Guess Who Is Having a Birthday Today?

Guess who is having a birthday today? It's this sweet girl in the picture. Her name is Mckenzie, and she is my youngest granddaughter. Just two weeks ago, when she was here visiting me, she was a little girl of nine, and today she is a big girl of ten! My, how time trots on by, and before I'll know it, she'll be off to college, like her older cousin Nichole. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

We had a wonderful visit while she and her Mama and Dad (who is my older son) were here. And I am sharing a couple of pictures from our visit.


Here she is, showing me a ladybug she found crawling on that stick she is holding up. If you look very closely, you might even see that ladybug!


And here is Mckenzie with her favorite cat, Orio, sitting next to the porch doll she brought me from Branson. Isn't the doll cute? But not as cute as Mckenzie!

Of course, whenever she is here visiting, she loves to go riding on the 4-wheeler. Here she is with her Mama and Dad, in the field. They went on many longer rides, too, up the hilly country roads, where they saw horses and cows, and goats and were chased by dogs!

Of course, she helped with me with some chores, too, read some of my stories in the Chicken Soup books without even being asked to read them, and enjoyed seeing some deer, turkeys, and lots of birds. Her favorite birds were the woodpeckers.

Now, they are all back at home, and I know today they are celebrating big time.

Happy Birthday, Mckenzie. I love you, miss you, and will see you again soon. xoxoxoxo

And Uncle Greg said to tell you, "You're still "IT," Kiddo!"

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Thank you for visiting my little birthday tribute to Mckenzie. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Blessings from the woods!

True Friendship and Other Things

Recently, good neighbor and friend Connie sent me a more realistic and humorous take on "True Friendship" in the email. So I thought I'd post it, along with a a couple of pictures of some of my dear and true friends.

Just last week I got to see my old friend Frieda, for the first time in five years. That was such a treat! I so wish that Frieda lived closer again, so we could see her more often. That's me in the middle, of course, wearing, (according to my daughter) my Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, outfit. LOL. And Eileen on the right, is looking somewhat pensive or is that peeked? LOL. (Kind of a bad picture, actually, but it's the only one with Frieda in it too.)

And here are my oldest and dearest friends, Emma and Maria, who live in the Cleveland, Ohio area. They went out to lunch for Emma's birthday, and Maria emailed me the picture. We have been friends since we were around 14 or 15 years old. Emma called me the other day, after she heard about our ice storm, and asked me if maybe it was not time for me to seriously consider moving back to civilization. I think Emma thinks I'm getting old. How dare she!!! (True friends are like that-they worry about us.)


Anyway, before I get myself in trouble, here is:


True Friendship

You WON'T see cutesy little smiley faces on this card-
Just the stone cold truth of our great friendship.


1. When you are sad, I will jump on the person who made you sad like a spider monkey jacked up on Mountain Dew!!!


2. When you are blue, I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.


3. When you smile, I will know you are plotting something that I must be involved in.


4.When you're scared, we will high tail it out of here.


5. When you are worried,
I will tell you horrible stories about how much worse it could be until you quit whining, ya big baby!!!!


6. When you are confused,I will use little words.


7. When you are sick,
Stay away from me until you are well again. I don't want whatever you have.


8. When you fall, I'll pick you up and dust you off-- After I laugh my rear off!!


9. This is my oath...I pledge it to the end. 'Why?' you may ask;-- because you are my FRIEND!
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I would also like to mention that lovely Carol, at The Writer's Porch interviewed North Carolina Author Gary Carden recently, and had a give away of one of his signed books, and two DVDs, to three lucky commenter's on the post. And guess what? I won First Place! Which meant that I had first dibs on the prizes and chose the signed copy of Gary's book "Mason Jars in the Flood." Woow Hoo! Thank you Carol. I can't wait to read the book.

Last but not least, I had another acceptance and contract in the mail this week. This one for the story "A Light in the Closet" which will be in the "Christmas Miracles" book, published by St. Martins Press and in bookstores in October of this year. Woo Hoo!


Thank you for reading. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!



Blessings from the woods.

His Inspiring Motto--A Story for Father's Day

I was eleven when we fled our Soviet occupied country Hungary, in 1947, landing in a refugee camp in Austria. Our only worldly possessions were the clothes on our backs. We had lost everything because of World War II, but we were alive, and for that we were grateful to God.

The refugee camp housed hundreds of destitute refugees. Although dismal and cramped, the camp provided a roof over our heads, donated clothes to wear, and soup and bread to fill our hungry stomachs. So what did it matter that we didn’t have penny to our names?

But it mattered a great deal to Apa (Hungarian for Dad.) He hated living off the charity of others; hated not being able to provide for his family, as he always did in the past.

Just beyond our dismal camp home was a beautiful natural world of mountains, a crystal clear river, and farms with grazing animals. The river was the Drau River, and Apa and I discovered it on a summer day while taking one of our rambles through the countryside.

“You can enjoy the water, while I get busy with something else,” he said,.

So I splashed around in the shallow, clear water, while Apa walked up and down the bank. I noticed he was cutting some branches from the river willows growing all along the bank. Soon, he had a large armful of them, so we headed back to camp.

“What are you going to do with them?” I asked him curiously.

“I will make some baskets,” Apa replied.

“And what will you do with the baskets?” I continued, suddenly remembering that his hobby in the past used to be weaving.

“I will try and sell them to the Austrians.”

Soon, Apa found some old boards and bricks, and set up a worktable in front of our barrack. Then, after peeling the willow branches, he began weaving his first basket. A large crowd gathered to watch him. Some boys volunteered to get more willow branches for him.

“Thank you. And when I sell my baskets, I’ll pay you for your help.”

Within a short time, there were six beautiful baskets ready for market. Apa hung them on a long stick, flung them over his shoulder, and off he went to town, looking like a hobo peddler. He returned a few hours later minus the baskets. He had sold all of them!

Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out the book I had been longing for, while we had walked around in town.

“Oh, thank you, Apa,” I shrieked, giving him a hug. “I can’t believe you were able to buy me a new book.”

“You are welcome, Sweetheart. Never forget–where there is a will, there is always a way,” he said. Then he went off to pay the boys who had helped him.

Apa continued with his new venture all summer, and even gave free lessons in weaving to anyone interested. After he sold the next batch, he bought himself a fishing pole, too, and a large frying pan, and building a fire outside the barrack, soon cooked up a large batch of fish he caught in the river, and shared it with our neighbors. It was most unusual to have the aroma of that frying fish wafting through the camp, where barracks were lined up like soldiers, and helpless people lived their lives in them, hoping and praying for something better.

My dear Apa’s example was an inspiration to many at that refugee camp. His motto became my motto in life, and it has always served me well.

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"Any man can be a Father but it takes someone special to be a dad."
-- Anne Geddes

This story is from the book, “The Best Dad in the World” published by Howard Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Copyright © April 2008.

A longer version of this story was previously published in Chicken Soup for the Father and Daughter's Soul. Apa was my dear grandfather, who raised me.

Thank you for reading. Have a wonderful weekend!

Happy 18th Birthday, Nichole!!

She is lovely and she is smart, and extremely nice, too. She is and has always been my Honey-Bunny! She is my oldest granddaughter, Nichole, and Nichole is celebrating her 18th birthday today!

Happy Birthday, Nichole!

I love you, and am very proud of you!

Have a wonderful day on your special 18th birthday, and I will see you tomorrow here, and we will continue celebrating together!

Love you a bunch!

Nana

Early Autumn Showings And Pink Roses

Well, it's officially autumn, but around here it still feels more like summer than fall. The dogwoods, however, are lovely already, and the lowly sumac is once again transforming into a fall beauty, with it's blood red leaves. All the other trees are still mostly green, and I'm surprised the leaves haven't turned brown and fallen off altogether from the scorching hot, dry summer.

Autumn usually puts me in the mood for beautiful poetry. One of my favorite autumn poems is a more lighthearted look at this season of "fruitfulness."

Autumn
By Emily Dickinson

The morns are meeker than they were,

The nuts are getting brown;

The berry's cheek is plumper,

The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,

The field a scarlet gown.

Lest I should be old-fashioned,

I'll put a trinket on.

Because autumn has just begun, my pale pink rose with the blush in the center is still very much "in town" and doing well, even with the hot, dry summer we've had. Most things in the garden have bitten the dust by now, but not so my rose bush, because I watered it generously mornings and evenings throughout the summer heat. I couldn't bear to let it die.

My grandfather was the gardener in our family, and he especially loved to grow roses. (And I say 'our family' because I was raised by my grandparents.) His favorite rose was a pale pink one, with the blush in the center. My grandmother told me that when she married Grandfather in 1916, he brought her a bouquet of those pale pink roses with the blush in the center, to carry as her bridal bouquet, because they reminded him of the color of her cheeks!

"He was so romantic, my dear, and stayed that way all his life," Grandma often lamented wistfully.

After we fled our war-torn country in the fall of 1947, our only possessions were the clothes on our backs. But four years later, good fortune smiled on us when we were able to immigrate to the United States, where they both soon found jobs. And only two years after that, they had the down payment for a home of their own. After having lost everything because of the war, they were so grateful that such things were possible in their wonderful new country!

The house was an older white colonial, with a picket fence and a nice sized back and side yard. Of course, the first thing Grandfather did once they were moved in was to create a beautiful garden. He grew all kinds of flowers, in every nook and cranny of that yard, and tomatoes and Hungarian peppers galore. But his pride and joy was the Heirloom rose bush with the pale pink roses sporting a blush in the center. And his garden soon became the attraction of the neighborhood, with people often stopping by to admire it.

A year after he passed away, and the house was sold, Grandma picked a bouquet of those pale pink roses and laid them on his grave lovingly, while tears trickled down her cheeks.

So, you can see why I treasure the rose bush in my yard. And once autumn gets more serious and brings some killing frosts, and my rose will be out of town for the winter, I will look forward to seeing those pale pink blooms again, next spring, when they will once again remind me of a very special love.