Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

Take time to seek out a better way, while exploring less traveled side roads along the path

Finding Direction:  The Wind Vane Chronicles

My Life in “Full Bloom”

April 18th, 2011 · 3 Comments · Historical, Perspective, Philosophical, Reflections, Spirituality, Uncategorized

I bought the painting, “Full Bloom,” of the old wood framed house 10 years ago because it reminded me so much of the house I grew up in out on the farm east of a typical west Texas town.  Yet, when my mom came to visit, she didn’t see any resemblance at all, and she would have been the one most likely to see it.  Her dad built the house after she started college at 16 and they lived in a tent nearby for a year while it was under construction.

But then, my mom never has had the creative turn of mind I do.  And, actually, the only resemblance I see is of the right side of the house with the attached single car garage at the back right turned at a 90% angle, facing the front.  Even that resemblance is slight because our house was white stucco and our double garage stood alone a bit beyond the small bedroom that was in the 90% angular turn.

We had an old windmill like the painting, although by the time we moved there in 1954 when I was nine, there had long been indoor plumbing and heating in the house.  My grandparents were among the first of their neighbors to put in electricity after beginning the South Plains Electric Coop in Lubbock that ran power lines out to the Abernathy house in the fall of 1937.

We did not have endless meadows filled with wildflowers sprawled beyond our yard full of day lilies and crepe myrtles like the painting either.  Or hazy blue mountains in the distance.  Our yard had tall Chinese elms standing guard around the perimeter – windbreaks they call them out there where the wind always blows.  Two massive cedars reigned outside the windows on the left side – the west side – of the house.  The bigger one scratched against my bedroom window at night, scaring me.  But, I left  the high window open, anyway, to listen to the sounds of the night.  The deep green cedars did look like the ones in my painting.  They are just placed on the wrong side of the house.  But, that is of minor detail to me.  I think what my painting most brings to my thoughts are memories; not precise recollection – memories.

My earliest memories of my grandparents’ house, before it was ours, are of early morning smells and sounds.  Coffee percolating.  Bacon frying.  My grandma’s soft voice and my uncle Oliver’s, mingled with the deep voice of my granddad talking with my mom and dad.  I cannot even recall where we all slept – and there were six in our family alone.  But, I do remember watching them all through the glass paned French doors that were closed between the living room and dining room beyond, with the small kitchen behind that, even.

An old upright piano stood in the living room to the left of the doors where I would later spend many hours practicing, hating every moment of it until it was too late to turn any latent talent into playing much more than simple arrangements for pleasure.  I deferred becoming accomplished to my sister, with her pianist’s hands and discipline.

When I look at my painting – and I do many times a day, as it hangs on the sea glass colored wall next to our bed – I see Texas in its glory.  I see times past when I was raised so naively innocent that I did not learn of some of the fundamental elements for really living until I was well into my thirties.  Innocence lost can be a sad state to live in, but then again it can be cherished for allowing diversity and depth to increase.  I am a better woman for having lived both lives.

My painting most reminds me of home.  It reminds me that I grew up in a good home, a solid home, a place where all that was evil lay somewhere else.  I keep those memories close to my heart, for I want my home now to be a safe haven and harbor to all shattered souls who would seek shelter herein.  I have been one of them, and am no more.  I am, and I want all who come here to be, at home.

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Being “Heaven’s Embassies” In Our Homes

April 9th, 2011 · 1 Comment · A Home Complete, Inspirational, Perspective, Reflections, Spirituality, Tom & Me, Uncategorized

First, I must apologize to you all because for some reason, I have not been getting your comments here in my email, so had no idea there were any at all on my last post and some needing approval on my last two posts.  And, one was from Tom, whom I have now “approved,” so you’ll have to read his comment on my last post before this one.  There are also a couple on the one before (about Tom’s cooking up trouble) including from my stepdaughter, Kristine, who was offering empathy for my plight.  I’m going to have to get my blog gurus to straighten out that problem, hopefully.

Today, I want to be serious about something important that’s been on my mind and in my heart.

This past Sunday, our minister had an exceptionally good sermon from Proverbs about being wise about our families.  He stressed that we should lead Christ centered lives within our families and that doing so is THE most important thing we can do for our children.  If we fail in that, we have really failed in all, and I truly believe that.

In discussing how we should structure our family’s lives, he used an analogy I had never heard used before, and deemed it excellent.  He spoke of our country having U.S. Embassies all around the world on foreign soil.  Yet, when you walk into any one of them, you are considered to be on American soil and under the dictates of America’s laws and structure.

Likewise, we should each consider our own homes to be a Heaven’s Embassy, where a taste and touch of Heaven is found, rather than a war zone.  This resonated with me.

I have never delved much into my distant past here in this blog, nor am I going to do so today.  However, I will share this with you.  For years, I felt as if the weight of the world was on my shoulders always.  Even when I was in our house.  Often, it was a war zone.  In fact, I will never forget the overriding feeling I had the afternoon after my younger son, Mark, and I moved out of the house we had lived in for more than 14 years and into a tiny apartment in the same town.

More than anything else, when we came in the apartment amidst boxes and piles of things and I shut the door and locked it, I felt relief and a quiet calm that Mark and I were safe.  It was peaceful.  The entire world was outside!!  We were inside and this was truly our home!!  It was a place of rest and relaxation and love and spiritual solace.  It was a bit of Heaven.

I’ve felt that way ever since.  That was 34 years ago in January and my home – our home – has always been a God inspired respite from the world since.  I have not allowed satan (I refuse to capitalize his name or pay him any honor) to come in to cause division or turmoil or strife between any of my family members, and certainly not to reside.

I’m not saying we haven’t had troubles and trials and even tribulations.  What I’m saying is that when we close the doors to our home, the world is left out.  God is with us through all and in all and leads us in all things.  He is our protector and shield.  We war not with each other or ourselves.

Think about this today.  About making your OWN home an embassy of Heaven.

What say ye?

God bless each of you today!  Cheers!  And have a great weekend!  Dee

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Things You SHOULD Know, But Probably Don’t

March 29th, 2011 · 7 Comments · Humor, Tom & Me

Hi!  I know, I know.  I’m getting slower and slower at putting blog posts up here.  The one below has some fun facts in it.  I knew some of them, but not all.  See how many of them are new to you.  And, while you’re at it, comment with either some fun facts of your own or just what’s going on with you in your life right now.

Us?  I made some of Tom’s Taco Soup the other day (1/2 the recipe, it was so much) and it turned out great.  I added some extra seasoning and things to it and Tom really likes it, so when I get it down pat, I’ll post it on here to share with you, okay?!  It’s economical and delicious.  Next time I plan to make cornbread with it.  Tom ate it with tortilla chips the other night.

Cheers!  And God bless you each today!  Dee

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BUT PROBABLY DON’T

1. Money isn’t made out of paper, it’s made out of cotton.

2. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (marijuana) paper.

3. The dot over the letter ‘i’ is called a ‘tittle.’

4. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.

5. Susan Lucci is the daughter of Phyllis Diller .

6. 40% of McDonald’s profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.

7. 315 entries in Webster ‘s 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.

8. The ‘spot’ on 7UP comes from its inventor, who had red eyes.  He was albino.

9. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents, daily.

10. Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.

11. Chocolate affects a dog’s heart and nervous system; a few ounces will kill a small-sized dog.

12. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark’s stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.

13. Most lipstick contains fish scales (eeww).

14. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn’t wear pants.

15. Ketchup was sold in the 1830′s as medicine.

16. Upper- and lower-case letters are named ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the Upper case’ letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, ‘lower case’ letters.

17. Leonardo Da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time, hence multi-tasking was invented.

18. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.

19. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.

20. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan; there was never a recorded Wendy before!

21. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver.

22. Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors.  Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa ‘s lips.

23. A tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion will make it instantly go mad and sting itself to death

24. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original ‘Halloween’ was a Captain Kirk’s mask painted white..

25. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, youhave $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar (good to know.)

26. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can’t sink in quicksand (and you thought this list was completely useless.)

27. The phrase ‘rule of thumb’ is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn’t beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

28. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.

29. Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.  It’s the same with apples.

30. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!

31. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.

32. Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries.

33. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a space suit damages it.

I NEED TO REMEMBER THIS.

34. George Carlin said it best about Martha Stewart, “Boy, I feel a lot safer now that she’s behind bars. O. J. Simpson and Kobe Bryant are still walking around;  Osama Bin Laden too, but they take the ONE woman in America willing to cook, clean, and work in the yard, and they haul her off to jail.”

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Tom is Cooking Up Trouble – Part 2

March 19th, 2011 · 12 Comments · Humor, Stories, Tom & Me, Uncategorized

When I last wrote of Tom here, he was cooking up trouble in MY kitchen (see here) with a plethora of new small kitchen appliances, gadgets, gizmos and whatnots.  His latest purchase had been an “on sale, cheap,” in his words, 25 gallon, at least really large crock pot he thought we really needed and he was ready to cook.

The day he brought the crock pot home, he came prepared.  He also bought a prepackaged chuck roast that had carrots, onions, potatoes & a seasoning packet with it.  He got up the next morning, filled the crock pot and “voila” dinner started simmering for hours, smelling wonderful.

It wasn’t until after dinner was over that I pointed out the fact that we could have purchased all of the parts and pieces of the meal separately for a lot less.  And I tried to do so gently, since he was not only a fledgling cook, but also a big help to me in taking over the dinner preparations.  Up until this point in his retirement, his daily crisis in life had consistently been “so . . . what’s for dinner?”  He always used those same words about the same time of day.  Just after I finished making him lunch and he ate it.  He immediately started worrying about dinner.

And, I mean, it’s not like I never fed him – or that he had ever done without too many meals.  It seemed to me to stem more from either a long ago insecurity over not being fed enough as a little kid or else (my theory) he had way too much time on his hands and had nothing better to do than harass me unceasingly about why I wasn’t spending hours each day in the kitchen.

[I must note here, too, that when he retired was about the same time that my blogging regularly became a problem.  I'm not casting blame, you understand.  I'm just sayin'.]

Anyway . . . he was so excited at his crock pot success, he decided to try something else in it.  He was completely enamored with his new kitchen toy . . . sensation . . . appliance and now wanted to fix everything in it.  Or, at least serve everything in it.  Including things we had always before prepared and served in big pots on the stove.  Like chili.  And crawfish corn bisque.  And gumbo.  And this proved especially so when we invited friends to come eat with us.  Whereas before we had usually had everyone serve themselves in the kitchen out of one of our big pots on the stove, he now thought our pots were just too “ugly” to serve guests from any more.  We now needed to transfer whatever we had prepared to the crock pot on the counter top where we could keep it warm.

I didn’t see the crock pot as being any better looking than our pots.  And, I certainly didn’t see any need to now have to wash and scrub two separate containers when one would do.  That just doubled my work load.  But, he wouldn’t be swayed.  When he finally, albeit reluctantly, agreed to wash up both containers for me, I relented.  But, I wasn’t a happy camper, I’m tellin’ ya.

This went on for two or three weeks – him wanting to fill the crock pot every other day with some big batch of food and then invite friends over to be served from it.  My freezer was already beginning to overload, but he was still at it.  And he thought his first try with the roast, et al, was such a success, he wanted to try another dish.  This time from scratch.  I had him peruse my cookbooks and every single recipe I had, but he found them all lacking somehow.  So, instead, he did what he had really wanted to do in the first place.  He jumped online to find a “perfect” one for him to try.   (Of course.  Why didn’t I think of that.  Where does one go these days.  I mean – how on earth had I managed all these years with only about a dozen or more cookbooks and piles of good recipes I’d collected from family and friends over half a century.)

It took him a while, but finally he found one he liked.  He printed it out and even went to the grocery store with me to purchase all of the ingredients.  When we got home, he pulled his crock pot out to set on the counter top for the next morning.  He placed all of his cans of corn, tomatoes and other veggies nearby, along with the box of chicken broth he needed to use.  The meat went in the fridge and he planned on getting up early to get dinner started in the crock pot because it was supposed to cook eight hours or longer on low.  We usually eat around 6 or 6:30 p.m., so time was of the essence.

The next day it was about noon before I came into the kitchen for the first time.  I’d had a really bad night and had slept very late.  I assumed Tom had everything under control.

I was shocked when I looked around.  The crock pot was sitting there plugged in with the lid off, but it only had a couple of things in it.  There were opened cans sitting all around with veggies still in all but two of them.  The box of broth had been opened, too, but was still full.  The meat was nowhere to be seen.  Neither was Tom.

I found him over at his desk in our living room talking on the phone.

When he finally got off the phone, I asked him who it was and what he had been doing all morning.  He said he’d been on his computer earlier, including Facebook, iTunes and YouTube, and then had phone calls from two friends and had called his brother.  The conversations had been long, he said, and had taken up a lot more time than he’d thought.

In other words, he’d gotten completely sidetracked playing around on his computer and talking with friends.  All morning.  It was now past noon and the kitchen was a mess with nothing cooking.  The cook had played hooky it seemed.  It was way too late to start his recipe that had to cook in the crock pot for over eight hours to be ready to eat.

But, I wasn’t upset.

Nope.  Not a bit.  I thought it was rather funny.

Besides – it gave me the perfect opportunity to say what I’d been dying to say since I’d come in the kitchen.

“So . . . ” I asked him.  Sweetly.  “What’s for dinner?”

 

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From the Hollywood Reporter – “Analysis: TV Cable of Japan Crisis is Lacking”

March 17th, 2011 · 1 Comment · Historical, Tom & Me

Note:  I’m in the middle of writing my second post about Tom’s cooking escapades (actually, have been for three days now, but am having trouble getting to it) and plan to post it either later this afternoon or first thing tomorrow – preferably today.  In the meantime, I’m sure that we, as you all, have been glued to all the sources of media you can get to find out what is really going on in Japan with their horrific catastrophes of going through a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plants in harm’s way.

Tom & I have been very disappointed by the coverage and lack thereof we’ve seen on television, the main source for many of us for these very visual stories.  Today, a good journalist friend of ours sent us a link to the Hollywood Reporter online, of all places, which has an excellent editorial about the pitiful cable and network news coverage of the events in Japan and I want to share it with you here.

It’s a piece written by Tim Goodwin.  It won’t take you long to read and I’m sure will raise many thoughts and comments among you.  It sure did me.

Analysis:  TV Cable of Japan Crisis is Lacking.”

I’ll try really hard to be back a little later here with my latest in Tom stories.  He’s gone sailing this afternoon, so I have some “free” time. ha!  Dee

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A Breath of Kindness . . .

February 26th, 2011 · 3 Comments · Health

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts, nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

[Note:  These are some wonderful thoughts for today and the coming days for you each to think about.  Me, too.  I'm supposed to be resting for several days because I am fighting two separate infections - one bacterial and the other viral.  I'm taking medications for each (more than one for each) and trying to take it easy.  I'm just SO thankful I'm at home in this beautiful place God has blessed us with where I can rest and recuperate.  Love y'all!  May God richly bless you each!  Dee]

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God’s Heart For Us

February 23rd, 2011 · 5 Comments · Uncategorized

I’m just a bit behind.  I was going to post this photo last week for Valentine’s Day, but then again, maybe it’s good to remember ALL the time that God loves us.  It’s mid-winter, so we probably need some reassurance of being loved.

I loved this photograph of the “heart” cloud, so am sharing it with you all today.

I have one more photo I want to share with you today, too.  This one is to remind you all that like it or not, cold weather out or not, cold bathroom tile floor or not, you really NEED to get your bath.

I think he is THE CUTEST CAT!! I LOVE his face.  I’ve actually seen that very same face on Tom a few times when he was having to go to the doctor to get shots and the like.

Y’all have a really BLESSED day today!  Truly!  God loves you & I love y’all, too!  Dee

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