A Friend's Christmas Open House

We recently finished a Women's Bible study at our church. A woman from Cecil, Ohio and her daughter Caci came from Ohio to join us. It was such a pleasure getting to know these ladies! Gloria has a pottery business that she's had for I think 32 years. She told us about it and said she was having an Open House this week, Wednesday through Saturday.

Thursday I decided to take a little drive and have a small adventure, so I went to Gloria's Open House. I was amazed at what she is able to do!

She specializes in making customized crocks, cookie jars, and old fashioned jugs. Many of them are featured on her web site, Emerald Forest Pottery.

The crocks above are a couple examples of her personalized work. You can give her a picture of your home, or a logo, or family name and she paints it on the crock.

But besides her customized pottery, she also has so many other items--plates, mugs, bowls, ornaments, oil lamps, etc. Another thing that is a signature trademark, so to speak, for her is that she writes a Bible verse, or if it's something small, at least a reference, on every piece of pottery she makes, including the customized ones. Often it is on the bottom of the item, but sometimes it's on the pottery itself--such as some of the bowls, that have a verse written around the inside rim.

Above are an assortment of items she had on display for her Christmas Open House.

This is an item she makes for Christmas, that she calls Snow Castles. There are Christmas lights inside that show through the windows.

She had a door in the back room that I thought was so interesting. As I was taking a picture of it she said, "I was thinking of painting over that door, but I get a lot of comments about it, so I guess I'll leave it as is".

Her work area is just in front of this door. It seems like it would be great to have the names of Christ and the words "The Lord is with you" so clearly visible while you work.

Gloria has such a sweet christian spirit, as does her daughter Caci, who was there helping her on Thursday. This was truly a fun afternoon. My only regret is that I didn't take anyone along to share it with me.

The Four "F"s--A Great Combo!

FRIENDS (AND FOOD!)

Last Friday night we had a lovely outing with our friends, Gary and Rebecca. It had rained during the afternoon, but cleared up and it turned out to be a really beautiful evening. We headed for the BIG metropolis of Zulu, Indiana.

Now, pretty much all that Zulu really has is "Billy's", a Mexican restaurant. I was very amused at the sign in the restaurant (above) because I was thinking that Billy's was the entire downtown Zulu!

I forgot to take pictures until after our food was gone--hence, no photos of our flauta's and burrito and Combo plate. It was all very good, except my hubby thought the combo plate was a little extra spicy.

On our way home, we stopped at Janelle's place (Lynn's daughter), and visited her pony, Star. You may remember a post about the birthday party we had for Star some time ago. Don't Gary and Rebecca look right at home on the farm?

FAMILY (AND FOOD!)

For many years now (maybe 14 or 15?) the girl cousins on my dad's side have gotten together for a reunion in the summer. This year we went to Archbold, Ohio to the Heritage Inn. We all grew up in Archbold and/or the surrounding communities.

There are actually 12 girl 1st cousins, and we also now include the girl cousins-in-law. We have not been including the male 1st cousins (we did have 4 but two have passed away); but this year we decided to include the remaining 2 male cousins. So there would be a total of 17. But as you can see only one of the male cousins was able to come and enjoy the festivities. My brother and his wife were unable to come, and 2 of the girl cousins were unable to come, so this was our group of 13.

FOOD is a big part of what we do when we get together. Tuesday evening we enjoyed a great meal at Stella Blue, a restaurant in downtown Archbold.

On Wednesday we took a drive to the little town of Grand Rapids, Ohio, which is right on the Maumee River. We ate at a delightful restaurant there, LaRoe's. Most of us had a sandwich and soup lunch, with 4 different kinds of soup--all of them delicious.

I put this next picture here for 2 reasons; it goes with the "Food" category; and also you may see a trend in my picture taking. I seem to be getting the best side of everyone in these pics!

We stopped on the way home from Grand Rapids in Ridgeville for an ice cream cone.

Most of us are farm girls and used to the country smells; but as we were sitting there attempting to enjoy our ice cream there was suddenly a very strong, fragrant odor from the very common fertilizer used in the country! Sadly, we had to go to our cars to finish our cones!

Later on Wednesday evening, we had a wonderful birthday dinner, in which we celebrated ALL of our birthdays. (It was the actual birthday of my cousin Carol--so we had celebrated with her all day, including a free dessert at LaRue's. I failed to get a picture of the feast we had, which was prepared by a few of the cousins that still live in Archbold. But my sister, Brenda took this photo of the two wonderful dishes prepared by the real birthday cousin, Carol.


And these were our cupcakes, which besides being very nicely decorated, were also displayed in the shape of a "G" for Gisel.

FUN, FUN, FUN! It would be hard to describe the dynamics of our group, but whenever we get together, we absolutely have so much fun. We end up laughing until we cry--which is actually very healthy for us, as it increases our store of endorphins.

One of the fun things we did, was to take a Canal Boat ride while we were in Grand Rapids. Our guide on the boat did a great job of explaining all the history. But basically these boats ran up and down this river during the late 1800's and early 1900's. They were pulled by mules who walked along the edge of the river and were attached to the boat by a rope. In it's prime this canal route had several locks to go through, but we actually went through the only lock that is still functional at this time. It was a great history lesson and a fun ride.

(May I just say that once again, I have captured the better side of some of our group in this picture!) What was I thinking? I could have at least asked them to turn around for the photo!

AHA! Finally, a picture with all of us facing the right direction! This was taken just before our canal ride, and one of our guides graciously agreed to take the picture for us.

This girl is a student and does this as a summer job. She did a great job of not only giving us a thorough history of the canal boats, etc, but also helped with the working of the boat at times. What a hot, summer job, but she seemed very enthusiastic.

I couldn't get a good picture of the mules while they wer pulling the boat. This is Molly and Mabel (actually, I'm sure it's not Mabel, but I forgot the name of the second one!

This is one of the gals who helped with the boat. The had to unhook the mules from the boat when they went through the locks, and she was helping to steer with the rope. She's actually walking on the wall along the lock, and they often walked on top of the boat to maneuver it at different times.

This just shows them opening the gates to the lock in order for us to go through.

Before we left that area, we stopped to see the Providence Dam. I'm always impressed with the amount of force and power the water has going over the dam.

Now that I've written a book, I will bore you no further. I just wanted to share some of the fun activities I've had recently involving, Friends, Family, Food, and Fun!

An Equine Celebration: Happy Birthday!

I'm almost 2 weeks late with this post, but you know what they say--"Better late...". I was invited to a birthday party for "Star", Janelle's horse. She is actually classified as a pony.

She is trying very hard to find the gift in this bucket--I think maybe it was carrots?

We, of course, had carrot cake, and Star thoroughly enjoyed her piece! She actually was quite good at getting the last crumb off that plate.

The kids really had a good time! (Kate, Kelsie, Luke, Taylor and Taylor).

I gave Star a card (and a carrot). I'm sure she was much more excited about the carrot, but as you can see, she's trying to act thrilled with the card as well. I had to sort of improvise on the card--it originally had a dog on the front. I replaced it with a horse. The inside said "Hope you get your hooves on lots of birthday goodies."

My hubby very patiently kept Star in tow with her harness and leash.

Enough of this party! She is having some hay and then heading out to enjoy the pasture.

The kids each had a horse shoe to paint. They were all very original. (Taylor S is a Colts fan, so his was a 'Colts' symbol.)

We enjoyed carrot cake and ice cream and a good time was had by all (including Star!).

A Starstruck Christmas

What a fun, uplifting and inspiring evening we had! I had the privilege of attending the women's Christmas celebration at Wheaton Bible Church with my sis, Brenda, a friend of hers and a friend of mine.


When we got to the church, they had a living Nativity scene in front of the main doors. It was very cold, but these folks didn't seem to mind. (We thought at first she was holding a real baby, but it was much too cold for that!


I was very impressed--they had not one, but two live camels! The other one was standing but didn't get a picture. I don't think I realized how big they are.

This little guy was warming himself by a big heater they had there. Can you blame him? But what a sweet smile.

There were of course, sheep and goats as well. What a wonderful reminder of the stable scene where our Lord arrived here on earth.

The first part of the evening was a reception with hor d'oeuvres and desserts. They had food tables but also had volunteers from the church--including the pastor--walking around with trays of goodies for the taking. It is indeed a VERY big church, but you might want to try to picture approximately 1500 women walking around, munching and visiting.

The program theme was "Starstruck" and the decorations were great. (for some reason this blogger didn't take ANY pictures and had to rely on the ones taken by Brenda.)

There was some beautiful musical presentations, but the highlight of the evening for me was the speaker, Carol Kent. She has gone through an "unthinkable" circumstance in her life, but encouraged us by how she is walking through this journey with the Lord's help, and that we too can experience victory and even joy, in spite of whatever circumstances we find ourselves in. She shared several scriptures that were so appropriate. (I believe most of them were from the paraphrase "The Message".) There is a CD of her message available, which I want to purchase. I'm sure I will need to listen to it again, as difficulties come my way.

My friend, Mary, who is currently going through a very difficult situation was very encouraged. I was glad I had the forethought to invite her to go with us.

Ellie, Brenda, Me and Mary

For me, it was a wonderful start to the Christmas season. A big thank you goes to all of those who were involved in planning and serving, who gave of their time and talents to provide a wonderful Christmas celebration.

Lots of Work--Some Play

I went from enjoying a great cruise to lending a helping hand to a friend. However, it involved a road trip of nearly 1000 miles to complete this assignment. In less than 24 hours after I returned to my home from the cruise, I was on my way to Hilton Head Island, SC.


My friend, Judy, and her husband have a condo there in Palmetto Dunes. Judy had helped me when I did some re-modeling at my home, including some very pain-staking wall paper removal. So I agreed to go with her to clean and organize the condo.

There had been some water damage and they had to replace some drywall, tear up carpet, etc. So they had new carpet and hardwood floors installed. Needless to say, everything was dusty. We washed all the bed linens for 3 bedrooms, as well as window curtains. And of course we washed down all the furniture, woodwork, windows and washed all the dishes--lots of them! You get the idea. It was MAJOR fall cleaning!

She also had the overwhelming task of sewing together drapes for two patio doors. We first had to rip out the seams so that she could sew the panels together. Judy sewed three panels together for each door. They had 3 layers, and she sewed each layer individually. When we finished with them Monday morning, including inserting the pleater hooks, and ironing, they fit perfectly. (One of the rods had been installed wrong, but we were able to figure out how to fix it).


Of course all work and no play is just not good. So we did have some fun and relaxing times. We walked along the beach one morning, probably about 2 miles. The weather was great!


One afternoon while she worked on drapes, I relaxed at the pool. The water was perfect, not too cold, the sun was great, and I even spent a little time in the hot tub.


I checked out the time for sunrise one morning, and we got to the beach at the perfect time to watch the sun come up. So beautiful and peaceful.


Sunday morning, after attending church, we had brunch at the "Black Marlin". They had some very interesting entrees. Judy and I had Bananas Foster French Toast, which had a carmelized syrup that was melt-in-your-mouth delicious. The gal on the right, also named Judy, was also working on her home that week.


After brunch we headed for Savannah, Georgia, and took a trolley tour of the this beautiful city. Once again, it was terrific weather and we were able to see the wonderful homes and parks in the historic district.




We left early Tuesday morning for the long trip back home, having had some fun as well as leaving the condo clean and decorated and ready to rent. The drive through the Smokey mountains was beautiful (I see I forgot to include a picture, although my pictures couldn't really capture the view.) We got into a rain storm and wind in Kentucky and some tense driving for a while. All in all, it was a productive and fun trip.

Down Memory Lane--45 Years Ago!

I can't believe I haven't posted for so long! I've had things I wanted to share, or at least make a part of this journal, but life has gotten in the way.

Speaking of life, how do you catch up on 45 years of living with 31 other women? We made a valiant attempt, and were actually quite successful.

This past Friday and Saturday my West Sub nursing class met for our 45-year reunion. Apparently we've only had 2 other reunions--one at 5 years and 10 years--and I wasn't able to attend those. So how do you go about meeting and greeting and relating to women you haven't seen in 45 years?

Above are the 2 girls who were my roommate/suite mate our senior year. Judy (in the center) and I were roommates and Mary was in a single room with a shared bathroom between us. Judy and I stayed with Mary, instead of at the hotel, since she lived close, and it gave us a chance to really catch up on families, joys, sorrows, etc.

(We had small groups or "rotations" that went to different areas together. This was my rotation. There were 8 of us, and 7 of us were here. We called ourselves the "great eight"!)

I need not have worried about relating with these women. It was as if we had seen each other yesterday. West Sub was a christian school, affiliated with Wheaton College at the time that we were in school. However, that does not necessarily mean that everyone is a christian.

But as I listened to each of these women speak several things were evident:

1) We had all worked at our nursing careers, some more than others. Many, like me, are retired; more that I would have thought are still working; and some only worked a few years in nursing, because of husband's careers, mission work, etc.

2) We have all had many joys and blessings in our lives--family, grandkids, etc.

3) We have all had heartaches and trials--chronic illness, cancer, death of spouses and/or children, challenges and heartache with our children, etc.

4) BUT, as I listened, every one of them gave God the praise and glory for His love, His grace, His guidance and direction and His faithfulness. It was truly amazing.

We graduated with 63 class members. Six of them are deceased. So out of a possible 57 classmates, 32 of us were there. We felt like it was an amazing turnout. And what a spiritually uplifting and encouraging time it was!

We ended the reunion by singing our class song, which was based on Isaiah 26: 3 You will keep in perfect peace him (her) whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in You.