Sunday, June 23, 2019

Things That Start With the Letter P

Friday Friend Sally told me about a field of poppies that was very near the place PH and I were headed for dinner with friends.  How would that look, exactly, a field of poppies?
 Well, like this.  It's a huge meadow planted with poppies and it was planted to give the bees somewhere to feed.  But let me tell you, this place is serene.  There were a few people there when PH and I were there, about 8 of us total and no one spoke.  Three of us took photos and I knew no photo could do justice to how this meadow looked. Sometimes you just have to put the camera down and be in the moment. I never saw anything like this anywhere.  Thanks, Friend Sally for telling us about it.



 This is strawberry season (finally.)  I wait all year for this and on first picking day I make a pie, one just like this.  We shared that first pie with friends and sent a second down to our daughter's house where Elizabeth threatened to eat the whole thing before mom and dad even got home.  This beauty is the third pie.  PH and I make our meals during strawberry pie season out of this jewel.  It simply cannot be made with grocery store berries.  They have to be fresh picked Michigan berries and the pie needs to be made the day the berries are picked.  It's perfection on a plate.  And it's only available for a few short weeks each year.

I realized a package of perch was in the freezer so for a bit of protein I fixed the perch and dinner was perch 'n' pie.  But the perch really wasn't necessary.  The pie is enough.
Brian, I wish I could send THIS to you!

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

This week (and it's only Tuesday)



Where the Crawdads Sing
This is what I'm listening to



Lethal White (A Cormoran Strike Novel)
This is what I'm reading

This is what I'm quilting

 Foyle's War, Series 2
This is what we're watching

 This is what I found at an estate sale for $2.00

This is what a quilter gifted me when I picked up her quilts yesterday

This is the growing pile of quilts for the quilt exhibit at church on June 30. 




















Saturday, June 15, 2019

Fred

20 Bittersweet Quotes For When You’re Leaving A Job You Love 

 Today I found out my friend Fred died.

Fred and I have been letter friends for 52 years.  I was 16 and he was 19 years old when we first started to write to each other.  He lived in California and I live in Michigan.  I was always looking for an excuse to write something down and he was too.  I'm not sure who matched us up as pen pals, either my mother or my aunt. But that part doesn't even matter anymore.  We started to write to each other and over the years the time flew by.

Fred held me up through my high school years.  Those weren't the best years of my life.  I was always grateful that at the end of the day I could pick up a pen or sit at a typewriter and tell him about it.  He was always there and he always responded on my side and always made me feel better.  Sometimes you just need someone to listen, right?  Sometimes you just need to be the one who gets to talk.  Fred was always, always, always there for me.  Always with open ears and open heart. 

  I remember a childhood visit his family made to Michigan.  Fred's dad and my uncle Jim were brothers so we both had the same Uncle Jim but Fred and I weren't related.  That visit was so long ago I vaguely remember it happening but I do remember it did. There was a trip I made with a friend after high school.  I made an insane trip to California for just a weekend when I was maybe 20 years old and we met.  There was another trip he planned to come to Michigan a couple of years later but by then I met PH and I wasn't very welcoming so his trip here was cancelled.  You know how those things can go.  It meant we didn't writespeak for about three years.  Then I heard Fred found Lyn and I was so happy for him I wrote to him.  And we sharpened our pencils once again.

Fred loved his family, his beautiful wife and two children and now a daughter-in-law and grandson. He loved his dogs. He loved baseball, the New York Yankees specifically,  music, concerts, history, reading, writing poetry.  He documented his life experiences and memories in his poems and his family is lucky to have those now on paper.  But how else would Fred have left a trail but on paper?

Fred was a teacher and he loved it.  He was completely invested in his students and often shared with me when former students would come up to him in stores or on outings to tell him how much he meant to them.  What teacher could ask for more than that?  

Fred has been sick for a couple of years.  A year ago PH and I planned a trip to Arizona and I asked if, since we would be close geographically, could we make a visit to Fred?  He was sick and I wanted to see him.  So we did.  I am so glad we did.

I'm sitting here trying to process that a huge part of my life is gone.   One of my first thoughts was, "Who will listen to me now?"  I do have his words.  I've saved every letter and email from Fred for 52 years and I know he saved mine.  Maybe someday when that box is found at his house I will get the chance to combine them together into the life of a friendship.  

Rest, Fred.  You will be greatly missed.


Thursday, June 13, 2019

Fatal Inheritance



Fatal Inheritance by Rachel Rhys

      I loved this book! How’s that for a spoiler? It’s a fun mystery with no exploding cars or gory body scenes and set in the years immediately following World War II and on the French Riviera, to boot.
The setting itself is practically a character in the story. But back to the story.
     Eve Forrester is married to a boor and she is miserable. Don’t you just hate it when they think we’re stupid? Clifford thinks Eve is stupid. Her mother is a miserable woman and Eve is stuck, walking on eggshells and trying to please two miserable people. Then she gets what we all wish on stars for, a letter telling her a complete stranger left her an inheritance in the south of France. She leaves, promising to come back in a couple of days.
     Eve’s inheritance turns out to be a quarter share of a villa looking out on the Mediterranean and she is enchanted, but then, who wouldn’t be? The other three inheritors aren’t thrilled with her, thinking she is a long lost love child there to sabotage their plans to sell the villa to the first person with a checkbook so they can have their money. But Eve is determined to find out who this Guy Lester, her benefactor is, and why she never heard of him and she starts digging for answers.
      This is a mystery so we’re trying to figure out who the bad guy is and it’s not glaringly obvious. It could be several people trying to hurt her, stop her, trip her up. In the meantime she is rubbing elbows with the rich and famous and discovering she can get along just fine without that boor of a husband of hers.
     This book is a delight. But I already told you that.