Seafaring

Last Sunday evening, Sarah and I were kidnapped by a certain Crazy Man.   (Would you get into a car with this guy?)

We were ferried to an undisclosed location where it quickly became apparent that our Crazy Man escort was a skilled skipper.  In fact, he was so skilled that he graciously gave Sarah a lesson in the finer details of the art.

As we skipped (Steve and Sarah) and stumbled (me) our way over the dunes, our destination finally came into view. 

Suddenly, we were transformed into the Seafaring Smiths.

Sarah busied herself with the time honored art of drawing a heart in the sand.

After she had finished, we walked down the beach for another ten or fifteen minutes.  On the way back, she ran up ahead of us to find her heart but had a little difficulty with her search. Since the sound of the ocean made it hard to talk, I looked up and saw this pantomime.

We never did find the mysteriously disappearing heart.  But that’s okay.

Because there was plenty of “heart” elsewhere.   As in, “I heart this man.”

This aforementioned man of mine and I decided that it would be fun to do a spoof of those TV shows where you see a wonderfully toned and tanned couple running along the beach looking unapproachably cool and suave and sending out beams of intimidating elite-esque-ness.  We also thought that he and I running on the beach would be a great way to entertain our daughter and infuse her with galvanizing gusts of uncontrolled merriment.

So we gave her the camera.  We got into position.  We told her to start taking pictures as soon as we started running.

But alas, something happened that waylaid our plans and instead of running, we both started pointing and shouting.  Sarah, being effectively brainwashed by her mother that one should take pictures of anything and everything, started snapping pictures of her frantic (and non-running ) parents.

We were both screeching over the roar of the waves, “Sarah! Birds!  Take a picture of the birds!”  She finally got the message and swung the camera around to capture this lovely sight. 

And then it was finally time to run.  (Or jog. Sort of.  A little. Ish.)

I especially love this pictures.  Steve is looking all energized and happy like, “Isn’t this such great fun?”  And I am looking like, “Um.  Hello?  Is it time yet to fall on the ground and wail and flail in exhausted agony?”

But I survived to walk another day. 

And so ended our brief seafaring journey—a journey that led us to a place of peace.

 

The Dresser

A couple nights ago when I went into Nathan’s room, I noticed that the top of his dresser was stacked with stuff. Since Nathan has not been home since May, I could only assume that the Stuff Stacker had to be someone who is currently in residence, which would be, um, me.

We’ve been so ridiculously busy lately that instead of putting things away, I’ve just laid miscellaneous items on the tops of various surfaces and thought, “I’ll deal with this later.”

Well, you’ll be so proud of me! I finally decided that the time had come to “deal with it.” And so, being the exemplary housekeeper that I am, I opened the second drawer of the dresser and prepared to sweep everything from the top of the dresser into the drawer. (As you can tell, I am an honored graduate of the Deal With It Later School of Housekeeping.)

But as things turned out, I was unexpectedly rendered incapable of moving ahead with my aforementioned cleaning plan when I looked into that second drawer and saw this.

I saw basketball shorts that Nathan used to live in when he was at home; basketball shorts that he left behind when he took off on his new chapter of life.

Sitting right next to the shorts, I noticed his well loved Old Navy sweatshirt that I have seen him wear at least a billion times.

And as if finding the shorts and the sweatshirt wasn’t enough, I also found this plaque at the bottom of the pile of stuff on the dresser.

Steve and I had ordered the plaque after his graduation with plans to hang it up in the house so that we could see Nathan’s wonderful smile and be reminded of his great achievement. When it finally came in, I laid it on top of the dresser so we could find it easily when it was time to do the hanging. But alas. When all The Stuff piled up on the dresser, the plaque got just a wee bit buried until I rediscovered it.

Well. I’m sure you can completely understand that between the unexpected sighting of Nathan’s clothes and the unexpected revealing of his smiling face, I was a goner.

I wasn’t planning on crying. I wasn’t expecting to cry. I had no idea a Big Cry was in my future when I got ready to clean Nathan’s room. But what choice does a mama have when she is nine days away from her beloved son’s wedding and she happens upon unexpected signs of his sweet presence in her life?

And so. I cried awhile, stared at his clothes awhile, gazed at his picture awhile, and then finally wiped my eyes and got busy hanging the plaque on the wall in his bedroom.

This wall is the first thing Steve and I see when we come out of our bedroom and every morning since hanging it, I have come out of our room, looked up, and smiled.

I’m so glad I decided to “clean” the dresser. I'm so glad for the unexpected gift of old precious memories and new precious tears.

(Sarah painted the lighthouse picture when she was in the fourth grade, back when we never dreamed we’d be living just a few short miles away from that very lighthouse!)

And finally . . .

This is the last time I’ll mention this, but since my wonderful readers continue to e-mail me about it, here is the list of where Nathan and Meagan are registered: Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Target, Belk, and Walmart.

Non Inspiring Pictures. And (Hopefully) Inspiring Pictures.

Late last week, we had a lighting strike at our church which fried a theater lighting system, the main computer, and over half of our PA system.   The only thing that Sir Strike (unfortunately) ignored was our 15-year old projection system which has a tendency to hum along merrily without bothering to show half the color spectrum. That makes for some lovely onscreen graphics, let me tell you.

At any rate, Saturday was Steve’s and my “Don’t Panic But We Need To Get All This Up and Running By Tomorrow Morning” day.  Steve was in frequent contact with the amazing Wyatt  trouble shooting the computer damage to find out which parts were fried and which parts might still be working.   Turns out there was nothing we could do to get it running in time (we’re shipping it out to Wyatt for repair today) so I started working on transferring files from the working part of the computer over to my laptop so that I could  finish the bulletin and get the songs and sermon graphics ready for projection on Sunday morning.  Steve also spent a long time with our sound man getting things transferred from non working channels to working channels so that we could at least limp through the music on Sunday.

At one point in the long and frantic day, I had a modern monitor, my laptop from home and a really old monitor pulled from a storage area to test what was working and what wasn’t.   I felt like a regular computer geek!

As you can see by the red cooler, I packed a lunch when I went in because I knew I would be staying for the duration.   And I did.  A very long duration, might I add.

Oh, and since I’m showing you pictures of my office/church sound room, I just have to tell you about the chair in the foreground.  I got it from Freecycle and it cost me absolutely nuthin’!  I have used Freecycle to pass stuff along that we don’t need anymore and also have gotten a few nice things there.  It’s a great site.

Anyway, as for how the Lightning Strike Crisis ended, we ended up cobbling a whole bunch of things together so that we could (just barely) make it through the service on Sunday. And now this week (when we were already in Near Frantic Mode preparing to leave for Florida in just one week), we’ve also got to get all the systems up and running because we certainly don’t want to leave behind nonfunctioning equipment for the people who will be working in our place while we’re gone.

And in related “happy news,” this is what the switches in our home office currently look like.  Completely unrelated to any lighting strikes, the electricity in the entire room just stopped working on Friday. My handsome, handy, hubby is in the throes of trouble shooting and fixing that problem, as well.   Do we know how to have fun, or what?

And just because I would feel really bad if I left you with only non inspiring pictures on this Monday morning, here are a few lovelier photos from a recent morning bike ride.   I tried to take pictures of the bridge from as many perspectives as possible, which was really a fun thing to do.

 

 

 

 

The Royal Couple. Hop and Suri.

Before I get into today’s post, let me pass on a quick message from Nathan and Meagan, the Royal Couple, (Well, they’re royal to us at least.)

I talked with them on the phone last night and they said that they’ve gotten wedding gifts from several of you that they weren’t expecting; they were so excited about receiving them and are thankful to have their upcoming Big Day celebrated by the Smithellaneous Family! (And Steve and I are grateful to you, as well.)

They mentioned that a few of the gifts didn’t include a return address and since they would love to send you a personal thank you note, they asked me to request that anyone who sent a gift without an address, please email your address to me (Becky) at smithellaneousATyahoo.com. I’ll pass the info on to them.

Also, they said that for anyone who is still planning to send a gift, you can just include your address in the message area of the form, if you’re getting something from Bed, Bath, and Beyond or Target—the two places where they are registered.

Once again, thanks for being so kind to “our kids.”

And speaking of “our kids” here’s the soon-to-married kid with the soon-to-be-a-bridesmaid kid. Is it just me, or does time go by way too fast?

Speaking of our Bridesmaid Gal, last week Sarah had a friend stay over who she met back in Smithfield three years ago. They have kept in touch with each other since we moved away and try to spend a few days together several times a year. (And by the way, their nicknames are Hop and Suri—don’t ask me why.)

Hope is a delightful and funny young lady who is home schooled, enjoys books, writing, and words and also loves Sarah’s favorite singer, Owl City. They always have so much fun together and I just love seeing their young friendship continue to thrive.

When I told them I wanted to take a few pictures, they sat very nicely by the tree for a few moments.

And then at some mysterious signal (that moms are obviously not privy to) they suddenly leapt up and began to fling themselves about the front yard. I was taken aback for one half of one second and then I thought, “Oh! Flinging around the yard pictures! I must capture some!”

And I did.

As it turns out, the reason for all the flinging was to accomplish this cute pose.

And all too soon, the visit was over and I drove Hop and Suri back to Smithfield so that we could meet up with Hope’s very sweet mom, Melody.

Hope, thanks for coming and being an honorary Smith for a week; we enjoyed you!

A Few Comments/Questions

Lisa said, “I don't do thrift stores, so I appreciated your thoughts on the dressing rooms. Makes me glad I don't shop in them. It's not a "Lovey, I don't DO thrift stores" thing. It's just that being a plus sized gal means there's not much there for me and it always turns out to be a waste of my time.”

Oh dear me! I feel like I have been disloyal to my beloved thrift stores and painted them in a bad light. Let me just say that the majority of thrift/consignment stores have adequate to lovely dressing rooms—I was just commenting on some of the “memorable ones” for dramatic effect.

Also, I am finding more and more of the stores that are carrying a good selection of plus sizes.

I don’t know there—there’s just something about the rush you get when you find something for next to nothing that you could never afford in real life. This past week, I found a darling blouse with the tags still on. It was $68 from Coldwater Creek, which is one of my favorite stores. I got it for $3.39 and I was a happy woman.

So please, please don’t give up!

(By the way, Lisa writes one of my favorite blogs, The Pennington Point. Whenever I see that she has a new post up, I always do my happiest of Happy Dances.)

Concerning my post on criticism, Denise said, “As a writer, this is one page I visit now and again. It has a collection of famous rejection letters. Reading them makes me remember that a critic is only one person, and that their opinion isn't the end-all.”

Denise, thanks so much for pointing me in the direction of that site; it’s wonderful. I now have it bookmarked.

http://www.examiner.com/book-in-national/30-famous-authors-whose-works-were-rejected-repeatedly-and-sometimes-rudely-by-publishers

Commenting on the fruit dessert I posted pictures of, Margie contributed a recipe of her own for making the same type of dessert.

She said, “I have a similar recipe that was featured at Publix last week. It was so good I made it twice.”

2 (5.3) containers nonfat Greek yogurt with honey
3 cups fresh mixed berries
1 prepared shortbread (used graham cracker second time) pie crust
1 big tablespoon confectioners sugar

Stir yogurt to blend honey, spread 1 container over crust place 1/2 berries over yogurt
Repeat
Top with confectioners sugar

Thanks, Denise. It sounds wonderful!

Sue G said, “ What??? No photos of the two dresses??? You seriously aren't going to leave us out of the voting, are you????

And, as long as I'm already being bossy, please get the recipe for the fruit dessert. You know it's only a matter of minutes before everyone is begging you for it!

Okay, my work here is done. For now.”

Sue, as always your comments make me either think or smile. This time I’m smilin’.

First of all, I’m afraid the whole dresscapade thing is going to have to remain highly secret until the day of the wedding. Not even Snowy is allowed to see the finalists!

As for the fruit dessert, I actually do not have that exact recipe (it was purchased from Harris Teeter)but I’ve made a dessert in the past that’s similar and uses a sugar cookie crust. It looks similar to this.

Unfortunately, I can’t seem to put my hands on that recipe. However, if anyone would enjoy making this type of dessert, you can Google sugar cookie crust+fruit dessert and follow some of the links that come up. It really is a fabulous dessert, especially in the summer.

Plus it’s really colorful and I’m all about color in cooking!

Of Dressing Rooms and Fruit Desserts

I meant to mention this in an earlier post but let me just say right here how much I appreciate all of you who left comments on my post last week about the not-so-kind song reviewer. Twenty-seven of you (including my own wonderful mom) took the time to leave a comment and encourage me and I just didn’t want any more time to go by before taking a moment to thank you for that. I also got several sweet e-mails on the subject.

I feel so blessed to have people (most of whom I’ve never met) take the time to send virtual hugs and encouraging words my way.

While I’m on that subject, I happened to come across the following paragraph about the great hymn, Amazing Grace, which has been translated into at least 80 languages. I just had to laugh when I read those words in bold:

Although it had its roots in England, "Amazing Grace" became an integral part of the Christian tapestry in the United States. More than 60 of Newton and Cowper's hymns were republished in other British hymnals and magazines, but "Amazing Grace" was not, appearing only once in a 1780 hymnal sponsored by the Countess of Huntingdon. Scholar John Julian commented in his 1892 A Dictionary of Hymnology that outside of the United States, the song was unknown and it was "far from being a good example of Newton's finest work".

How ironic is that? I’d say that the song has done pretty well, despite it not being “Newton’s finest work.” Just goes to show that song reviewers don’t always have the final say.

Also on the subject of criticism, I ran across this article which closed with some excellent thoughts:

Holding onto criticism is one of the most exhausting things you can do. Regardless of who it is from. Regardless of what it’s about. Regardless of the reasons why you think you’ve still got to wrestle with it or fix it, it’s something you need to let go of.

Carrying a wound forever will forever leave you wounded.

Let it go. Put it down. Give it up. Learn from it if there was a lesson in the criticism, but leave it behind. Empty your hands and your heart of the attacks. Working on your dream is a hard enough experience without thinking you have to carry the weight of criticism with you along the way.

In Other News . . .

I spent most of Friday in Chesapeake, Virginia on my Mother of the Groom Dress Quest. I actually bought a couple dresses home for Steve and Sarah to see but I’m not sure that either one of them is The Dress. Since I’m off work today due to the holiday, I am planning on taking one more shopping trip to see what else I can find.

I must say that it’s actually rather exciting to shop in real stores for a change. I was in one particular gorgeous store in a huge mall and when I went into the dressing room, I just had to stop for a moment and gaze around in amazed wonderment. There were large, solid woods doors with real locks on them! And multiple hooks on the wall! And cushy chairs! And large mirrors! And cleanliness and soft lighting and loveliness galore!

I felt like I was on another planet because--as my fellows thrift store shoppers will understand--you never know quite what a dressing room might be like in a thrift store. I have stumbled through dimly lit storage rooms into small bathrooms where there’s no lock on the door. The only available mirror shows only the head and shoulders and the only place to put one’s hangers is on the side of a garbage can. (Although I am happy to say that those kinds of rooms are the exception.)

But still, I’m perfectly fine with all that because to me, “interesting” dressing rooms are just part of the charm of thrift store shopping. And since 90% of my clothes come from thrift and consignment stores, I do know what I’m talkin’ about!

On the rare occasions though, when I get to take a brief step outside my usual life and walk into a real dressing room in a real store, well, it’s just fabulously exciting for me.

On my Friday trip, while I was glancing through a particular rack of dresses, a saleslady asked me what the occasion was. I said, “Oh, my son is getting married soon” and then I almost started crying over the joy and the excitement of it all. I’m sure she thought I was a very strange customer, getting teary-eyed over wedding announcements and getting starry-eyed over dressing rooms.

I guess I’m just an interesting person!

Yum.

I just had to show you a few pictures of a dessert that was dropped off at our house late last week. I thought it was so lovely and colorful and I also figured that anything that is filled with much fruit has got to be calorie-free. Sort of.

Isn’t this utterly magnificent?

And Lastly . . .

I have a few comments and questions to answer.

Carrie B said, “By the way, do you know what snafu stands for? I ask because I, in fact, just learned myself and thought ... oooohh, okay I won't be using THAT term anymore. Just sayin'” :)

Carrie, very interesting point!

I did look the word up and found that it means, “A badly confused or ridiculously muddled situation.”

I also found its origin (which you were referring to), and I must sat that I was a bit taken aback by it. However, one word site said that its origin is many times changed to, “Situation Normal: Still Fouled Up,” in place of the “ugly F” word that was originally used in place of “fouled.”

Since so many online dictionaries just give the straight definition and don't go into any background, I feel like its usage has been mainlined and that it’s just a “normal” word. But I would be curious to hear from any other readers as to whether or not you were aware of the word's origin and whether or not you ever use the word. Because there’s nothing I love any more than a scintillating conversation about words!

Sharon said, “Becky, the quilt is beautiful. Question about the bedspread: the picture with the stain actually looks like it's a cream color (without stain) but stain out pictures, it looks white. What color is the spread?”

Well, that’s a good question. After I read what you wrote I went and stared at the quilt for a long time and I kind of hovered between beige-y, cream-esque, and white-ish. Does that help? I guess, though, if I had to pick a color I’d go with cream.

MN Mom said, “Hard to believe Nathan's wedding day will soon be here. Savor the moments! Will you and Steve be part of the ceremony?”

Happily, our only involvement in the wedding will be to sit in our assigned pews and take it all in. (Well, of course, Meagan’s dad will have a certain special assignment of walking the beautiful bride down the aisle.)

Since all four of the Hawley/Smith parents have Rev. before our names, we could certainly be involved on several levels. And yet on this particular occasion, I for one, am thankful for the chance to lay aside titles and usual duties and just get the chance to sit quietly and drink in the sweet experience of being Mother Of The Groom.

Ta-Da!

Some of you may remember this recent post about my bedspread snafu. Many of you, after reading about said snafu, took pity on us poor hapless, snafu-ed Smiths and left wonderfully helpful comments about possible ways to fix our problem.

For those who may not be familiar with the story, our problem was this stain caused by a water bottle leaking on a red sweater. (And I have no idea why part of the stain is yellowish but I promise that none of us had an accident on the bed.)

I printed out all your comments and Steve and I did a scientific study as to which solution was mentioned most often. We highlighted those and decided to try that solution first and then move down the line if that didn’t work. And as it turned out, the most frequent suggestion involved trying Oxyclean. So we did.

And voila’! The stain totally, completely disappeared leaving us totally, completely (and happily) flabbergasted!

Since we soaked the bedspread, washed it, and dried it, we have been left with a few wrinkles, but we can deal with wrinkles. We just couldn’t quite cope with a hideously ruined bedspread.

And now, here’s Part Two of the story. The reason we even have such such a plain bedspread is that our goal is to decorate the bedroom around this old quilt which will be hung on one of the walls.

The quilt was made by Steve’s grandma (and her friends) in the early 60’s. They made a special quilt for each one of their grandchildren and, as you can imagine, the quilt is precious to us. We call it “The Little Boy Quilt.” (Creative, I know.)

It’s especially special because Steve’s own little hands helped to stitch this airplane all those years ago. How cool is that?

And so that’s the story of the bedspread and the quilt. A decorating tragedy was averted and we are now on track to finish our guest bedroom in the quaint and beloved Old Quilt Style.

I just want to say thanks again to all of you who jumped in and offered such helpful advice. Have I mentioned you all are the greatest!

Wednesday Faves

This past Monday, Nathan's future mom-in-law, Sheri, wrote this post, which I absolutely loved. And since Steve and I are going shopping for my own dress this Friday, I've got my bargain-huntin' shoes on!

Also, Jon Acuff,a funny guy who I love to read, posts a more serious post every Wednesday; I thought this one was especially good. It's called, "The Problem With Punctuation."

And lastly, I didn't find this picture soon enough to include it in yesterday's post about Nathan "trying on manhood" but I couldn't resist posting it today.

Is this kid cute, or what? And he was rockin' suits, even way back then.