The Royal Wedding..Anyone?

A long, long time ago I was enamored by all things European...especially British and French.  My fascination may have started at my grandmother's house with her beautiful Blue Willow (Johnson Bros. England) dishes and  I distinctly remember watching the recap of Prince Charles and Diana's wedding with my grandmother. 

My love of the royal Brits obviously remained in tact and somehow spilled over onto my girls because when we when got our cocker spaniel back in 1997, Nicole named him Prince William and he quickly became Wills...

That same month Princess Diana died in the fatal car crash in Paris.  We were in Orlando at the time and I remember sitting up late into the night watching until the news that she had died was announced.

Of course I had to watch the funeral and so stayed up (or probably got up) in the wee hours of the night and paid my respects with a formal tea...my sister-in-law, living on the west coast at the time, did the same! 

In March of 1998 I made my first trip to London and Paris with a well-traveled friend. We had just finished work on the American Heart Ball Gala (the theme was An Evening In Paris).  It was a 6 month job...and at the end we decided on a celebration trip! Tracy made certain that I saw all of the important things in London...

In Paris we were walking about and actually happened upon the tunnel where Diana's accident happened.  We wouldn't have known if this memorial hadn't been there.

I returned to England with Nicole after she graduated from high school in 2000.  We had a fabulous time together.  We both kept a journal of our trip and back in the states a local magazine published an article with excerpts from our journals about the trip.

So here it is all these years later.  Admittedly, I have lost touch with the royals...life in my own little kingdom has been busy enough!  But I find that I am drawn to the news shows about the upcoming wedding and have enjoyed this last week going down memory lane. 

Today I am heading up to Auburn to attend an award ceremony for Chelsea.  We will go to dinner (and she has already informed me that it must be a restaurant with TVs because it is DRAFT DAY)!!

Also on the agenda...we are going to pack up her kitchen tonight (next Friday she moves home for the summer) and we will stay in our favorite...The Hotel at Auburn University.  Chelsea has decided that we are going to set our alarms and get up at 3:00 or 4:00 or whatever time and watch the royal wedding!!  I am wondering if I can possibly find a place today to buy a couple of hats or at least tiaras to wear!!  I am also wondering if I can possibly get up in the middle of the night and stay awake and might room service deliver breakfast at 4:00am?!!! Regardless, I will still dvr and maybe I will get to watch the events twice!!

So, whether or not you are a royal watcher...I hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane...I have to say I am feeling a bit stalker-ish!! 

 

11 in 11 the April Book Club Update and a Give Away!!

Before April gets away I need to do a book club update!  I have actually been reading alot this month.  I started the first book of the Josephine B. trilogy.  It is written from her perspective in diary form and so it gives snippets of her life growing up on a tropical island and then moving to Paris to marry a distant cousin.  Historical facts are interwoven with the author's suggestion of how her life might have played out.  I definitely plan on finishing the series before our trip to Paris in July.

During a weekend of doing absolutely nothing...did I actually have one of those??...I read Off Season by Anne Rivers Siddons.  A family saga that takes place on the coast of Maine, it has all of the elements of a simply good read~love...disappointment...tragedy...resilience! As I said I read it in a weekend at the beach...I love those kind of days :) 

I am still plodding along through A Tale of Two Cities and am seriously thinking about getting it on cd so I can listen to it this week on my quick trip up to Auburn.  Maybe listening to 7 and a half hours of it will get all the characters and the plot lines implanted in my brain and it will be easier to finish...this year!  The good thing about listening...I won't be tempted to look things up and write in the book...as if I am going to look at it again ( and I am further than chapter 2 that was just one of the more decorated pages)!

I have also spent a lot of time in the bible and finally loaded it onto Rich's kindle and I took it with me last week when I was out of town. I am not all the way through the new testament so I will continue with that into May...but that is okay because it is the best reading I do during the day...

And finally, I love picture books (if you didn't know)...and this month I read this very very favorite one of mine...

PJ Funnybunny is the star of this book.  He is a very lovable bunny who comes from a very large family and feels lost.  So in this story he decides to run away from home and join the family of another animal...because surely they have a better, easier, more fun life than he!!  He tries out several different animal lives and guess what...there's no place like home...the grass is not greener on the other side...my family may be wild, weird, and strange, but they are MINE (okay you get all of the lessons learned).  PJ is in several books and I just love his sometimes flawed optimism. He gets himself into some interesting situations and things don't go his way but he always comes away realizing what a great bunny he is!  Sometimes I mentally "give" the PJ funnybunny award to someone...it is a great strategy for putting life into perspective!

That is my reading update and now I want to hear from you...even if you have not officially joined my 11 in 11 book club (it is never too late) you can still comment and let us know what you are reading and what you are thinking about what you are reading...

And I haven't done one in awhile so I am going to do a give away with this post.  The first 4 to comment about what they are reading and whether they recommend the book (or not)...will get a copy of

 It's Not Easy Being a Bunny!!

Happy Reading :)

 

Good Stuff!

On Thursday Katelyn and I drove up to Birmingham to attend a meet and greet for the Vanderbilt class of 2015...

We stayed at Nicole's and on Friday morning had a little Easter Egg Hunt for Claire.  She understood the finding and opening and eating the graham cracker gold fish that were in the eggs...but didn't quite understand what the basket was for!!

Home again on Friday afternoon we enjoyed a wonderful if busy weekend with

Chelsea home for Easter!  The camera was all but forgotten...but we had fun going to see Water for Elephants, shopping for shoes, and working at Kate's Israel fundraiser outdoor movie night on Saturday.  On Sunday we went to church and then lunch at the Delaneys.  After our busy weekend Chelsea napped before heading back to Auburn...Kate napped too...just because :) 

 

 

After getting Chelsea on the road late Sunday afternoon we potted some roses for the back patio

and Kate addressed her graduation announcements

I can sum up the last several days with a favorite phrase that Kate uses..."Good Stuff!"  After all of that good stuff I was in bed by 9:00 o'clock!

Intentional Living...Part Three...My Faith

At long last I am going to finish my Intentional Living posts.  You might remember that I started back in February with the first about exercising and the second one about making some intentional decisions about how I spend my time.  This last one is about my faith life...and yes, I have intentionally taken a lot of time to ponder on what I want to say because it might matter to someone else and I don't want to mislead anyone. My faith life is a serious matter to me and as I get older I realize that I am more broken than I thought and that God is more grace-filled than I ever knew. So my purpose is not to educate or justify or rationalize or judge. It is simply to say...He did this for me...and He did it for you too.

Last night Katelyn arrived home from her three day grad night trip to Orlando...exhausted.  After a pronouncement of "Had lots of fun!"  She went up to bed.  Today she had to work and as she was heading out the door she mentioned "I have to take snack tonight to the Israel meeting..."  I'll make cupcakes I told her.  "Oh and I am also doing the devotional, could you pull out some of your books so I can look through them when I get home?" 

So, after getting the cupcakes in the oven I walked through the house and gathered up devotional books (you never know when you might need one ...so they are everywhere).  I glanced at them and settled on three for her to look at...my very first devotional book purchased back in the day...Oswald Chambers'  My Utmost for His Highest, next was To Live Is Christ Day by Day , a devotional by one of my all-time favorites Beth Moore, and my newest devotional discovery Jesus Calling, Enjoying Peace In His Presence, by Sarah Young.

With this mission accomplished I took a couple of books back to the study and then my eye caught this book...an old, old friend of a book that I have read many times over the years, but have not read in many years!

With the book in hand I went outside, thinking I would page through it for a few minutes.  But as I turned each page, I read each word. I know this story well, I love this story...more than any other in the bible...

And while Max Lucado has a way with words and can weave a good story, and acquire beautiful artwork...it is no match for the bible (and I am certain that he doesn't view himself that way). 

As I sit and read the accounts in the gospels I am spellbound and speechless and I cannot miss the voice inside me saying you love this story, you know this story, remember you are to live the truth of this story.

Humbling... 

I am going to take this week off from all things blogging-related and am going to focus on the amazing journey that my Saviour took that final week of his life.  It is a story like no other and even though I've read it again and again...I am reading it again; this time with the hopeful anticipation that He will reveal something new to me...because isn't that how it works?  

From the Word of God...the Truth of God...

Psalm 103:12~ "as far as the east is from the west,
so great is his love for those who fear him"

John 3:16~ "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life"

John 8:36~ "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed"

Romans 8:38~ "And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't.  The angels can't, and the demons can't.  Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away." 

2 Corinthians 5:17~ "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

Ephesians 2:8-9~ "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast."

Revelation3:20~ "Here I am!  I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me"

~Peace be with you~

To Russia...For Love

 I am so excited about this month's guest blogger...Gina Farkas.  I first met Gina back in 2001 when I taught her daughter, Teresa, in second grade. I loved Gina because she was a direct, honest, compassionate mother.  Through that first year together as teacher and parent we  shared many conversations...but the story of her trip to Russia and the meeting of the then Eastern European guitar player from the band Elan, who would be her future husband...well I am a sucker for true love and the overcoming of obstacles...so this story is magic to me!  Here it is 10 years after first hearing the story and as I read it and remember some of the details that she left out here...of the conditions of life in Czechoslavakia, the cultural differences that she experienced their summer together when she went back to see him, obstacle after obstacle that they met head-on, and the relationship of respect and caring and love that they built through letters, I am once again moved.  I think about this story and honestly, I think to myself...God is so in the details of our lives. And I recall the verse Matthew 6:26  "Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they?"  And Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." (English Standard Version). 
I have to stop and praise God that in this world of so much we don't understand, we know that He is in the details and gives us hope and a future and a testimony.  Gina and George and their two wonderful children, Teresa and Anthony, are a testimony to the mystery and greatness of God!  I should have asked Gina to write this story in installments...so you could get more of the wonderful details.  But I appreciate that she said yes to my request and I hope that you are blessed by her story.  And besides...one day maybe she will write about this in a book :)

                                                                                          Kim

Kim Dodd came into our  lives when our daughter, Teresa, was blessed to have Kim as her second grade teacher. Kim provided life lessons to my child from second grade through middle school which helped instill the values and choices she makes to this day. When Kim asked me to be her guest blogger I felt honored, then a bit concerned...What exactly is a blog? Sunday in church the music minister told the congregation a blog is sort of like a diary. So, ok, I will share a page or two with you from my diary.

Twenty-eight years ago (omg has it really been that long?!) I had the opportunity to travel to the former Soviet Union. I was an undergraduate student at the University of Alabama. That was in the day of another national championship coach Paul "Bear" Bryant! I digress. I thought going to Russia would be a great way to get a few college credits. I had no idea how it would change my life forever. The tour group went to such places as Peter the Great's Summer Palace and the Hermitage Museum where I saw works of art most Americans never have the opportunity to see. The tour group arrived at a city on the Black Sea called Sochi.

I walked along the the shore and collected a few smooth, flat, black rocks to take back to Alabama. A young man and his friends were talking to some of the other college students. He introduced himself to me. He told me he was from this country called Czechoslovakia. He told me he was in a band. He told me they were having a concert that very evening. I didn't believe a word he said. The university students had been warned not to interact with strangers,not to trust anyone. It was the Soviet Union. We were behind the "Iron Curtain". There were a few students with an adventurous spirit. I was one of those few. We went to the concert at an amphitheater where Russian soldiers walked among the isles holding AK-47 rifles. Well, the band Elan was pretty good and the young man who played guitar exchanged addresses with me. The next day my group left for Kiev while Juraj(Slovak for George) continued the band tour in the Soviet Union.

George and I wrote to each other for 3 years. These were real letters. Snail Mail. There were no cell phones, skype, or e-mail back then. Back then was just 1983! It would take seven to ten days for a letter to arrive after it was mailed from Eastern Europe. He kept all of my letters and I kept all of his. We spoke on the phone once or twice a year. Then in 1986 I went to see George in Czechoslovakia. When I got off the plane and saw the soldiers with the AK-47 rifles, it all came flooding back to me. The lack of freedom of speech, freedom of travel, freedom of religion, and very limited individual rights made me question how this intelligent, passionate man could even exist under such horrible conditions.

That summer George asked me to marry him. My brother thought I had been brainwashed by the communists! It took another year to obtain the documents and permission of our respective governments. In the U.S., the documents were legalized, super legalized, and translated at the Czechoslovakian Embassy in Washington, D.C. The country in which we were married no longer exists. It divided during the Velvet Revolution into two countries: the Czech Republic and Slovakia. I digress. None of my life has been as I imagined it would be. It is still a fascinating journey. We know what we have together has been in the hands of God. We sometimes still shake our heads in disbelief about meeting each other from completely different worlds and creating this life together with such wonderful children. Love is love. It grows through the reflections of all the memories.  Love creates a lifetime connection that can start with a chance meeting in one's life. Being open to life's opportunities, chance encounters, and new experiences can change your life.

 "A new command I give you: Love one another" John 13:34.



                            
                George and Gina in Prague September 2009
              

      St. George Island December 2009 with Teresa and Anthony

               
  The very young Juraj (George) (on the left) with the band

Alphabetically Speaking

Every now and then I think back to my days as a teacher.  Sometimes I miss the smallest things... the chalkboards and whiteboards but not Smartboards...too complicated for my liking. I loved picture books, chapter books,  but not really workbooks. And I loved the ALPHABET...does that seem strange?  I think it had something to do with handwriting...I always loved handwriting class as a student (maybe it was my best subject ha ha) and really wanted to stomp my foot and throw a fit when they went to the modern print/cursive style of  D'Nealian handwriting (by this time I was a teacher ;).  Look how EASY...to teach it... to learn it... to move from manuscript to cursive. I am not too certain the D'Nealian generation ever moved beyond chicken scratch with tails at the end...but maybe those were just the many students I had through the years! 

Ah well this is not even a post about handwriting...but rather the alphabet, so back to the subject!  I loved when all the world was into the Alphabet style book... S is for Sunshine... A is for America...Journey Around Boston from A to Z...  The other day my husband and I were talking and he told me that a long distance running tip is to go through the alphabet and think of something you are thankful for for each letter...a is for angel food cake, b is for banana splits...c is for coconut cake (seems more like a dessert list than a thankful list but remember we're running a marathon here, so we are possibly delirious and most definitely have been deprived of anything remotely sweet for months)!

Why am I rambling on you ask...I am going to start a new series on my blog called Alphabetically Speaking.  Who knows where this will lead, but I've got a list started in my head that I want to talk about...alphabetically.

Here are a few of my very favorite alphabet books that I've collected through the years.

You gotta love a good picture book that teaches some simple facts!

I hope that you will look forward to monthly posts with an alphabetical twist! Next month's will be all about graduating from high school!