Friday's Faves...Pumpkins and other fall finery

Whoooo's ready for fall?

This Sunday is the first day of autumn.

I'm ready for it!

This "green pumpkin" is technically a hubbard squash according to the sticker on it.

But, whooooo cares?  

It looks very fall-ish to me sitting next to my favorite antique Shawnee pottery owls.

In the living room touches of fall are here, there, everywhere.

From stalks of golden wheat plopped into an old bucket and hanging from an old ladder to...

simple fall garlands adorning a mirror...

pumpkins placed next to vintage cameras, and acorn adorned soda bottles...

real white pumpkins along with ceramic pumpkins in an antique wooden cubby...

felt fall pumpkins and acorn under glass...

and even the mantel is all ready for fall!

But we'll keep you in suspense about that until next week.

The kitchen window has a little fall garland.

And the copycat Restoration Hardware shelves in my dining room, are sporting a few pumpkins as well.

It's not only almost autumn, friends,

it's almost Friday!

Have a HAPPY, HAPPY Friday

and

a BLESSED weekend.

                  

                                                      

                              

              Also linking to Jennifer Rizzo's Fabulously Creative Friday

The summer of '63...

(My Aunt Evelyn and me and the old station wagon that my family drove cross country and back in.)

I turned 6 years old the summer that Mama and Daddy loaded up the old station wagon with six out of seven of us kids and took us on the adventure of a lifetime.  Mama sewed and cooked, and cooked and sewed, in preparation and Daddy had a car top carrier specially made for everything we would need to camp our way across the United States. We were headed from our home just south of Portland, Oregon and would zig zag our way to Bath, Maine and back to Oregon, seeing 28 of the 48 continental states. Us kids would be meeting Mama's mama in Maine for the first time, our Nana, and various aunts, uncles and cousins that lived back east. That must have been how Daddy sold our practical Mama on the idea. "Hey Honey, how about I take the summer off of work, take a second mortgage out on the house, and we make our way east so we can visit your family?" I can't imagine my oh, so practical Mama, jumping on that bandwagon very fast, even if she did want to see her family. But, I was blissfully ignorant of any such discussion.

Mama slept her way across the country.  I thought it was because she'd worked so hard getting us ready to go. My older sister thinks it was because she was already taking Valium for depression. Two years later Mama would check herself in to the state mental hospital, where they'd dope her up and send electric shocks into her brain, thinking that's what would make her want to face her life again. The summer I turned six, I had no inkling of the dark time that was to come for our family.  I knew Mama and Daddy fought and argued a lot, I knew it made my stomach knot up to the point I wanted to throw up, but I didn't know why they argued.  And I certainly didn't know that while Mama was in the hospital, Daddy would fall in love with someone else and decide to leave.

All I knew then, was long, hot hours in the back seat of that old station wagon crowded between my siblings and nights of us all lined up in sleeping bags in that big, old tent that I think Daddy got at the Army surplus store, interspersed with stops all along the way, seeing the width and breadth of the U.S. in ways few people get to experience.

Daddy wasn't a "get in, sit back and shut up"  kind of driver. He was a, "oh there's a sign that says down this road is the world's biggest thingamajig and off we'd go to see what there was to see" type guy. We saw the Grand Canyon and the Corn Palace, Old Faithful and the bears of Yellowstone Park, and a myriad of well know and lesser known wonders. That's a gift that I got from my Daddy, a sense of wonder. From my Mama, I got my need to feel safe and secure,  and wonder anchored with a little bit of practicality and common sense isn't such a bad combination.

On the road we munched on Mama's homemade fried chicken and peanut butter cookies. Those cookies somehow got stored too close to the gas can and ended up tasting more like gas than peanut butter. But, Mama had worked hard baking all those cookies, and in a family our size you didn't just throw food away.  Let's just say, I think it wasn't 'til I was full grown that I ate another peanut butter cookie.

We must have looked a fright by the time we all arrived in Maine.  I have a foggy memory of us getting a hotel room with a tub, so we all could bathe before we met our Nana for the first time.  I think Mama washed all of our clothes at the laundromat, too.

I have nothing but happy memories of those days in Maine, meeting Mama's family. If the eight of us were a bit of an overwhelming bunch of company to any of them, I never sensed it. Nana made us big, soft molasses cookies and loaves of soft, white homemade bread.  She talked with a heavy accent and would still break into her Acadian French on occasion. That made her all the more fascinating to me.

Then there was my Aunt Evelyn from New York, she talked with a thick Brooklyn accent, and she smoked cigarettes and could blow smoke rings.  Mama and Daddy took us to a church that frowned on smoking, but Aunt Evelyn and those smoke rings were so amazing to my little brother and I that we played smoking with pretzels sticks for months after meeting her.

My sixth birthday, the birthday that I celebrated in Maine that summer, is the only birthday of my childhood that I can clearly remember. I know my other birthdays were celebrated, I know I got presents on my other birthdays, but all of them have vanished from my mind. The stuffed dog whose tummy unzipped and inside were little stuffed stuffed puppies and the plastic bangle bracelets that I got that August in Maine, I still clearly remember.

For me, that summer is the highlight of the days when Mama and Daddy still lived together. Somehow,  in my little girl heart and mind, Maine became the place where stability and happiness was. Mama's family back there captured my heart and then in my mind morphed into these unrealistic people who had only happy lives, rather like Ward and June Cleaver. Maine became the place I dreamed about. Once I learned to read, I devoured every book about Maine. Robert McCloskey's children's books made my heart stir and I wanted to join Sal and her mother as they picked wild Maine blueberries in the woods, or join her and her father as they dug for clams to use in chowder for their evening supper. 

I think every little boy and every little girl have a childhood dream of what they want to be or do.  Our dreams most often change as we age, the little boy who wanted to be a cowboy grows up to become a policeman, the little girl who wanted to be a ballerina becomes a school teacher.  Me, my childhood dreams are still with me, I still dream of a cottage by the sea.  I still dream the dreams of that little six year old girl, of picking wild Maine blueberries in the woods, or digging clams for my supper. Fifty years later,  I still dream.

still following,

     

                    

Embracing autumn...

Autumn will officially arrive this weekend.

Bits of fall decor started to appear at my house on Saturday when I was trying to avoid things like scrubbing bathrooms and mopping floors.

A little dusting and fluffing and playing with decor motivated me enough to just dig in and "get 'er done", and so the bathrooms got cleaned, the floors got mopped 

AND my house is ready to welcome this change of seasons.

I'm in love with this sweet little ceramic pumpkin that I got at Bath and Body.

It's got a pumpkin scented candle inside.

They have a large one as well that has a three wick candle inside, but it's a bit pricey.

This little guy, with it's creamy white exterior, fits right in on top of the dish cabinet in my dining room.

A quick pop into the Goodwill a while back resulted in me bringing hope this sweet antique bowl made in England.

Everything with a green price tag was half price that day, and this bowl had a green tag.

YaY!

It joins two other bowls that rest in a wooden tote on top of the dish cabinet.

The other two, one from France and another one from England, were past Goodwill finds.

With the change of seasons, the weather will become a bit more gray.

My house is surrounded by lots of shade producing old growth trees

so indoor photography can be a challenge.

This fall and winter I hope to improve in that area.

You can see I'm already craving light, by the way I pull the blinds all the way up in the dining room.

You can also see the autumn themed sign I made last week, and where the dish cabinet sits there in the corner.

Some hydrangeas from our yard are drying in the old wooden tote on my dining room table.

My quick and easy no-sew burlap table runner that I made three years ago still looks as good as new,

and is perfect for autumn.

I always let go of summer reluctantly, but then once I realize fall's arrival is inevitable, I embrace it wholeheartedly.

(I think I'm the same way about growing another year older...

I dig in my heels like I can delay it, then eventually just accept it and decide to enjoy it!)

So here I am, embracing the season!

still following,

              

Seasons...

Friday, the Hub's day off and our weekly "date day",  we took a drive out into the country.

With the way Portland's urban growth boundaries are, one of the loveliest things about our city is that it's a quick and easy drive out of the city into rural farmlands, scenic, winding country roads and beautiful woods next to rushing rivers.

One of my favorite places to go, not far outside the city, 

 is this historic old pioneer cabin and little country church.

Friday, evidence that we're only a week away from the official first day of fall greeted me there on the green grass by these old historic landmarks as I saw the first of many more leaves to fall.

It's rather interesting to read why deciduous trees lose their leaves. 

Pardon me for using a quote from Highlights for Kids,

but I actually found their explanation to be the most interesting.

When winter approaches, our part of Earth receives less sunlight, and the air grows colder. When these changes happen, trees prepare for winter. Trees that drop their leaves seal the spots where the leaves are attached. Then fluids cannot flow in and out of the leaves, which change color and fall off.

The falling of the leaves does more than mark the season. It also helps the tree survive the cold, dry air of winter. In the warm seasons, leaves use sunlight, water, and air to make the tree’s food. In that process, the tree loses a lot of water through tiny holes in the leaves. In winter, the tree does not get enough water to replace what it would lose through the leaves. If the tree did not seal the spots where the leaves grow, it would die. When spring brings warm air and fresh water, the tree will sprout new leaves and start growing again.

I guess this is significant for me, being in what I would consider the autumn of my life, my fifties.

If I liken myself to a tree, then the way I respond to each season in my life is crucial to the way I am going to handle the winter.

I really want to be a person who faces the last season of life, who faces eternity, confident that I finished the race well.

I don't think that's going to happen if I wait until I'm in the middle of life's winter to think about it.

I'm thinking an awful lot about it now.

I really, really want the rest of my life to be the best of my life.

I don't want to waste any more of my days, hours or minutes, trying to change someone else.

I've already wasted enough precious time with that sort of futile endeavor.

I also know that there are a lot of outward circumstances that I have no control over, that I can't change.

But there's one person, with God's help, that I can change, and that's me.

There are a few outward circumstances that are in my control that I can change as well.

Those are the things that I must choose to place my effort and focus on in this season.

For many people, autumn is their favorite season of the year.

Who's to say that it can't also be our favorite season of life?

After all, it's a lovely and colorful season to be in!

I'm so thankful to be co-leading, (in) life after fifty an (in)courager group with (in)courage.

My friend, Rhonda Quaney, is co-leading the group with me.

We became in real life friends after meeting at Jumping Tandem.

If you want to be in a group with other "colorful" women in the "autumn" of life,

registration is now open here.

Space in groups is limited.

Click here to check out other (in)courager groups.

There's something for everyone!

***************

In 2012 I followed the prompts in Ann Voskamp's Joy Dare in counting my thanks.

In 2013 I'm going back to the way I did it in the beginning,

just noticing and recording the many extraordinary blessings in my ordinary life.

And so I continue to count my thanks

piling up gratitude day by day

in my little black journal.

(and capturing some of them via my camera or iPhone)

#3773- #3796

9-9-13-

-the grandkid's photos of their first day of school

-a cool morning with fog in the foothills

-talking on the phone to the two oldest grands after school to see how their day went

-a great run

-bbq chicken and homemade coleslaw for dinner

9-10-13-

-a nice breeze on a hot day

-crafting and catching myself humming because creating makes me happy

-face time on the phone with youngest granddaughter

9-11-13-

-remembering God's hand on us 12 years ago

-meeting my friend from church at Starbucks

-the Hubs meeting with his mentor

-the Hubs buying the grandkids some crickets to feed the bullfrog we caught last summer

(then the phone call from only grandson reporting that the frog ate all 30 crickets in one meal!)

9-12-13-

-the way the hydrangeas change colors as fall approaches

-really encouraging prayer and worship at church tonight

9-13-13-

-a ride in the country

-buying some local apples

-a sweet date day together

9-14-13-

-talking to and praying with Rhonda Quaney, my (in) life after fifty co-leader

-a husband who says, "you go ahead and go on your run, I'll vacuum for you"

-getting out some fall decor

9-15-13-

-trusting God, He's the Rock beneath my feet that can't be shaken, even when seasons change

-worshiping with our church...powerful

-lunch with our youngest daughter

-the excitement of launching our (in)courager group

 gratefully yours,

Hebrews 10:25...

Being in full time ministry for over three decades, 

 I'm certainly all too aware of the fact that church can be a place where people hurt and disappoint one another.

I've been hurt and disappointed by others myself, and I'm sure I've failed others too.

But, I don't believe that gathering together with other believers is optional.

(You expected me to say that didn't you?)

I wrote a guest post last spring, going into this subject a bit more in depth.

If you'd like to read it, here's the link.

I once read a piece of advice that I've thought of often.

When people hurt, fail or disappoint us we need to say to ourselves,

"this just proves that God's Word is true, all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God."

That being said, my prayer is that God will help me to be a healer in His house, not one who wounds others. 

still following,