Eagles!

           The most exciting thing happened to me this week!

          “What’s that?” I know you wanna know.

          With our bridge being out, we’re having to find alternate routes to get to where we want to go. This week I finished a commission for wedding shower invitations...

Which reminds me. Did you know there’s a difference between a bridal shower and a wedding shower?

I didn’t either!

“Tell us!” you beg.

If the event centers on the bride — with décor, wording, and imagery that highlights her, and it’s just girls, it’s a bridal shower. If it celebrates both partners equally, it’s a wedding shower.

I had a picture of the bride but it was a front view. I had Copilot transform it into something I could paint and turn it for a side view. I also changed the dress so it wouldn’t give anything away before the big day.

My attempts to paint it were futile. I made at least seven attempts and time was running short. I had to get them made and in the mail in time for them to be addressed and sent out. In the end I used the AI generated image and printed it on watercolor paper, which gave it good weight and texture. The same soft pink cardstock I used to print the invite on was also used behind the info panel on the inside, which, by the way, was also printed on watercolor paper. The bells were cut from sign vinyl, which is sticky on one side. There wasn’t any way I was going to cut it on cardstock and try to glue it on. I’d have glue everywhere! That wouldn’t be a good look.

I think they came out halfway decent. My client could’ve had them made anywhere and by people who do this for a living. I’m honored that she asked me to make them for her. I just hope she’s not disappointed. 

I needed to go to the post office and get them mailed. I normally mail everything from our hometown post office, but with the bridge being out, that wasn’t practical. If I’d’ve had another reason to go to Wyalusing, I would’ve. But I didn’t so we didn’t. Tunkhannock it was and we’d do a little shopping while we were there.

The route we took this day was through Williams Corner out to 87, then up past the huge Proctor & Gamble plant, and out to Route 6. Since the post office was our first stop, we turned on Mile Road and went into Tunkhannock that way. It was the most direct route to their post office.

How about some pictures from that part of the trip?

The water was running from the mountainsides and out onto the road in several places. “That’s what you get when you build a road between the mountain and the creek,” I said.

In some place there were waterfalls cascading down the mountains. I wasn’t fast enough to get any decent shots of them and they might not be there the next time we travel this road. Even though this isn’t a great shot, you’ll get the idea.

 I know you can’t see it very well, but this is the house we lived in when my beautiful little sister lost the tip of one of her delicate little fingers to the bite of the spokes of a bicycle wheeel.

“She was only two or three,” my oldest and much-adored sister told me when I asked.

That means I was five or six. I have a vague memory of the moment itself, but I don’t remember the house or garage at all.

“I don’t remember it at all,” Phyllis said when I called her. “But I do remember getting run over by the car.”

“Tell me what you remember about that,” I prompted.

“The world was moving and I remember seeing Mom move that stick on the steering wheel to stop the car so I moved it. When I tried to get out the door knocked me down and the car rolled back on me. Actually, I think it just rocked against me and didn’t go over me. Dad picked me and rushed me into the house and cut my dress off. There were no obvious injuries but I couldn’t move. Mom and Patti rushed me to the hospital. When we got home, they put me on the couch. After a while I had to pee so I got up and went,” she laughed a little. “It must’ve just been hysterical paralysis.”

Patti, being fourteen or fifteen, remembers it best. “It was there at the Colley house. It was a Sunday and we had just gotten home from church and Phyllis had fallen asleep in the car so Mom left her sleep. She was probably four or five. She had the door open a little and knocked the car out of gear when she was getting out. She fell out of the car and her coat caught and she was dragged a little, but she wasn’t hurt. We didn’t even take her to the doctor.”

I don’t remember that one. “So getting her finger cut off and getting dragged by the car both happened in Colley?” I asked.

“No. Her finger happened when we lived at Sick’s house. That’s the house Phyllis was born in.”

Isn’t it funny how the past, how memories, aren’t the same for all of us. How time and telling can change what we remember.  

We pass a place where a man was going down the driveway on his tractor. I laughed when I saw his little dog in the window waiting and watching for him to come home. It made me think of a short video by Wendy Francisco that I’ve always loved — a gentle reminder that the kind of steady, uncomplicated love we see in a dog isn’t all that different from the love we receive from God. It almost always makes me tear up. Here’s the link if you want to check it out.

GoD And DoG by Wendy J Francisco

“There’s an eagle!” I exclaimed and brought my camera up just a little too late. I didn’t ask Mike to go back around and I had little hope it would still be sitting there when we finished our errands in Tunkhannock.

Surprise!

It was still there. Now we’re going in the opposite direction and I’m shooting from the wrong side of the car. Did it stop me from trying?

NO!

          “There’s two of them!” I exclaim as we move far enough for me to see a second eagle behind the trunk of the tree. None of the pictures came out even though I turned around to shoot out the side window behind Mike.

          “I can’t ask you to turn around because it’s not a once in a lifetime shot,” I said. “Because I saw it before. But it is a twice in a lifetime shot.”

          Mike hesitated, his finger on the turn blinker lever, then, “I’m not going to turn around, okay?”

          “I really didn’t expect you would.” I’d already resigned myself to that.

          A minute later we came to a long, straight stretch of road. Mike slowed and pulled to the side. A grin spread across my face! “You’re going to turn around?”

          “Yep.” Mike tried to make a quick U-ey but had to back up once. “I just hope we don’t get hit doing it.”

          We didn’t and I got a fabulous shot of the pair as they watched our car slow and turn onto the side road across from their tree.

Then we go a little farther down the road and I got a shot of a hawk.

I do love seeing the raptors.

 Speaking of family...

Momma popped in for a quick visit this week. Not in the literal sense, but as one of those sudden, vivid memories that show up when you’re not expecting them.

I was standing at the kitchen counter. I needed a piece of butter for whatever I was doing at the time. I got the butter out, unwrapped it, cut off what I needed, and carefully started folding the wrapper back up and that’s when Momma popped in. In my mind’s eye, I watched her fingers push the seam back into place and carefully fold the ends in, just like you’re wrapping a present. She didn’t want any of the butter exposed to dry out or pick up odors from the fridge.

Moments like that remind me how lucky I was to have a mother whose everyday habits became part of me without my even noticing. Little things she did, small, ordinary motions, are still tucked into my hands all these years later.

Like the way she’d slap her hands against the edge of the sink basin to shed the water after she was done washing her hands or doing the dishes. Twice. You have to slap it twice. I can still hear the rhythm. And because the dogs like me to toss their toys while I’m washing the dishes, I do it a lot, and remember her. 

Speaking of family — again...

We have a new addition to our family! This little beauty came into the world on March 27^th. She’s my niece, the daughter of my youngest brother John and his wife Eunice. Her name is Dani Elysse and she weighed in at six pounds two ounces and twenty-one inches long.

In my family, March 27^th is the birthday of two Richards. My brother Richard, who we recently lost, and my uncle Howard Richard. Do you think they should’ve called her Rikki?

“Dani is named after John’s middle name,” my handsome older brother David told me. John’s middle name is Daniel.

 

          That’s pretty much the end of my jibber-jabber for the week, but since I have a whole ‘nother blank page when I print this, I’m gonna jabber on for another minute or so. 

          Easter is a special time of year. It’s the day we remember our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It’s also the time of year for ham dinners and gathering families.

Something else I look forward to is jelly beans.

When I was a kid, I didn’t like and wouldn’t eat jelly beans. Now I love them. I allow myself one bag a year — at Easter time. Unless your feisty, red-haired neighbor buys you one as an Easter gift, then you get to eat two bags!

This year I noticed that there were no black jelly beans in either of the bags I ate. I don’t like the black ones but I eat them anyway because they remind me of young Mattie Stepanek. Have you ever heard of him? He wrote the Heartsongs books, small, powerful collections of poems that touched millions of people. Even though he was so young, had muscular dystrophy, died at thirteen, he had a way of seeing the world that felt older and wiser than most adults. I have two or maybe three of his books but I can’t find them right now. In one of his poems he wrote that black jelly beans taste mean — and he’s right. They do.

 

Lastly, I think of my best old friend Trish in West Virginia. I save odd-shape bottles for her craft projects as well as large pill bottles.

I had one such bottle on my sink one day and tossed it in the dishwater after I’d finished washing the dishes. I thought I’d be an extra nice friend and soak the label off for her. After a while, when I pulled the bottle to drain the sink, some of the label came off but left a mess of paper and glue behind.

It sat on my sink for a week.

Then I found some Goof Off and took it out to the kitchen, put it on the back of the counter, and now I stared at both of them for another week or so.

You just can’t get in a hurry about this stuff.

This week I made up my mind I was gonna try and get the sticky residue off. I got a small container, poured some Goof Off in it, got a paper towel, soaked it, draped it across the bottle, and let it soak.

It stunk!

I eventually took it outside for a few hours.

Goof Off, even after all the time soaking, didn’t make a dent in it.

I tried nail polish remover.

It just moved the glue around.

Then I remembered a tip I’d heard about years ago and decided to try that.

“What’s the tip?” I just know you’ve got bottles sitting around that you wanna get the labels off of, too.

It’s a mixture of cooking oil and baking soda. It works, but I didn’t want to work at it, so I let it sit in the oil mixture for a few hours. It was like magic!

Let’s call this one done!