Our Goldfinch Aviary
November 9, 2009 | My Jottings
Our home has now been declared an official sanctuary for goldfinches by the National Audubon Society.
That’s not really true, but it I think it should be.
You can read about our adventures with trying to buy three simple bird prints from a reputable and well-known online company if you click here.
Each time I called the company to explain that yet another goldfinch print was done wrong and had been shipped to me, they were very friendly and promised to get right on it to correct the order. Then another print would arrive by FedEx and it would be wrong too. I sent a photo to their returns department with every wrong bird print that arrived. Each time I called I spoke slowly and patiently, and I gave exact measurements and even talked to supervisors, but as you can see in the photo below, they still weren’t able to get it right. (I even asked my son-in-law Chris, who is a master in dealing with people in situations like this, to call the company for me.)
The two framed prints on the left (the Eastern Bluebird and the Northern Cardinal) are the correct size. The aviary of goldfinches to the right of those are all the wrong size; none of them match the size of the cardinal and bluebird.
On Saturday I received another nicely matted and framed print (the one on the far right), and not only is it again the wrong size, but this time they used the wrong frame. It might be hard to see in this photo, but it’s a different color and design than the others. **Sigh**
When I called the company again and told them that we now have a small flock of goldfinches in our house, they were very friendly and extremely apologetic, and finally said they had lost confidence that they’d be able to get the order right, and stated they’d refund all my money. I was very relieved about that.
I guess I’ll be starting from scratch, and not using that well-known and reputable online art company again.
In the meantime, the reason I’m posting this photo is because apparently this interesting experience has made some of you laugh pretty hard. One friend said the whole “ornithological oddity ordeal” was my funniest post yet. I was rather surprised at that, because I wasn’t trying to be funny at all. But if this post and this photo will make any of you laugh again, I certainly want to foster and accommodate that!
Here’s to some hearty ha-ha-ing!
Hankering for a hobby?
November 7, 2009 | My Jottings
This is the time of year when many people think about taking up a hobby. In my part of the country those of us who don’t cross-country ski, snowboard, or ice fish, think of inside pursuits to while away the cold winter months that are fast approaching.
Some of my friends and loved ones knit. Another friend crochets. Another quilts. I know someone else who does the most amazing cross-stitch creations you can imagine. One of my friends makes gorgeous jewelry. Years ago I used to try my hand at creative scrapbooking but now turn to my beloved books more and more.
For those of you who get that winter hankering to do something creative with your hands, I have a hobby for you to consider.
I’m not sure what it’s called yet – maybe after looking at the photo below you’ll be able to help me with a name for this new crafty trend.
I learned about this new hobby a couple of weeks ago when I opened my home for a Mexican potluck dinner with several women from my church. As we sat together and enjoyed Chris’s Mexican lasagna, Carol’s Mexican rice, Kim’s homemade salsa and chicken tortilla soup, Ginny’s most-delicious-ever-eaten refried beans and Darlene’s Sopapilla Cheesecake, we had the greatest time together. We laughed and shared and enjoyed each other’s company so much, even though some of us were just newly acquainted with some of the women there. It was a relaxed, comfortable, joyful time.
One of the women in attendance was encouraged to share about her job as caretaker to a millionaire family in our area. She works at their breathtakingly beautiful old mansion and caters to the whims and fancies of whatever it is millionaires feel they need. We learned at our Mexican potluck dinner that some millionaires feel very strongly about their toilet paper. This particular family has fourteen bathrooms in their mansion on the lake. And part of this lovely woman’s job as caretaker for this mansion is to make sure the toilet paper in all fourteen bathrooms is just right. Not just well-supplied and always within reach. Not just hung properly, with the paper coming over the top rather than from behind. No. Our dear friend’s job description as caretaker to a millionaire’s mansion is not only to shop and clean and set gorgeous tables and who-knows-what-else, but it is also to make sure that every single toilet paper roll in all fourteen of the bathrooms looks like this when it’s hanging in its place:
See the little banner that hangs down as a pointed pocket, holding the perfectly folded little fan? Have you ever seen anything like this? By this time we had all discreetly unbuttoned our jeans and pushed our plates away, and our friend gave us a lesson on how to create this lovely fan in its holder on a regular roll of toilet paper.
After I picked my jaw up off the ground and reigned in my thoughts about millionaires, I immediately grabbed the camera to snap a picture of this because I knew it would provide inspiration for my readers in search of a hobby.
Here are the amazingly simple instructions: tear off two squares of tissue and fold back and forth back and forth evenly to make accordion pleats, then fold in half to bring pleats together in the shape of a fan. Set aside. Next, pull several squares of toilet paper down away from the roll, keeping them intact with the roll. Fold the two corners up toward each other to make a v-shape pointing downward, then fold this v up toward the roll. Then take the two sides of the paper and fold slightly under toward the roll, creating a gradual diagonal line from the roll down to the end of the hanging piece. Press firmly on each side to crease. Make sure it’s even and crisp looking. Then bring that small tab up again and press to form a secure pocket in which to place your perfectly folded small fan.
So simple, and it only takes about sixteen minutes to do each one. When setting the fan down in the little pocket, take care to do it gently so the pocket holds. If it doesn’t hold and tears, you have to start all over again. But since it’s your new hobby, you wouldn’t be that upset if it didn’t work the first time around, because part of the reason one takes up a hobby is to keep busy and to have something to do with one’s hands, right?
Once mastered, you should do this each time the toilet paper is used, so that the next person in your bathroom is greeted with this delightful little outhouse origami.
Let’s just think this through together. If you’re hankering for a hobby and decide to take up knitting, you’ll have to buy a beautiful designer knitting tote, a bunch of needles in different sizes, some stitch counters, some pattern books, and dozens of skeins of some yarn. And if you wanted to knit something beautiful, you’d have to buy higher end yarn like my daughter dyes, here at her website. If you take up quilting, you’ll have to drag out your sewing machine onto the dining room table, buy a few hundred pieces of fabric, an Olfa board and a rotary cutter, lots of needles and thread, some bifocals, some batting and a hoop. If you want to learn to do counted cross-stitch, you’ll need patterns, charts, canvas, lots of colorful thread roughly the size of DNA strands, and a powerful magnifying glass. If scrapbooking is what you’re leaning toward, you need a nice acid-free scrapbook to start with, different colors of acid-free backing paper, acid-free adhesive, acid-free stickers, acid-free doo-dads, a miniature paper cutter, several pairs of decorative scissors, and a craft room addition on the back of your house.
If you decide to start small and take up the hobby of toilet paper folding, you’re most likely already set to go! Nothing to buy, nothing to haul with you, no special place on the dining room table is needed. All you need is a bathroom, two hands, and a roll of toilet paper. Anyone can do this! Are you a homeschooling mom? This could be your children’s art project next Friday! Teach your little ones the joys of toilet paper folding and they can learn to craft this diminutive fan in its holder each time the bathroom gets used.
And here’s one final benefit to taking up this new hobby. Consider what people’s opinion of you might be if they visit your home and see this unique and elegant creation waiting for them in your bathroom! Your friends will view you in a whole new way. And you will have a satisfying new hobby to busy yourself with this winter.
Me? I haven’t been able to master the fan yet.
I think I’ll stick to blogging and reading books…and praying for my friend who works for the millionaires. 🙂
Nod to November
November 4, 2009 | My Jottings
I have a good friend who is always smiling and usually quite cheerful, but he dreads the coming of November. He says he doesn’t like the eleventh month because the creeping cold, the bare trees, loss of color and resulting bleakness, the shorter, darker days, bring on some depression for him. For my friend, gray Novembers usher in a sort of gray living.
I understand his feelings, and can relate somewhat. January always seems to be my bleakest month, because in northern Minnesota it’s often so bitterly cold by then. Christmas is gone, long months of cold and dark are looming, and the wind-chill hurts. The happiest thing about January for me is the birthday of my middle daughter Carolyn. 🙂
But this post is about November. Here’s what November means to me…
1. Thanksgiving, of course. Turkey, stuffing, tryptophan.
2. The month my father died
3. Vivienne‘s 4th birthday
4. Carey‘s birthday
5. Gail’s birthday
6. Vague memories of my first wedding when I was a mere eighteen years old, in a tiny wayside chapel in Rough and Ready, California
7. Soups simmering
8. Attempts at baking homemade breads and rolls
9. Snowbird daydreams
10. Decorating for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving
11. Time to buy our yearly two new Christmas CDs to add to our collection
12. Mukluks always out, sitting by the back door
13. Patience, waiting, hoping
14. Checking the weather report before leaving the house
15. Thanking God for remote car starters
16. A furnace that hardly ever goes off now
17. Gale warnings on Lake Superior, made famous by Gordon Lightfoot’s song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”
18. Taking 1 Thessalonians 5:18 very seriously, as if right now my life depended on it: “give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
What does November mean to you?
SAGs at Stonegate – Part 3
November 2, 2009 | My Jottings
Imagine sitting in a warm and cozy cabin by a fire, while moody and majestic Lake Superior alternately pounds or gently laps the shoreline just yards away. Imagine the rhythmic creak of a rocking chair while a wonderful book is being read aloud by a pleasant and melodic voice. Think of piles of Bibles and books and Bible study workbooks on the coffee table, silent testimony to which well the visitors to this cabin are drawing from, which path in life they’re walking, Whose wisdom and face they seek. These are some of the snapshots I have in my memory from our SAGs weekend away.
We all have taken some sweet memories home with us from our recent SAGs retreat at Stonegate on Superior. Here are a few highlights from our last day there.
All four of us love to read, so it seemed entirely appropriate that Lorna brought The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis, and read to us about his thoughts on friendship. So many quotes inspired thoughtful discussion and one of our favorite quotes will be shared below.
Picture a soft and pastel-colored baby afghan taking shape as a loving new grandma’s silent prayers entwine with each crocheted stitch, making an heirloom that will cover that baby girl in warmth and prayer.
On our final night at Stonegate, Pat made the most delicious dinner – Spaghetti Carbonara, with a salad and garlic bread.
Pat, Julie, Gail and Lorna, the four SAving Graces, or SAGs. Enjoying the quiet, the beauty of our surroundings, the conversation, the food, and the friendship that God has given us.
I got up early on Sunday morning, wrapped up in a blanket and went out onto the deck. The sunrise was so much more spectacular than this photo depicts. As I sat there and watched I thought simply and profoundly (at least to me), “The sun is coming up again. That must mean that God thinks there is still hope.”
Five minutes later: the cantaloupe colors were replaced by pink and peach and periwinkle.
And here Lake Superior took on the colors of the sky. Soon after I took this picture we all started packing our things and preparing to head back to our homes and respective blessings and challenges.
I thought I’d share one of the passages on friendship we all liked in Lewis’s The Four Loves:
“Lovers are always talking about their love; friends hardly ever about their friendship. Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; friends, side by side, absorbed in some common interest. Above all, Eros (while it lasts) is necessarily between two only. But two, far from being the necessary number for Friendship, is not even the best. And the reason for this is important.
“Lamb says somewhere that if, of three friends (A, B, and C), A should die, then B loses not only A but “A’s part in C,” while C loses not only A but “A’s part in B.” In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out…hence true friendship is the least jealous of loves. Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth…hence we picture lovers face to face but friends side by side; their eyes look ahead.”
This rang so true to the four SAGs. We all are blessed with other close friends and there’s no jealousy about this. We’re always so happy when we know someone else loves another SAG as much as the other three SAGs love her. But we do believe God brought the four of us together for His good purposes, some of which we may not even know about yet. We know that He has given us comfort, encouragement, laughter, hope, prayer, correction, challenge, loyalty and companionship through our little group. How thankful we are for this!
When the four of us talk about aging together, I’m usually the one to bring up that most likely, three SAGs will someday attend the first funeral of our group, and I tell them that I know it will be mine. Don’t ask me how I know – I just have a maudlin side to me that spills sloshes over now and then. 🙂 I have asked Gail, Lorna and Pat to share at my funeral someday and they have agreed.
For now, we are helping each other with the wonderful, terrible business of living.
We are “friends, side by side, our eyes looking ahead…”
Useless trivia you never wanted to know
October 30, 2009 | My Jottings
My children know probably better than anyone that I’m a list maker and a list lover. I enjoy useless trivia, and whenever I see one of these lists on someone’s blog, I’m fascinated. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be fascinated, however, when you learn some things about me you probably never wanted to know. 🙂
Here are some questions going around in blogland, and I’m jumping in.
1. What is your favorite thing to snack on while you’re blogging? In the mornings when I do most of my blog writing, I always have a homemade concoction I call my Cappuccino Cooler, made of cold milk, instant coffee granules, Hershey’s chocolate syrup and hazelnut creamer. Other than that, not too much eating goes on at the computer. That isn’t to say a lot of eating doesn’t go on elsewhere. Just not at the computer.
2. What is one thing you wouldn’t want to live without? Well the obvious would be all my family members. My husband Michael, my daughters Sharon, Carolyn and Sara. Their husbands Chris and Jeremy. And their children (and my grans) Clara, Elijah, Vivienne, Audrey, Mr. McBoy, Mrs. Nisky and Little Gleegirl.
But now that I look at it, the question did ask “what is one thing,” so I think the one inanimate thing I wouldn’t want to live without would be books. The Book. And many other little b books.
3. Beach, Mountains, or Farm? Where would you live if you had a choice? I’ve roasted myself too many times at the beach, and when I visit it doesn’t feel like home anymore. Farm? That sounds like a lot of work, with an awful lot of poop involved. I would have to say the mountains. The Alps, preferably. Wouldn’t you love to live in the shadow of the Alps? That sounds like heaven to me.
4. What’s your least favorite chore/household duty? I am slightly allergic to paperwork these days. And I’m not crazy about dusting, so I just don’t do it.
5. Who do people say you remind them of? I was told in my preteens that I looked like Twiggy. (I’ll pause here while you stop chortling and pick yourself up off the floor.)
In my twenties someone I didn’t know once actually tapped me on my shoulder to inform me that I looked like Stevie Nicks.
In my forties I started looking more like my mother.
Now that I’m in my fifties I’m guessing it would be Doris Roberts.
6. Prefer parties and socializing or staying home with the fam? I would rather stay home. I enjoy a nice gathering with a friend or two also, but the very word “party” makes me tired. Although I did have several women from my church over last week for a Mexican potluck and it was one of the more delightful times I’ve had recently.
7. What’s your all time favorite movie? The Sound of Music. And One True Thing. And Anne of Green Gables.
8. Do you sleep in your make-up or remove it like a good little girl every night? I hardly ever wear makeup anymore. If I wear mascara, I always take it off first, or am asking for eye trouble the next day.
9. Do you have a hidden talent or a deep desire to learn something that you’ve never had a chance to learn? What is it? I would like to learn to play an instrument well, but don’t have the time to pursue it. The piano or the guitar would be my first choices. And I would like to learn how to write something publishable. 🙂
10. What’s one strange thing you’re really good at? I am good at remembering useless trivia and details, especially from long ago. Things like what color sweater Gail wore when the SAGs ate at The Olive Garden two Christmases ago, and where the four of us sat in the booth, and what the weather was like that night, and what kind of hubcaps were on my friend Denel’s family’s Ford station wagon in the sixties, and the colors of the ballerinas on her bedroom wallpaper, etc. I’m also pretty good at anything that takes quick and detailed manual dexterity.
11. What first attracted you to your spouse? His love for Jesus. His voice. His smile.
12. What is something you love to smell? Since I have suffered from anosmia for almost a year, I have missed smelling things. I have recently begun to smell some things again, though – like lemons and chicken cooking in the oven, and some perfumes. I’m thankful for that. My favorite smells used to be newborn babies, Beautiful perfume by Estee Lauder, pine trees and Michael’s neck.
13. Tell something about you that you know irritates people. I talk too much. I am a little controlling. 🙂 I think this list could be really long, but mercifully my loved ones don’t tell me often what bugs them about me.
14. When you have extra money, what’s the first thing you think to do with it? I think of giving it away.
15. Are you a silent laugher or a loud laugher? What makes you laugh the hardest? I think medium. I’m not sure. My daughters make me laugh – they’re all funny in their own ways and I love that. I also have a memory of laughing uncontrollably at my son-in-law Jeremy’s brother Jordan doing an amazing silent impression of a Velociraptor.
16. Where is your favorite place to shop? Online. Never in a mall.
17. What’s one thing you’d do more often if you had more time? Travel. To Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Israel, and many other places in the U.S.
18. Are you a big spender or frugal? This is strange, but I’m both. I rarely want to go out and spend money, and I’m a saver at heart. I like to be out of debt, but I would think nothing of spending a lot of money on something a loved one needed.
19. Who is your favorite character of all time? (from a movie or a book, can’t be real) I have long loved Jean Valjean from Les Miserables. But today I think it would have to be Cynthia Kavanagh, from the Mitford series. There are certainly other characters in literature who have deeper, more memorable attributes, but at this point in my life, she is who I wish I were more like.
20. Would you want to be famous? No. Who would want pictures of their cellulite on tabloid covers? Who would want paparazzi stalking them day and night? Anonymity is a blessed thing.
Edition 23-Wednesday’s Word
October 28, 2009 | My Jottings
“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”
Blaise Pascal
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Ornithological Oddity
October 24, 2009 | My Jottings
We’ve been slowly working on our living room for nineteen months now. When we moved into this new house, the living room served as the main place to pile up boxes almost to the ceiling, and it was the chief area where the grans rode their new bikes with training wheels around and around, around and around.
Then the boxes were eventually unpacked. And burned. In a fire-pit. With smoke billowing and flames leaping. In the back yard. But that is another story.
Then the bikes went outside when the weather warmed.
We kept making changes to the living room, then Michael and I would both pull chairs in there to sit, contemplating the next thing we wanted to do.
The first thing we did in the living room was have a strange, arched, built-in glass book case in the wall filled in. Then the walls and ceilings were newly plastered. Then we painted the walls and ceiling. Then we installed crown molding. Then we bought a few items of furniture, one piece at a time. Then we had the living room’s beautiful hardwood floors (gasp) carpeted. Then we rolled around on the carpet, as is our family custom.
The few projects left for this room are: order a fireplace surround, have window seat cushions made, get sheer curtains for the windows in the window seat, and hang the remaining pictures.
Which brings me to today’s post, which could also have been titled,”One of these things is not like the other…,” which I think most of you can sing by heart from Sesame Street.
We like birds in this house. Or maybe I should restate that – we, in this house, like birds. We don’t like to have birds in the actual house so much. Michael was devoted to birds long before he met me, and I have liked birds ever since a cardinal sent from heaven gave me much needed hope several years ago.
We have this big space on one of our living room walls that I wanted to fill with some kind of art. I didn’t want a huge piece, and instead decided that I would get three or four matching pieces – maybe framed, botanical prints.
Then when I was perusing an online art site, I found some neat bird prints that helped me decide we’d have an ornithological art grouping in the living room rather than a botanical one.
They arrived last week and I’m very happy with them, with one reservation. I ordered them to be exactly the same size, so they can hang on this big wall space one right next to the other.
Here’s how they arrived:
The goldfinch is framed slightly smaller than the other two. I went back over my order and saw that it wasn’t my mistake, so I called the company and they cheerfully agreed to send me a new goldfinch, framed exactly the same size as the Eastern Bluebird and the Northern Cardinal. The company’s service is really fast; the new goldfinch arrived from California within four days, and….it was the same size as the original smaller goldfinch. Rats.
I called again and they are working on another framed goldfinch print and assure me it will be the right size now. They are letting me keep the two smaller framed goldfinch prints free, for my trouble.
But I don’t have a place for them in my house. Who needs three large framed prints of goldfinches, two a little smaller than the other?
Should I put the prints out in the front yard with a “free” sign? Should I put them on Craigslist and see if there are any takers?
Or maybe someone reading this blog who is local and loves birds and has claret for one of their decorating colors would like them?
***(Update on 10/26: the new replacement just arrived and it’s even more wrong than the others. See below.)***
Still no takers on beautiful goldfinch prints, framed and matted?
🙁
SAGs at Stonegate – Part 2
October 22, 2009 | My Jottings
So while we SAGs were up the North Shore in our cozy little cabin, we did things we might not always have time for at home.
Below, Pat, who invented the game of Cribbage many years ago, teaches Gail how to play. Fifteen-two, fifteen-four, fifteen-six, a pair is eight and one for nobs is nine. Go. Because Gail is so brilliant, she caught on to the game within a few minutes. Three of us played several games while we were there, and it made me want to dig out one of Michael’s Cribbage boards and challenge him to a few games. It’s been a long time since he and I have played on the carved bone board we got in Alaska, but we’re old now so I think it’s an appropriate way to spend our evenings.
Our little kitchen bar was always well supplied with snacks. SAGs snacks. And as you can see, SAG smiles were in abundance as well. We had M&Ms, peanuts mixed with candy corn which really does taste like a salted nut roll, coffee, chai tea, Honeycrisp apples, a myriad of carbonated beverages, and Pat’s homemade peanut butter and chocolate bars. Which tasted heavenly with a cold glass of milk.
And when you’re away from home and don’t have laundry and paperwork calling your name, and there’s no television to zone out in front of, and your housework and homework is waiting patiently until you return, you have all the time in the world. Time enough to engage in relaxing activities such as…..watching popcorn pop. Which is what Lorna and Gail are doing below.
Young women of the world, take hope! You have no idea what thrills await you in middle age.
These are professional women in the photo below. But sometimes girls (even professional girls) just wanna have fun.
Lorna made a key lime cheese ball and rolled it in graham cracker crumbs. We used graham crackers to scoop into it – very yummy!
This lovely deck was built right on the shoreline of Lake Superior, and we sat down here in the sun. The wind was chilly, though, so we had to sit by the Lake in increments. Gail brought her Beth Moore Stepping Up Bible study down to the deck and we talked about the Psalms of Ascent, and how song/music is the fluent language of the soul.
There may not have been any televisions or radios at Stonegate on Superior, but you can bet all four of us had our cell phones in tow. Below, Pat talks on hers while sitting by the fire pit we planned on visiting after the sun went down, but never did.
Below, Julie and Lorna are laughing uproariously as they tried to practice exuberant, alliterative prayers. Because her maiden name started with an H, Lorna got us started with that letter, and soon we were crying out phrases like “Help! Hover over our hapless hullabaloo! And hurry!”
Please don’t pity us. You had to have been there.
With lots of leisure time, the SAGs were able to quilt, crochet and read. We played a quiet game of Scrabble and wondered whether or not faxes is an abbreviation. We also had story time with Miss Lorna, which I’ll talk about in Part 3. And we had Tom Cruise’s Spaghetti Carbonara for dinner. And we gave foot rubs and tried to watch a movie on Gail’s laptop but abandoned that idea when our audio trouble couldn’t be fixed. And we had Culver’s on another night for an early dinner (Butterburgers and onion rings and a pumpkin shake.) Since there are no In-n-Outs in Minnesota, Culver’s is the next best thing.
And we talked. And talked. And cried. And cried (at least I did). And laughed. And we even did a little dreaming together.
Isn’t that what a SAGs retreat is for?
We were so grateful for our time away, we decided to mark our ten year SAGs anniversary (in 2012) with another retreat. We have a little over two years to plan. Today I checked out other cabins online that we might like to visit. We’d like to go again in the fall of the year to enjoy the beautiful autumn colors and the chilly nights that are just right for a fire in the hearth.
Vermont, here come the SAGs!
Edition 22-Wednesday’s Word
October 21, 2009 | My Jottings
The Lord sends no one away empty except those who are full of themselves.
Dwight L. Moody
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SAGs at Stonegate – Part 1
October 20, 2009 | My Jottings
Not long ago the four SAGs headed north for our first retreat together in the almost eight years we’ve been a group. We stayed at a quiet little resort on the north shore of Lake Superior called Stonegate On Superior.
All of us have crazy busy things going on in our lives, and we all needed to get away for some refreshing and some down time. The four days and three nights we were gone were just what the Doctor Gail ordered. 🙂 (That was a veiled congratulations to our Gail, who is our resident Physical Therapist and just earned her doctorate this year. Yay Gail!)
First, the particulars: this photo above is a view of the small but clean kitchen in Cabin 5, where we stayed.
We all agreed that we wanted a fireplace in our cabin, and we wanted to be close to the Lake. Although this fireplace didn’t crackle cozily from a real wood fire, it kept the whole two bedroom cabin warm from a switch on the wall. You can also see the little dining area between the kitchen and the living room.
This is a view of one of the bedrooms. Our beds were remarkably comfortable and we could look out of the window and see and hear the Lake, only a stone’s throw away. We could also lay in bed at night and hear the teeth and claws of a largish, unknown animal relentlessly gnawing and chomping and scraping on the outside of the cabin. We were too terrified smart to go out in the cold and pitch dark to investigate. The next morning we saw insulation strewn around the ground where the brute had been chewing.
Here are Gail and Pat (on the deck) and Lorna in front of our little cabin on the Lake.
This is the shoreline that was just a thirty second walk from our cabin. The Lake changed moods several times while we were there – one night the waves were large enough to sound like the ocean, other times the water was fairly smooth. We also saw wind-blown white caps chopping up the surface and a huge lit up ore boat heading for harbor the last evening we were at Stonegate.
I plan to put up more posts about our SAGs weekend over the next few days – you’ll see some food, some goofiness, some games, some wistfulness, some hobbies, and some scenery.
For now I’ll leave you with a photo of the four of us. We hadn’t even been there twenty-four hours and already we were looking happy and rested.
Well, pretty much.

Julie, Lorna, Pat, Gail
Blessings,