Heart-Tuned Friends

Maybe twice in a lifetime – three times if you are lucky – somebody or somebodies come along and make an unforgettable mark in your life. Used to be, these heart-tuned friends became embroidered into your life as part of your yesterdays, today, and tomorrows; an unbroken chain of life. Like Charles Ingals and Isaiah Edwards, the stories of life always included them until the last one of you stands soberly at the gravesite of the other feeling unthreaded and bare.

Now –a-days it is less like embroidery and more like a patch. We wear the patches of our friendships like honor badges and then one day we finally put the patch away because we have others…maybe not as indelible, but at least in our todays instead of yesterdays. We don’t stay in one town, we don’t stay in one job, we don’t even stay in one church or neighborhood – so those somebodies who were the important stuff of our every spare moment, somehow drift out of sight.

Dean and Joann loved to just hang out. We ate together a lot. We spent time talking about the Lord and conjecturing His plan for our lives. I think Bill and Dean rode bikes. I still have a mint brownie and casserole recipes from JoAnn. We shared values, we dreamed about building homes next to each other, moving together to the north Wisconsin woods, hiking and vacationing together. We sacrificed for each other – we went through rough times, we cried together, we grieved together. They stood with us when our first son was born, his godparents by proxy.
I don’t know what happened that we lost touch. We moved, they moved. We moved again, they moved again. There were no emails or cell phones. Bill and I have often thought of them. They have often thought of us. We have always known if ever we found them it would be a day for rejoicing.

Jon's big day. Great photo of JoAnn. Dean?!?!?!??

So JoAnn and Dean, welcome to our tomorrows! We rejoice that your lives have been good. Glad you found me . I want to know more of you. Hope to see you in Wisconsin next time we head that way!

Bye-Bye Birdies

I loved putting up my birdie wallpaper. I even took in a piece and had the paint perfectly matched to the paper and my entire house is painted with birdie backdrop color. They are robins sitting on little nests, sparrows on tree branches. So cute.

But today I am not putting them up, I am taking them down. Not fun! Two hours it took for a portion of one small wall. Clean up took almost as much time. I distinctly remember making a decision - I now regret. Bill said, " Do you want to paint on a layer of ???? before putting up that wallpaper." In my ever impatience with doing things the right way I emphatically said no - I want to put wallpaper up right now!

Who would have thought the nomadic Bucklew hippies would actually live somewhere long enough to RE-remodel?

I did not know how valuable ???? was until today. You paint your walls with ???? THEN put up the wallpaper. Ten years later when you are ready to peel it down, it comes down in long big satisfying sheets rather than micro-specks of paper mache mess collecting at your feet and all over your clothes as you pick, and peel little tiny pieces.

But the birdies must go Bye-Bye. The paper is peeling and looks old....ten hard years of kitchen life. I have no idea what I will put up next... By the time I get the wallpaper down....we probably will be moving on.

Going Solar

Hurricane season is upon us. I spent money on preparations. When you have spent money on all other things in life, like new decorations, a change in curtains, tupperware, clothes to die for, nice car, diamond jewelry, shoes and more shoes, replacing them is not so exciting...so I think you hang on to them longer....at least longer than you would have if you were - say 20 years younger.

So you look for new thrills in the purchase arena. Unchartered untried untested oddities that
make your kids go, “HUH???!!???” I found one.

It presses lots of my buttons all at the same time. It's a solar cooker. If we ever have to go without electricity I can now cook. I can bake a cake, cook beans and rice (everyone eats beans and rice after a hurricane, ya' know). It supposedly cooks food healthier - a hot button of mine. All the enzymes stay fresh and alive. Vegetables are perfect without water or salt. I can also heat water for a sponge bath. I can boil anything dirty. It uses only the strong natural free sunshine to induce heat. It’s great for camping. Of course, I don’t camp and have no intention of ever doing so….but if someone wrangled me down and threw me in a camper, I could cook.

It is a bit of a novelty. I ordered it from India where it is just another appliance. It can get up to 375 degrees! Pretty amazing. Today it is cooking at 200. (Slightly overcast.)

Tonight my family will be the first to taste test solar cooked green beans and wild rice. But just in case it is NOT what it is supposed to be, I have the back up food in the fridge – ready to throw on the electric stove.

What’s next? Water! How do you get clean water? I wonder if you can buy a rain catcher? A portable water purifier? Maybe a portable well driller….That would be cool.

Final thought. I bet I could have made these and sold them to the wagon trains in 1869!