With love and light, God does the rest

When I was young my father used to tell me what a wonderful gardener his mother was. They grew a large and beautiful garden at their home in Point Loma. He and his siblings tended to it regularly but he credited his mother for it's existence. She planted it with vegetables and flowers. Times were hard and folks were frugal and self sufficient but she longed for and created the beauty she had known of her home in Sweden.
He told me that even in winter she would bring home plants that looked dead and past reviving only to nurture them in the kitchen window to beautiful, thriving, welcome color. He especially remarked about the coleus.
He always remembered the coleus.
She would say "Med karlek och latta Gud gor resten".

"With love and light God does the rest"

Happy Halloween

For my sons: Please don’t try this!

OK, I think this is really cool, but I don’t advocate it or want any of my loved ones to try it, either. It brings to mind a 14 year old patient that came in about a week ago who had broken both bones in his left forearm, three fractures to his pelvis and had various cuts and bruises, all while trying to do back flips with his dirt bike. Please take note of the title of the song accompanying it!

When God plays golf he uses a really big tee!

No greater love

When my oldest son was about 13 and his younger brother nearly 3 years old, he, Jason told me about a dream he had the previous night.



" I had a dream last night , Mom. Yancy and I were out on the lake in a boat. Somehow the boat sank and I was holding Yancy up because he was so little and couldn't swim. Help hadn't gotten there yet and I was too tired to hold us both up any longer. I stood with my feet touching the bottom and my head was underwater but Yancy was on my shoulders so he could breathe....The thing is Mom.... if this really was to happen.....I would do the same thing again."



It brought tears to my eyes to look on this young man knowing he was already capable of such great compassion and sacrifice. It still does.

Happy Birthday Jason. Thank you for being my son.

Only poodles could pull this off!

Most of you are probably used to seeing Gryphon in pictures only and those pictures have shown a typical poodle doo. He had just been groomed for the summer in what is called a puppy cut or kennel cut. This style is still pretty typical of poodle cuts with a pompadour on top, furry feet and a pom pom tail. We were cutting firewood recently and I had some down time while Peter was cutting up a log. I usually knit or something. I was holding my scissors, looked at Gryphon and decided he didn't need the pom pom. Then I felt the feet needed trimming. When I decided I wanted to see what he would look like without the pompadour of course the ear thing had to go too. Peter turned around, looked at the pile of fur, then at Gryphon. This did not even resemble his dog. He was shocked a little at first but this look has grown on us. I'm sure it's alot cooler for him! It also left a nice pile of extremely soft nest building material for the birds. This is him up in the woods right after his new doo. Not as creative as these groomers but good enough for us.

Sparkles

We had a great Independence Day. This year Dawn and Ned came over to celebrate with us for a few days. The highlight was, of course, after dark. Ned put on a fantastic pyrotechnic display which kept us all entertained with many oohs and aahs .
Then came the time for our own individual talents to shine. We each took turns and armed only with sparklers we strut our stuff. Mine was the grand finale. It will be left to your own imagination, for it was not documented. But it included my bicycle and all of the remaining sparklers, of which there were enough to create their own weather.
The words awesome, hilarious and Cirque du Soleil were used to describe my performance.
With the help of an inhaler I barely survived it.
I wish you could have seen it!