Body Language and Bad Hair

 It's subtle, but I'm guessing Evelyn didn't want her picture taken. These are still from our July Ocean City trip. I've not gotten the pictures off the camera in a while (I can never remember if taking the pictures off the camera and putting them on the computer is downloading or uploading.)

At the time of this picture, I still had long, straggly hair. I am constantly living under the delusion that I can have movie star hair with no maintenance, no fancy hair products, no stylist, and for that matter, no style.

I ended up cutting my own hair. In a hotel room. In Buffalo. Late at night. Sounds like a scene from a Bourne movie, doesn't it? I drove home to Baltimore where, in my dimly-lit bathroom again late at night, I tried to fix what I'd done to myself in Buffalo. (You can glimpse the Buffalo version of the cut in the post below.) Then, in a moment of last-minute desperation to look decent for something I can't even recall, I made the knee-jerk decision that a place called "The Hairport" that accepted walk-ins and was completely devoid of patrons would be the perfect place to recapture that movie-star look.

At least my hair's not long and straggly anymore. :)

From Dairy Farming to Nursing

 Our friends Mindy and Raleigh live in upstate NY. The girls and I visited them in July when I had a wedding in Buffalo to attend. Raleigh was a dairy farmer with a heart for short term missions. Unfortunately, there's not much short term mission work for dairy farmers. So he became a nurse. They still live on the farm, though, while his cousin, who lives nearby, does all the farming.

 We went for ice cream in an adorable little resort town nearby where Mindy's mom lives. We met up with friends and hung out and laughed...laughing is very easy with Mindy and Raleigh.

 Mindy is an occupational therapist by trade. But even though she and Raleigh are both in the health field now, they still seem very much like farmers. Take Raleigh on his tractor, or their enormous garden, or the way they tossed the carcass of the turkey we ate out into the yard after dinner. There was quite some mayhem overnight, and the next day the carcass was gone and there was a dead raccoon on the lawn.

And no one was particularly grossed out by the dead raccoon. In fact, it got very little attention at all (except by my fascinated children), and was still there when we drove away. I just love these people.

What does happiness look like?

 Playing with dolls. May you enjoy them gleefully for years to come, beautiful girls, even though the world would have you grow up too fast and fall in love with clothes and video games--remember how happy these dolls make you!

 Playing with kittens. Fortunately, the world would not have you outgrow this. However, I am sad to announce that on this very day--a beautiful day on the Whites' dairy farm in upstate NY--Amelia discovered that she is allergic to cats. It was a day of bliss and sadness together. What a life lesson right there.

 Playing in the Japanese Maple Tree in our front yard. This tree is so beautiful when you see the whole thing. Up close like this, its leaves look remarkably like a marijuana plant. All of which makes for laughs and smiles and...happiness.

How nice to remember how accessible happiness is!

What does Brain Freeze look like?

Now you know.

Things We Love About the Beach:

 The rides. We tried the Jolly Roger Park this year, but our hearts are always at the rides on the boardwalk. I think Amelia will be too big for those boats next year. Sniff sniff!!

                     Ice cream. Again, somehow it's more special when eaten on the boardwalk.

                                               And when you can get it all over your face!

 Being tall enough for your favorite rides. (Although Mom and Dad still like going on them with you...as long as they don't spin TOO much...)

 Smiles. These are the ones that come after hours of riding rides, a picnic dinner on the beach, the early evening sun, and having the whole place pretty much to yourself.

 The water. It's always moving, always working, drawing you in, tumbling you around, filling your bathing suit with sand...and yet so amazingly peaceful and rejuvenating.

 Being together. What a joy to withdraw from the normal pace of life and just be together as a family, eating meals, going to the beach, reading books, hanging out...just being.

                                                         Yep. We just love the beach.

Overheard in Back Seat

On the way home from the Science Center today, the girls were pretending to be teenagers talking on their phones (I know, I know, right???). This was one of Evelyn's conversations:

"Hey girlFRIEND...yeah...yeah. I'm in the car. My boyfriend's driving. And (her voice softens to a dramatic whisper here), can I tell you something really disgusting? He picks his nose...yeah...AND...he picks his wedgies out of his bottom with his fingers. Yeah. So...don't ever shake his hand."

No adequate words...

...for the bitterSWEET days I spent saying goodbye to the family farm in North Dakota where my great-grandparents broke ground on a homestead and where my aunt and uncle continued their prairie hospitality and dream. So I will borrow the words of others.

"As you read my stories of long ago I hope you will remember that things truly worthwhile and that will give you happiness are the same now as they were then. It is not the things you have that make you happy. It is love and kindness and helping each other and just plain being good."
- Laura Ingalls Wilder

There is no describing [the prairies]…They inspire feelings to unique, so distinct from anything else, so powerful, yet vague and indefinite, as to defy description, while they invite the attempt.

- John C. Van Tramp, Prairie and Rocky Mountain Adventures (1860)

 Then I discovered the prairie, and a slow healing began.

- Stephen R. Jones, The Last Prairie 

 The sea, the woods, the mountains, all suffer in comparison with the prairie…The prairie has a stronger hold upon the senses.  Its sublimity arises from its unbounded extent, its barren monotony and desolation, its still, unmoved, calm, stern, almost self-confident grandeur, its strange power of deception, its want of echo, and, in fine, its power of throwing a man back upon himself.

- Albert Pike (1831-32, Journeys in the Prairie)

 Sunset on the prairie!  It was haunting, unearthly, lovely.

- Marian Sloan Russell, Land of Enchantment (1954)

                                      
 On the plains, there is nothing to obscure your view of the sky, nothing to help you kid yourself that you will not die.  That starkness is beautiful and awful, and completely irresistible.                

- Sandra Scofield (2005, “Genesis” for “Indignities, A Memoir”)

"Remember me with smiles and laughter, for that is how I will remember you all. If you can only remember me with tears, then don't remember me at all."
- Laura Ingalls Wilder

Sigh.