Missing Pieces

It’s an interesting phenomena but when the weather is blustery our internet goes into hiding somewhere.

Since I can’t upload the photos I wanted for a post today I’ll go back and post these photos that I uploaded on kinder internet days that I haven’t shared yet. Easter Decor was at a minimum during this Pandemic. Easter was celebrated well but not with decor.

Христос воскрес! Khristos voskrese! Christ is Risen!

воистину воскрес! Voistinu Voskrese! Truly He is Risen!

Our Easter message will always be that Christ is Risen, He is Risen Indeed in English and Russian!

The cutest little Easter Bunny. The photos our daughter in law shares on Facebook upload with no trouble.

Addy painting our presents for Easter, rocks for our gardens.

Jaymison coming back from the family evening walk down the driveway and back again. I can’t get over how big he looks here!

Still trying to upload my camera photos to no avail. Today I took photos of all that is starting to bloom at our Country Bungalow but the uploads failed. I will keep trying.

Monday we worked outside for most of the day. Dear worked on the shop and I pulled weeds and mowed the front acre. Tuesday I’ll mow the back acres while Dear continues working on the shop. The forecast is for a 70 degree day. Time will tell. How are things in your corner?

Cinco de Mayo lands on this Tuesday and our favorite Mexican Restaurant isn’t open for service inside yet. What an COVID-19 mishap! We won’t be having tacos today or Mexican food for that matter. Once El Ranchito is open again we will celebrate!

Quote of the week from Sunday’s sermon: “Sincerity is not the test of obedience.”

Pandemic Journal ~ My Memories Part 1

My friend Judy at My Front Porch wrote a post about her story during this Pandemic to document this time in history and it inspired me to do the same.

The first note in my journal is a prayer request on Wednesday March 11th during our weekly Prayer meeting at church. Item #9 ~ Corona virus. It wasn’t at the top of the list…yet.

On February 27th I flew to Southern California for our sister’s Leap Year birthday and there was no one on the flights with masks on. I had my disinfecting wipes with me because even prior to the COVID-19 scare I always wipe off the fold down tray and arm rests. The gal next to me asked to use one of my wipes and I gladly obliged.

While in Southern California there still were no restrictions in place so we enjoyed eating out and my sister’s birthday party with about 30 or so guests. The first out of the ordinary thing we saw were hoards of people at Costco over stocking. On my flight home on March 3rd the conversation stemmed around people not being able to find toilet paper. More people around me asked to use a wipe.

Now we are back to the week of March 8th. We went to church without suspecting it would be our last time in the congregation for many weeks. On Thursday March 12th we heard that President Trump halted all travel to and from Europe excluding the UK as of Friday the 13th of March. We were heading to Spokane Valley on this day to use reservations at the Hampton Inn that friends could not cancel. Little did we know when we said we’d use the 2 rooms that were paid for already that we would be there with just a handful of other people.

Our kids were out of toilet paper and we got to the Costco on Sprague in Spokane a little before they opened. We noticed right away that the parking lot was full already and it was 30 minutes before opening. Yikes. There was a line up and we got in line with less than 6 feet between us. When the doors opened everyone made a beeline to the paper goods section. Costco figured out some ways to alleviate bottle necks in the paper section and they stacked the TP in the frozen aisle with an attendant that handed each member their package. Our kids wanted baby wipes, which was another premium item and we were able to put two boxes in our cart. Two boxes of diapers added to the cart and we were home free. We made it into a line and out the door before the lines were reported to be to the middle of the store. Yikes.

Costco was so strapped that they couldn’t cash our Executive earnings check so they had to write us a check that we could cash at our bank. On the way to the hotel we stopped at a branch of our bank and cashed the check. The folks at the hotel were very welcoming and we were able to check in early. I had brought my own jug of Clorox disinfecting wipes and I set about to disinfect both of our adjoining rooms to our satisfaction.

After lunch at a Mexican Restaurant close to the hotel, we spent the rest of the afternoon doing some shopping at the Cabella’s in Idaho (Spokane Valley is just a few miles from the Washington/Idaho border) and then TJMaxx, Nordstrom Rack, Barnes and Noble and last a stop at Krispy Kreme for a little snack to take back to the hotel.

On Friday the thirteenth we started hearing about more closures due to the Virus threat. The hoarding of disinfectant, hand sanitizer, TP and other paper products was at a fever pitch. We shopped at Fred Meyer, Hobby Lobby, Total Wine, and Party City. We were still hoping Addy’s Daniel the Tiger 3rd birthday party would happen.

For my early birthday meal out we chose The Clover in Spokane near Gonzaga University. What a gem of a restaurant it is and we hope to return when things get back to semi-normal.

The Dungeness Crab and Artichoke Dip was so delicious! Because it was my birthday they added this dessert for free. Yum! The biscotti was made in their own bakery.

While at the restaurant we heard that all schools in Washington State would be closed through April.

Saturday the fourteenth of March (my 69th birthday) our kids made the journey from Colville to Spokane Valley to join us at the hotel. We got had some lunch and then got them settled into their room.

We had the hotel pool all to ourselves and it was a fun time with Jaymison and Addy. We all got cleaned up and headed to a couple shops (still no restrictions) and then out to dinner for my birthday. This was a snow blowing freezing day.

On this day we heard about the Disneyland closure, all hotels around Disneyland closed. All public gatherings over 250 people prohibited. No flights to and from Europe.

Sunday was a leisurely morning before we checked out to go home. We stopped at Costco on our way home for gasoline and to pick up a few more things. (Gluttons for Punishment) We stopped at Super 1 once we were in Colville to get what we’d need for our Corned Beef and Cabbage meal on Tuesday the 17th of March, St. Patrick’s day. Hints of what was to come…no carrots or potatoes.

Now we were hearing no meetings over 50 people, no sports, no restaurants except take out, and then no meetings over 10 people.

Everyone was scrambling to put plans in place on how to proceed with church services. Non-essential services were shut down. Interesting what the powers that be deem essential. Non essential included hair salons, many retail shops, golf courses, bowling alleys, gyms, elective surgeries, dental services except for emergencies, optometrist, etc. My eye surgery 6 month follow-up was cancelled.

The kids came over for St. Patrick’s Day meal and we talked about Addy’s birthday having to be cancelled. Our kids from the Coast would not be coming over for the weekend. This is the point where the Pandemic really hit home.

The Pandemic Part 2 coming in the future.

The Law of God is Good and Wise ~ Hymn

The Law of God is Good and Wise

The law of God is good and wise,
And sets His will before our eyes,
Shows us the way of righteousness,
And dooms to death when we transgress.

Its light of holiness imparts
The knowledge of our sinful hearts,
That we may see our lost estate
And seek deliverance ere too late.

To those who help in Christ have found
And would in works of love abound
It shows what deeds are His delight
And should be done as good and right.

When men the offered help disdain
And willfully in sin remain,
Its terror in their ear resounds
And keeps their wickedness in bounds.

The law is good, but since the fall
Its holiness condemns us all;
It dooms us for our sin to die
And has no power to justify.

To Jesus we for refuge flee,
Who from the curse has set us free,
And humbly worship at His throne,
Saved by His grace through faith alone.

Words: Matthias Loy, 1873.

Rhubarb Almond Cake

Rhubarb is ready for it’s first Spring picking or pulling or plucking. What do you call the harvesting of Rhubarb, anyway? Did you know that Rhubarb leaves are poisonous? Funny story about that later…

The recipe I picked to bake called for a pound of Rhubarb.

I got the recipe here.

After tasting it I would make it again. Now…who could I drop some slices off to?

Funny story from the mouth of our 3 year old grand, Addy. Her mother talked to her about Rhubarb leaves being poisonous but the stalks were not. In Addy’s mind she couldn’t separate those two thoughts. On Thursday when her dad got home from work he asked Addy, “What did you do today?” Her response was, “we made poisonous muffins for you!”

Will it be Merry?

Here’s hoping it will be the Merry Month of May. Here’s a real oldie but goodie.

We are still waiting to see when our stay home orders will be lifted. In the meantime we have simple pleasures to enjoy. This new addition in our home makes me smile every time I walk by it.

I’ve always wanted a cabinet similar to a Welsh Cabinet that I could display my plates on.

This pine cabinet has some fun accents. We bought the cabinet at a second hand shop in the city of Colville called The Red Barn.

When we brought it home we applied a lot of elbow grease to clean it up. Trust me when I say a lot of elbow grease.

Pure enjoyment to pick some of my favorites to display. To make it even more busy I’ve added about 28 of my Beatrix Potter Figurines on the plate rack, too. Future photo coming.

On these days where we are stuck at home I’m so thankful and happy to get little sneak peeks on what’s going on with our kids during their isolation time and I copy their photos to enjoy.

Our youngest “Coast Kids” working from home. Thankful that they both still have jobs. In her current job Katie has always worked from home so this is nothing new for her. The new thing is having Andrew work from home for some of the time. He has been going into the office to do things he can’t from home. He works at a company that is deemed essential.

Our oldest “Coast Kids” are enjoying walks most days and they send us photos which we are so thankful for. A friend knowing their love for our Sounders Soccer team sewed Sounders Face masks for them! Josh owns a business with partners and they have been able to keep all their employees and even hired new ones. He is still working hard and Laura works as a support for her family.

Our middle kids who live 8 miles from us are enjoying driveway walks and any time they can work in the garden. Jamie is coming up with lots of creative activities for our dear grands to enjoy. Our son Dan still works as he is considered an essential worker.

It’s easy to social distance in the country as it’s hard to see the other properties close to them.

On Thursday Addy decided a foot soak would be nice. Her mom set her up nicely with a potty chair just the right height.

Making the most of our isolation days!

Dear continues working on his shop when the weather is dry and above freezing!

I’m back to mowing and weeding and getting a good dose of vitamin D!

What are you doing at home to keep your sanity? I know a lot of friends who are baking bread and several who are keeping sourdough starts alive and baking sourdough bread items including pancakes and bagels!

Happy May day!
“Come, my soul, put on your springtime clothes and gather garlands of heavenly thoughts.”
~Spurgeon

Our Backyard Zoo

Today is the last day of April and the final letter for the April A to Z Challenge. Our back acres are a mobile zoo of sorts. The animals come and go as they please. The birds fly in and out.

There are a few other animals and birds who come and go into our backyard zoo that I haven’t managed to get a photo of. It’s always a treat to see someone new show up for a visit. Our yard was totally fenced in when we first moved here but we’ve taken a few sections of fence out for Dear’s shop project so the four legged variety of animals have easy access now.

And that is the finale for the April A to Z Challenge for 2020.

Hope things are well with all of you on this last day of April. Will May bring good news of loosening of the Stay at Home orders? We are hoping for that. We did hear our Farmer’s Markets are opening and that fishing and hunting are also okay with social distancing.

So Thankful…

Our Daughter in Law posted this on Facebook today and I wanted to document it here on my blog for our memory.

“So crazy to think that a year ago we were in the NICU with Jaymison Joshua. I thank God that he is a happy and healthy boy today!”

Our whole family is so thankful for God’s goodness to our Jaymison and to all of us!

Superhero Husband Hodgepodge

This photo of our daughter Katie was taken at a rest stop somewhere between Seattle and Jacksonville, North Carolina on a cross country trip to get Katie situated in an apartment before our Marine Son-in-law returned from his tour of duty in Afghanistan. It was an epic trip for the two of us and we both could have been awarded a superhero title!

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1. Expect the unexpected on From This Side of the Pond. Here’s my x-ray question…when was the last time you felt like Superman? What’s your superpower? Explain.

There are a few things that make me feel super satisfied. One of the things is to be able to recreate something special that our dear mom would make. One of her specialties is this nut roll we call Roolyet. My sister and I went about perfecting a recipe for it and we were very happy that it came out looking and tasting like our mom’s. We took it over to my sister’s house to share with her family and our dear old pop a few years back and he raved about it tasting like Mom’s.

Getting things checked off of my to-do list makes me feel like superwoman, too. It’s the little things…

2. Are you a fan of the ‘superhero’ type movies? If so what’s your favorite?

Not a fan generally of superhero movies. If I had to pick a favorite superhero of the fiction variety it would be Superman. I am a fan of these three in the photo above! Our grands with their uncle Joshie!

3. Have you postponed or cancelled a trip to the dentist in recent weeks, and if so when do you think you’ll feel comfortable going back? How about other routine medical procedures?

No, because I haven’t made an appointment to see a dentist. Oops. I have gotten an alert this week that I can make an appointment for my yearly medical.

4. What’s something that makes you feel youthful? Something that makes you feel ‘not so youthful’? Tell us why.

Singing and dancing makes me feel youthful and not looking in a mirror. Trying to get up off the floor when I play with the grands lets me know I’m not a youth anymore. There’s no hopping up anymore.

5. I feel compelled to include some sort of corona related question in the HP these days. What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen in relation to the virus? Something that really struck you as odd, made you stop and think, ‘Dorothy we’re not in Kansas anymore?’

This photo of a few of us adults watching Jaymison Joshua from a distance while he opened birthday gifts and ate his first birthday cupcake. Definitely not in Kansas anymore!

6. Insert your own random thought here.

This man, my Dear, is my real life superhero. He has been by my side for over 45 years. He was our main provider for most of our married life and our very efficient handy man. There have only been a handful of home improvement jobs that we hired someone for. He’s painted, replaced siding, built fences, installed back splash, remodeled a bathroom, added on a room, replaced windows, put in walkways, installed flooring, just to name a few. He also has helped all our kids with home projects, too. He’s my personal bartender. Did I mention that he’s a good cook, too? We love him for his smarts, too. He’s not a fool, he loves God and believes in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and that’s the main reason why I married him. Everything else has been a bonus. We’ve had bumps along the road because we are two human beings living life together and that is bound to have it’s challenges. Nevertheless, I’m thankful for this man and for how God is working in our lives individually and together.

The latest greatest is that he located the hot water leak and repaired it having to crawl under the house and do the repairs in a crouched position. We have hot water again and we didn’t have to call a plumber! We used walkie talkies to communicate while he was under the house. There was less accumulated water than we had expected. We didn’t have to pump out any water. Now we will have to assess how much of the insulation got soggy and needs to be replaced. It was great to take a nice long hot shower after our work today. Thank you, Dear!!

Thank you to Joyce for asking the questions and for any of you who take the time to read my post. Click here to see more.

Beatrix Potter ~ A to Z Challenge

I’m stretching the letter X in the A to Z challenge to include it’s part in the name Beatrix.

On July 28th in 1866 Helen Beatrix Potter was born. She lived to be 77 years old.

Here is my collection of Beatrix Potter figurines to date in the following collages…

I bought most of the figurines in England in 1973 and 1974.

This little rabbit made her famous with The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

“I don’t know what to write to you, so I shall tell you a story about four little rabbits whose names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter….”

“And that – a letter to a small boy called Noel- was the beginning of the Beatrix Potter Books.”

I started my Beatrix Potter Collection in the summer of 1973 while touring England. I bought the Biography The Tale of Beatrix Potter by Margaret Lane in Oxford July of 1974.

Dear and I bought two full sets of Beatrix Potter Story Collection at Foyle’s in London and had them shipped home to us. One set for us and one set for our first niece born in 1973, Jenna. I suppose technically she wasn’t my niece until Dear and I were married in December of 1974. You can see our set is well used and loved.

The fun story behind The Tale of Little Pig Robinson revolves around our firstborn son, Josh. We would let him pick a bedtime story for us to read to him each night and he caught on real quick that The Tale of Little Pig Robinson is one of the longest tales in the Beatrix Potter collection. He’d request it each night to extend the time before bedtime! Each of our three children are brilliant in their own way…

In the summer of 2014, Dear and I made a 40th anniversary trip to England and on this trip we spent an afternoon in Gloucester and of course had to visit this sweet shop close to Gloucester Cathedral.

We knew about this shop in Gloucester and were determined to visit it while we were in Gloucester 41 years after I started my collection.

There are lots of shops relating to Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabbit in England.

This shop had a lot of fun displays filled with memorabilia.

I’ve enjoyed all these books about Beatrix Potter. The latest book I received was from Josh and Laura, Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life. The book on Beatrix Potter’s Derwentwater was a great resource for a walking trip we took with good friends in 2006 staying at a farm on the Derwentwater for a few days during our time in Great Britain. So sad that while we were in the Lake District we didn’t visit Hilltop! Maybe on a future trip we’ll take the time to visit.

This was a sweet surprise from my mother when they sorted through my dear Babushka’s apartment after she died. I sent her this postcard trying my best to communicate in Russian from England in 1973. In 1973 and 1974 Dear and I toured England and beyond singing with a Christian Rock Band. I share this here even though it’s not directly linked to Beatrix Potter but it was during the summer where my love for all things Beatrix Potter started!

A little update on the water situation at our country bungalow. Dear is heading under the house to start the process of pumping out the accumulated water from our leak of “who knows how long”. There is a very tough woven plastic liner that covers the whole bottom of our home. The plumbing and insulation are above that liner. The water has accumulated in the liner and it is sagging from the weight of the water. We have to poke a hole in the liner and try to catch the water in a large tub and pump it out. Dear spent Monday talking to an engineer from the manufacturer of our home. He was very helpful. We then tracked down a flat discharge hose (100 ft.) to use to pump our the water. We are fortunate to have the very efficient pump from our pond that will be almost too powerful in pumping out the water. More news to follow.

We’re in Hot Water!

So how timely is it that we are on the letter W for Monday April 27th!

We have not had our heat going a lot the last few days which aided our discovery of a noise that was confusing. We heard the noise in one of our guest rooms that is also the grands play room.

We have determined that it is a hot water pipe leak somewhere in the vicinity below this room.

We have a couple call outs to local plumbers and hope to get this glitch addressed soon. I will be calling our insurance company to see about our coverage for this problem. One of the options in addressing this is to go through this floor to pump out the water and repair the leak. If that’s the case it will be great to get rid of this carpet and put some new flooring in this room. Our entire crawl space has a bladder between the floor and the crawl space and that’s where the water has been accumulating. It’s ready to burst! Yikes! We will know more once we get a plumber out to assess what needs to be done. In the meantime here are more water photos from our favorite walks along the beach, Emma Woods in Ventura, California from 2008-2010. The waves of Emma Wood.

God is in control of the waves of the sea and all the waves in our lives, too. If you don’t believe that I pray that God will reveal himself and his power and sovereignty to you so that you can believe.

Happy Monday to y’all. I’ll let you know what the plumber reveals. Makes us thankful for social distancing since hot water and showers are at a premium right now to keep the leak under control.

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage