Country roads

I feel like I should write something poetic about these pictures but I'll just let them speak for themselves.  

I love hedgerows.

And sunsets.

Tuesday in IL

I am in awe of people who do things really well.  I myself am a dabbler.  I love to learn new things but I am not a perfectionist by any means.  Which means that most of the things I make look like they've been made by someone who isn't a perfectionist.

Today I visited my friend Deb.  Deb is an extremely right-brained person with talent oozing out her fingertips.  She has been doing intricate cross-stitch samplers (reproductions from the 1700 and 1800's) and also hooking rugs for a good many years.  She's also a very talented horsewoman.  And Deb is a perfectionist.  No, she's a Perfectionist.  I thought I'd share a few pictures I took today to give you an idea of how talented she is.

Hooked rug of hollyhocks and animals.   Look at the detail! Click on picture!!!

Photos don't capture the detail but this is so beautiful.

Perhaps this photo lets you see some of the artistry that goes into creating a hooked rug masterpiece.

Detail of pineapple rug

And here's Deb with the rug she is giving (yes GIVING) me!  She left some of it for me to finish and I quake at the thought of dabbling with her work.

Deb and mille fleur hooked rug

After we spent an hour getting inspired by Deb's work, we went to Kathy's where Becca enjoyed riding Sonny.

Wide open spaces.  

A day of inspiration and recreation.

What's up?

When the kids were little they used to get a kick out of what they considered "funny sayings."  I was reminded of one of them today when I saw this.  Question:  "What's up?"  Answer: " Chicken butt!"

Beauty is not just in the eye of the beholder

I know that if we are alert to it, we find beautiful things every place we go.  California has so many beautiful places and there are delights to the eye on every walk I take, every day.  Pete and I love to vacation in Utah and there are things there that take my breath away.  I sometimes think that my opinion of Illinois' beauty is colored by my love for home and that, in reality, maybe it isn't as beautiful as it is in my mind.  But today convinced me once again that it isn't just my imagination - Illinois truly is a beautiful place.

I went for a walk with a friend at Hammel Woods Forest Preserve this morning.  Lovely winding asphalt trails through woods and along streams, carpets of wildflowers under the old trees, birds flitting and singing in the dappled sunshine.  And a different kind of beauty, also - Kelly and I walked the trails for an hour and a half and during that entire time we saw a total of four people.  The beauty of solitude.

This afternoon we had a "weeding bee" (sort of like a quilting bee except you are pulling weeds together instead of quilting) here at Mark and Janine's.  Weeding is a highly underrated form of therapy.  What equals the satisfaction of sitting back to survey a lovely bed of herbs or a border of flowers that are now weed-free due to your efforts?  If you can do this in fresh air and sunshine, chatting all the while about books and authors and apple tree varieties, well, I think it's a day well spent.

This evening I was driving back to the farm after dinner with friends.  In the east a full moon was rising - huge and white and icy looking, climbing up the deepening blue sky.  At the same time in the west the sun was sinking, a massive ball of orange, pink and red melting into the horizon.  Silhouetted against both were trees and barns, dark in relief against these heavenly lights.  A spectacular sight, put there for the enjoyment of anyone who cared to look.  I drove home slowly, letting the evening settle around me.  It's cold here tonight.  Cold but beautiful.

In the west...

In the east.

A Taste of the Past

This morning I attended worship service at the church I attended when I was growing up.  There's a new addition to the building and lots of new faces inside but still lots of people I've known my entire life.   It was really good to experience the continuity of a place where people don't move around and where there's a sense of community and memory.   And lots of children!  The church was packed with young families.

This evening I wanted to take our host and hostess to dinner (or supper as it's called here), after picking Becca up from the airport.  They asked where I'd like to go and I said the first thing that came into my mind, "Merichka's!"  It's an old restaurant on the north side of Joliet in an ethnic community that has remained pretty undisturbed.  It's a place my parents used to take us when I was a kid, a family restaurant has been a family business since 1933.  Their specialty is "poorboy steak sandwiches". Here's how one guy describes it: A steak poor boy is 7 oz. of cubed steak perfectly cooked, then slapped onto a long bun that has been smothered in Garlic Butterine.  Top it off with your choice of cheese and perhaps some pickles and we're done!  Grab a stack of napkins and a breath mint, 'cuz you're gonna need both.

When he says "smothered in garlic butterine" he really means "drenched" so that it drips down your chin.  I haven't had one of these sandwiches since about 1989 and my memory had not failed me - the sandwich was every bit as good as I remembered it.  And so was the twice baked potato (I had the foresight to share that with Becca).   We're all breathing garlic here tonight - but we're all in the same garlicky boat together.  I'm sure my arteries are protesting the lipid load.  Good thing I only go to this place once every 20 years or so.

Re-Focus

I was sitting in the plane today on my way to IL and thinking.  Airplanes are a good place to do that and traveling alone is a good time to do that.  I had only been underway for a couple hours and already I was experiencing one of the benefits of travel - having the distance from my everyday life that allows me to see things with different eyes.  It's as if I step back a little and suddenly things fall into much sharper focus.   Perhaps it's being away from the daily distractions that clutter my field of vision at home.  As those distractions fade away, the things that are really important stand out in greater relief on the stage of my life.

It was good to have the time to think about the really important things.  Actually, it was only people I was thinking about.  How much I love my husband and my family.  My friends.  How blessed I am to be part of their lives.  And how I wish I knew how to love them all better.   Maybe this time away will help me learn to do that.  Coming back to Illinois is like stepping back into another life - a life I lived in the past.  It doesn't quite fit like it used to because I've changed and I see it with different eyes now, too.  But there is still so much about it that feels like an old shoe.  Or like a beloved home when you finally see it in the distance again.

The trees are bursting with new leaves, the lilacs blooming.  Everywhere I look it's achingly green.  There's no way to describe how it smells except to say it smells like spring.   Wide open spaces and the only thing on the road in front of me was a fertilizer truck as I came down Route 52.  I stepped out of the car and heard the spring peepers chanting their hypnotic song.  Right now the rain is lashing against the roof outside with the wind as background music.  It's a good screen upon which to project my life.  And see what comes into focus.