 The last couple blogs have been pre-scheduled. You aren’t supposed to announce on the Internet that you are away from home, your husband off in Africa and your house standing empty waiting to be cleaned out by some unscrupulous reader. But I was in COLORADO for my nephew’s wedding. (CONGRATULATIONS STUART AND EMILY!!!)
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 Baby A After three weeks of hanging out in Tennessee waiting for my new grandson to make his appearance, I think I can be forgiven for having babies on the brain. One of the projects I have been working on is cleaning up old picture files. Here are some cuties I have come up with.
Family members can try their hand at identifying all the babies. Most of the rest of you will have to be content to discover yours truly. Pictures are NOT in birth order and no two are the same child. Put your guesses in a comment. I'll let you know next week who "wins." Sorry, no prize (at least nothing I have thought of so far), but I hope you have some fun!  In a grove at the bottom of the hill at the end of the subdivision where my daughter lives, there is a cemetery. I don’t know how many people even know it’s there. The way is overgrown with weeds (and full of ticks.) My daughter’s neighbor discovered it when her dog got away from her on a walk. The names on some of the gravestones match the name of the street where the subdivision starts. Was that the family who once owned this land?
The dates are mostly in the 1830s to 50s. The nearby town of Clarksville, Tennessee, founded in the 1780s, was already a thriving community on the Cumberland River with shops and schools. Confederate president Jefferson Davis was born nearby.  We have been feeling cheated. With all our years in Africa and Latin America, we expect our winters in the Northwoods to include snow. Lots of it. This year has been a wash out. Not a single snow emergency. We've had piddly stuff that even someone from Johannesburg could drive safely in.
Until now.  My sister, 1955 It sounds like the title of an avaunt-guard play--Waiting for the Snow. As I recall the play, they are still waiting in the end.
Most years we have a white Christmas here in the Northland. But this year it looks unlikely. Before Thanksgiving we got a few inches that have long since melted. This week we had rain--rivers of it. A few degrees colder and we would have gotten exactly what we are hoping for this week before Christmas--a foot of snow. Instead we have wet, soggy leaves on the forest floor and drab gray skies. The dusting yesterday was enough for slippery roads, not enough for a snowman. So I decided to pull out some pictures of former years. I have been busy this week on my WIP (work in progress), so let me share a few pictures of our beautiful fall leaves.  A beaver pond near our home.  Sawyer Glacier at the top of Tracy Arms Fjord What better way for my husband to recuperate from his heart attack than a cruise to Alaska? Actually, we had been planning last week’s trip for some time, and it almost had to be cancelled for rehab. We skipped Glacier National Park and Yellowstone, flew to Seattle instead of driving, and my husband promised to work out regularly in the ship’s gym. Permission granted!
Alaska is fabulous even in the rain—rugged mountains, spell-binding glaciers, forests dripping with moss and waterfalls at every turn. I broke in my new camera, trying to learn how to use a few of its many features. The song that kept going through my head was the old Swedish hymn, "How Great Thou Art." Between my husband's heart attack and my bronchitis, this has been a week spent in recovery. We are grateful to be able to do this in such a beautiful part of the Northwoods.   I find that writers, like skaters, tend to be generally creative people with other creative outlets. One of mine is my miniature house.
 I put up a tree in the family room this year and decorated it with my doll collection and some of the odds and ends we have collected in our travels. I was pleased with the result. I just hope twenty-month-old Alex will understand the need to look with his eyes and not with his fingers. Most of the dolls were given to my sister and me when we were children by the missionaries we prayed for (making them virtually antiques!). I have collected the rest in my adult travels. |
AuthoRLeAnne Hardy has lived in six countries on four continents. Her books come out of her cross-cultural experiences and her passion to use story to convey spiritual truths in a form that will permeate lives. Archives
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