Monthly Archives: June 2015

761. It was a splendid summer morning and it seemed as if nothing could go wrong. ~John Cheever

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The best laid plans of
mice and men often go awry…
~Robert Burns

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James and I married on August 17th, 1963, two months before my 21st birthday, but Mom agreed to go ahead and pay for my last year of college. We didn’t have have a dime to our name, not even enough for a honeymoon, but we were happy and hopeful. James had been in graduate school, but he dropped out to get a job while I finished my last year. Since James’ expertise was chemistry, he got a job doing research at a local blood bank. Sadly though our “best laid plans went awry” on “a splendid morning that seemed like nothing could go wrong” in September. It was Labor Day weekend right before my first semester began when James became quite ill. He was running a high fever, he was jaundiced, and his bilirubin count was way too high; so the doctor sent him to the hospital immediately to run more tests, tests that indicated James may have either gotten into some kind of poison or had been infected with hepatitis from handling a tainted blood sample at work. Consequently he had to be hospitalized and quarantined for the next two weeks, and everyone who had been in contact with him had to have painful hemoglobin shots. After his stay in the hospital, he wasn’t allowed to return to work for another month. All the while, I was taking care of him and keeping up with my school work, but needless to say, we were now going deep into a hole financially. But we pressed on ever hopeful that this setback would not last forever, and I completed my first semester. However, it seems there was to be a double whammy of woes for the newlyweds! As happens sometimes with hepatitis, James had a relapse in January and had to be hospitalized again for a week and off work for another month which dug our debt hole even deeper. By the time our first year of marriage ended and I graduated I had no other choice but to put any dreams of Paris on hold and to find work as soon as possible. Since I couldn’t secure a teaching job right away, I took a secretarial job which is what I had done all four years in college while working for the Dean of Women. Because of my considerable skills and education, I began moving up into supervisory positions, and so for awhile I continued working at that company so we could whittle away at the hospital and doctor bills. The human spirit can endure sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear? ~Proverbs 18:14  ✝

**Upper right hand photo of Les Invalides found on Pinterest

760. When writing the story of you life, don’t let anyone else hold the pen. ~Unknown

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Life is one open book full of pages.
We laugh, we cry, we smile,
we stumble, we stand, we fall,
and we succeed.
Every chapter defines who
and what we really are.
~J. Johnson

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Some stories don’t have a
clear beginning, middle, and end.
Life is about not knowing,
having to change,
taking the moment and
making the best of it
without knowing what’s
going to happen next,
delicious ambiguity..
.
~Gilda Radner

I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. ~Psalm 27:1   ✝

759. I can’t say I wasn’t hoping for it, but I didn’t see it coming. ~Jessi Kirby

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None of us knows what the next change is going to be, what unexpected opportunity is just around the corner, waiting a few months or a few years to change all the tenor of our lives. ~Kathleen Norris

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When the second semester of my junior year began in January, a new guy started showing up around our table to watch us play bridge in the student center, and after a while this “new guy” began offering to go get my food and soft drinks as well as my cigarettes. (Yes, sadly, after my father’s death I took up smoking, a bad habit which took me a long, long time to break.) My card buddies called him JP and said that he’d been teaching them to play pinochle. Since I was always up for learning new games, I asked if he’d teach me to play pinochle too, and he seemed to jump at the chance. So it was that I learned to play pinochle, and shortly thereafter one of the five most unexpected events of my life occurred. JP (AKA James) and I began dating that spring, and then we became engaged at the first of June and were married by mid-August. No, it was not a “shotgun” wedding. It was just as the line in the movie says, “when you meet the right person, you want your life together to start right away.” Yes, Danny, did ask me to fork over the $50.00 since our wager wasn’t due to be over until October.

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. ~Ephesians 3:20-21  ✝

**The two topmost images on the left of collage found on Pinterest, others are mine, and I created the collage

758. Maybe it’s not about the happy ending. Maybe it’s just about the story. ~Author Unknown

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There are many chapters in your story.
One bad chapter doesn’t mean
it’s the end of the book.
~ryanintheus.com

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Sometimes life will bring you down to your knees
but don’t let it make you cold
and don’t let it harden your heart.
Keep the faith ~ the sun will shine again
and you’ll feel love fill up your soul.
~Karen Kostyla

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. ~Hebrews 11:1-3 ✝

**Image from Internet

756. Because the purpose of any descent is always in order to ascend. ~Rabbi Nachman of Breslov

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Life is a song – sing it.
Life is a game – play it.
Life is a challenge – meet it.
Life is a dream – realize it.
Life is a sacrifice – offer it.
Life is love – enjoy it.
~Sai Baba

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So it was that upward and onward I went into my junior year–singing a new song, playing a new game, dreaming of Paris, and attempting to meet the challenges of life and school. But the sacrificing and loving part were still on hold. I had taken my mom’s advice about getting a teaching certificate.  To do that I had had to choose a second teaching field, and because French had always been so easy for me I opted to take Spanish. But wait just a minute. Ya know, since I really didn’t want to be a teacher, the sacrificing really had begun in a way. Nevertheless I began taking Spanish as well as learning more French.  In one of my 3rd year French classes we were having fun trying to read LE PETIT PRINCE, and when not in class or working for the Dean, I was continuing to have a great deal of fun playing bridge. Hmmmm? Now that I think back, around the time of my 20th birthday in October, my friend Danny was taking me home after a bridge game and we were philosophizing, as college students often do, about this, that, and the other. During the conversation the subject of marriage came up. Since I still had had no serious romantic love interests, I glibly replied that I didn’t think I would ever get married. Danny responded by saying that he had heard that if you bet someone $50 that you wouldn’t get married in the coming year, it would surely happen. I laughed out loud at such nonsense and met the challenge with, “Okay, you’re on, hot shot.”

My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. ~Psalm 51:17  ✝

**Images via the Internet and Pinterest; collage by Natalie

755. “I’m glad I am alive, to see and feel the full deliciousness of this bright day…” ~William Allingham

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In June, as many as a dozen species
may burst their buds on a single day.
~Aldo Leopold

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By 1890, San Antonio, Texas, was a thriving trade center with population of 38,000.

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In 1891 a group of citizens decided to honor the heroes
of the Alamo and Battle of San Jacinto with a Battle of Flowers.

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The first parade had horse-drawn carriages, bicycles decorated with fresh flowers
and floats carrying children dressed as flowers.

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The Belknap Rifles represented the military.

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The participants pelted each other with blossoms.

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Today it’s the largest parade in Fiesta and is second in size nationally
only to the Tournament of Roses Parade.

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It’s fiesta time again in yard too!

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Whenever I look out the windows, especially this time of year,
I think of these hispanic fiestas which are always so very colorful.

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So I hope you enjoy this frenzy of oranges, reds, pinks,
yellows, blues, whites, and purples.

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I don’t often post two entries in one day, but it’s getting awfully hot here
and some of my pretty blossoms don’t last too long in the heat.

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This is what the Lord says to me: “I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.” ~Isaiah 18:4   ✝

754. It took a lone assent of self to get back up… ~Julie Cook (https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/about/)

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A voice beneath the surface
Speaks
Echoes into my
Inner being
Inner heart
Inner mind
Blessing me
With
Strength to arise
~Yoshiko
(https://zyoshiko.wordpress.com/author/yoshikoz/)

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We are more than what people see on the surface. We are narratives, stories that make us who and what we are. And the stories are ripe with sorrows and joys, defeats and victories, love and loss, suffering and wellness–all those things each of us must face in life. And like my friend, Virginia, says “when you shed light on your past and how it affected you, it illustrates the transition that occurred to mold you into the person you are today.” So here I go with the next installment in my little story.

After being stuck in limbo the first semester of my sophomore year, I eventually found the strength to rise, albeit on wobbly and unsure legs at times, and I began the “lone assent of self” back into the mainstream of life. It was the summer of ‘62 and I had decided to continue working half a day for the Dean of Women as well as get a couple of courses out of the way in summer school. Since I only worked in the afternoons, I had some time on my hands after my morning classes were over, and what better place to go than the student center where food and friends awaited a hungry “climber.” The living was easy that summer and life was good. I had met some new friends who were teaching me to play bridge. And soon Keith, Danny, and I were playing bridge well enough to play in competition, and that summer would become one of the most memorable ones of my life.

…weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning. ~Psalm 30:5 ✝

**Image of old French, 1902 calendar page via Pinterest