Thankful Me

  Multnomah Falls, with its iconic bridge across the water Today I'm adhering to the "a picture's worth a thousand words" mantra. Hope you enjoy, and can notice the beauty that surrounds you! Check out the other entries on the Ten Things of Thankful blog hop ! A portion of the Washington Park Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon A sparrow perches on a cluster of pink roses A bee enjoys a yellow blossom A moss-covered log sits at the base of the upper Multnomah Falls Delphinium and mock orange are putting on quite a display this year Pink phlox brightens a corner of the garden The "Top Hat" tomato I'm growing from seed indoors is starting to produce Lettuce and basil also are growing well indoors A polka-dot plant is putting out big pink leaves John, doing his best to swallow a waterfall and make me laugh

  My dad holds me as we attend my first family reunion (I wrote this on Wednesday, thinking it was a day later and I'd be able to link to the blog hop if I stayed up late enough that night. Then the days went by and I forgot until this morning. All this to say, take the "tomorrows" and other time references in this post with a grain of salt.) :-) Say the words, "family reunion," and I immediately think "picnic." My great-great-grandparents' descendants started holding annual picnics more than 100 years ago, and settled into a favorite location about 65 years ago. As you might imagine, many of the original picnic-goers have left this world, and many of the descendants have moved from the state. It has been almost 20 years since the last reunion, but this year, some of us are gathering again.  My great-grandparents, dressed to the nines for a picnic circa 1920 The couple standing at the back left are the same couple as in the photo above. My grandma ...

  My two-year-old granddaughter buries her face in a pink peony blossom This is the weekend that the Ten Things of Thankful blog hop celebrates its tenth birthday! Ten years! As I reflect back, I think about global/national events, family changes, the TToT community, and how participation in the TToT has changed me personally.  Wars, a pandemic, political divisions, natural disasters, etc. can make the world seem a dark, scary place. But even in the midst of all those challenges, light can be found, and taking time each week to find ten things to be thankful for brings hope and peace.  Ten years ago, I lived in California and still had a child living at home. My grandma was still alive. I had one grandchild. Now, John and I are empty-nesters in Utah, my grandma has passed away, and John and I  have 6 grandchildren. The TToT has helped me remember to be thankful throughout change. Lizzie began the Ten Things of Thankful blog hop, and she has a gift for creating commun...

  A red blossom on a peony my cousin sent me from my grandma's garden I have always been fascinated with the concept of time. I distinctly remember turning 10 years old, and realizing that that was it for single digits for me, and recognizing that it would be a very long time before I hit triple digits. Obviously, I was a bit of a strange child, or at the very least, an old soul.  Although I've been rocking the double-digits for multiple decades now, the Ten Things of Thankful blog hop is just now approaching that milestone. I do hope that you will join with us June 9-11 to celebrate!  Not only have I been thinking about the number 10 this past week, I've been thinking about the number 100, because that is how old my grandma would have turned this week, had she still been alive. A little over 10 years ago, I wrote a bit about her in this blog post . She had so much tragedy in her life, but that did not define her. She was quick to laugh and had a heart of gold. She opened...

  Photo shows a red sun setting over the Great Salt Lake As I've been gathering my thoughts for my post (and that's an apt expression, because sometimes my thoughts are all over the place!), I realized that the beginning of next month will be the 10th anniversary of the Ten Things of Thankful blog hop! Put June 7th on your calendar as TTOT Day.  Invite your family, friends, and neighbors and have some cake. If there can be "Christmas in July" activities, there can certainly be "Thanksgiving in June!"  In the meantime, you can gear up for the big party by thinking on the past week. What are you thankful for this week? Here's my list: 1. I'm thankful for a negative covid test and the end of isolation. As much as I love my bedroom, I'm glad to not be confined to it anymore. 2. I'm thankful that the isolation paid off and John didn't get sick. 3. I'm thankful for individuals and businesses that are generous to foster families. I had the c...

  Pink tree blossoms frame a picturesque scene from Sitka, Alaska, of soaring white-capped mountains in the background and various small boats docked in the water in the foreground  Time is such a funny thing; minutes can take forever, and years can pass quickly. Since I last blogged, John and I celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary. I'm thankful for our marriage. On the one hand, I don't think we're old enough to have been married that long, but on the other hand, we've packed in a lot of adventures in those years, so I guess the years do add up correctly. We are the same people, and yet we've changed. I wonder if butterflies ever think back to their caterpillar days with as much wonder and amazement?  We had scheduled a trip to Alaska, not because of our anniversary, but because we wanted to go with my parents on a cruise. We had everything booked and ready to go, but a couple of weeks prior to the departure date, my dad required surgery and so my parents neede...

  Tile letters D D L N N P R R on a Scrabble tray This past week, I flew up to Oregon to spend some time with my parents. While I tried to be helpful, and managed to do some household chores, I think my main purpose there was for comic relief, which often manifested itself in the form of Scrabble games.  At one point, I texted a photo of the above Scrabble letters to my siblings, along with the plea, "HLPM! (Help me, with no vowels)".  The astute among you will realize that I had too many tiles on my tray, a fact I didn't notice until the next play. It obviously doesn't pay to cheat--particularly in a Scrabble game without vowels! My mom drew most of the vowels that game, and I was stuck trying to make words with only the vowels available on the board. The next game, I was rewarded with "AEOQOAY" as my letters. Somehow that wasn't much better. Anyway, regardless of how many and which letters we had, we managed to laugh our way through daily Scrabble game...