Thankfulness

Psalm 107:8
Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind.

Thanksgiving has become one of my favorite holidays of the year.  It has a lot of qualities of Christmas such as family gatherings, lots of fabulous food, hustle and bustle in the kitchen, acts of kindness and love, keeping Christ in the celebration . . .  but without the pressure of gift giving.  I know, I know - you are sitting there thinking what a strange thing to write "pressure of giving".  

 Thanksgiving is indeed a time of "Thanks" for me.  Not that I've had some horribly difficult life, but I have had quite a few ups and downs and it's made me stronger and much more appreciative.  APPRECIATIVE for my family, the people whom I love and are truly important to me, TIME spent with my children, celebrating holidays with food that I earnestly pray over and am humbly thankful to God for providing us.  

Don recently wrote the cutest yet most touching 'note' on Facebook about all the things he was thankful for including Metamucil, aglets (look it up), his daughter, his family, zippers, ladies who wear red hats, veterans, and a hundred other things from serious to amusing.  It made me really think about all the tiny things, funny things, and non-material things for which I am SO thankful. But most of all I am thankful for the PEOPLE in my life.

Thanksgiving 2010 was one of the best I've had in years.  It was spent with lots of family and GREAT friends.  I had both of my children and my daughter-in-law spend time up here.  It was the usual ultra-exciting Alabama-Auburn game.  We got mundane chores done around the Lake.  We rested, we ate WELL, had lots of laughs, and even a few naps.  And most of all our time spent with the family(s) was Priceless !!  Indeed it was a Thanksgiving I'll never forget.

 Mercy Me - A Song of Thanks

Moving from the Beach . . .

I moved to the beach 8 years ago - in October. How ironic I am moving back 'home' exacty 8 years later - in October.

I would not trade the 8 years I've lived on the coast, for anything.  It's been an unbelievable experience.

Many people have asked me 'how' I can leave paradise. Let me answer this by sharing a quote I found:  "Anywhere is paradise; it's up to you." ~Author Unknown.

My interpretation is:  "Paradise is anywhere you want it to be".

The gulf coast is gorgeous and indeed a Paradise. However, if your family, friends and loved ones are elsewhere, Paradise can be a lonely place at times. 

I will miss my friends here and Pensacola. I will miss sunsets on the beach and walks in the warm sand. I will miss having chocolate swirl coffee out on my deck while smelling the salty air from the gulf.  

However, I look forward to: chocolate swirl coffee on a patio with huge pine trees towering above, or a glass of wine on the deck overlooking the Lake, seeing thousands of stars from a totally dark slough. I will be only 2 hours from Brooke who is now in Montgomery.  I look forward to having dinner with my parents, dinner with old friends in Bham, and visits with my dad in particular (I am a daddy's girl). I look forward to hanging out with new friends I've made in Alex City, and yes,  I look forward to being closer to Don !

 The sad part of all this is that I will be moving away from my son Ryan and his wife Ashley.  But you can bet I will be visiting frequently. 

I do not expect life to be perfect.  It's not perfect here either.  But I am happy I'll be near 'home'.

Captn Ryan

My son Ryan will be 29 next week and I want to wish him a wonderful Birthday!

Like all mothers it's hard for me to comprehend having a child his age.  It's like yesterday we brought him home from the hospital.  He was a live-wire from the time he was a small baby and still is ... but I would not have it any other way.

I could fill a Blog with stories of Ryan's escapades and adventures from the time he attended ACA in Montgomery to his days in Reeltown and hanging out with best buddy Lanier Baker.  He finished his high school years at Tallassee and we had some wonderful football experiences those years, too.

But who would have ever dreamed that Ryan would be a Captain?  He always had a love for the water and fishing.  We would go on chartered fishing trips in the Gulf when he was a little boy and he would say he wanted to 'do that one day' while pointing at the deck hands pulling in huge snapper and Amberjack.  

I must admit I never thought he would have the opportunity to pursue his dream, but things fell into place after he moved to Gulf Shores.

Ryan worked for a while for a private boat captain, and then on the Intimidator out of Orange Beach.  His natural fishing abilities helped him greatly as a deckhand.  He bought his own boat and has had some great times on it.  Yes, I've had some good times fishing with he and Ashley, and fishing with his good friend Bobby on the "Reel Hard".  

Ryan obtained his 100 ton Captains License in 2007, and later his USCG 200 Ton Master License.   He is now Captain on a 200-ton vessel, Annie. She’s a 175 foot class Liftboat with a 110 ton crane.

I'm so proud of him and the man he's become !! 

{I'll post a story on his sweet wife, and my 'grand-dog' at a later time.}

“I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.”

"The stars are the street lights of eternity. "  ~Author Unknown

The beach is magical at night with its salty breeze, sugar sand, gentle waves and sometimes breathtaking moonlight.  But these days the nearby lights curtail our ability to see what is right in front of us.  The lights hide a wondrous sight in the sky.

But there is a small slough on Lake Martin where this wondrous sight was revealed to me and a whole new world appeared.  The sky exploded with millions of stars.

In that small slough the trees block all signs of modern civilization and lighting.  This darkness allows the human eye to adjust and see small celestial bodies that otherwise cannot be seen.

There are millions of twinkling little stars that fill the night.  I saw the most gorgeous shooting star of my life that slowly glided across the sky and burst into flaming fireballs as if fireworks.  I witnessed a meteor shower of fifteen shooting stars in less than half an hour.   I viewed the most gorgeous moons of my life – some crescent shape, some half full, and full moons that lit up the lake as if it were daylight. A full moon is spellbinding to me; I could stare at it for hours.  

In this slough on the Lake I’ve also listened to total silence.  Do you know what that sounds like?  No cars, no humans, no barking dogs, no artificial noise of any kind.  If you hear a sound it is the gentle breeze rustling leaves, or lapping the water.  You may at times hear whipporwills, a hoot owl, or the splash of a large bass.

As I lay there in the boat experiencing this sight in the sky, feeling the breeze, and hearing an occasional whippoorwill I am so relaxed.  And I wonder..... how many other people have experienced this?  It saddens me to think of what they’ve missed --- the wonder of God’s sky and his creation.  Only Rachel Carson can put into words what I am feeling . . . .

"One summer night all but surrounded by the water, the horizon was a distant rim on the edge of space.  Millions of stars blazed in darkness, and on the far shore a few lights burned in cottages.  Otherwise there was no reminder of human life. 
My companion and I were alone with the stars:  the misty river of the Milky Way flowing across the sky, the patterns of the constellations standing out bright and clear, a blazing planet low on the horizon. It occurred to me that if this were a sight that could be seen only once in a century, this water would be thronged with spectators.  But it can be seen many nights in the year. 
And so the lights burned in the cottages and the inhabitants probably didn’t give a thought to the beauty overhead…. because they could see it almost any night.  And so they probably never will."  ~Rachel Carson

Mule Plowing 101 (bet you never took this class)

Have you ever seen someone use a mule to plow a field?  I grew up watching it.

My maternal grandparents never owned or drove a car. Neither ever had a drivers license.  Papa used a mule to plow his fields and garden.  And this was not some tiny patch of garden; he had acres of corn fields.  And they always had a big garden spot in the ‘holler’ (which is a small valley) between their house and ours.

I awoke many spring and summer mornings to Papa’s deep voice hollering “gee” or “haw”.  These are the verbal signals to instruct a Mule in which way to move – to the left or the right.  Of course there was the usual “giddyup” and “woeeee”.

The mule was attached to a plow with handles which Papa balanced in the soil as the mule pulled it along.  Long leather reins reached from the bridle along the back of the mule and Papa usually had the ends thrown across the plow or his thin shoulder.

{Photo not of my grandfather but copied for illustrative purpose only}

It was an ‘art’ to see and I wish I could see it again today.  As an adult I promise you I would absorb the finesse and strength it took to maneuver that animal.

Also, I would like to point out THIS is how I learned to ride a horse (mule).  As a tiny child Papa would throw me onto the sweaty back of the mule named “Shorty”.  I would ride to the barn and back and sometimes would beg to just sit on Shorty while he rested in the shade for lunch.

As I grew older, I was allowed to take the reins and ride him alone.  I learned to groom this mule, wiping the sweat off him, brushing him down and even braided his long mane.  Now I wish I had a PHOTO of that – Shorty the mule with a braided mane.  The basics I know about riding a horse I learned on the ‘plowing mule’.

Shorty was sold when Papa got sick in my 6th grade year of school.  I cried like a baby, and chose not to go to the barn and see him taken away.  I still remember it vividly.

But these are good memories of a time long ago !!

Coffee - A Social Event not just a drink

My grandmother, Corine Smelley, affectionately called "mam-maw" taught me to drink coffee. {Her last name will be discussed in another Blog story and is very amusing.}

When a little girl I loved to spend the night with mamaw and papa. My memories are of cool Fall mornings in their older farm house, walking on a cold hardwood floor into the kitchen filled with the smell of homemade biscuits, bacon frying, and freshly brewed coffee. No "Mr. Coffee" for them. No instant coffee. She had a real metal 'pot' filled with boiling water and would literally throw a handful of coffee into it, bring it to a boil (brewing?), and knew exactly when it was 'right'. I never saw her measure it. She knew exactly how much "felt right", and was the correct amount in her hand. Amazing.

Large white cups always sat in saucers that were more like shallow bowls than the saucers we know of today. She would pour the hot coffee into the cup until it barely touched the rim. Then large heaping spoons of pure white sugar were added, stirred, and followed by milk. No 2%; no low-fat... it was pure whole milk and it was heavenly.

Since the cup had originally been filled to the brim, the addition of sugar and milk caused it to spill into the saucer-bowl underneath. This was not an accident. Mamaw called it "saucering your coffee." This act seemed to allow the scalding hot coffee to slowly cool as well. I say this because the small amount of cooling coffee that spilled in the saucer was the first thing I drank. I would eagerly slurp it and felt so "grown up" sitting there with these two well-aged people.

Breakfast would continue over biscuits buttered with real butter that melted and ran out the side, homemade jelly, slabs of thick bacon, scrambled eggs, and the wonderful creamy sweet coffee. We would eat over lively conversation about the cows that needed to be fed, fields that needed plowing, church members who were sick, and family members in Texas.

This simple meal, starting our day over 40 years ago, is a memory I cherish and will not easily forget. And it was an experience that taught me to 'enjoy and savor' the socializing that comes with sipping a cup of coffee.

Even today I consider drinking coffee not so much an 'act' as a 'social event'. I love these new flavored coffees and the 'foo-foo' creamers that go in them. I enjoy the local coffee house atmosphere where the locals come in and discuss the fishing industry, local restaurants, and impending hurricane or oil spill disaster. But most of all I enjoy sitting on my little porch at the beach, with the soft breeze blowing my hair, inhaling the salty air, and sipping my chocolate swirl coffee with caramel creamer. And I remember "saucering coffee" with Mamaw.

I loved that woman. And I love coffee.

New Obsession - Photography

You will notice lots of photos on my Blog as time goes on.  {To the right you will find a link to FLICKR where I am beginning to 'log' my photos.}

I've had an interest in photography since a kid but those were the days of the polaroid "instant" cameras, and then I remember having a tiny Kodak "disk" camera.  Anyone remember those?   Years went by and my camera's improved marginally.  After moving to the beach I bought my first digital camera and loved it.  In my world I thought I had a quality camera but little did I know.

So here I am... with my new Nikon D5000.  A top-of-the-line digital SLR camera with interchangeable lenses and she shoots 4 photos per second.  Have I died and gone to heaven?  Seriously, my new camera is a dream come true and was a wonderful birthday gift from Don and my children (I will never be able to Thank You enough for this gift !!).

I am having a great time taking photographs; experimenting with position, lighting, zoom, aperture, shutter priority, and learning a multitude of new 'photography' lingo.  I now find myself in the oddest places, seeing various things/scenes and wishing I had my camera.  Just tonight I was in front of a restaurant and happened to look up and see an absolutely awesome sunset.  No, I did not have my camera !!

I entered three photos in "The Beach is Calling" photo contest about 3 weeks ago.  It was sponsored by the Tourism Bureau here on the coast.  I was one of the winners !!  I've posted the 'shell' photo that was my winner and hope you like it.  I love the beach and love photographing it.

I am learning a lot and meeting lots of neat people who have a love for photography like I do.  That has been one of the most exciting things... meeting all these people who have the same interest and passion.  I hope you will enjoy my photographs as much as I have enjoyed taking them.  I am trying to learn more about 'sports' photography since photographing "water skiing" is one of my main interests.  Well, actually the 'water skier' is one of my main interests and being on the water with him and taking pictures is one of my favorite things.

I will be sharing my attempts, and learning-experiences.  Feel free to comment on them and make suggestions.  Thanks for taking the time to read my Blog. . . .

Always,
Roxy

And so it begins . . .

Here I sit at "middle age" and finally doing something I wanted to do for 30 years. . .  write.

As most of us have experienced, I never thought I was good enough.  I was insecure.  I could not imagine anyone wanting to read what Rox wrote.  What information could I share that would be note worthy, informative, or entertaining?

But perhaps it's the "middle aged" thing that gives me the courage to finally pursue my interest.  Let's face it  . .  . at 51 it's "now or never".  And at this stage in my life, it is not so important to receive approval from my friends, family and peers as it is to feel I have contributed something to enrich our relationship.  And if that small "enricher" is to make you laugh, or cry, or question . . . then I've accomplished something.

So let's see how this "blogging" thing goes.  

I have a few basic things going on in my life that will appear in my Blogs:  My Beach/Lake Life; my love for photography (some call it an obsession); my increasing interest in spiritual things (aka: The Lord); and a mix of small incidental non-important things.

I hope you enjoy.