This month’s book winner? Judy!
April 18, 2011 | My Jottings
Thanks to everyone for your comments about books you’ve enjoyed — I’ve added them all to my “to read” list. I haven’t read a book since the beginning of Lent and am looking forward to Easter for more than one reason. 🙂
Judy is the winner of the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand! I will be mailing it to her within the week, and maybe she’ll be good enough to let us all know her opinion once she’s done reading it.
Congratulations Judy!
Thank you all for reading and commenting. Have a wonderful week…
Unbroken
April 14, 2011 | My Jottings
It’s been a long time since I’ve had a giveaway here on the blog, so I thought I’d make up for it by making the prize one of the best books I’ve ever read in my life.
If you haven’t read Unbroken, you must! It was recently recommended to me three times before I finally downloaded it to my Kindle because I didn’t want to wait behind the 21 other people on the reserve list at my local library.
Some of the words I’ve read describing this book: soaring, triumphant, unforgettable, gripping, jaw-dropping, incredible…and it’s truly all this, and more.
Laura Hillenbrand has written a stunning book — I’m not normally drawn to books with war settings, but I was assured that this one would not disappoint, and it didn’t. I will read it again and again.
My husband Michael had shoulder replacement surgery two days ago at the Mayo Clinic, so I will be busy doting on him for a while. My next post or three might be fluffy and short. But this book is neither of those.
To enter to win this hardcover book, please leave a comment below and share the title of one of your favorite books. Some of you have done that before, but new titles are always being added to our lists, aren’t they? Comments will be taken until Monday, April 18th at 10:00 a.m. The winner will be picked randomly and announced later that same day.
Blessings,
Wednesday’s Word-Edition 59
April 13, 2011 | My Jottings
“One of the many divine qualities of the Bible is this: that it does not yield its secrets to the irreverent and censorious.”
J. I. Packer
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New Parts
April 9, 2011 | My Jottings
This is what we’ll be occupying ourselves with these next few weeks:
His surgery is on Tuesday morning….we would be so grateful for your prayers for Michael!
**UPDATE** — Michael is home from the Mayo Clinic and resting well and hopefully healing quickly. Due to the level of deterioration of his rotator cuff muscles, the surgeon decided to do a “reverse shoulder replacement” rather than the planned “anatomic” one. The shoulder parts Michael now has are pictured below – you can compare them with the ones above.
God bless you all,
Psalm 42
April 7, 2011 | My Jottings
As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
These things I remember as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.
Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
My soul is downcast within me;
therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan,
the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
By day the LORD directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God my Rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?”
My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
Psalm 42
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The Imposterbed Inn
April 5, 2011 | My Jottings
My dear husband recently turned 62. I informed him that I had never kissed a 62 year-old man before and wasn’t sure I wanted to. He just smiled. Then I kissed him and told him new things happen every day — now I can add kissed a 62 year-old man to my list of things accomplished.
We decided to get away for the weekend to celebrate. We mostly wanted to rest and sleep and to have no real agenda. Friday afternoon we drove a couple hours and arrived in a sleepy town on the Lake we love, and stayed in a big old inn we’ve never visited before. It was grey and rainy when we arrived so it didn’t look quite like the photo below, but this is how the inn looks from the road in the winter.
The proprietors of the inn were outstanding people — a retired couple who cared very much that each guest have a wonderful experience there. We were impressed and thankful, and could not recommend them enough. There were just a few problems, however.
This is our room, which was spacious and bright, and located on the second floor, with a three sided fireplace. We put down our suitcase, took off our shoes, and plopped on the bed. Oh, no, I thought. This can’t be true! The bed looked like a bed — it was covered by a beautiful quilt and had soft sheets and four fluffy pillows. But we figured out in just a few seconds that this was a large queen-sized board pretending to be a bed.
And the three sided fireplace? We arrived on a chilly day and nothing sounded more cozy than napping in a soft, comfortable bed just a few feet from a cheery fire. But the fireplace didn’t work. There was a thermostat on the wall and it clicked when it was turned on, promising in its own thermostatic way that flames would be dancing in the hearth at any moment, but no. The click produced no flame and the room stayed cold. The gracious proprietress said she would send her husband over to fiddle with the thermostat when he returned from town. Later on that evening he did get the fireplace to work (yay!) and advised us to just slowly tweak the thermostat back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until the flames sprang to life. We did that, and were grateful the thermostat wasn’t a pretender, just a slacker.
There was no TV in our room, which was an amenity to me. We knew from their website there would be a clock radio/CD player, so as we laid on the imposter bed we enjoyed the very soft strains of a Mozart CD and exhaled an inner aaahh, until the CD player malfunctioned and made a sound that it shouldn’t make and the LED display flashed ERROR. Each CD met with the same fate — beautiful, soothing music for a couple minutes, then an unexpected sound and error message from the player, and then silence.
Oh well, I thought. It will just be very, very restful and quiet here, which is really what we want. I brought some knitting, but no books, because I gave up books for Lent.
Michael fell asleep immediately because he deals with exhaustion due to his Parkinson’s. I laid beside him and watched the fire. It was quite nice.
I did not take any pictures from our first night at the inn. If I had, you would have seen two weary people tossing and turning, trying to get comfortable in a queen-sized board professing to be a bed. At 10:00 p.m. you would have seen two grown adults spring in terror from the bed with their hands to their ears, wondering what the deafening roar was. You would have seen them crawl back in bed when they finally recalled that the proprietress had told them that after the whirlpool tub was used, a powerful sucking fan/vacuum automatically came on under the tub to remove any bit of water left in the hoses. You would have also seen confusion on the couple’s faces, because they hadn’t used the tub that night, so weren’t expecting the fan, which was as loud as a small jet engine placed inches from the bed, and roared for two full minutes. Hours later you would have seen bleary eyes wide open in the dark, a man’s small pocket flashlight trying to find the way to the bathroom, and small grimaces because of complaining joints.
The next morning we were so ecstatic to get out of the fake bed and give our hips and backs a rest from resting. We joined the other guests at the inn for breakfast in the beautiful, stately dining room. The owners were friendly and helpful, and the food was plentiful and tasty.
Michael and I looked forward to a day of exploring the shops in the little town, and of driving around aimlessly to look at houses for sale, acres of rolling hills and thousands of apple trees that had just made it through winter and were silently preparing to bring forth their blossoms. One of the most popular orchards in the little town is this one:
I think the highlight of the trip for me was seeing these:
Dormant apple trees by the thousands, trees that very well could have supplied fruit to our own table, and most certainly have been the source of some of the best apple cider in the world. I don’t even like apple cider, but I like the thick, tart, cloudy cider that comes from these trees in this town.
Knowing nothing about apple husbandry, I was astonished to see that all the apple trees were pruned very low. We didn’t see one tree that was over six feet tall — they were growing broad and close to the ground, and I wondered if that was for ease of apple-picking, or for sap-rise and growth reasons. Or maybe both. Any apple husbands out there that could shed some light on this?
On Saturday morning we drove and drove, which Michael loves. There were hardly any cars to be seen in and around this little town of less than 1000 people, so it was easy to stop in the middle of the road to roll down our windows and talk to the deer. We talk to deer. Yes, we do. We raise our voices close to soprano levels (Michael’s almost approaches tenor on a good day) and wave to them and say things like, “Hello little deer! It’s just us! You are so pretty little deer! Don’t be afraid.” Michael’s deer-cooings always include the word “buddy,” as in “Hey, little buddy, we see you little buddy!” and so on, and eloquent so on. My husband the Mighty Deer Hunter has become the Tender Deer Coo-er.
The deer don’t look very convinced, do they? You can click to enlarge for more detail.
After we drove around and pointed out several houses with breathtaking views of Lake Superior we thought we could retire in, we decided not to have lunch at a restaurant. Instead we bought a fresh baguette of French bread, a soft cheese and some apples, and we drove down to the edge of Lake Superior, overlooking Chequamegon Bay. You could say sha-WAH-muh-gun if you’re from the area, or CHECK-wah-MEE-gun if you want to draw a wry smile from the locals.
The ice was breaking up and the sun was bright enough to relieve anyone’s Seasonal Affective Disorder; we sat in the car eating our simple lunch, letting the 40 degree breeze blow through the windows, and giving thanks for being able to live near Lake Superior.
It was at this point as a little girl that I always said to my father when we were on a pier near the southern California ocean: “Daddy, would you jump off of here for a million dollars?” I didn’t ask Michael that, but looking over the edge into the 36-degree water below brought back fond and quirky childhood memories. 🙂
Just to the left of where this photo was taken was an ice house on the lake. With a man ice fishing on the quickly thinning ice. Michael seemed to understand. I did not.
Buckling ice on the shore:
After our peaceful lunch we drove back to the inn and thought we’d give resting another try. We didn’t get a lot of restful sleep the night before because of the charlatan bed, but we were feeling generous and wanted to give the bed a chance to prove itself.
Michael feel asleep within sixty seconds, and my bones promptly announced, “Oh, no you don’t — you did this to us last night — you’re not going to do it again so soon today — just forget about it.” So I sat up in one of the wicker chairs and finished a scarf I’m making for a dear friend in California out of this yarn that my oldest daughter dyed.
In the early evening on Saturday we had reservations to eat here. It’s an old Victorian inn and they prepare some of the most exquisite food on the planet. No imposters here — this was the real deal.
There are three small dining rooms — the green, the red and the blue. We were in the red dining room and I tried to get a few pictures.
The fork’s view:
The birthday boy:
The leaded glass windows were so much prettier than I could photograph:
My salad was described on the menu thusly: “Baby Spinach Side Salad –with local berries, Roth Kasse Buttermilk Blue cheese, red onions, toasted pecans, and our own honey pecan vinaigrette.”
It was amazingly delicious. I love blue cheese. There’s something about ribbons of greenish-blue mold winding through soft cheese that puts a song in my heart. I was so happy about my moldy cheese that I thought it deserved a private photo sitting all its own:
And since I’m always the one toting the camera and Michael doesn’t take kindly to looking through a viewfinder, I set the camera down and timed a shot of me. Apparently I never looked in the mirror before we left our room, or I would have noticed that my turtleneck resembled a black cervical collar for a whiplash victim.
Michael’s entree was called Steak del Mar. It was a tender sirloin set atop a platform of mashed Yukon Golds, which was placed in a creamy mushroom and green peppercorn sauce, topped with marinated shrimp (hence, the del Mar), and accompanied by fresh asparagus.
I ordered the Champagne Chicken, which was a grilled chicken breast in a champagne-Gran Marnier cream sauce with roasted mushrooms, mashed Yukon Golds, and a drizzle of truffle oil. And asparagus. My own made-up word — moanworthy — applies to every bite of food we had at the Rittenhouse Inn.
I will not go into detail about our second night of attempted sleep at The Imposterbed Inn. The jet-engine blasted on again and this time we didn’t jump out of bed — we just laid there pressing our palms against our ears. A young and lively couple stayed in the room below us and clearly their reasons for getting away to a country inn were not the same as ours. They were enthusiastic whoopers for much of the night, and by this time we just thought there might as well be a party below us since the bed on which we were trying to sleep preferred we would be awake all night anyway. It was truly a lovely and delightful place for those who prefer a firm, cement-like mattress.
On Sunday morning we looked at each other and decided we would head for home and forgo the delicious breakfast our hospitable hosts would offer. We packed in the pre-dawn light and carried our things quietly to the car. We were on the road by 7:00 a.m., thinking of our wonderful, soft, familiar bed at home.
Within forty minutes the weather deteriorated and we were in the middle of a strong blizzard with white-out conditions. The snow was piling up on the highway and we drove very slowly after hitting a patch of ice on a bridge and almost spinning out. That had never happened to me and my heart pounded for a long time after something prevented us from going off the road down into a steep ditch.
Michael has eyes that spot two things like nobody’s business. He can spot any bird in any tree from almost any distance while traveling in a vehicle going any speed. He sees hawks at the top of the fourth tree in the glen on the east side of the car traveling at 60 MPH, and bald eagles circling seventy miles above the earth, barely visible to most naked eyes. He has difficulty reading the morning paper sometimes, but he can spot birds. And roadside diners.
As we crept along in the blizzard that swirled huge goose feather-sized flakes all around us, Michael spotted The Rustic Roost up ahead on the left and directed me to turn in. He said we needed to get off the road until the squall had passed. I knew he wanted to get off the road and have what he would eat every day of his life if he could: two eggs fried over easy, hash browns, a sausage patty, two pieces of whole wheat toast with peanut butter, and strong coffee.
Here’s a Rustic Roost menu in front of a happy man:
The Imposterbed Inn was a really nice place, but we thought the bed was a little too difficult to get along with. The Rustic Roost doesn’t really compare with The Rittenhouse, but it was nice to have a friendly warm place for breakfast and protection from the snowstorm. The snow turned to sleet and then rain as we ate, and we drove the rest of the way home without incident.
The first thing we did after arriving home and carrying in our things?
Plopped down on our own wonderful, slightly mushy bed.
April Fool’s Snow
April 1, 2011 | My Jottings
The day I was Peggy Lipton for 10 seconds
March 30, 2011 | My Jottings
In late 1979 I was 22 years old, living in Germany, and my daughters were two years old and eight months old. As I’ve shared about before, things in our life changed rather suddenly that year, and we found ourselves flying home from Europe to California, sans a husband and daddy. We lived with my mom for six months before I climbed to my emotional feet, and got a good job and a place of our own.
Since my husband was in the Air Force, I was still legally entitled to military benefits until he secured the divorce he wanted, so when we returned stateside, I had to get a new Air Force ID card. My ID card allowed me to shop in any military commissary and Base Exchange, and it showed that we were eligible for military medical benefits as well.
When I walked into the licensing building at March AFB, I took a number and waited to be called to sign my name and have my picture taken. When I stepped forward, the airman who took and perused my paperwork greeted me without looking up. “Here for a new stateside ID card? Okay, step to the gray line, look right here at the camera…”
Then he looked up and did a double-take. I had no idea why he was peering at me so intently for a few seconds, and checking the paperwork I’d handed over. Then the young man said, “Wow, for a minute there I thought you were Peggy Lipton.”
Peggy Lipton of “The Mod Squad.” For younger readers you may not know who Peggy Lipton is, but when I was an eighth grader at Traweek Junior High School and a Freshman at Covina High, “The Mod Squad” TV show was all the rage. Almost every teen girl I knew had a crush on Michael Cole. As a matter of fact, the two girls I walked to school with each morning were so enamored with him, they insisted on carrying on a make-believe production every morning about how they were dating Michael Cole. They wanted me to play along as we walked and carried our books, and say things like “Oh, yes, Mike came over last night and we went to get an ice cream cone. He is crazy about me. We had so much fun.” Guess what? I refused. I was 14 years old and I was slightly grossed out by their play-acting and just wouldn’t do it. I tried not to make them feel bad since they were having such a good time — I think I told my friends I would just listen as they discussed their fun activities with Michael Cole the day before.
Anyway, almost a decade later (by then “The Mod Squad” had faded into television history) I was momentarily mistaken for Peggy Lipton, which I thought was perplexing and a little funny.
Fast forward 32 years. We are currently getting ready to list our house for sale, and I’ve been going through things. In an old box of photos I found the Air Force ID I’m talking about:
Peggy Lipton:
And I also found a picture of The Mod Squad, but not in my old box of photos. 🙂
Other than perhaps the hairstyle, I didn’t see the resemblance the young airman commented on. But on that day in 1979 with the future uncertain, I took it as a sort of compliment. Because he could have said I looked like Ethel Merman. Or Ruth Buzzi.
Of course I no longer have a military ID. In recent years when I’ve gotten my driver’s license renewed, no one has mistaken me for Peggy Lipton. Not one person.
What’s up with that? 🙂
Who have you been told you resemble?
Soon and very soon…
March 29, 2011 | My Jottings
It was nine degrees when I woke up yesterday morning.
But by the time I put dinner on the table at 6:00 p.m., it was thirty-seven degrees and the snow had gone down a little bit more. Today’s forecast calls for temperatures just above freezing, so we might see drips from the roof and wet streets — always a heartening sight in the Great North Woods.
I keep telling myself that soon and very soon, real spring will be here. Soon and very soon, this might be the view outside my office window once again. (Click to enlarge and see who loves spring as well…)
Green and lushness are coming. Leaves and shade are coming. Open windows and soft breezes are coming. Sandals and short sleeves are coming. Blooms and color are coming. Hammocks and 5:00 a.m. bird twitter are coming. Soon….
“It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want — oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”
Mark Twain
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What does the coming of spring mean to you?
Scenes from a weekend
March 28, 2011 | My Jottings
We were blessed to be able to have Mr. McBoy, Mrs. Nisky and Lil’ Gleegirl come and spend the weekend with us. I just thought I’d share a few random photos I took.

A lovely gift from my friend Ginny – it makes me think of her and say a prayer of thanks each time I see this

We bought this wooden applique from an online company and glued it on the surround– in the catalog this applique was called, oddly, “Los Angeles”

A little bit of sunshine drawn by Vivie and attached to a kitchen cabinet – as much of a masterpiece as any painting

Tulips from a family friend who came for dinner on Saturday, with Monopoly going on in the background 🙂
Have a blessed and peaceful week,