In Your Timing Lord

Today we had lunch with friends we hadn't seen in over a year. It was so nice visiting with them and catching up on things.

In discussing a concern I have they shared their thoughts on the matter and at one point said it depended on 'who I want to be' as to how I would deal with it. 

At that moment I knew exactly what I needed to do/or not do and how God wanted me to handle it. 

Thank you Lord for placing these friends in our life and thank you for working out this lunch date in your perfect timing. 

EXPERIENCES

Whether you visit a foreign country or visit a neighboring state you can uncover the differences in people and places. Traveling changes you. You’re different when you return. You always learn something new when you travel even if it’s something as simple as tasting a new food.

Travel experiences feed the soul. I don’t think of myself as a travel enthusiast but I do find myself being a ‘mental’ travel enthusiast. By that I mean I’m always thinking, “I wonder what it would be like to go to….” People fascinate me. Cultures fascinate me. History fascinates me. Travel has broadened my mind and increased my awareness of just how small I am in this world. 

Granny

When I first found out I would be a grandma I was adamant about NOT being called grandma. Far too many stigmas of ‘old’ people associated with that word. I tried out several other non-stigmatic words so as not to place myself in the proverbial rocking chair.

In the end, I decided that Nana fit the bill. Try as we might, Nana simply didn’t sound right nor did it fit me. Next, we tried Granny, which I was comfortable with. (I know, Granny was ok, but Grandma was not. Geez.) So I called myself Granny…right up to the moment our first grandson said Grandma. And that was all it took. In an instant I was known as Grandma Nae. If that’s what it felt like to be called Grandma, then it was okay with me. 

Having raised two daughters, it would have been hard to convince me that our first four grandchildren would be boys. And I will tell you right now that boys are certainly different than girls. Boys talk about farts (all the time) and they laugh about farts (all the time) and they cannot walk into the room and simply sit down. They have to run into the room, spin in a circle and hit their brother then dive onto the couch and throw a pillow on the floor. And all that is in the first 30 seconds of entering the house. (I’m guessing that our granddaughter is going to pick up on many of these things soon.) ha!

I will say however that many of the things that come out of their mouths are incredibly cute.

*The other day I told the 3 year old that I was going to take a shower and he leaned over and smelled my arm and said, “Why? You don’t stink.”

Good to know. ha!

*The same 3 year old grandson always tells me, “You’re my best friend.” 

I just wish I could bottle up the feeling in my chest when I hear him say that.

Someone asked me once if being a grandma made me feel old. Well…it doesn’t make me feel young. Being a grandma can be hard work. All those kickball games, reading the same book 5 times in a row, dishing up ice cream for five grand kids and giving kisses faster than they can wipe them off. Whew! But somehow I manage. 

Grateful 365

This morning was cloudy and overcast and for one split second I thought Maybe they missed the forecast today so I opened up the window on the back door to let in a little cool air. 

Window opened - window closed. Nope. They did not miss the forecast. Ugh... 90% humidity. 

For all those who are longing for cooler temperatures..... *sigh*

Grateful 365

We don't all believe the same but you can trust what you believe.  

God Bless the U.S.A.

We've added one more thing to our new home and it may be my favorite to date. We placed the  American flag in our front yard and it is beautiful. There is something very special about this flag and what it stands for. On a minimal level it represents a great country. To a deeper degree it symbolizes the story and events that shaped our nation; along with the values and ideals that make America...America. 
Most importantly to me, I see the history and dedication of the people who have come before me who have fought for the freedoms I have today. I don't take that lightly. I am, and will be, forever grateful to those who fight for the United States of America and allow me the privilege to celebrate in a free and democratic nation.

Over the next several days there will be numerous pictures of the American flag displayed on television and social media along with the sounds of fireworks in each of our neighborhoods. There will be neighborhoods lined with the colors of our nation. What a proud time for us all....  

President Woodrow Wilson, 1917

This flag, which we honor and under which we serve, is the emblem of our unity, our power, our thought and purpose as a nation. It has no other character than that which we give it from generation to generation. The choices are ours. It floats in majestic silence above the hosts that execute those choices, whether in peace or in war. And yet, though silent, it speaks to us — speaks to us of the past, or the men and women who went before us, and of the records they wrote upon it.

NATURE'S BEAUTY

EVERYONE HAS A STORY.....

You may think your story is not 'worthy' of telling but it is. 

Looks can be deceiving. I believe you are more than I see. I see you surrounded by your people...those with whom you laugh and joke. The outside world sees you as someone who smiles through adversity. But inside you feel faint and out of focus. 

Strangers that you meet on the street or those who you follow in the check out line at the store. Each of them living with the complexity of their own charade. The charade so many of us uphold to meet the standards set by society. You plot the contours of your life but can't find the courage to color outside the lines. 

How did society gain such a powerful grip on us?

It's strange how little of the real person we get to see. Strange how many excuses we can conjure up to explain the decisions we make...the decisions that will haunt us in the future. 

It's strange how we envision the dreams of our future and yet the fantasies stay dormant inside your head. 

JUNE??

June? Really? Gosh, wasn't it January just yesterday?

Everywhere I look I see colorful summertime exploding. Peonies are blooming... Delicate iris clusters add texture to landscapes... Lilies are bursting open with hues only found in nature... Allium erupt in orbs of color....Isn't it wonderful?!

Last year I decided to put my own spin on the back yard so I pulled out an enormous amount of black-eyed susans and thousands of volunteer marigolds. It's going to look entirely different this summer but that was the whole idea. Every morning I can see changes in the yard with new flowers blooming and plants seemingly popping up overnight. 
I've intentionally planted nearly all perennials in the yard simply for the ease of knowing they'll be back each year.

I find it fascinating that these beautiful plants can survive such cold Nebraska winters and then turn around and provide us with such beauty in the spring and summer.

Nature is a beautiful thing isn't she? :) 

 

Grateful 365

Hi ~ My name is Renae and I'm a plant hoarder.

I have always loved plants but with this sun room on the new house I have lost complete control of my senses! There is no medical term for what ails me but I swear it gets worse every year. The difference now... I have more room for more plants. And now with the new plants and flowers coming out for Spring, I just cannot resist! 

I told myself that the only way I'd get more plants is if I found a 'unique' or 'different' one. 
Well, last week I visited a local nursery and of course I could  not resist. It's like taking a kid to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory and telling her she can't taste the chocolate! It just can't be done. 

Now who could resist this beauty?
Obviously not me!

One of my favorite finds at the nursery last week. A twisted celosia.
 

It looks like a brain to me.

I'm always looking for strange shapes or textures of leaves or maybe something that just catches my eye. (which is really any plant honestly.) 

As always, I'm learning a lot about which plants you can cut off and stick in water to root or those whose roots can be broken apart to give to someone. It's crazy how some plants can drop a piece and you can just stick it in dirt and it grows! Which of course gives me more plants! Like I said...I have plant issues. ha! 

Grateful 365 - bulbs

Last fall I decided to try something new and planted a bunch of bulbs in the backyard. My idea is to have a little bit of color in my yard from early Spring through Fall. 

This was my first experience with bulbs and I knew very little about them. I never messed with them before because I'd read about how people dig them up and lay them out on newspapers throughout the winter. No thanks...   I know now that isn't the case with all bulbs. Basically, I received these dried up looking clumps in the mail and planted them. I did look at the projected heights of them and that was about all the "planning" I did.

Within the last few weeks I have all sorts of things popping up in the yard. Mother Nature is incredibly wonderful isn't she? I do know I have some tulips, some iris, lilies and some daffodils but I don't know the exact types.  I had intended to write down each set of bulbs I planted but that didn't happen. Maybe I'll remember to jot it down as they bloom. :)  

I am loving all the changes that are happening in my yard. It's remarkable how quickly these flowers are growing! There's so much change from one day to the next.  

I can already tell it's going to be a learning process for me. The other day I was pulling weeds and dug up a bulb. Not sure what it was but it looks like a weed when it first comes up. ha! 

Grateful for K.

Friends are a rare thing. 
I know.

I have two friends. Yes, exactly two friends that I can TRUST. Two people who I trust with my life.

Some might question, "Just two?"

To that I will answer, " The Best Two!"
 
I know that each of them will do anything for me - whatever it takes. Both just love me for me and they don't ask questions or make suggestions for change.They accept my quirky little rants on things I'm passionate about and they listen to the rants about my family.

Last week, I had a chance to share a quick get away with one of these sweet friends.  
Thank you K. for listening to the stories that you've heard a million times before. And thank you for taking the time to simply spend time together.  

K. had planned this adventure where we were going to spend a couple days in the mountains together to just have some girl time. Because I was heading to my daughter's following our 'adventure', we drove separately, which wasn't the ideal plan but in this case was necessary. 

Because neither of us had been to this location before, K. downloaded driving directions. Oh gosh, this is where the laughs began. We followed those directions and unexpectedly ended up on numerous dirt roads.  And these weren't just the ordinary dirt roads, these were red clay dirt roads with meteor-sized pot holes for miles. 

I don't know how many times we pulled over to the side of the road to ask that proverbial question, "Is this right?" while revisiting those directions. Google maps sure does encourage the scenic route. :)

When we finally found the sign to our destination we both felt a bit of relief. Even when we met a guy on a snowmobile on the road we weren't too concerned.( that's not true, I was surprised to meet a snowmobile) 

Did I mention the wind was howling and there was snow blowing across the road as we climbed the mountain?  I just had to laugh because we could not have planned a better start to an adventure.

We pulled up to our final destination and couldn't find the office. Oh my gosh, it was so funny. K. wandered around a bit and finally knocked on a door that had a bear standing next to it, holding a "CLOSED" sign. The man pointed her in the right direction.
We checked in and were on our way...

We knew it might be a challenge when the gal told us, "You might want to get a running start to make it into the driveway to your cabin." But we did get to the cabin without getting stuck in the snow and lugged our bags through a couple deep drifts to the front door. 

 Blowing snow with gale force winds didn't stop us from bundling up and wandering around in God's lovely mountain design. We traipsed through some serious deep snow and enjoyed every single minute.What a wonderful day.... 

I've known K. for 26 years and yet I learned more about her. I discovered that she can play the piano and the guitar. I had no idea! And how in the world have I gone this long without knowing her middle name?  

I can hardly wait until our summer adventure.
 

GRATEFUL 365

We have this amazing 'sun room' on the back side of our house which quickly became a selling point for me with my love of plants.
Recently, I planted some garden seeds and what a lovely surprise to see they are already sprouting!

Cucumbers are in the future!

 And green beans are enjoying the warm sunshine as well.

 At the end of last summer I had wanted to plant some tomato plants in the sun room but by the time I thought of it, I couldn't find any plants except a few yellow cherry tomatoes so I decided to try those. I've babied them along all winter and little by little they have shown some signs of growth. Once this sunshine began warming up the sun room though, those tomatoes have been happy happy happy. They are blooming!

GRATEFUL 365

Tonight I am taking a break from my classes. I think my brain has sprung a leak and I need to let all that knowledge just spill into my body tonight. I'll hit the books again tomorrow....but for now I'm looking through pictures.

I haven't posted updates on the house for quite some time. We finally have all the big projects finished and I am very grateful for that! We still have some painting to do in the hallway and lots of touch ups and a long list of little things but again, the big projects are complete. (at least until we begin on the sun room. I'm not even thinking that far yet.)

The bookcases by the fireplace are in and I am in love! I now have a place for my sweet little books and I even have room for more! That is pretty exciting news in my world. :) 

The "Before"

 This is what the fireplace looked like when we bought the house. 
Not a bad looking fireplace at all.

It just seemed a bit outdated so we thought we'd give it a coat of paint to freshen it up a bit and see if that helped. 

The white rock did nothing for me but I was convinced that it would grow on me. 
But.... it did not grow on me and I just knew if we didn't change it we would always kick ourselves for not doing it. So, we took that leap of faith and tore off all that rock until we were down to the bare minimum of the fireplace. What a mess that was. A jack hammer and rock makes dust. More dust. ugh!

The only bad thing was we'd already installed the wood floors so now we had to cover all the new floors. That really did concern me because I just knew we'd scratch up those new floors. The guys assured me they'd be fine but I was skeptical. 
We chose a stacked stone to finish the fireplace front and had intended on adding a mantel but once it was finished we decided not to. For now, we like the clean front. And we added a wood burning insert because we just love that warm heat on those cold Nebraska nights.

I haven't taken any pictures since I've added plants and a few accents to the shelves but this gives you an idea how much it's changed from the "before" picture.

 

It was quite a project but we love it. 

Grateful 365 - Day 18

Decorate with family pictures. Yes or no?

Anyone who has been to our house knows that I decorate with family pictures... a lot of family pictures. 

I was reading a blog the other day that said family pictures should be displayed in more private areas such as bedrooms only. Yikes. I am blowing that 'rule' all to pieces. 


There are some beautiful pieces of art in stores and if I find something I really love I'll purchase it. But not before I put a lot of thought in to it. I'm known for impulse buying so I work very hard at thinking and rethinking things now before I buy them. (It's a  habit of mine that will take some time to overcome I'm afraid.) 

And quite honestly I will never find any artwork in a store more beautiful than these faces. :)

 
Using family pictures is such a personal part of me and I love that I can look around my house and connect a memory to things. 

So today I'm grateful for finding my own 'rules' of decorating my house. 

Grateful 365 - Day 17

Tonight on the nightly news it talked about some universities installing "texting lanes" on stair cases for those students who are texting and walking. 

Hmmm...
Tonight I'm grateful for common sense. Mine. Not theirs.  Geez!

Grateful 365

Grateful 365 - Day 13

36 years ago our first daughter was born. It was a sunny day with snow on the ground.

We lived across the street from the hospital and yet when I went in to labor we drove downtown to use a pay phone to call my mom. 

Mom didn't rush to the hospital because she thought that I'd be in labor for quite a while beings it was my first baby. 
Guess what? She didn't get there by the time Katie was born. :)

Mom didn't sound nervous when we called her to say I was in labor but she must have been because we found out later that she had opened the garage door enough to walk in but not enough to back out so she hit the garage door with the car. ha!

Today I am grateful for our first daughter, Katie. I've always loved being a mom.
Happy birthday honey!

 
 

Grateful 365 - Day 11

I consider myself to be somewhat normal, that I have a fairly normal life - right up until I put my day into black and white. That's when I think I may have issues. 

* I woke up this morning and thought, "It's 2016. My  teaching certificate expires in 2016!" I called the Department of Education to find out exactly what I needed to do. I knew what they were going to say but I was hoping there was the tiniest bit of hope that the classes I've taken were recent enough but no luck. So I called a nearby college and told them I needed to apply for classes (which started today!). Because it's been a few years since I've taken classes there I had to go through the application process again. Ugh! I'm hoping this goes through asap. I feel like I'm behind already and haven't even begun!

* The last couple months I've been incredibly tired. I'm talking can't keep my eyes open tired. I chalked it up to this whole crazy moving process and simply a lot of late nights. Today I had a bit of a headache so I reached into my purse to take a tylenol. It was the last one in the bottle so I put the bottle in the trash. For some reason just as I let go of the bottle something caught my eye. What did that say? I picked up the empty bottle and it said Tylenol PM! What in the world? I guess that explains a bit of my tiredness lately. ha! Obviously they need to label it a little clearer for us non-observant consumers. 

* This afternoon I decided to make some cookies (after a quick nap from the Tylenol PM ha!) I'm stirring up the ingredients I've added so far when I decide to scan over the directions. Add baking soda, salt, pumpkin. Wait. Back up. Pumpkin? Yep, I'm using the wrong recipe. Geez. Now I have to figure out how much I HAVE added and what I NEED to add. Good thing I'm good at math. :)

When crazy stuff like this happens I have to tell my sister. She gets a chuckle out of my madness. As we're talking on the phone her desk drawer falls out and the contents spill out on the floor. Oh gosh we laughed and laughed. 

Today I'm grateful for those phone calls with Shell. And I guess I'm grateful for the craziness of my day. ha!

Grateful 365

 I found this gorgeous kitchen table at a lovely store in Grand Island, Primitive Touch Antique Warehouse. The distressed wood and chunky legs give this table the rustic look I love. 

When we picked up the table the gentleman that built this asked me if I knew the story of the wood. No.... I didn't realize there was a story. Immediately he had my attention. I love it when there's a story connected with things. 

The table legs are posts, turned on a lathe, found in a granary in Eagle Nebraska dated 1910. 
The table top and the entire bench are the original floor boards out of the Bennet Nebraska General Mercantile Store built in 1884. 

Oh.my.goodness. I love that! I found myself rubbing my hand across this wood and just imagining the stories they could tell. Especially the floor boards of the Mercantile Store. I can visualize the shoes clicking across this floor. *sigh* 

I loved this table before but once I heard the story of the wood I l.o.v.e.d this table.
Not only does this table hold history but it is history in Nebraska!
  
I hadn't decided on kitchen chairs but I was leaning toward a type of wing back chair. But that changed quickly when we saw chairs that had been refurbished by the same craftsman that built the table. After  several combinations of various chair types we decided on two beautiful red chairs along with some beautiful bow back chairs. 

Today I am grateful for finding this new store and meeting the wonderful family that runs it and I'm also grateful for the pieces of history that run through the grains of the wood of this charming table.