Blessings Department (Humble Department, too)

Sometimes—when you least expect it—the Lord smiles upon you more than you can ever imagine.

We went to Arizona a couple of months ago and spent one night with best friends from long, long ago. Imagine our surprise to randomly pick an old, well-used Bible off one of their bookcases and find this prize.

“Yep,” Gary said, “That was my very first Bible.”

It says "New Birth - Jan 4, 1970
Presented to Gary W. Elliott
By Gloria and Paul
Nichols
Date January 17, 1970"

Dreaming Department

Union Station is over in The Big City. The huge, beautiful lobby has a model railroad display every Christmas season, starting about now. My First Wife and I went there today, not to see all the trains (there must be 75 of them; different sizes), but for other business. At the last second I decided to carry my camera in.



Then at the other last second I shot this photo. I don't know who that boy is, but it could have been me when I was his size. I know exactly what he is dreaming.

Beautiful Weather Department

The trouble with my walks is that I'm always stopping to take pictures. Like the two scenes below that My First Wife and I enjoyed this evening. Ah, the Kansas Prairie. You can click these pictures to enlarge.


There's nothing you can say about this scene except it's so beautiful and peaceful. My First Wife and I paused here for several moments.


I actually wanted to shoot a picture of the fences here, but guess what happened? When I got my camera out, that pinto left its little pen and hurried into the scene. I took four pictures. When I put the camera back in its pouch and started to walk off, the horse looked at me, turned and trotted back to whatever it was doing. Show off.

Joy in the Morning Department

WFTH, the only all-wheat station on the Internet, has discovered some competition here suddenly. It’s Pandora, a free Internet radio station. Those folks know how to run a station, I tell you. "It’s a new kind of radio—stations that play only the music you like." That’s what they say and…well, we’re listening to it from morning till night.

Sign up, sign in, sit back and sing along. It’s that easy. Here in Pancake Flats we play it from early morning till late night, listening only to music we like to hear. No commercials, no news, no jabber-banter, no cussin’—and best of all, no politics. And, once again, it’s free! For your favorite kinda music, we recommend Pandora.

What we like best about Pandora is that you can listen to your choice of music over there and still come back over here to WFTH and enjoy our brand of broadcasting at the same time.

(Seven prepositional phrases in one sentence might be a record for me. You heard it hear first, folks.)

Department of Beauty

Here in Pancake Flats, spring has finally sprung. Yee-haw. I went out to look at it the other day, and on my walk here’s a little of what I found along the way.

First, there was the annual dandelion convention.

Then there was a Parade of Pink Trees.

This Tu-color branch was the in the first tree...(I love Macro!)

Speaking of trees, these are Pear Trees protecting that little foot bridge.

And here's a another foot bridge watching over two baby Pear Trees.

Later, I spied a Tu-color Tulip... (Another great macro photo!)

She was out standing in her field...

Well, just before sundown, this cute little Dogwood Blossom offered me a hug.

And just after sundown, the day ended with this romantic full moon.

A Story Without Words...

Valentine's Department

Okay, okay...I know I'm nearly a month late for Valentine's, but this is such an important posting, that I'm only a month behind schedule. You see, Godiva Chocolates has won my heart.

I gave a box of chocolates to My First Wife this recent Valentine's Day for the first time in our marriage. Yes, the first box of candy ever--from me to her. Believe me: I've wanted to, but...

My First Wife cannot eat sugar and most sweeteners. As a matter of fact, she eats no sugar at all--no birthday cakes, no Christmas candy, no church potluck pies, no ice cream. Nuthin! On and on it goes.

However, the nice folks at Godiva Chocolates use maltitol, which My First Wife can tolerate.



It was a proud moment for me, when My First Wife opened her gift and graciously accepted it. With tears. It was as if I had given her some silver and gold. I had tears, too.

Happy Valentine's Day again, Sweetie.

Priorities Department

Mari (pronounced Mar-ee) is four (pronounced “I’m four!”). She’s our youngest granddaughter and now gets to sit back there in a booster seat when she’s in the car. No more of those baby seats for her. No siree! She’s all grown up and independent.

Yesterday, I got the remarkable gift to drive her around in my pickup a little while. Ever been thrilled to sit in the front? Well, we put her booster seat in my pickup and I set her in it and buckled her down. “I get to sit in the front! I never saw out the front before!”

Kids look at everything, don’t they? Pretty soon Mari spied the crank that rolls the window up and down. “What’s that, Granddaddy?”

“Well, you turn that to make the window go up and down.” She looked at me like I was a mad scientist trying to pull her leg. “Well, my pickup doesn’t have buttons like your car,” I explained.

“Oh. Can I try it?” she asked.

“Sure.”

She worked hard, but got it to move a little. She was quite the proud little princess. “Oooh, that’s cold,” I complained. “Roll it up.” She turned it the other way to get it back up. Sorta. Apparently I was not the mad scientist, after all.

“Granddaddy, when it gets hot can I come over to your house and turn it all the way down?”

“Of course,” I said. “That’ll be fun, won’t it?”

“And then can we go swimming?”

Dance Department

Well, don't just sit there--get up and dance!

Department of Firsts

My five-year-old granddaughter called early this morning to tell me that she had lost her first tooth. I could hear her mom in the background coaching her.

Anyway, part of our conversation went like this.

Granddaughter: "I left the tooth fairy a note and she left me one and you know what, Granddaddy?"
Me: "What?"
Granddaughter: "I want to be a writer when I grow up."
Me: "That's awesome, Sweetheart! And you know what?"
Granddaughter: "What?"
Me: "I want to be a writer when I grow up, too."
Granddaughter, to her mom: "Granddaddy wants to be a writer when he grows up, too!"
Granddaughter, to me: "We can be together!"

Life just doesn't get much better than this.

Department of Joy and Praise

Happy New Year! Now first, get over to My Hats Blog—right now! It’s special. (Click your Back button to return here.)

2008 2008 2008

My dad started a set of diaries in 1931. His last diary was 1981; his last entry on January 31, only 27 years ago. He passed away three days later.

There came a time when the diaries got lost. My brother thought I had them. I thought he had them. Where were they? Dunno. Our nieces thought we were hoarding them...

Today, January 1, 2008, he and I got together and tore into his basement. It only took an hour, but we found Dad’s diaries in the middle of a stack of old boxes. The diaries were hidden under old newspapers and notebooks. It was a moment of relief and rejoicing!

We peeked into several of them, which were stiff with time. His familiar handwriting, people and places we knew, daily accounts of the weather—we were almost back home. Yellowed newspaper clippings, special notes and old post cards were sprinkled into some of the books—it was if Dad had come back to show us something nifty.

“This is a praise, Neal,” I told my brother. “This is a relief,” he replied. We had found a special family treasure that we thought had mysteriously disappeared. This is a special day.

It has fallen to me to transcribe 50 years of handwritten diaries into Word documents. Then we’ll copy those onto CDs for everyone who wants them. I hope it doesn’t take 50 years.

“…suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and say, ‘Rejoice with me! I have found my lost coin!’…”—A parable of Jesus in Luke 15:8 & 9