Waste of Time FaceBook - or Not

Sometimes I get to thinking FaceBook is such a waste of time. I mean, I pay for membership on a family pages deal, we can share photos there for family members. And I don't have anything of value to add on the comments....the kids all have their own language....not many folks my age are there.....
and then -
I entered (for maybe the dozenth time) my nursing school name.
A bunch of tiny little thumbnail pictures were listed for me.....I fruitlessly scrolled through them...knowing full well that everyone in school with me had new names by now....
and there was the bright, huge, sparkling smile beaming out to me. And I literally recognized it immediately! It might have been something like 40 years since I've seen it, but I recognized it.
Jo was my "big sister" in nursing school.
More importantly - she and Ray introduced Larry and me 48 years years ago on a blind date! Look how that turned out. :)
It was so cool to see her - I wrote and asked her to "friend" me and she accepted. Said they were just talking about us.
Can't wait to catch up.
I'm so glad (for the moment) to be "wasting my time" on Facebook. Know what I mean?

Nature Says

Nature says:

When transplanted reach out, hang on and flourish!

We have only had this gorgeous blooming vine a few weeks, but it plopped down when I put it, never faltered, reached out, wove itself around everything near by and hasn't stopped blooming. Its sunny yellow flowers are such a welcoming sight as we come home. You look around, Nature wil give you Life's Lessons.

Scrappin'

I am new still at scrapping, but I love this two page layout I did of Julia. They are 12 " pages, so I am unable to scan them fully, but the title is "The Many Moods and Faces of Julia" and these pictures don't half capture all the moods and faces of this vibrant little girl. I get happy just looking at them all!

And then there is this busy page.....made intentionally busy to show her energy! Tumbling, bouncing, jumping! Hope you enjoy.

Opening Presents in the Present!

I am sitting here with the day rolled out in front of me - yet have no idea what it holds. Usually, at this time of day, 7:50 AM, I would be rushing about, packing up, picking out clothes, trying to get a load of wash done or some other household chore. Not today. Today I am sitting with no pressure. Sitting and contemplating what to do for myself!
There's a touch of resentment sitting right next to me.
I had two days and two hours of vacation time that had accumulated and I've been told I have to use it. I have to use it by Tuesday the 30th.
If you earn it, shouldn't you be able to use it when you wish?
A couple of people retired from my work place with thousands of dollars worth of sick and vacation time for which they were paid. Paid a LOT!
I, and others like me, get NO pay for sick time when they retire. And have a time limit put on their time off earned. It was March, but was kindly extended by my boss to end of June.
Anyway - while I'd have preferred to use it when Larry is off too and we could do some lovely things together, we decided I'd make myself a couple of long weekends. Today is the first. Next weekend will be the last.
And so I sit here. I sit with the luxury of nothing pressing.
But with almost 6 hours that feel golden, yet over ripe. If I don't use them wisely, I will resent it. We A-Types - over achiever types - we can't just lie back and enjoy the ride. We over think, over worry, over stress.....good grief! Probably "only in America!" There are, no doubt, millions of folks right now who wonder if they will Live for the next 6 hours. Wonder if they will be killed, or will starve to death, or die of disease in the next 6 hours.
I'm worrying about what lovely relaxing thing to do.
OK, reality check. I understand that Time gets me screwy. Time is my money.
But still....I am hoping to scrap a little, sew a little, read a little, exercise a little, pray and meditate a little (maybe even a lot!), and readjust my happy button.
Roget says other words for "vacation" are "rest" and "amusement".....let's see if I can put that into practice. Pictures may follow.

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.
Will Rogers, New York TImes, Apr. 29, 1930US humorist & showman (1879 - 1935)

Chipmunk Door

We have so many chipmunks around the house, and every time we have the garage door open, they dash to get in. So we decided to make it easier for them to come and go. You may see by the picture, we have had a builder cut a small doorway in the bottom of one wall in the garage. We'll have a rubber flap fitted and they will be able to get in and out as they please. Clever?

Well, no, actually, this is the first step in having a back door put in the garage for US! I have complained since moving here about the difficulty of cooking on the bar-b-que.....it entails leaving the kitchen, running down the steps to the family room, crossing the family room, crossing the laundry room, out the door and up the outside steps! By the time I get where I am going, I've forgotten why I went there! So our plan is to put a door in the garage right out onto what we hope will be a patio before summer's end.

This little cut-away has been long awaited.

We have had 3 doors here for the project, each one wrong in some aspect, and each one having to be returned. Finally, we are sticking with the last one we bought, the builder is planning to cut it to fit (!) and we'll be good to go. I counted off the steps....it now takes at least 40 steps to get to the grill. It will take about 15 with this door, and instead of 13 stairs there will be a total of 4!

Cook-out, anyone?

Signature of a Family

A gift from the heart. Larry's father made a teak-wood sign for outside his home many years ago. It features an American Indian head and his own name, L. J. McCay. My husband was given it some years ago and it has resided in our garage....a pretty constant nagging thing to Larry, although I wasn't aware of that. He says he constantly thought of it, wondered what to do with it, how to go about fixing it up, how to hang it.

I decided this year to take it upon myself to do something with it, and hoping for the best, turned it over to a friend who has been doing work for us. I explained how much it meant to Larry, and that it needed a "revival" and it needed to be hung outside.

Jon took it to a furniture refinisher who, in less than three days (!) took it completely apart, cleaned and refinished the internal carving, put in new plexiglass, and put it all back together and finished it with a protective finish made for teak.

Jon then had a wrought iron stand made for it, he sneaked over to our house once Larry had left for work, dug the holes, cemented the stand in and later in the day he brought the sign and hung it.

When Larry got home from work on his birthday, I made him wear a blindfold, I led him out to the yard, and then snapped a photo the minute he saw the sign. This might be the best I can do as far as surprises and gifts are concerned. I was worried in as much as it is an undertaking to take something that means so much to someone and hope that your decision is the right one.

Later we had the next L. J. McCay, and the 4th L. J. McCay come over, as well as Julia, Colleen and Patrick. They all loved the work that had been done.

And as Patrick said later, "it is like the signature of the McCay family". And we feel that Dad knows we have honored him, too. Like he always loved to say, "I started it all!"

Guests and Memories

First, let me correct something from previous post...Elvis and Betty live in Alabama, not Florida. They have done so for a good many years, but I just still have them living in Florida in my mind!

We had such a special visit. There was prayer time, remembering time, and just plain cherishing time...cherishing memories, cherishing friendship, and cherishing the Lord who made our friendship possible, and gave us this time to reconnect and see just how little has changed in what really matters. Thank you, Lord, for that.

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.

On Wednesday Betty called me from Philadelphia to let me know they were on their way to our house. I had just gotten back to work from lunch, and I needed to ask my boss if I could leave for the last hour so as to let them in at the house. He kindly let me go early.

It is a funny thing when you meet dear old friends and the time simply turns to mist and is as nothing....by the time you reach one another to embrace, it was only yesterday since you have done so before. I suppose that is one of the aspects of time that is so difficult for us to comprehend....it has no meaning, it has no substance. Yet Love, love that is just as obscure and impossible to understand, steps in, moves Time out, and is as real as something you can touch.

We were blessed by this visit, and we thank Elvis and Betty for it, and for a friendship which began exactly 51 years ago this week!

Dear Friends and Home Town People

We are expecting company this coming Monday evening.
And with them are coming memories, memories, memories! Elvis and Betty North have been my friends since the 1950's. I don't really remember how old I was when they were assigned to our little Methodist Church in Columbia NJ. They were a young couple from Indiana, two little boys in tow, and for me, it was love at first sight. We were infatuated with the idea of Elvis' first name, and to cater to the kids in town, I believe his first sermon was entitled "Jail House Rock." His sense of humor bowled us over. Our little town was mostly poor, and life was pretty serious. There wasn't an over abundance of humor. Elvis brought more than enough.
Betty was sweet. She seemed to me to be the ultimate in exactly what a woman should strive to be. She was loving, she was gentle, she was a wonderful mother and a patient wife. We became such good friends. When, as a Senior in high school I had no clothes to wear on the class trip, she made me up some dresses so I wouldn't be ashamed. She did the same at Easter.
One night I left home. I felt I had no where to go. I fell asleep on the back porch of the parsonage, and in the morning they moved me into a spare room where I lived for some time until things at home got ironed out. They didn't have much, but they readily shared what they had with anyone in need.
We haven't seen them in years, but on Monday they are coming up from Florida to attend a funeral and Elvis will be guest preacher in Philadelphia. They have accepted our invitation to stay with us.
I didn't ask the memories to come, but they have ...bag and baggage....and they are, for the most part, very welcome visitors too.
A line from Elvis' e-mail:

"In the meantime pray for all those folks who have the misfortune to be on the road at the same time as a Bible-belt preacher.
Thanks for your long-term friendship in Jesus.
Betty & Elvis"

shows he hasn't lost his humor. And I am grateful I haven't lost their friendship.