optical illusion

When driving home from the Boven cottage we were on the highway
coming over a hill and the clouds and the sky played tricks with my eyes.
What I saw was the road going down to the water -
perhaps a large lake or an ocean.

What it was was just the clouds above the blue sky
but once I thought I saw the water
I couldn't convince my mind that it was just the sky.

Alexander plays teaset with Andrew

even though Andrew is not fully co-operating

 but that doesn't stop Alexander

no, it doesn't stop him

"Andrew, did you want some tea?"

"Maybe just a cup"

Alexander loves his Uncle Andrew

"stinkende vlees te koop"

When I was a little girl my father would put me on his shoulders and parade me around the house. We went from room to room and he would always carefully duck when we reached a doorway. While he would parade me around the house he would chant a Dutch phrase - "stinkende vlees te koop"

As a little girl I did not know what it meant. 
I thought it meant that I was a princess. 
The words didn't change much during our march around the house.
But I just knew that my daddy was singing my praises.


I thought that the words could have been translated to mean this:
"Here I come with the princess, isn't she beautiful?
Let us sing a song for the princess and clap our hands 
and be happy for the princess"


And so our royal parade continued through my little girl years.
It wasn't until many years later that I found out what the translation was.

Apparently my father marched me about the house chanting
"stinky meat for sale"


'Nuff said?

sometimes we just don't fit

Sometimes we just feel like we don't fit
and other times we really don't fit.

I don't fit into my wedding dress.
Too many loaves of bread, bought on sale, won't fit in my freezer.
I don't fit in with a tattooed and pierced biker gang and
I don't fit in with the champagne and caviar crowd.

Sometimes we just don't fit.

Organ Central

For our mini vacation this summer we went to Hanover Michigan (small village south of Jackson). This past winter Martin found an organ museum (on the Internet) with piles of pump organs that you were allowed to play. So off we went.

Lots to look at and Martin sat and played at a couple of them.
Many of them were really old but it was fun to watch him play.
I didn't even need to get the book out that I had brought along.

There was a historical school museum in the attached building
that was interesting to walk through.

It was called a mini vacation because I didn't unpack. I have only had one vacation where I unpacked. When you stay for one or two nights it doesn't seem worth the effort of unpacking everything only to put it in again so soon. The exception was when I was on the cruise with my mom - I unpacked clothes into drawers and hung up outfits. It made sense because I was there for more than two days.

The map for Michigan we bought was not very good and I was thankful for the compass on the new car because we would not have been able to tell what direction we were going in if not for the letters NES or W plunked above the steering wheel.

We ate at a place called Cascade Park that was quite lovely.
I even found a friend there.

Since Martin doesn't like travelling the same road twice we wandered and meandered our way through the hiways and the biways. We passed the BunkerHill International Airport with a piddly little landing strip that looked like it was mowed a couple of times a year. We saw lots of tree covered lanes and a couple of roads took us in all four directions before we went on the next road which, of course, was no where on our map.

We found an antique in one of the places we stopped at.
It was strange to see a shaving mug for sale
that was just like the one we bought on our honeymoon over 30 years ago.

He was nice enough to stop at a couple of used book stores so I could hunt for some Airmonts. I actually found three of them so I was happy.

I always enjoy any time that I get to spend with my wonderful husband and we seem to still enjoy each other's company after all these years whether it is at home or wandering and meandering across the country.
Looking forward to going back someday.

diaper cakes

Years ago I heard Whoopi Goldberg talk on The View about giving a diaper cake as a shower gift. I think I saw a sample and then decided to create my own.
I found forms and ribbons and diapers and then figured how best to put them all together.

The first one I made was for our Youth Pastor and his wife. The shower was  decorated with an American/Canadian theme for Heather and Mark's home countries.

I found the whole process quite complicated to replicate every time I wanted to  bring a diaper cake to a shower - so now I just buy a package of diapers to give as a gift and keep the main cake. I decorate it as I see fit.

Here are the diaper cakes that I made for Anne's shower. To these ones I added white silk flowers and the toppers were two yellow duckie piggy banks with a stuffed animal to keep the duckies company on the top of the cake. Duckies can be afraid of heights so the company was welcome.

There are two cakes because she is expecting two babies - twins.
We are very excited and looking forward to meeting the little ones.

Long awaited get together

It was like time had not passed at all. 

We picked up where we left off with some filling in 

of the stuff of life that we have been living. 

Some great, some not so. 

But it was so great to get together with these gals.

I had met Brigitte and Deb in a writing class 

and then Sue was in one of the other classes. 

We sometimes pretend we want to be writers 

but not one of us is really incredibly serious about it. 

We have good intentions but life does seem to get in the way.

Deb is trying to get the umbrella up 

it is not working.

Sue tries to help but it is still not working 

maybe Brigitte will help

Or maybe not

Maybe she'll just laugh at them 

until Deb's earring falls off.

Well the earring did fall off and 

Deb rinsed it off in her drink and put it back on.

 Terrific food and great conversation. What fun.

The time flew by so fast and

we will just have to do it again.

I think I figured it out

I think that the blogging world runs on west coast time
and therefore my blog records that time...
smart thinking, eh?
and I thought of it all by my lonesome.

the blogging world can't tell time

how to fix that I will never know - not even going to try - so it looks like every blog I write is going to be 3 hours earlier than time is - says something about the space / time continuum - just like in Star Trek - yikes

what time is it?

My blog has been recording my blogging time as odd - four in the morning for some of them and if I am up at that time - as I sometimes am - much to my chagrin - I am not on the computer or blogging

so this blog comes with the time listed on my computer and the clocks in the house
lets see if it matches the one that the blog records -

9:04 pm