Heart Friends

I have been thinking a lot about friendships lately.

So many women I know have sisters. Many of them claim their sister is their best friend.

Others claim individuals they have known since grade school to be their BFF.

I can’t claim either.

I am blessed with two awesome brothers. No sisters.

Growing up, I was shy and didn’t make friends very easily. I have a lot of cousins; so there was always someone to play with. My cousins were my friends.

As I have gotten older, making friends is still not easy for me. I am still cautious when choosing to allow individuals into my circle.

I’ve been told that I am very easy to talk to; but very hard to get to know.

I’ve been burned. I’ve been hurt.

I do believe however, that God brings people into your life; into your circle for a reason.

Many of those individuals are in your life for only a season. After the season has passed; they move on. Your paths may never cross again.

He places other individuals in your circle for a life time.

Sometimes he makes the most unlikely matches.

You see, He doesn’t care about the differences in your background, your education, your income or the color of your skin.

He sees your heart.

It is as though God stamps that individual’s handprint right in the middle of your heart.

You may live in different cities. You may talk every day. You may talk once a month or you may talk every couple of years. But when you do talk; you pick up where you left off.

I have been fortunate to have a handful of “heart” friends. Friends whom I believe God placed in my circle. Friends who love and accept me for who I am; the good and the not so good; friends who tell me the truth; friends who help me to be a better person.

I have been remembering one such “heart” friend.

Her name was Louise; but I called her Miss Daisy. She owned a car. She could drive her car. However, she often waited for her husband to get home from work to drive her to the grocery store or take her shopping. I started calling her Miss Daisy. She didn’t seem to mind.

Miss Daisy and I met through work. We stayed in touch when she retired and her husband was transferred to the big city. We didn’t see each other face-to-face very often; but we shared our lives, our hearts, and our God during many, many phone conversations.

Miss Daisy had some health issues. She did not like to talk about them. She was a private person and even though we were close friends; I didn’t ask a lot of questions. I respected her privacy.

I talked to Miss Daisy the last week in March. She had been in and out of the hospital. Her sisters were coming to visit. She sounded so happy.

Miss Daisy went home to Jesus on April 17, 2010.

I miss our talks. I miss her laugh.

God used Miss Daisy to teach me so much. I am forever grateful for her handprint on my heart.

Today I am thanking God for all of the “heart” friends that He has so graciously given to me.

Blessings!

Rain

I woke up yesterday morning to the sound of rain.

Usually cloudy, rainy days color my world a little blue.

Yesterday, however, the rain was beautiful.

Peaceful.

I ventured out to the Wal-Mart around 4:30 p.m.

I just had a few things on my shopping list. One item in particular was a ball, similar to a nerf ball, but not quite. The ball changes colors. Anyway, I thought I might have more luck at the Wal-Mart across town, because the one I frequent is quite busy and probably all sold out of said ball.

When I turned into the parking lot, I was immediately aware that I had made a mistake regarding the Wal-Mart choice.

95% of the parking lot was under water.

Here are a couple of pictures I snapped with the ole iphone.




If it's raining in your neck of the woods, I hope you are enjoying it as much as I am!

Blessings!

The Flower Fields

When I began planning our trip to San Diego, I did an internet search of things to see and do.

One of the things that I found was the Flower Fields in Carlsbad, CA.

Mom and I both love pretty flowers, so I knew that a visit to the

Flower Fields had to be on our list.

The view as we entered the Flower Fields.

I can't imagine what it would be like to open my window

and have a view like this.

Mom posed for a photo.


The Giant Ranunculus is grown in the fields. They are beautiful.




There was also an amazing rose garden.
When I showed my pictures to dad, he was bored with all the rose photos.
I choose only a couple of my favorites for the blog.
I love the 2004 Memorial Day. It just looks so soft and frilly.




The Charlotte Armstrong was pretty, too.

There were several areas of daisies.

Lucky for me, because daisies are one of my

all time favorite flowers.

At the entrance to the parking area of the Flower Fields was a stand where you could

buy fresh strawberries and strawberry shortcake. As we were leaving, we stopped to buy a

strawberry shortcake. I'm bummed that I didn't take a picture. There was

a lot of traffic and mom was trying to hold her shortcake and mine while I found a place

to park so we could eat them. They were very tasty!

San Diego - Part One

I haven't been out of the state of Texas in a couple of years. So I decided for my birthday this year I wanted to take a trip. I asked my mom if she would like to go with me; and after much whining (from me) she agreed to go.

I asked my brother, Robert, where we should go. Robert was in the Navy for eight years and travelled to some really cool places. We visited him in Orlando and Seattle. Although both cities were awesome, we decided we wanted to travel somewhere new. We (I) wanted to visit somewhere with warm sunny weather and a beach. Robert suggested San Diego. Neither mom or I had ever been to California; so the decision was made.

We boarded a plane to San Diego on Friday, April 16, which just so happened to be my birthday.

We talked to the nicest lady in the airport as we were waiting to claim our luggage. She gave us some suggestions on places to visit during our stay. We caught the Enterprise shuttle and it carried us to the busiest Enterprise location in the 50 states. Well actually I don't know if it was the busiest in the 50 states; but it was by far the busiest I have ever been to. They finally called our name for a car and our adventure began.

We couldn't check into the hotel until 3:00 p.m. We drove around for a while, just taking in the scenery. Eventually we found a parking space behind Joe's Crab Shack, right on the beach. We ate dinner and then I walked down to the beach to stick my toes in the sand. Then we were off to find our hotel.

Saturday morning, after a delicous breakfast at the hotel, we set out to see San Diego.

Our first stop of the day was the Swap Meet.

There were lots of things for sale.

Musical instruments.

Tools, tools and more tools.

Fruits and vegetables.


I have absolutely no clue what these red things are, but there were several tubs of them.

We mostly browsed.

Mom bought six marbles for $1.

I bought an old pink candy dish for $4.

We are really big spenders!

Our next stop was the zoo.

I'll be honest. I really wasn't excited about going to the zoo.

However, I had heard that it was one of the best in the world, so we couldn't not go.

It was amazing.

The giraffes were beautiful.

We saw zebras,

and elephants,

and pink flamingos.

Our first day out and about in beautiful San Diego was perfect!

Blessings!

Downtown San Diego

More to come!

Candy Dishes

My parents live about an hour and fifteens minutes from me. They still live in the big old two story house that we grew up in. The house sits on about four acres, and although it is located within the city limits, my parents don't have close neighbors.

There is an old granary on my parent’s property. My daddy bought it many years ago and moved it to town. The granary is a round, tin building with a cement floor. It is a perfect storage building. I have on several occasions during my adult life needed a place to store some of my “treasures”.

One of those occasions was a few years ago. I sold the home in which I lived and moved in with my brother and his family while my new house was being built. I packed up a bunch of stuff in plastic storage bins and took them to the “granary”. When my new house was completed, I retrieved what I needed immediately; with the best of intentions to retrieve the rest of it as soon as I got everything else put away. Over the course of the next seven years, yes, I said SEVEN YEARS, my dad would mention now and then that I still had some plastic boxes in the granary. I mostly ignored his comments, because you know he wasn’t charging me rent, he didn’t threaten to throw my stuff away and quite frankly I didn’t have a place for all that stuff.

Last summer I decided I would have a garage sale. I drove to my parents to go though my "storage building". We brought all the boxes out of the granary and I began to sort through my stuff. One person’s junk is another person’s treasure, right?

I thought I had a good idea of what was stored in each container. However, in one of the boxes, I found this candy dish. I can't for the life of me remember where it came from or why I left it in storage for so long. I LOVE it.


I have always, always had a love for old glassware. I would much rather have an old glass candy dish; than a new crystal one. I also love browsing through antique stores. Not the fancy, smancy overpriced ones, but the ones that are a little on the junky side. Saturday afternoon I was out and about and decided to stop at a couple of antique stores in town. In the second store I found this candy dish. The guy told me it was from the 40’s or 50’s. He stated you could buy the dish back then in the dime store. It cost more than a dime; but it had my name on it. Happy Valentine’s Day to me!






I was drawn to another dish in this same store. It didn’t have a lid and it cost $40. Dorky me; I thought the tag said Hershey Compote. I liked it...a lot, but I wasn't going to pay $40 for a Hershey Compote. I don't even know what a compote is. When I asked the guy about it, he stated it was a Heisey Compote. He stated that Heisey went out of business in 1957 and that was the reason for the $40 price tag. He stated a compote would not have a lid. Hmmm. I told him I would put it on my wish list. Needless to say, when I got home I did a little research on Heisey glassware.

I hope you had a beautiful day. I soaked in the sunshine.

Blessings,

Life as I know It

Wow! It has been a couple of months since I actually wrote a blog post. I have every intention of posting something a couple of times per week; but life happens.

Where to start?

I worked in El Paso from October 26 through November 20. I taught a MEPD (Medicaid for the Elderly and People with Disabilities) Part One BST (Basic Skills Training) class. This class is for newly hired MEPD specialists. I teach them about the Medicaid programs that are available for the elderly and people with disabilities who live in the community. I also teach the basic policy guidelines and how to actually work a case to certify or deny an individual for Medicaid.

I love being in the classroom.

Thanksgiving Day and the day after are paid holidays for me. I took vacation days the three days before Thanksgiving, which gave me the whole week off from work. I planned to rest, clean my house and get ready to put my Christmas tree up the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

I picked Sophie (my sweet dog) up from mom and dad’s house on Saturday. When I travel, she lives with them. I guess you could say we share custody of her.

I was sick the following three days. I was finally able to do a few things on Wednesday.

Thanksgiving Day Sophie and I travelled back to mom and dads for the day. We had a good day. It was nice to spend time with my family.

Caley, Gloria, Clara and I were up early on Black Friday. Caley and I were at Old Navy at 2 a.m. only to discover that they actually opened at midnight. Our next stop was Kohl’s; then on to super Target.

I told Caley that we were making memories.

I finally had to have a nap. No nap for Caley. She played with the Lincoln Logs, watched some television and played on my phone…to be young again and full of energy.

I didn’t get my Christmas tree put up on Saturday…or Sunday.

Monday came. I was busy, busy at work.

I flew to Houston on Tuesday. I flew home on Wednesday.

Dad had surgery. What we thought would be a simple procedure and short hospital stay turned out to be a not so simple procedure. He is out of ICU; but still in the hospital.

I worry about mom. She stays by her man. 48 years of marriage.

I still haven’t put up my Christmas tree. I still have pumpkins on my mailbox and a scarecrow on the front door. At this point I don’t want to drag out the tree and all the decorations for only 12 days.

I have most of my shopping done. I’ve tried to get a couple of things each day after work. I want to avoid the weekend crowds as much as possible.

My house is still dirty and scattered. I have so much to do that I don’t know where to start.

I am thankful for my family, for the memories we make. I am thankful that I have my health, my dirty, scattered house, heat and hot water and more food than I need to eat.

I am thankful that life happens.

Holiday Blessings,