and handsome spawn have inherited these bulldog traits, thank God. Somebody's gotta help this next generation and I think they're it. 

As we arrived home, toasted brown and misty-eyed about having to leave the beach and our people, I noticed I was itching. Like, all over. I had felt icky for a couple of days but just figured I was getting tired from being in the water all day with rambunctious small people. Turns out that chicken pox stays with you all of your life, and I now have a bad case of shingles. While I'm here whining and whimpering, I've had time to observe and think about my dearest. Yes, he's a little (well, maybe more than that) OCD, bossy, opinionated and set in his ways. Think of the creature in Beauty & the Beast, with less hair. We're as opposite as two people can get (he is ISTJ and I'm ENFP, for those who follow that sort of thing), so there's always been plenty of conflict. With 41-plus years under our belts, I've had to grow some skin and he's had to shed some of his. But even with his bravado, there's a tender heart beating under all that muscle. The brawny bull snorts, paws the ground and then tenderly rubs ointment on my blisters, brings me food and drink, runs to Dunkin Donuts for my favorite coffee. He holds me in the night, when my emotions run over and I weep in pain. Irritatingly, he tells me what I should and shouldn't do, then we're off to the races again. 

The movies and the books say that love is violins and roses...if at first you don't find your soulmate, keep searching until you find him (or her) even if it means discarding the one who gets ugly, fat or disappointing in front of you. Truth is, life is never perfect - any time you get two warty humans together, you're eventually going to get disillusioned, tired or just bored. Love is a choice, where the ocean of it ebbs and flows. Storms, tsunamis and seaweed come alongside the gorgeous sunsets and beach-glass waters. Sometimes there are long seasons of difficulty interspersed with churned-up grit and slime, with the raft getting pulled into the maelstrom.

I don't believe there are any simple answers to this long game, except that in every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil. And it ain't me that's the anchor.  

The Rewards of Our Labors

Labor Day doesn't get a whole lot of respect. It's thrown in there at the end of summer, sort of a little vacation bump in between July 4 and Thanksgiving. The kids love it because they were thinking that summer was over. When I was a child, we had school vacation the proper way -- we got out right after Memorial Day and whiled away those slow, heat-blanketed days until Labor Day. It was wonderful. Then when September came, we were chomping at the bit to get back to school. New, crisp clothes from the Sears catalog and the promise of Friday night football games hung in the air. I felt it again the other evening, when I heard the drumbeat from the high school marching band float over to our yummy front porch. There is a Fall coming, I just know it. 

Ken and I have had several weeks of extra work -- he at the plant and me with events. We're tired. I hadn't straightened my house or cleaned it good in quite the stretch, but we really wanted to hang out with our kids for Labor Day this year. Miraculously, we got the house presentable enough that, hopefully, no one would get listeria or other bacterial infections. All of the children, grandchildren, Grandma Judy and then a family from our church piled in. Everyone brought meat and side dishes. I forgot the plates, so Ken ran to the store last-minute to pick up paper goods. He walked in with "Chinet" brand. I have been married for 41-1/2 years and have never bought fancy paper plates. We've suffered through those really flimsy ones, where you have to stack 3 or 4 of them or you risk them collapsing. Then there's the foam ones, who appear sturdy until the spaghetti slides right off. Or you pierce your watermelon and stick a fork right through it. And there's no abiding trying to cut a steak on a paper plate. I said, "I can't believe you bought those! They cost a fortune!" Ken said, "I'm over it. I'm tired of terrible paper plates so I bit the bullet and got them. And two sizes, one for the kids and one for the adults." What is happening in my house? 

After we ate, everyone wound up in the backyard around the firepit, then dozens of kids piled on the groaning trampoline. That thing's going to split in half soon. The mosquitos began to invade, insecticide was passed around despite our fears of the dangers of deet. As the sun went down, the earth cooled around us, and we relaxed and laughed about anything and nothing at all. We drifted back into the house, where the pieces of the evening and the evidences of life lived made themselves known. I'm always amazed at the transformation of clean to dirty, then back to clean again, in very short order after a gathering. Babies began to yawn and long for home, Daddies and Mamas anticipated tomorrow's labors. We hugged and said goodbyes as vehicles pulled out. Ken and I dashed the finishing touches on the kitchen and then plopped onto the couch. 

He reached over and took my hand and said, "It has been a good day." And it really was...   

  

La Dolce Vita

I can hear the earth drinking in the warm water tonight. The sky curdled and threatened all afternoon, then gave way while I was on my home from my sister's house. I could hardly see the road, so I pulled in to our daughter's neighborhood, since I needed a grandbaby fix anyway. 2-year-old Ethan was out on their front porch, cavorting in the rain in his new big-boy underwear. Our son-in-love whipped out an umbrella and escorted me into the house. 9-month-old London joined us on the couch and I enjoyed all the tumbling, sweet-skinned love. My glasses and earrings were fair game as Little Miss Priss tried to steal them. We chatted for an hour and then it was time to get back on the road. I was especially sentimental today, as it's my Daddy's birthday. He's in heaven, having all the best, but we're suffering down here without him. 

I've been thinking of late, about how we view the past, present and future. I believe honoring the past and learning from it is a good strategy, but we shouldn't live there. Time keeps moving on but we can get stuck with regrets, with too much nostalgia (yes, there can be too much of that), and putting a sugary haze on the way things were. I am definitely guilty of it. I am blessed that I grew up with so many good things to look back on, and then had the goodness of God all over our marriage and then those four amazing kids He gave us. Shot through it all are our sin natures and the trials of life, but I have seen the hand of the Lord in everything, both good and bad. 

We're given today, really just today. Tomorrow isn't promised, though we can look to it and hope for the future. My impatient self wants to jump around, leap ahead, fret about pretty much everything. There's always the next thing, the hustle of it, the urgency of the undone parts. Today's looming job was to untangle all the parts of the decor I had done for a really big event. I needed to categorize and parcel up hundreds of items. There's no fun for me in organizing and packing a pile of stuff. The party's over, I'm tired, and my feet hurt. I even missed church yesterday because my tummy was aching and I was dizzy. I was dressed and ready to head out the door when I realized that the only right thing to do was to curl up in my recliner with soup and some tonic water. The Lord and my husband said I had to, so I did. 

After a sweet, schlumming day and night, I woke up and decided to force myself not to rush. I was going to be the tortoise, not the hare. This is an alien concept in my world. I put on some music and started sorting.  Before I knew it, almost everything was packed up and put in the appropriate piles. In these instances, I always think of the Star Wars movie where the pilot keeps saying, "Stay on target..." Isn't that the guy that gets blown up? Either way, it's pretty amazing what a little focus can do. 

Maybe, just maybe, the secret to living in the moment is to simply slow way on down. And quit volunteering for every project that comes down the path, there's that.   

Future Plans

I have so many creative goodies around me today...I'm prepping to decorate our fundraiser for the Carrollton Wind Ensemble, where I'm boxing up half my house to try and gussy up some tables, all fancy-like. I've hauled a mess of stuff into the dining room, some from our barn and some borrowed. Then I started pulling things off my furniture. Hey, if it looks good here, maybe it'll look good there. As I sat down to hem some fabric for part of the project, I looked around at all the yumminess that I love when I get to decorate something. Then I thought about the women in my life who taught me early-on how to be resourceful.  

No shrinking violets here... my MawMaw (Daddy's Mama) was dirt poor but could put a stick in the ground and it would grow. She was known to knock walls down in her house and re-sheet-rock and make a new closet or bathroom. One day I was at a cousin's house and there was a large cartoon mural on the wall, and to my surprise, our MawMaw had done it. She had some secret sauce going on in there. Grandma Betty (Mama's Mama) had an iron will and worked hard all her life. She started the housepainting legacy that I inherited. She could take literally anything and make it elegant. She had that flair.  Then there's my own Mama, who was a whirling dervish when we were young. She not only painted; she rolled up her sleeves and dove right into any project that Daddy or her had going. Once, they bought an old pop-up camper that didn't have the canvas on top. She painted the thing, then got a ladder and measured it all around and proceeded to sew a huge new canopy, then doused it with Scotchguard. As I recall, it never leaked. Of course, they sold it at a good profit, which is what they generally did with all their fix-up campers. 

I loved both my siblings immediately upon their arrival. My sister came out of the womb strong-willed. I was carefree and butterflying around when she arrived. God sent this firebrand of a girl, who has a very tender heart underneath all the bravado (don't tell anybody), and I had to step up my game. She's the most resourceful human that I know, with 11 kids and who knows how many grandkids now. She could run New York City. As for my other sibling, his wife is busy producing geniuses with their six children. When I read their writing, I am astonished at the depth of their thinking and intelligence.  

It would take a book for me to mention all the women who have influenced and taught me with their examples of what it means to be a woman. Now, with three daughter-in-laws and a daughter, I feel that I am paddling behind them in their wake. I should just tether my boat to theirs. All four of them are stay-at-home Mamas, leading resourceful, interesting and intentional lives with their husbands and children. It's no simple feat to raise up children right these days -- there's a whole lot of things clamoring for their attention, much of it not good. I pray regularly for our grandchildren and other peoples' grandchildren, that they will have gumption, grit and faith in the God of the universe. They are the future. I gotta say it again: "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world."   

A Night on the Town

When my folks rented my first flute all those decades ago (from Ken Stanton -- $5 a month!), I never imagined I would still be playing it in 2023. Heck, back then I would think about the year 2000...and the fact that I would be 40 years old that year. When you're young, you think that 40 is decrepit. Mind you, that was back when the Beatles were telling us that you can't trust anyone over the age of 30. Now I can say resolutely that each decade has its joys and sorrows, and the more life layers I have, the richer life is. 

I have played at school, at church, in community bands...but in 2014, when I was introduced to the Carrollton Wind Ensemble, lead by our fearless Maestro Terry Lowry, I was in for the treat of my life. Where I had been able to wing it most Sundays and in other groups, only occasionally practicing, this group had serious goals in mind. Suddenly I had to hunker down and figure out those scales that I had neglected since high school. We play an eclectic mix of music, from Big Band to classical to show tunes to movie soundtracks and then there's the marches in July. Easy is not how this is described. We rehearse every Tuesday night for 2+ hours and for around 10-1/2 months out of the year. I know it might sound agonizing, but for us musicians, it's not. If this is torture, chain us to the wall. All the challenges and pressures of learning amazing music has been such a joy (even when I complain to all my loved ones). This is good for my brain and for my fingers that constantly threaten to rust over. We do concerts numerous times a year, often at the Center for the Arts in Carrollton. This group is a hidden gem; once folks find us, they become fans. Tickets are cheap or free, and we've been known to sell out before our concerts (follow us on Facebook at Carrollton Wind Ensemble). I feel extremely privileged to be able to play with this bunch of amazing artists. 

Ciao! Our ensemble has been invited to play four concerts in Italy next June: Rome, Venice and Florence are on the agenda.  The tour's mission is to offer music-making to refugees from war-torn areas around the world. Through benefit concerts and music camps, we will bring the healing power of music into the lives of adults and children whose lives have been devastated by war in their homeland.  

To support the costs associated with this endeavor, we invite you to La Dolce Vita, a throwback to 1950's cool, on August 26, 2023, at The Carrollton Train Depot on Bradley Street. It will be a semi-formal evening of dinner and dancing, with live entertainment provided by Ten 'til Swing, The Haberdashers, and Timothy Miller (who sings "God Bless America" during the 7th inning stretch at Atlanta Braves home games). There will also be brief live and silent auctions during the evening that will feature a Bourbon Maestro Dinner for Six, a vacation home getaway, a custom tuxedo or tailored suit from Threads Custom Tailoring, services and packages from many area businesses, as well as artwork from local artists. This is also an opportunity for your business to donate your services or items to assist in this fundraiser. All donations and their sources will be listed in the program for the evening. Any support would be greatly appreciated.  

Please join us for this unique evening and help the Carrollton Wind Ensemble represent our community to the world. Individual tickets are $100 each. We will deliver your tickets to you if you are interested. Please let us know if you can join us! Checks should be made payable to: Carroll Symphony Orchestra. Memo: Carrollton Wind Ensemble/La Dolce Vita, P.O. Box 1756, Carrollton, GA 30112.   - Or - you can pay by Venmo: https://venmo.com/carrollsymphonyorchestra

I hope to see you there. Now I better get myself to the gym...I'm getting ready for the hills of Italy. Arrivederci! ​

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Cookies, Countertops and an Ark

One of my favorite children's books is When You Give A Mouse A Cookie (author Laura Numeroff). It's about a mouse, but it's really about us humans (especially toddler ones, of which I might still be one). One thing leads to another and next thing you know, we're on a whole different path. Then it all winds back 'round to the beginning. 

My "cookie" hunt started some time ago, when I began obsessing about the backsplash in our 1902 Queen Victorian kitchen. Well, it probably started when the ceiling fan died. Those things have never been the prettiest item to put over your kitchen island, but they sure help Mama stay cool while she gets supper on the table. In fact, when we moved here, I had my husband remove an ancient light fixture and put up an oscillating monstrosity so that I could bear the Georgia heat while I worked over the hot stove (barefoot always). I boxed up the old one, labeled it respectfully and put it in the attic, for future owners to find. Pragmatism has its place, even in a beautiful, very mature home. Don't tell anyone, but I have painted some of the orangey trim with Sherwin Williams Antique White in places, because one can only take so much of that shade of orange before depression takes over. When we're dead and gone and someone else buys this place, they can get busy stripping it if they want to. 

Ceiling fans have taken an even further nosedive, in the beauty department, since I bought my last one. Most of them look too modern or worse, they look like 1980 came back to haunt us. I opted for a vintage-looking fan, mounted on the wall, instead of another thing over my island. Then the wheels started turning. I got Ken to pull the old fixture out of the attic and had it re-installed over the island. I then got the bright idea to move it over the sink, for better task lighting, and get a copper pot rack to put above the island (found a $1000 one for $75 on Facebook marketplace=winning). I hoofed it to sell another house, to fund all these ideas. Because what's a copper pot rack without copper pots to put on it? I'm not French, but it's starting to feel that way around here. Me and ole Julia, though she actually cooked. 

All that activity might have made me start staring at the backsplash. It was retro-early-90s, dark, patchy and didn't even reach all the way up to where it was supposed to. I scrounged all the sales and found the perfect, Victorian-inspired tile to go there. Before I put it up, I began to obsess over the old countertops. They were scuffed, very dated and begging to go somewhere else. Maybe I'll build a studio in the backyard to accommodate them, because they were next on the chopping block. Long, winding tale, but I found myself in huge warehouses of stone, looking at lovely works of God's art and praying none of those slabs decided to fall on me. 

I love natural stone. I told Ken that if he ever wants to surprise me with a gift, just buy me a nice fossil. So I guess that's what he's doing right now, because in these big chunks of rock, there are rivers of sediment all preserved in gorgeous patterns. Occasionally, there are shells and trilobites found floating in there. As I looked at the various types of stone, putting my warm hands against the coolness, I saw amazing depths of color and variation. I imagined the great Flood, where the earth was inundated with water and sand and silt, all of it getting amalgamated into what seems like precious jewels. After much trial, error and bouts of sleeplessness (I ain't doing this again before I die), I arrived at the perfect slab that matches the cabinets and still evokes a classic vibe. I couldn't abide anything plain, no matter how hard I tried. They should arrive in a week or two. I'm going to put my grandkids up on it and tell them all about Noah. 

Meanwhile, I might need to sell another house. If you give a mouse a cookie, he's gonna want a glass of milk.