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Coffee Maker

04 Wednesday Aug 2010

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I’ve really been enjoying the coffee maker Annetta gave us last month. It’s awesome to be able to set the timer for when to turn on or off, so the water’s already hot in the morning when I wake up. All I have to do in the morning is put the coffee mug under the spout and press “go”. 🙂

Simple minds, simple pleasures… 🙂

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Trip

02 Monday Aug 2010

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For Betsie’s 30th birthday present this year, I took her to a “bed and breakfast” in Nacogdoches, Texas. But this wasn’t just any bed and breakfast:

Stag Leap Country Inn is an East Texas bed and breakfast located on 200 acres of woodland, overlooking the deep Bonaldo Creek in Nacogdoches, Texas.

I can’t recommend this place highly enough. It’s really more like a private retreat cabin. The whole area is surrounded by tall pine trees (bring your anti-histamine) with several small trails. They actually provide golf carts for riding around their area.

We stayed in the Dow Stowey cottage and it really is beautiful. They provided cinnamon rolls for breakfast, but since I’m not really fond of those, we made a run into Wal-mart the first night and bought some sausage, biscuits, eggs, and juice. We had a wonderful, quiet, and late :–) breakfast on the porch.

Since Betsie lived here for a time as a kid, we had lunch with one of the family’s close friends, Linda Parr, who played the piano for our wedding. Then for dinner on Friday night we went to Auntie’s Pasta and ordered “Uncle Vitto’s Italian Nachos”. If you are ever in Nacogdoches, you really need to try this. It was pasta chips, with Alfredo and Parmesan cheese, green peppers, jalape??os, and black olives (which I worked my way around).

We had an awesome weekend of just relaxing, with no real schedule. Just a time to rest and recover.

But right now, it sure is good to be home :–)

(A huge thanks go out to Melody and MCC for watching the kids while we were out!)

Thoughts from the nursing home

27 Sunday Jun 2010

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When I turned 29, I began re-evaluating age, and what number of years I felt constituted “old”. Looking at how quickly things change – not just in ourselves but in the world around us in general – I realized that 90 years really isn’t all that long, and therefore can’t be classified as “old” in the grand scheme of things. Certainly in light of Eternity, 90 years isn’t even a drop in the bucket.

This last week, I visited my grandmother (“Nana”) in the nursing home. The family is looking at hospice providers and trying to determine what is best for her and her condition. She is 91 years of age. She is coherent and tries to talk, but her body seems to be breaking down and simply won’t let her speak her thoughts (among other serious issues).

She seemed comforted when we read Scripture together. She smiled when I showed her pictures on my phone of her great-grandchildren (whom she has never met, a fact I regret deeply). She laughed as I told her stories from the day’s events. She offered us food as we watched her eat her meal. She was visibly sad as we said goodbye.

Nana is still with us and I believe she understands a great deal more than I think we give her credit for.

I’m still not convinced that 90 is “old”. I’ve certainly seen that Nana’s body is wearing out, and I doubt she will remain with us much longer. I hope she is still around in August when we can take our children on a long over-due road trip to finally meet her. But if that isn’t the case, I know she will be much happier in Heaven with her Lord than she is here. Her body will be new and she will be able to use her voice again to praise her King. Even now, I look forward to singing with her (and Papa) there someday.

JM