Bobbi & Me

Here I am today with my friend Bobbi from Gracie Owns Me. I met Bobbi through her delightful blog, which is both funny and touching, and her dog Gracie is a real character. Bobbi is beautiful, soft spoken, gentle, and smart, and her husband Gary is way cool, a real charmer!! They are a wonderful couple. So my question to you is: why were we together, what were we doing, and where were we? The clues are in the pictures. In my next post you will find out!

"Cultivate inner beauty, the gentle, gracious kind that God delights in."

1Peter

A Tale Of Two Lovers

 

Wow, so many of you knew what this fruit is!! And I knew you would! It is, indeed, a Lychee tree. Lychees are native to China and have been cultivated for 2,000 years. The fruit is said to be sweet and delicious, rich in vitamin C, with many health benefits. You can also get them canned in syrup or dried. The story goes that a Chinese emperor was in love with a lady named Yang. Her favorite fruit was lychee, so he had them delivered by fast messenger relay horses, whose riders took shifts day and night. As it happened, rebels wanted the emperors throne and claimed he was not doing his job because of being so infatuated with Yang. Rather than lose the throne, the emperor sent his love a piece of white silk to hang herself with. She was 38 years old when she died in 756.  The emperor wept bitterly, and later abdicated the throne. Lychee, anyone?

“Judas threw the silver coins into the Temple and left. Then he went out and hung himself.”

Matthew 27

The Ones That Weep

Every year I post the weeping cherry trees. This years are so graceful and beautiful, yet have a very sad history. I told this story last year and will tell it again now. They are native to Japan, where they are held in very high esteem. During world War ll, their blossoms were used to motivate the Japanese people. Japanese pilots would paint them on the sides of their planes before going on a suicide mission, and sometimes even take the branches with them. They symbolized the fleeting intensity of life. The falling cherry petals came to represent the sacrifice of the Japanese youth to honor the emperor. 

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. Upon the willows in the midst of it we hung our harps."   Psalm 137

A Little Training

 

This afternoon we had the pleasure of seeing Anne Marie ride her bike without training wheels! She has just learned this week and is so happy! I think we will take her shopping tomorrow and buy her a bell, perhaps a pink one. It's amazing what a little training will do. 

“My dear child, don't shrug off God's discipline, but don't be crushed by it either. It's the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects. God is educating you; that's why you must never drop out. He's treating you as dear children. This trouble you're in isn't punishment; it's training, the normal experience of children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves… We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God's training so we can truly live? While we were children, our parents did what seemed best to them. But God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God's holy best. At the time, discipline isn't much fun. It always feels like it's going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it's the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God.”

Hebrews 12

Let A Smile Be Your Umbrella

Whenever skies are gray,
Don`t you worry or fret,
A smile will bring the sunshine,
And you`ll never get wet!

So, let a smile be your umbrella,
On a rainy, rainy day
By-Fain, Sammy/Kahal, Irving/Wheeler, Francis


We have been getting a lot of rain lately and are to have more storms tonight and tomorrow. I wonder how many of you remember this old song? You never hear it anymore.  We were driving down the street and I spotted the man in the first picture, carrying a frilly pink polka-dot umbrella. It made me smile, and I wondered if he had grabbed his wife's umbrella on the way out. Colorful, pretty umbrellas are a bright spot on a dreary day. I will not be visiting anyone today because I am going to get an eye exam, so I will be dilated and seeing blurry for most of the day.

“ My teaching, let it fall like a gentle rain, my words arrive like morning dew, Like a sprinkling rain on new grass, like spring showers on the garden. For it's God's Name I'm preaching— respond to the greatness of our God! The Rock: His works are perfect, and the way he works is fair and just; A God you can depend upon, no exceptions, a straight-arrow God.”

Deuteronomy 32

Pastel

Sunset in pastel
All is quiet, all is well

I took these pictures while we were driving over the mountains on our way home last July. Sometimes the interstate isn't so bad after all.

“He doesn't treat us as our sins deserve, nor pay us back in full for our wrongs. As high as heaven is over the earth, so strong is his love to those who fear him. And as far as sunrise is from sunset, he has separated us from our sins.”

Psalm 103

Stooge For A Day

I took Phil to see "The Three Stooges" movie today. I think the Stooges are strictly a guy thing, since  I have never known a woman who liked them. It was literally painful for me to sit through this movie, as they chocked a dolphin, burned a man's chest with hot irons, fell off buildings and ladders, and got chain sawed in the head...and that was just in the first minute!!! O.K. I am kidding about the first minute part... anyway, I am glad that Phil liked the movie. For any Stooge fans, here is a picture of The Stooges as babies, then at 10 years old. Yes, I snapped the huge screen in the theater! We went to Zeus, our new state of the art movie theater, and wow!! It is really fancy, come walk through with me. As you can see, they even have a room that is a gaming arcade, and a separate banquet room. The seats are recliners that rock, here is Phil showing you one. And the screen is enormous. I don't know why the theater is named Zeus, he was the God of Thunder, ruler of mount Olympus. But our real God is not just God of thunder, but everything that exists!! And I guess that would even include The Stooges.


"He pulls water up out of the sea, distills it, and fills up his rain-cloud cisterns. Then the skies open up and pour out soaking showers on everyone. Does anyone have the slightest idea how this happens? How he arranges the clouds, how he speaks in thunder? Just look at that lightning, his sky-filling light show illumining the dark depths of the sea! These are the symbols of his sovereignty, his generosity, his loving care. He hurls arrows of light, taking sure and accurate aim. The High God roars in the thunder, angry against evil."
Job 36