Birthday Weekend, Storm Cleanup, Wednesday Medley

As St. Augustine said,  “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.” There is nothing else that satisfies. There is nothing else. Period. Jesus Christ is not an addition to life to make it more wonderful and meaningful.
He IS life.

 I don't know about you, but this Google greeting kinda creeps me out!
I opened Google yesterday to see this.

I wasn't feeling lucky.
They might as well have said,
"Happy Birthday from your favorite spy!"


But anyway, that was yesterday.
Today is
Wednesday Medley!
Join Terri and the Gang

She writes the questions;

we write the answers.

Plug them into your own blog post

and link up at

Your Friend From Florida

Thanks, Terri!

 

And TODAY IS

NATIONAL LIGHTHOUSE DAY

 

Terri's questions are in black; my responses in blue.

1.  Let's start with a number! How many lighthouses have you visited?

 Lighthouse from Duluth at Canal Park

from 2009

I was looking through my photo files

but I guess this isn't a lighthouse. I'm sure there's one there and that I saw it. :-)

Dover, 2017

And I know I've seen the lighthouse at Marquette, Michigan, but evidently I didn't take a photo.

2.  Have you been inside a lighthouse and did you walk to the top? No. But I've walked to the top of York Minster and a few other cathedrals. Does that count?

3.  Do you seek them out when you are traveling the coastlines or are you not that big a fan? 

I don't travel the coastlines or I would. And I'd still like to get up north to Split Rock Light House along Lake Superior.

Morning light, October '16

4.  Do you have a favorite scripture or another reference to share with us concerning a guiding light in your life?

There are more than a few things I could insert here. The first, of course, would be Psalm 119:105 - "Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." 

" Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.'”John 8:12

"This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all." I John 1:5 

Paraphrasing theologian N.T. Wright, We are here to be God's image bearers, being good stewards of and bringing God's wisdom to his good creation and offering creation's praises back to him. 

 This morning's light

5.  If you don't collect lighthouses when you travel, is there something tangible that you tend to collect as a souvenir when you are on vacation or a road trip?

 Yes, I collect mugs. And now I have far too many, I know, but all of my England mugs are going with me to Wausau.

6.  Please share something with us about your week.

The weekend of August 3, family gathered here to celebrate three family birthdays, including mine - AND to clear the driveway of the huge eagle spruce that had uprooted and fallen across our driveway on July 19. (Previous post was all about that.)  It was great to have the family here working together, eating together, and for me, it's always so much fun to see the cousins playing together. I thank God for all the years that we've been able to host the family here, and I'm hoping that after we sell our country home later this year, someone else in the family will pick up the baton and keep the family reunions going. 

 View from the porch

 No, I will probably never remember to hold my phone horizontally while taking a video.

The star of the show was the newest member of our oldest son's family - a Great Pyrenees puppy, Freya.

I think I can; I think I can

 

A note about the guy in the orange shirt, our middle son:  He's holding two boards which he had hauled to near the top of that giant 90' spruce when he was about 14 years old so that he could sit up there and watch the world go by. If I had known, he would never have lived to tell the tale. But anyway, when the tree came down, those two boards were still in there, nailed across a couple limbs. The little boy in the red Ranger is his son and will probably give his dad a run for his money. We can only hope. LOL

I think the only one whose photo I did not get was our granddaughter Elisabeth, who accompanied us to church on Sunday morning. It was a joy to have her with us. She sat between her grandpa and me, and after church, a man in the congregation introduced himself and told her how lucky she was to be our granddaughter. We told her that Mr. Thompson was a wonderful man and a liar. :-) Actually, he had been Mr. C's and my high school music instructor. No kidding. And believe me, he's a great reader at church and makes everyone feel welcome. I love it!

 

I tried to get him to go get a haircut with me again...
No deal.

 This photo has nothing to do with anything.
It's just a bonus.

And, of course, the birthday weekend wraps up with the essential bonfire.


I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday.


***

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After The Storm Wednesday Medley

The game of pick up sticks.
More like pick up branches.
There are currently 50 crews out working to restore power after our big storm last Friday evening that affected a huge area of NW Wisconsin. They say there were a few tornadoes and 80-90 mph straight-line winds. As of Tuesday afternoon, they're predicting another 2-3 days without power for us. Some places north of us they're expecting it will be another 3 weeks!

***This post was written yesterday on my phone. After supper last night, power was restored. Yea!! But anyway, now we have glorious running water again, for which I am so grateful!***


Please join Terri and the gang
For

Wednesday Medley.
She writes the questions; we write the answers.
Plug them into your own blog post and link up at Terri's blog,
Your Friend From Florida.

In spite of 80-90 mph winds, and losing our 90' eagle spruce as well as many trees and branches, nothing fell on our buildings. And of all the branches that fell in our front yard, not one punctured the screen of our porch or did any damage. Thank you Lord. What a miracle!

TODAY IS NATIONAL COUSINS DAY

1.  What can you tell us about your cousins, please, or someone who is close like a cousin?

When I was a kid, many of my cousins lived in the area. We got to see them and play with them regularly. We told ghost stories, played starlight moonlight, and had lots of fun together. It was a fun childhood. David and Bobby were my favorites.

2.  Do you still see your cousins and will you contact them on National Cousins Day?

I see my cousins only at funerals. That older generation that kept up the reunions is no longer here. And my generation is busy just trying to get our own families together. But I do have a special favorite cousin who moved to Montana some years back. I need to phone her. We always have great visits!

Update: I phoned my cousin at your prompting and we had a great two-hour visit of serious stuff and total nonsense. We have so much shared history. I told her it was like spending a day back in country school. It was a real treat!

The bonfire for our August family reunion here is growing, thanks to last week's storm. Mr. C and I are cleaning up the back and front yards, but I let the family know they should come prepared to help with cleanup (the giant spruce.) 

The huge spruce missed our house too. So thankful. I will miss the eagles who used to visit there. ☹️

JULY 26 IS NATIONAL AUNTS AND UNCLES DAY

3.  Terri had a favorite aunt and uncle she will tell us about.  How about you?

I had lots of favorites, and usually it was because of their sense of humor. Aunt Ruth, Aunt Elaine, Aunt Ruby, Uncle Merlin, Aunt Lois - especially those.

4.  Did/does your family have reunions and can you tell us about them?

We did have occasional reunions with the Canada relatives. We would meet in Solon Springs, Wisconsin and all the adults would tell us my how we've grown. It was very boring. I just remember the men being tall and gray and old. The women were shorter. The best reunions were the Sunday afternoons when we'd go to visit one of my dad's siblings and their family or my mom's sister and her family. Mini reunions. Very often. Cake and ice cream. Those were the days when the ice cream man had a rural route and people kept like 5 gallon ice cream cylinders in their freezers! Really, I'm not kidding. One neighbor could be counted on to have BOTH vanilla and chocolate in those huge containers. It was wonderful. And no wonder I was a chubby kid.

5.  If you have children, are they enjoying relationships with their cousins, aunts, uncles?

To the best of my ability they are. That's why I try to host the August reunion and an early Thanksgiving. Just so these cousins can get to know one another and play together and make fun memories. I'm hoping this baton can be passed to the next generation pretty soon.

6.  Tell us something random about your week so far.

Eating on the screen porch

Heating up chili I had in the freezer
I am sorry, Pam. I see that Mr. C. grabbed one of your beautiful coasters to use as a shim to level the legs on that LP burner! Please see Pam's Coaster Doodles shop on Etsy. The coasters are SO CUTE (and not to be treated as common shims).

Enjoying an evening during
The Great Power Outage of 2019

We are so truly grateful to God for keeping us safe through the storm, for preserving my screen porch 😊💗🙏✝️ and for giving us strength for this cleanup operation.

BTW,
Always be prepared for something like this. Things I'm so glad we had on hand include:

Bottled water, several cases
Generator (about $300)
Mr. C brings home 5 gallon buckets of water after work each day to keep on hand for bathing and flushing (not at the same time). 😊
(We run the generator during the day only, hooked up to the refrigerator and freezer and a power strip for charging our phones)
A can of gasoline on hand, and we get more as needed.
A few meals in the freezer
An LP burner
Paper plates and bowls
Flashlights
Antiseptic wipes
9V itty bitty flashlights for nightlight
(I still hate the pitch dark, but then my deeds are not evil. 😊)
And of course we always have canned and dry food on hand.
And T.P.

And most important of all on my survival list:
Coffee!!

***

UPDATE!!!
Power restored at 6:55 PM Tuesday.
Yea!
Our little pioneer adventure is over.

What a luxury electric power is!

******

My soap shops are closed for the summer.
They will hopefully be re-opened in the fall.
 
HomemadeSoapNSuch


and at


Our ETSY Shop

I wrote this post on my phone and what a pain that is!

THANK YOU TERRI!!

Although I wanted to join in with other Meddlers, I have a few projects to do today: Laundry, dishes, branch pickup.
I can't promise when I'll be getting back to the computer.
Have a wonderful Wednesday, everyone.

Yellow Pig!! Medley

Photo from Monday, taken on the way home from Chetek. 
New Scandinavia Lutheran Church, just up the road from our home.

"Everyone worships something. It's 'worth-ship' - 

what's of highest worth to you? 

The biblical idea is if it's other than God, 

you will disintegrate on the inside 

and society will disintegrate around you."

- Bishop Robert Barron 

Join Terri and the Gang
for

She writes the questions;

we write the answers.

Plug them into your own blog post

and join in at Terri's Blog,

Your Friend From Florida

Thanks for the Medley, Terri!  Terri's questions are in black; my responses are in blue.

NATIONAL PEACH ICE CREAM DAY – July 17

HOW TO OBSERVE NATIONAL PEACH ICE CREAM DAY

Grab your ice cream maker and invite your friends and neighbors over for an old-fashioned ice cream social! Give this homemade peach ice cream recipe a try. If you need tips for picking fresh peaches visit Frog Hollow for an easy guide to the best peaches. 

First of all, I can't tell you how good that fresh peach ice cream looks to me. Peach is my absolute favorite!!! But it can't be vanilla ice cream with hunks of peaches. It must be peaches blended thoroughly throughout and then maybe extra hunks of peaches besides. It's just amazing.

We actually did make old-fashioned peach ice cream for friends, and after the woman ate her ice cream, her tongue and throat started to swell up and they had to rush to the hospital. She had no idea we were using fresh peaches and we had no idea that she had an allergy to them. It was very scary, so it kinda wrecked a fun time, needless to say.  Anyway, fortunately she survived the homemade peach ice cream incident. And this subject makes me wonder if I could dig out my old ice cream maker...

1.  Do you enjoy fresh peaches?  What is your favorite way to use them in a recipe?

Yes, I do love fresh peaches, especially the freestone type, so you're not fighting with that pit. My favorite recipe would be peach pie.

An Amish farm in our neighborhood on a warm and muggy day

NATIONAL WRONG WAY CORRIGAN DAY – July 17

NATIONAL WRONG WAY CORRIGAN DAY

National Wrong Way Corrigan Day on July 17th commemorates the transatlantic flight of an Irish-American stunt pilot from Galveston, Texas. Douglas Corrigan gained notoriety for an unplanned transatlantic flight to Ireland on July 17, 1938. 

Growing up as a boy, Douglas Corrigan’s (January 22, 1907- December 9, 1995) fascination with flight was not uncommon. Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight may have been the most impressionable moment in his young life. In 1938, the young stunt pilot flew from his home in California to New York. Upon arrival, he requested permission to duplicate his hero’s historic flight. They quickly denied his request due to the age of Corrigan’s 1929 Curtiss Robin.  

With only a magnetic compass, Corrigan advised officials he was returning to California.  According to the story, after takeoff, cloud cover prevented Corrigan from accurate navigation. When Corrigan dropped below the clouds hours later, he saw he was surrounded by water. It was then that Corrigan realized his navigation was off. He continued, and 28 hours later, he landed in Ireland. 

That was the story as Corrigan told it. Reporters suggested Corrigan made secret plans to repeat his hero’s flight anyway. However, years later, Corrigan held fast to his original explanation.

HISTORY OF NATIONAL WRONG WAY CORRIGAN DAY

National Wrong Way Corrigan Day originates with the date Corrigan left New York in 1938.  In 1987, Long Island commemorated the 49th anniversary of the 80-year-old Corrigan’s flight with a parade and called the day “Wrong Way Corrigan Day.”  The city of Galveston, Texas proclaimed Wrong Way Corrigan Day in 1992 to be celebrated on January 22nd, the date of their hometown hero’s birth. 

2.  Have you ever gone the wrong way on a one-way street?  What do you think about Mr. Corrigan's story?   True or False?

No, never ever. And I sure hope I never do. I think Corrigan got his wish, tried out the cloud cover story, and it's one of those 'That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!' things.

NATIONAL YELLOW PIG DAY – July 17

NATIONAL YELLOW PIG DAY

National Yellow Pig Day on July 17 honors the unique attributes of the number 17 and its significance to mathematics. 

If you don’t think the number 17 plays any role in our lives, consider these facts:

• The number 17 is a premium number in the arena of prime numbers. Add the first four prime numbers together, and 17 is their sum.
• The average loaded school bus weighs 17 tons
• Each of the following words has 17 letters:
  • interdisciplinary
  • telecommunication
  • misinterpretation
  • commercialization
  • electrophotometer
• The atomic number of chlorine is 17.
• Pebble Beach named a road 17 Mile Drive along the Monterey Peninsula in California. However, the exact length of the road is 16.78 miles.
• The 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gave the citizens of the United States the right to elect their senators by popular vote. Before the states ratified the amendment on April 8, 1913, each states’ legislatures elected the senators to Congress.

Look for the not so random occurrence of the number 17.  Look!  Yellow pig!

HOW TO OBSERVE

Brush up on your calculus and round up your yellow pigs. Look for the number 17. It’s everywhere! Post on social media using #NationalYellowPigDay.

Don't bother to count them. :-)

HISTORY

Our research found that National Pig Day originated sometime during the early 1960s. Two mathematicians named Michael Spivak and David Kelly analyzed the random properties of the number 17 and a mysterious yellow pig. It seems the process became excessive and professional. Kelly lectured and developed classes around it. Spivak published several mathematics texts, while not based upon it, he does subtly reference the number 17 and Yellow Pig.

I think the Prime Number thing about 17 is about the only unique thing listed. I could say, I saw a cluster of 17 daisies in the ditch or I found 17 wood ticks on me or there were 17 pieces of Swedish fish in the box (before I found it). I mean really. Then again, I'm going to turn 71 in a couple weeks and if you reverse those digits, Voila! (or Bob's your uncle!) YELLOW PIG!! (I might not have used 'Bob's your uncle' correctly. It's one of those mysterious British idioms.)

 Homemade Pizza last Friday night.

I seem to only make it on Friday nights. Friday night pizza and an old movie are a good combination. We re-watched 'The Jury' with Derek Jacobi, Antony Sher, Gerard Butler, etc. etc. 

3.  Tell us about your life when you were 17.

Tending the dinosaurs 24/7.

 

Breakfast in the screen porch

WORLD EMOJI DAY – July 17

HISTORY OF WORLD EMOJI DAY

In 2014, Emojipedia founder Jeremy Burge created World Emoji Day.  The date of July 17 has been intrinsic to the iconic red and black Apple calendar emoji since its launch in 2002.

4.  Do you use emojis when you text, email, or FB message? Do you have a favorite?

I do use emojis when I text or Instagram. Hearts, smiley face, grins, laughter, kitties (although they are desperately short of cute kitty emojis these days and there's not even one German Shepherd emoji out there). I also use praying hands and the Cross. Not all at once, mind you.

NATIONAL TATTOO DAY – July 17

HISTORY OF NATIONAL TATTOO DAY

National Tattoo Day has been observed since 2016. The founder or source of the day has not been identified.

 news.com.au

5.  It has been asked many times, but do you have a tattoo?  Do you want to get a tattoo? 

No tatttoo. Doesn't appeal to me.

 Across the road

6.  Last, but not least, please tell us something about your week!

 After a torrential downpour last evening

From the porch

The two exciting things about the week thus far are:

I was bitten by a deer tick (they're about the size of a poppy seed) who managed to keep his teeny weeny head under my skin for a few days even after the rest of him had been dislodged - which meant a trip to the doctor and 21 days of Doxycyclene and avoiding the sun. The medication is phototoxic and can cause severe skin burns if you're out in the sunshine. SO, we wait for summer all miserable long and cold winter and now when it's gorgeous and 85 degrees and sunny, well. But actually, I'm not truly complaining. There are far worse things than having to avoid the sun. One would be getting Lyme disease. It is a horrible and difficult disease, so many different manifestations, and debilitating in many cases. I thank God that the tick was where I even noticed him, on the inside of my elbow. But if you're outdoors in the North, check for those little rascals. They're so much smaller than a normal wood tick and easy to overlook.

The fun thing about this week is looking forward to an Instagrammer friend and his wife who will be joining us for lunch in the screen porch on Thursday. He's seen my photos from the porch and is merely asking for lemonade on the porch and a rainbow. The lemonade I can do. The rainbow? Hmmm. LOL 

P.S. Bob is not my uncle.

 My HomemadeSoapnSuch shops are

closed for the summer.

Hopefully will be re-opening in the fall.

Check out my natural, handcrafted vegan soap!

Buy any 5 or more, Get 1 FREE

  

Morning Brew
All-natural Coffee Soap


...and more! Check out all my handcrafted soaps at
 
HomemadeSoapNSuch


and at


Our ETSY Shop

Have a great Wednesday, everyone.

Thanks again, Terri!

Judy

 One of my neighbor girls