a new favorite TV show

I have become a fan of Netflix lately and I have a new favorite show.  It's called "Call the Midwife" and I highly recommend it although I suspect, and I'm not being sexist here, that women will enjoy it more than men.  That's ir for today.  I'm too busy watching to write more.

So now you know!

Have you ever laid awake at night unable to fall asleep and wondered why your eyes keep popping open?
I had tucked my five year-old granddaughter into bed one night and she was having a hard time falling asleep. On my third trip into her bedroom to see what was going on, I said "Just close your eyes and go to sleep."  To which she replied "I can't, every time I close my eyes, they just pop open.  I have eye hiccups."

So now you know.

The more I travel...

The more I travel, the more I want to travel; the more I see of this world, the more I want to see.  A friend asked me today where I have traveled.  Here's the list I came up with: all fifty states, Canada, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Italy, England, Ireland, Scotland, Gernsey Isle, France, Israel, Palestine, Czech Republic, Austria, Germany and Hungary.

I looked at that list and thought wow, that's a bit of traveling, then I realized there are still so many places to see.  It's exciting to think about what might be next.

We sang the song "How Great Thou Art" in church this morning.  I love this song.  It has always been one of my favorites.  We sang it at my husband's funeral.  One of my best memories is of my two brothers, in the pew behind me, singing out that song in their great voices with strength and faith.  That carried me through the whole service and the rest of that day.

As I sat in church this morning, and listened to the sermon about prayer, I began to compose a verse of my own:

As I sit here surrounded by my family,
and contemplate the love and joy we've known;
When I recall the times of grief and laughter,
And realize how God still holds us close,
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee,
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee,
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

back to its roots

I spent some time outside on this beautiful, cool day pulling weeds, trimming bushes and chatting with my neighbor.  While working around I discovered that my little old apple tree is loaded with nice yellow apples this year which, in a few weeks, will provide me with plenty of apples for apple butter.

This still fascinates me because this apple tree started life as an ornamental crab apple tree which my husband planted soon after we moved here thirty-one years ago.  For years it had lovely blossoms and tiny little crab apples.  Then one year I found a few yellow apples under that tree and couldn't imagine where they came from.  The next year, when yellow apples again showed up under the tree, I had the sense to look up and discovered that the tree was producing real apples.  My grandkids and I gathered some up, leaving plenty for the birds, and that year I made my first batch of applebutter.

It has become an annual event.  When I got home from my vacation earlier this month, my granddaughters had already gathered up some fallen apples for me.

I mentioned the mystery of my transformed apple tree to my father one day,and he explained to me that often ornamental trees are grafted to another tree (crabapple to apple) to give them a stronger root system and sometimes the tree "goes back to its roots."  I'm sure there's a profound life lesson here somewhere, but for now I'll just enjoy the results.

A girlfriend and I were talking today about some of the technology challenges we face and how things have changed over the years.  We both remember a first TV being brought home in the mid 1950's.  The conversation brought to mind a memory my father shared with me.  He was born in 1916 and remembered that at the age of three or four he took a trip each weekend with his mom to her parents' farm so she could help with the housekeeping.  What fascinated me was that they would get on the train on Saturday morning to travel from Woodburn to New Haven (a distance of about 10 miles), then be picked up at the station by his grandfather in the surrey (he never mentioned if there was a fringe on top) and taken to the farm.  On Sunday afternoon, his dad would come and pick them up in the Model T and take them back to their home in Woodburn.  Train, horse, car every weekend.  It seems to me a fascinating snapshot of the evolution of one kind of technology.

teaching old dogs

They say "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" but I'm finding that I am trainable, it just seems to take a little longer than in my youth.  Today they finished installing 5 tv type monitors in the church where I work and I was trained on how to create/download pictures, etc to show on them,  On Monday (I generally don't work on Fridays) I will try to decode my notes and practice, on Tuesday, I will print out the 60-page training manual that is waiting on my computer and practice, Wednesday, Thursday, more practice, and on Sunday, when people come into church, they will be treated to a wonderful visual display which Danielle will have created on Friday, when I don't work.

this is so quotidian.

I learned a marvelous new word yesterday, new to me anyway.  The word is 'quotidian' and I read it in this sentence written by an artist who will be showing her work at First Pres Gallery this fall, "These pieces function as unbridled celebrations of the temporality and transcendence of the commonplace: broadsides, frontispieces & posters, all acting as endorsements of joy in the quotidian."
It's such a wonderful word for a simple idea. You can be sure I will remember it when my family and I play Quiddler.

And speaking of faces

And speaking of faces (see yesterday's blog) grandchildren have a wonderful ability to love you unconditionally, but still keep you rooted in reality.  Seven years ago, when my grandson was five, he came home from a morning spent at church "helping" Papa with some volunteer work and informed me that he had met a woman at church who looked like me, but he didn't remember her name.
While trying to think of anyone at church who looks like me, I asked him "How did she look like me?"
He replied "She has a face like yours."
"What do you mean, a face like mine?"
"You know, Nana,, crinkledy!"

On Sunday our pastor preached a really good sermon about vulnerability and shame.  She referenced a book titled "Daring Greatly" by Dr. Brene Brown (Gotham Publishing, 2012), which I have yet to read but it sounds really interesting, not light, but interesting.  During the sermon she read a series of "shame is..." and "vulnerability is...." statements, some of which were very moving.  As I thought about it, I added one of my own - "vulnerability is walking out into the world each day wearing a 68 year old face."

First post, starting my blog

Being 68 is not for the faint of heart, but I find that laughter helps.  Lucky for me I have 4 grandchildren, work with some light-hearted people and have fun friends so I find plenty of chances to laugh.  Case in point, as I drove two of my granddaughter (sisters) home from school recently, the oldest, 11, was explaining to her younger sister, 9, that since she was born first she had had their parents to herself for two years.  However, when she went off to college, her sister would be alone with the parents for two years.  Then they lapsed into a spate of squabbling, and a few minutes later, I heard a small voice from the back seat saying "I wish those two years were starting right now."
Have a funny story to share?  Please send it my way.  I love to laugh.