Category Archives: Friends

Count It All Joy…

My friend Kathy B. from Count it all Joy

Kathy B. began her last struggle with her illness on August 2nd.

Since August 2nd many emails and texts have been  going back and forth among friends and family who could not stand watch at the hospital or be with her when she was released to Hospice care in her home. Here is one from Kathy’s sister in law.

“It is truly a blessing to see the many friends who have rallied around Kathy and Bill and who have bathed them in prayer and love. Kathy’s battle is continuing to be epic in her strength during this long illness. She has had this cancer for over 28 years and is the worldwide longest survivor of this form of ugly cancer. My sister-in-law has used this sickness to grow into a “woman after God’s own heart”.  Her witness is evident in the testimony of all the people who have been visiting and posting messages. Our lives have been richly blessed by her strength in her weakness.”
~
Kathy survived her hospital and I.C.U. experience regaining consciousness and being able to be taken off the respirator. She was released for hospice care at home where she was able to communicate and enjoy her own home surrounded by the comforts familiar to her. She helped plan her funeral service and was miraculously able to get out of her bed and enjoy going outside to her garden. The beginning of Fall brought more hurdles for Kathy as her lungs filled with fluids and she had difficulty breathing. Her “Cute Boy” and my dear friend Jeanie were at her side while she struggled through her last hours. She went from the arms of her “Cute Boy” to the arms of Jesus early on Sunday September 25th.

I Am Standing on the Sea Shore

I am standing on the sea shore,
A ship sails in the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.
She is an object of beauty and I stand watching her
Till at last she fades on the horizon and someone at my side says:
“She is gone.”


Gone! Where?
Gone from my sight – that is all.
She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her
And just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination.
The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me,
not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says,
“She is gone”,
There are others who are watching her coming, and other voices take up a glad shout:
“There she comes”
– an that is dying.

    
Bishop Brent
1862 – 1926

Her sister Jeanie married my cousin Jim. Jeanie and Kathy started a blog together called The Matson Sisters – becoming our Mother. I took this photo of Jeanie and Kathy from that blog.

Kathy and Jeanie lived a few hours from each other. They talked everyday on the phone and each morning Kathy would pick a hymn for them to sing together.

Before blogging I only knew Kathy as “Jeanie’s sister”. Over the years we’d see each other at a major family function here and there. After Kathy started her blog “Count it all Joy” and I had my blog we became real good bloggy buddies. I grew to love her and appreciate her just as much as I did my dear friend Jeanie. I thank God that our blogs brought us together in a more intimate way. I learned a lot from Kathy. I got to see her in person at the weddings of her nephews, my cousin’s sons. Two of the photos above are from Ben and Kristin’s wedding. I said on facebook after Kathy went into I.C.U. that when I was with Kathy I felt like I had seen Jesus. Those who suffer much reflect Him more. I’m going to miss my dear bloggy friend Kathy B. and I look forward to seeing her again in heaven.

I stole this photo of Kathy with her Cute Boy from Kathy’s blog…

Kathy B.! I’m looking forward to sitting at the Banqueting Table in heaven with you. Love you dearly…I’ll see you later.

Sneaks and Peeks…

Jill from Jill’s World of Research, Reaction and Millinery is visiting with us in Washington. We’ve been enjoying some of the sights of Seattle. On Friday we spent a full long day at the Lavender Festival in Sequim, Washington. I’ll share a little peek into our 2 days so far and you’ll get the full meal deal next week. I took 295 photos on our trip across the Sound to Sequim yesterday!

Here’s Jill introducing herself to the famous Fremont Troll who lives under one of our bridges in the Seattle area. That’s a VW bug he’s got one of his hands on. You can read more about our Troll here.

Jill and Katie on our way to the Lavender Festival…

Hope you are all enjoying your weekend. We have more fun planned and are still waiting on that sunshine we’ve been promised!

Weekend Fun!

 

On Friday night we had our good friends over for a meal. Dave, Jody, Bob, and Jan have been our friends since before we moved to Washington in 1988. Jody, Jan and I were walking buddies for years before Dear’s job took us back to California. Now that we are back we have some catching up to do. When the 6 of us went on a walking tour of Great Britain back in May of 2006 we were on a quest to find the best Sticky Toffee Pudding in Britain. If the pudding was on the menu we’d order one serving with 6 spoons. On Friday night we each had our own serving. Good times, good friends, good memories. Um yes, this blogger was so busy enjoying her friends she didn’t take photos of the food…

 

On Saturday the fun continued when Josh and Laura picked me up for an afternoon Sounders game. Winning was especially rewarding! Note: If you take a little one to sporting events where the crowd noise gets exceptionally loud like Sounders games these little ear protectors are a must! Isn’t little Oliver adorable!?

I’ve been having fun in Picasa using my photos as backgrounds for my mosaics. I’m linking up at Mary’s Little Red House for Mosaic Monday. I’m behind since Friday getting around to blogs but I’ll try to get around soon.

Photobucket replaced all my photos with these blurred out versions and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

Breakfast on Main St., U.S.A.

Dear and I had an unscheduled trip to the Sacramento Area late in July and because of an afternoon flight out from the airport we were able to meet Ruth of The Scrabblequeen Knits, Too for breakfast on our last day there. Ruth and I have hopped back and forth on our blogs and followed each others travels, etc.

 

It was good to meet face to face and to exchange some of our life story with each other.  Things like where did you grow up, how did you meet your husband, how has God guided you through your life and how did you come to faith. All things I love to hear about. We didn’t have time for a game of Scrabble so we can’t know for sure if she’s truly the queen! :0)

Ruth had just returned from a trip to Great Britain (mostly Scotland) and she gifted me with some loose tea from Harrods. Thank you Ruth for meeting us for breakfast and for your thoughtful gift. I appreciate it.

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

Blessed With Blogging Friends…

When I started blogging in 2007 I never expected to form so many friendships through my blog. What a sweet surprise it has been to develop these friendships. Some friendships have developed just with comments back and forth and some have had the added blessing of meeting face to face.

 

On our trip back to Washington from California Dear and I had dinner with Sandy from The Reluctant Entertainer and her husband. We had our fabulous meal and time of fellowship at the Winchester Inn in Ashland, Oregon. I knew Sandy lived close by and it worked out that she and her husband were available to meet us. We didn’t run out of things to talk about. Sandy shares my passion for food and fellowship around food. Her blog is about simple entertaining and creative hospitality. If you haven’t visited there yet click on over. This is Sandy’s photo that I asked for since my photo was blurry. Thank you Sandy! Look at those great salads! I’ll be posting more about this great Inn later…

 

Our dinner was worthy of a Top Chef episode. We even had an Amuse Bouche, that small cup of soup. Amuse Bouche loosely means fun in the mouth. Ours was served before the salad and main course. My salad was a work of art. The lamb was delicious.

The Monday before we left California Cori G! met me in San Marino for breakfast at Julienne. I was a distracted blogger that day and forgot to get a fresh photo of the two of us at Julienne.

 

I really love the graphics that Cori G! creates and she gifted me with this sweet little jar of Sugary Sprinkles with a beautiful example of her graphics on the gift/recipe card! Look at those little blue birds…

 

This was taken at our first meeting last year. Thanks for driving to San Marino and meeting me for breakfast Cori!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Celebrating Family and Friends!

 

We invited family and friends over to celebrate our son Dan.

 

When our youngest little guest arrived she stole the show!

 

Just 9 days old here. She’s our son Dan’s best friend’s first baby.

Precious!

 

The new dad and Dan.

 

Jamie, Dan, Josh, and Scott

 

 

 

I managed to not get a decent photo of the mom…bummer!  Hey Beth if you see this could you send me Sarly’s email so I can send photos to her…thanks.

Hope all is going well wherever you are…

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Reunion…

 

I’m headed across town today to meet up with a high school friend of mine that I haven’t seen in probably 36 or so years. We lost touch and then got connected again on Facebook this year. I’m looking forward to filling in the gaps and hearing about her life. It would be really cool if I could fly across town and avoid the freeways but that’s not to be…

Have a great Thursday! I’ll catch up with y’all tomorrow.

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Saturday ~ Beach Gatherings…

So not as early as usual Dear and I headed to Emma Wood State Beach for our Saturday morning stroll. Today we were blessed with seeing an over abundance of Pelicans just hanging out on the sand. There were plenty flying over the water, too!

 

Later in the day we headed south to Long Beach for a mini-reunion with my high school class of 1968! We met at a restaurant on the water and tried to remember names and faces. It was fun to see good ole friends.

 

Our class of ’68 really was a great group of people. We were commenting on what a rich melting pot we were. We had a large Jewish, Armenian, Russian, Mexican, and Japanese population at our school. This varied population really added to our rich high school experience. 1968 was a very emotionally charged period in the history of our country. A couple major historical tragedies that occurred just before we graduated were the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy.

And 41 years later it was great to re-connect and have conversations with these friends!

Photobucket is holding all my photos that I stored on their site from 2007-2015 hostage replacing them with ugly grey and black boxes and asking for a large ransom to retrieve them. It is a slow process to go through all my posts deleting the ugly boxes.

Aren’t They Cute?

 

Our drive to and home from the funeral on Saturday was quite treacherous at times with rain squalls that turned the freeways into rivers. We saw a few cars that had hydroplaned and ended up in the medians or in accidents with other vehicles.

 

But we made it there and home again just fine and it was worth it to see these cuties, my mom and dad.

 

Here are the song sheets from the funeral with the same songs in Russian and English side by side.

 

A closer look at the same song here in English and below in Russian…

 

I was pleased that I understood most of the Russian message at the funeral service. The English message delivered by my brother Steve was challenging…

Welcome to my bi-lingual world…

Some of you asked if Dear is Russian and the answer is no. He took Russian in college and he can read Russian. He sang with our Russian choir when we were dating. Dear is half Swedish and half English, Welsh and Cherokee. :0)

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.

A Wonderful Bloggy Face to Face!

On Tuesday I drove to Orange County for a family dinner at my parents’ apartment with my sisters, SIL’s, and nieces. Cori G. form Gingerbread Crumbs & Co. and I have been regulars on each others blogs and she happens to live in Orange County so we arranged a face to face meeting close to my parent’s apartment. We had a very short time to meet and “talk” but what a joy it was to spend this short time asking questions and sharing a little bit more of our lives in person. I was surprised how fast our time went.

 

Cori also was so sweet to bring me a gift. I’ve always loved her graphics. She’s one talented lady. I was thrilled to get some beautiful creations of hers. She also gifted me with 4 beautiful Homer Laughlin plates. Oh she knows my weakness for pretty plates!

Cori G. is a Victorian Lady at heart and she proved to me that she wears petticoats and Victorian striped stockings. How cool is that. You can see her post about these stockings at her Happy Birthday Eric Post. Cori and I look forward to getting together again…

John 13:34 ~ “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage unless I pay them a lot of money. I’m slowly cleaning up many posts from this time period and deleting their ugly grey and black boxes with a ransom request. Such a time consuming bother.