Again .......

I read quite often in the blog world a lot of semi-apologies to cyberspace for not posting more often.

When I do it, it feels a little like standing onstage in front of a "mike", in a big, empty auditorium and telling noone that "I'm sorry I haven't posted more often".

Isn't that weird?

So - hello out there, hello out there, hello out there, hello out there .........
       can you hear me read this?, can you hear me read this?, can you hear me 
       read this, can you hear me read this?


Living has been extraordinarily full and zoom, zoom, zoom - much like the trees I saw while riding the train to New Orleans.  That's right.  Charlie and I had someone drive us to Birmingham on Monday May 28 - Memorial Day, actually - to the train station on Morris Avenue - and we rode the train to New Orleans - where Sarah picked us up at the NOLA train station.

So - when looking out the window of the train - the trees are often really close and they zoom by really fast.  I do recommend the train for traveling, but take blankets or a jacket (collllldddddd) and a pillow for sleeping.  Unfortunately, the Birmingham Station is not good.  Every other depot we passed by was very nice and remodeled and updated, and the NOLA station is like new and like a nice air terminal.  The Birmingham station is not at all pleasant.  That is unfortunate.

Charlie and Sarah and I loaded Sarah's "things" onto a U Haul Truck and we all traveled back to Scottsboro, moving Sarah back home for a planned 7 months' stay before she relocates to Nashville.  That's the plan.

What else?  We immediately went into the next week of VBS at Riverside.  I kept 11 month Abigail while Ann and her 3 attended VBS.  That was the week I also got a rough kind of cold which was more in my throat than my head -

And in between those calendar events are things and thoughts and phone calls and conversations and plans and prayers and questions and summer heat and projects and listening and talking and relationships and tasks and having basal cell carcanoma removed from arm,  and hair cuts and brow wax, and Ellie and Ann having head lice, and assignments and trips to Wal- Mart and Food World and the Post Office and  meals and sleeping, or not sleeping,  and, well,

Pinterest
Downton Abbey, Season One and Two
Two Books, I Capture the Castle and The Summer We Got Saved
Tim Keller Pod Casts
Tim Keller Pod Casts
Tim Keller Pod Casts
Tim Keller Pod Casts, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.

And - on Sunday, Father's Day, after church and lunch, I am traveling to Birmingham to spend one night with my friend/cousin-in-law , Martha Robinson, and to also visit with our mutual friend, Val.   Wait, I have a picture!  It's from high school.

We're sitting in my kitchen sharing what looks to be a TAB, forerunner to Diet Coke.

Left to Right, Elizabeth, Martha and Val.

I think that is 1968, fallish, I think.

And 43 years later,

last summer when Charlie invited them to come up

for my surprise dinner when I turned 60.

That is Sarah and Martha on my couch. 

We laughed a WHOLE lot that night.

And Val, working with her camera

Mary Ann was also at my surprise party so I might as well put this picture in.

Here, she and Martha are chatting.

I say that because I am going to Evergreen (South Alabama), after I  leave Birmingham on Monday.

I will spend Monday Night through Thursday Night there in Evergreen, at Mary Ann's house - I will see family and friends...... oh, delight!

I hope to return to Scottboro via Tallassee, Alabama so that I can have a good visit with my friend, Beth Baldwin.  She doesn't know that yet and I am waiting for a call back from her.

I called in the middle of her last day of VBS in Tallassee. 

She is a professional VBS'er.  I am NOT.  I am SO NOT.

She's gonna call me back.

That's it.  

Anyone reading this, well, you can see why I haven't posted a whole lot.

Oh yeah, I was gonna throw in two summers from my past - way back.

The me inside and what I'd rather be doing.

If I could I would hang like that from a bar.  I think it would help.

The blood rushing to my head, 

while a really sweet and good friend stood next to me for emotional support.

Still, at age 61, this is a very good life.

It's just that 6 and 7 work better on the me inside.

And the sun and the salt water and Rachel, my sweet, sweet cousin nearby,  and Mother and my Aunt and whomever having our meals prepared.  My life was a SPA!!

THE END