Gratitude

 Wednesday we were involved in a horrible car accident with another car who slammed into the door next to me.   I was thrown out of my seat belt into the dash, my head hit the top of the roof and my husband found me on top of him when the impact stopped.   It still plays over and over in my mind.  Thank God a police officer just happened to be in the area, he took control until the medics came.   They had to call for firemen to cut me out of the car with the "jaws of life", then transport me on the board with a neck brace to the hospital.   Everyone involved in saving us and controlling everything were wonderful.   Such professionals, such command of a situation.  While our car was totalled, we were not.   By the grace of God we were spared terrible injuries.   After Cat scans and X-Rays in the emergency unit, it was determined that my husband and I could go home with prescriptions of muscle relaxers and Motrin.  No scrapes or cuts, just a lot of bruising and soreness.   I have always had such respect for the emergency responders, now more than ever.  They are my heroes forever!  You can see our Toyota Rav4 is totalled and the car on the right is the one that slammed into us.  Hopefully those people didn't sustain bad injuries and were as blessed as we were.

Reunited

Got together with our old friends and neighbors whom we had not seen in four years.  It was fun to catch up on our lives and reminisce about the "old days".   Sharing horror stories about the dealings we had with our builder in constructing our new homes, the condition of the neighborhood, who of the "old" neighbors were left and just a general catching up on everything that has happened in our lives since we last saw each other.  Both couples were married in 1986, both have no children but adore their nieces and nephews and both wives have exquisite taste and gardening talents ( I had to throw that in there just for fun ).  We promised to stay in touch and not let another four years go by.

A Soldiers Death Long Ago

I looked him up on the Viet Nam Wall Memorial site this morning.  I've thought about him every Memorial Day since I heard of his death back in 1967.  I was eleven years old and the soldiers sister was my classmate and neighbor.  I remember them telling us in the classroom that her brother was killed in action.   I remember one of the moms in the neighborhood going door to door, taking up a collection and having a sympathy card signed.   I stood there with my mother while she signed the card.   I remember always seeing the gold star hanging from their front window.   I remember feeling sad even though I never knew him, yet he was a kid from the neighborhood so I felt connected in some small way and I guess that is why I felt the need to look him up today on the wall.  His name was Louis, he was born on April  6, 1946 and died  few days after his twenty-first birthday.  Thank you to Louis and all those who served and sacrificed.

LOUIS LLOYD GOERS

HM3 - E4 - Navy - Regular

Length of service 2 years

Casualty was on Apr 21, 1967

In QUANG TIN, SOUTH VIETNAM

HOSTILE, GROUND CASUALTY

OTHER CAUSES

Body was recovered

Panel 18E - Line 58

Old Friends and Former Neighbors

We were feeling nostalgic the other day, so we pulled into our old neighborhood, just to see how it looked 16 years after we built our "dream home" there.   Wasn't it Thomas Wolfe who said "you can never go home again"?  Was he ever right.   The neighborhood that was once vibrant and alive with beautifully manicured homes full of friendly faces was not to be found.  Houses were empty with newspapers for curtains, For Sale signs were a common sighting and lovely landscaped lawns were overtaken with weeds.  We drove from our cul de sac to the other one in the neighborhood, hoping to see some familiar faces out in their yard.  We were pretty close to one particular couple and wondered if they still lived in their home.  We had lost touch with them after we moved as people often do, but now I felt the urge to contact them and reconnect, especially after I saw what our subdivision had become.   The people in "our home" removed every tree and shrub that we had planted the first year we lived in our home.   We had a beautiful river birch and an ash tree, which had grown to amazing heights, but they were no more - gone, and for what reason?   Shrubs and beautiful hostas planted at the foundation, all gone.   Glorious, green sod replaced by hard clay and crab grass.   What had happened?  Could my former neighbors shed some light?   I needed to know.   We had spent thousands of hard earned dollars to make that house on the corner a beautiful home and now it was a shell of it's former self.   How sad and depressing.   Yes, I truly believe houses can be happy or sad and this one looked like it required some much needed therapy.   Well, when we returned home, I tried to contact our friends using the last phone number I had but all I got was a generic answering machine, the kind with the computer voice that you don't recognize and don't know if it even belongs to the people you're trying to reach.  It's Friday, said I.   They're probably working, I'll try again Saturday morning.   Guess what?   I got a human voice on the other end of the line.  It was the husband and he asked who was he speaking to and all I could do was laugh.   Well, anyone who knows me knows my laugh and that totally threw him a curve, he sounded totally perplexed and kept saying "no way, is it you, really you"????   I assured him it was and the next thing he said totally blew me away.   He said they were told I was dead, that I died a few years ago.    Dead, me?    I know I had battled the big "C" last year, but I didn't feel like I was even at deaths door.   When I assured him that the reports of my death were greatly exaggerated to quote Mark Twain, we both starting laughing hysterically.   His wife had just got out of the shower and he yelled to her "babe, you are NOT going to believe who I have on the phone".   He put me on speaker phone while I was laughing and she screamed, "Oh, my God, we thought you were dead".   I'm glad I called and set the record straight!!  Anyway, our plans are to get together with these old friends on Memorial Day for a cook out and we can't wait to visit and break bread with them and catch up on everything that's happened since we last saw them in 2009.   I promise to take pictures and report back on our much anticipated reunion!

A Baby Boom

We seem to be having quite a baby boom around here lately.   Here is a baby robin from the nest picture I posted a few days ago.   He's quite a big guy and very vocal.  Hopefully his three siblings will join him and leave the nest so that we can change the porch light bulb!   We also have a family of doves who were sitting at the back porch, Dad, Mom and Junior.   I had never seen a baby dove and he was pretty scrawny but cute just the same.  Of course the baby bunnies are still running all around - they're a lot of fun to watch.   Their parents don't seem to stay close to them like the bird parents do.   I worry about "my babies".   Will something harm them in the dark, cold night?   I just have to trust God to watch out for the little creatures and hopefully they'll come through childhood just fine!

Updated pictures of one of our baby robins who decided to perch on my front door wreath.













                                           Another picture of the baby dove.

That Time of Year

Spent the morning out in the country at our favorite garden center which keeps expanding and getting larger every year.  It's starting to get a bit overwhelming especially after some health issues I've experienced this past year.   It makes me yearn for the days when there were only a couple of greenhouses that you could navigate quite efficiently. Now they hand you a map with over 40 greenhouses and an endless choice of plants to choose from.   Talk about being a kid in a candy shop!  I know progress is good, but not always better.   Even a seasoned gardener such as myself starts feeling a bit exhausted by the endless varieties to choose from.   I sometimes long for the small, simple garden centers which are getting harder to come by these days.   It makes ones choices so much simpler and easier.   But, I do have to say I found some gorgeous hanging baskets and herbs at very reasonable prices so I shouldn't complain.   But I will try to purchase some things this week at the smaller garden centers so I can do my part to help them stay in business.   Oh, and as soon as I hung up the impatien hanging baskets on the front porch, the hummingbird was there checking out her supply of goodies.

The Payoff For Shade

 If you are fortunate enough to live near a maple tree, you appreciate the wonderful shade they provide on hot, muggy summer days.   But, there is a trade off to enjoying those trees.  You must endure the spring ritual of the falling of the seeds or as we called them when we were kids, "helicopters".    Today is the start of "helicopter" season around here and with the windy conditions, we're having a rainstorm of seeds.   There will be an endless supply for a good two weeks and in that time they will find themselves in your gutters, planters, cracks in sidewalks, flower beds, tucked in the windshields of your cars, just about anywhere they can try and attach themselves to reproduce.  
They are very determined to germinate and their efforts do not go unnoticed.  You will soon see young saplings coming up all over the place in places where you do not want a huge maple tree growing.   So late spring is spent cleaning up the seeds and pulling out the saplings.   Ah, the rituals of spring.