Memory

Memory is a funny thing!

It makes twenty years feel like yesterday.
Yet, it makes twenty years feel like the two decades it is.

Memory recalls funny snippets of times past.
Yet, it fails to remember some of the most important details.

I took a walk today....a walk back to twenty years ago.

She remembered too many practical jokes I had played on her.

I had forgotten them.


I remembered detention shared with her (my ONLY detention ever; probably hers too).

She had forgotten that.


My memory recalled a certain teacher with fondness, hers recalled with much less admiration.

She affectionately reminisced about another teacher, I...not so much!

She remembered letting me read an important journal entry.

I remembered her high school crush.

Memory is a funny thing.

We made new memories today....a shared past, a similar spirit and vision, a common Hope.

Saturday, Sun, Special People

Last weekend was fun! It was one of our few trips to the lake this summer. We used to go to the lake almost every weekend, but as our family and other responsibilities grew, our time there has become limited.

So when we do get to go, it is with much anticipation and excitement! We invited some other Student Ministers and their families along for this special day, and enjoyed a relaxing and fun time with them. One thing I like about being at the lake is I can actually sit in a chair and do nothing. If I were at home, I would feel the pressure of all the house keeping and other duties hanging over me. While at the lake, I can't do anything about those things. Therefore, I enjoy relaxing without guilt. Add a couple of friends in nearby chairs and my day is made!

Of course, sitting in a chair is not ALL we do.

We swim...

and tube....

and eat...

and kneeboard!

We even got our eight year old daughter on the kneeboard for the first time!

We are so grateful for Saturdays with friends...for time to relax...for time for fun!

If only tomorrow were going to be so fun! The to-do list here is lengthy, and I hope to knock out a big portion of it in one day!

Another Verse!

A sweet friend of mine read the poem I posted yesterday and sent me this addition (which she wrote) in an email. I L.O.V.E. it, because she is referring to specific friends of mine! I must confess...it brought tears to my eyes!

One that loves your children just like their own.
One that loves to watch movies with you when your hubby goes out of town.
One who works out with you.
One who likes to cook with you.
One who sells little and big clothes with you.
One who wears funny looking flip flops with you,
One who home schools with you.
One who sings beside you in the choir.
One who is here for you no matter what.........

Then at the end, she added this:
"...take it from one of your best friends; we all love you very much!"

I am sooooo blessed!

It's Happening Again!

It happened last year about this time. You may have read about it here.

It was so much fun, we're doing it again!

We have friends from North Carolina visiting us. They are staying ALL week.

We've already laughed until it hurts...and this is just day one! It's going to be a great week! If you don't see me on here this week, it's because we're laughing too hard to post. If you do see me here, it's because we are all addicted to our laptops and can't stay away!

Lovin' Where I Live

Top Ten Reasons I Love Where I Live (in no particular order):

1. The people - everyone is so friendly and nice. We speak to each other in the aisles of Walmart even if we don't know each other. You don't have to know someone to get a wave from them as they pass by on the road.

2. Our small town - We had only lived here a few months when my hubby and I remarked to each other how "at home" we already felt. The aura of a small town is so great. I love the activities like Patriotic Celebration on the square, High School Homecoming Parade, Harvest Day and so much more!

3.We have a town square. It's the place where many of our town events are held. I go there to meet some friends every morning to walk for exercise. Our children can play in the square while we walk around the outside.

4. The food - yum! I love the good ol' home cooking: lots of veggies and smoked meats. There's the bread, too. And scrumptious homemade desserts! Gotta watch out for those. Too much of a good thing adds pounds to the waistline!

5. Our church - what a loving group of people.

6. Our house - we are so blessed.

7. The beautiful plants and flowers that flourish in our warm, humid climate!

8. Our proximity to the beautiful gulf beaches.

9. Our friends - we have been blessed with many relationships that mean so much to us. We didn't grow up here, but have been welcomed and loved as if we did.

10. The pretty vistas that characterize a rural area.

11. (I know, I cheated. But, I couldn't leave off) SWEET TEA!

My thanks to my Colorado friend, Mer, for the idea. You can check out her list here.

So what about you? Why do you love (or for that matter, don't love) where you live?

National Flip Flop Day

A friend of mine called today to let me know that today is National Flip Flop Day. Did you know there was a day to celebrate flip flops? I didn't, but I can sure understand why. I love flip flops! In fact, I just spent some birthday money purchasing flip flops.



And I used a $10 money back certificate that Old Navy sent me to purchase four pairs of flip flops for my kiddos (I use the term "purchase" rather loosely since the flip flops were 2 for $5 and after the coupon, I paid nothing!).


In honor of this holiday (which BTW I don't think its a real holiday, just a marketing tool invented by Tropical Smoothie), I want to take a little time to tell the the story of the flip flop bandits. I did after all, promise here and here to tell you about this. My hesitancy is that I won't properly recount the tale and you'll be left saying, "what's the big deal?"

The Story of the Flip Flop Bandits

Once upon a time, there were six friends who loved to get together for each others' birthdays. They would meet at a restaurant or someone's house to eat, laugh, open gifts and enjoy some girl time. On one particular spring night, the six friends were enjoying a birthday meal on the patio. The night was quiet, the breeze was soft, the food was good and the companionship was comfy. All wore the cutest pair of flower-adorned flip flops in various colors given to them as souvenirs from the recent travels of one of the friends.


It just so happened that the small town in which the six friends lived was in the midst of a mayoral election. There were four candidates running for mayor and all were members of the same church that the six friends attended. The idea was hatched that since the pastor of the church couldn't really advertise his choice for mayor (as not to offend any candidate or family member of a candidate), it would be hilarious if campaign signs for each of the candidates were to mysteriously appear in his front yard.

Heads conferred (amidst lots of giggles), plans were made and the friends waited for the appropriately late hour to work their mischief. At the appointed hour, all pranksters squeezed into a vehicle and sneaked into the streets. Their first stop was a family member's house to pick up the first sign. Problem was, they didn't have the three other signs they needed. To avoid being accused of trespassing or theft, they must find the signs they needed on right-of-ways, not on other people's property.

Some of the friends were having a blast, other's were scared to death! At one stop to get signs, one of the friends was plastered to the floor board for fear of being seen. This, of course, was the source great fits of laughter from the other pranksters.

Finally, signs were secured and phase two must be initiated. The friends drove to the pastor's neighborhood, parking their car several houses away, of course. Then one must imagine in the mind's eye what happened next: Five flower-adorned flip flop-wearing mischief makers walked down that neighborhood street (the "plastered to the floor for fear of being caught" flip flop wearer was too afraid to join in the prank; she designated herself as the driver of the get-away vehicle). One would think that the ladies carrying out this dastardly deed would have the presence of mind to be quiet while working out their plans, but that was not the case. A severe case of giggles had erupted long before arriving in the neighborhood, and they were unable to keep from laughing.

With hearts racing and giggles escaping from their lips, the bandits carried the signs to the pastor's front yard and hurriedly placed them in strategic places for all passers-by to see. The "plastered to the floor for fear of being caught designated driver" swooped in for the pick up. She was so flustered, she practically dragged her cohorts down the street before they were able to jump in the vehicle. As one can imagine, the ride back home was loud with uncontrolled fits of laughter and boisterous recountings of the escapade!

The six friends have never forgotten their adventures that night and have dubbed themselves the flip flop bandits. Their prank lives on in small town lore and is often alluded to with covert winks and lots of giggles.

Epilogue: The pastor received a card from the bandits the following Christmas. On it was a group photo of the pranksters. The photo was altered to show a yellow smiley face in the place of the ladies faces and the caption read, "Merry Christmas from the flip flop bandits."

There you have it: the event that deepened my love for flip flops and made me thrilled to find out that now there's a holiday for celebrating my favorite footwear.

Ah, Summer!

It's summer around here....has been for a while. And these are the best days of summer, because soon the humidity will crank up. And when the humidity cranks up, there's not much desire to be outside. Unless of course, you're in a pool!

We are enjoying these days as much as possible, and I couldn't resist the chance to show you some photos! Here is a photo of the first rose of summer! I planted this rose last fall after buying it at a greatly reduced price. I love this photo because my daughter and her friend are in the background.


Here are my kiddos with the neighbors. My kiddos' favorite summer activity is to play outside all day long with the neighbors.

And what summer would not be complete without a dog? This dog belongs to the neighbors, and my kiddos LOVE him. His name is Shadow and any time we are around any dog anywhere, my kiddos compare that dog to Shadow. I'm glad Shadow loves my kiddos too!


Here's wishing you a great summer!

P.S. More Colorado adventures on the way!

Old Friends, New Family

One of the highlights of our trip this past month was the opportunity to visit with people we don't see very often. It was a blessing to renew long time friendships, catch up with family members and make new friends.

On our very first day of travel, we went to Nashville, TN and stayed overnight with Greg and Audre. I became friends with Greg and Audre when we all worked together at Glorieta Conference Center in New Mexico. We had 2 very fun summers together and made sweet memories! Then life happened, we grew up and went our separate ways. It's been 15 years since those "glory days," and we've hardly talked in those years. But, recently many of us have reconnected and last October, I had the opportunity to spend some time with Greg and Audre. They were so kind to open their home to us during our recent trip. We had a wonderful time of reliving the "good ol' days" and fellowshipping in the present. It was fun to see how God has been working in their lives.

I was also thrilled to spend some time with a friend from college. During my college years, my roomie (DeAnn) and the two girls in the room across the hall (Kathy and Robyn) became close friends. We had lots of fun together: we shared clothes, shared meals, we held Bible studies together, and much more. After college, we went in opposite directions, geographically, but have always stayed in touch via letters, emails, phone calls, etc.

Robyn and her hubby were called to the mission field and now live in a European country. Obviously, that makes getting together impossible. But this year, things worked out for us to actually see each other. Robyn and her family have been in the states this year on furlough and were in the KC/MO area while I was at my parents' home. I am so grateful that her family made the effort to come over and spend the afternoon with us. It was fun to talk face to face and get to meet her children.

Also while at my parents' house, my brother, his new wife and his son came to visit. I had never met my sister-in-law (they got married this past November) and was excited to do so. She is a sweet, lovely person and I'm glad we had the opportunity to get to know each other. A couple of weeks later, we spent a couple of days at their house in Southeast Missouri. They have a charming home and were wonderful hosts. One of the highlights of our stay with them was the dinner they treated us to at the Exotic Grill. Joel and I ate sushi for the first time in our lives!

Stay tuned....I also met a blog friend for the first time IRL. More on that later.

What a Blessed Day!

Don't you just love days full of accomplishment, friends and blessings? Yesterday was one of those blessed days for me!

It was my turn to cook for the supper co-op, so I spent the day in the kitchen. I was checking the stove and mixing ingredients while teaching my daughter how to subtract nine. We enjoyed the fragrant smells of ribs cooking all day.

My children played together especially well and amused me with their creative masterpieces. They found an old shirt box and used what materials they could find throughout the house to make a "bear."

After school was over, it seemed like I was continually on the phone. I have a "crick" in my neck from holding the phone with my shoulder while doing food preparations. I received calls from family members and friends. I think it was "call Leah day," because I got an unusual number of phone calls. It was fun to talk with so many friends.

Connie called to tell me she had put together some mixes for our favorite breakfast recipe: baked oatmeal muffins. This was very exciting to me! She had premixed the dry ingredients for the recipe into plastic bags and written on the outside of the bags the rest of the ingredients needed. I promptly placed them in the pantry excited about how easy it would be to bake my next batch of muffins.


Then, thanks to a coupon from money saving mom, my hubby picked up these for me!


The regular price for this 12 pack of retractable Sharpie markers is usually $23/pack. With the coupon, my hubby paid $2/pack. You would not believe how extremely excited this made me! I love Sharpies and I really love an unbelievable deal. Click the coupon link above to get your coupon. But you must hurry, because it expires tomorrow!

While I was extremely excited about the Sharpie deal, I was overwhelmed by the next surprise. A sweet friend called and asked if she could stop by. After rushing around to make myself look presentable, I was shocked when she arrived at my door with this:

This was my view from the top of the box as I opened it. Can you guess what it is? Unfortunately there's no prize to give away, but your prize can be the satisfaction of being right! (I personally love that feeling!) Leave your guesses in the comments, and I'll tell you tonight how this item makes my heart palpitate!

I Joined the Craze!

I have read Mer's and Nan's and Julie's posts about all the fun they are having with Wii. And, I must admit that I thought, "that's nice, another video game." You see, I've never really been into video games. Sure, I'll sit down and play a car racing game with my hubby every once in a while, but I have never gotten excited about it!

Until recently, that is! I was introduced to it at a girlfriend's house. She invited several friends over for an evening of Wii! We went bowling, played tennis with each other, and even tried our hands at boxing!

We did all of this in the comfort of my friend's family room.

Here is my Wii alter-ego (Note the beauty mark I gave myself and the over-the-top eye make-up!).



We had a blast, and I am hooked. So much so that I have been checking out the cost of owning a Wii!

Not only did we interact with each other, get lots of exercise, and develop our game skills, we laughed our heads off! It's pretty impossible to watch each other trying to take out our boxing opponent with out rolling in the floor.

Connie: Salvager of Cake Flops!

I was in charge of a birthday party for a friend this week. I decided to make one of my favorite cakes: moon pie cake. It turned out to be a lesson in humility!

When I was putting it together, the top layer broke and in spite of all my efforts to repair it, I could not. Then, when I iced it, the icing just got gloppy and gunky (did I make those words up?) and didn't look good at all. There I stood with my plans of taking a showy cake to my friend's birthday party falling apart before my eyes.

After recovering from a panic attack, I decided to cut the cake in half (the party was a small one for six ladies), remove the damaged part and then try to ice it again.

This is the part of the cake I cut off.

But, I was afraid the icing would get gloppy and gunky again, so I asked my friend, Connie, to help me out. I dropped the cake off at her house on my way to my daughter's piano lesson and when I came back, I found this beautiful creation. She not only redid the icing, she decorated it with flowers from her yard.




The cake was a hit at the birthday party and Connie now has a new title: Salvager of Cake Flops!


Plug: Connie just started her blog. She loves to cook, and her blog will feature her favorite recipes, kitchen tips and more! Go check it out. I bet you'll enjoy it! mainstreet mom