Summertime in Michigan is delightful, always has been to me. While growing up, I remember summer days as long, hot, and enchanting. Not too many folks had pools in our neighborhood, so on scorching summer days the garden hose and sprinkler were your best friends. I remember the numbing cold water hitting our wiry kid bodies and the grass sticking to our dirty little summer feet. We ran around giggling, screaming, playing made up games to fight the back and forth repetition of the sprinkler. This was classic summer.
My twin sister and I had a little friend around the corner that had the ultimate sprinkler. It was an old cement elephant sprinkler that stood about three feet off the ground. Its paint was mostly all chipped off except for a red decorative collar around its neck. He had a sweet grin and his trunk stuck up in the air where the water squirted out in a circular fashion. Unfortunately he didn’t work very well, but the idea of getting kind of wet with a special sprinkler always seemed more pleasing than getting really wet with an ordinary one!
I feel that way about food still, as I believe most “foodies” do. I would rather eat small amounts of delicious, one of a kind food rather than large amounts of ordinary, mundane food any day of the week! Perhaps the little old sprinkler elephant around the corner had the secret to a happy food life filled in his chipped trunk; less, is indeed more!
eat pie, love life… xoxo linda
I kept thinking of these words all day today - "Daddy's Home." For many of us, and I wish It were for all of us, those words will always mean - all is right with the world!
As I remember it, the minute my sweet dad walked through the front door, a serenity seemed to fill the entire house. Suddenly and magically, no problem seemed so big, no homework seemed so impossible, and no argument with my brothers was that catastrophic. For my daddy's smile would fill the rooms with sunshine, his mind with sage guidance, and his heart with loving security. All was good, all was right, when daddy got home!
Though he will no longer walk through our front door again, I know he will always be with our family. My dad will always be at home in my heart, and I will never tire of hearing the lovely words strung together as; "Daddy's Home!" I hope you had such a dad, or you will become one!
xoxolinda
“All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” -- Abraham Lincoln
I remember several years ago, while tucking my sweet girls in one evening, them telling me that one of their favorite words was “Mommy”. I remember smiling bigger than I have ever smiled while squeezing their little faces tight. I have never felt more accomplished. I remember as a child sitting on my mother’s lap, pushing her face towards mine so I could stare at her loving smile as she read to me. It still warms my heart, like no other.
Mothers fill our hearts with an unconditional love and sanctuary that can never be duplicated. I often think of the centuries of soldiers dying on battlefields; calling out to their dear mothers for some last measure of peace in their dying last breaths. For at the end of the day, as beaten and melancholy one may be, our hearts are lightened knowing that at the very least, our mother still loves us.
Mothers are human beings after all, and flawed like all people. I do believe it is a good thing; however, to put mothers on a well-deserved pedestal for their steadfast, deep devotion for their children. For a mother’s love is our first concrete base of unconditional love, as God gifted a mother’s love like his eternal love for us. It is indeed, like no other.
Whether your mother is alive here on earth or alive in your heart, let us celebrate and cherish our mothers, all mothers, always.
I absolutely loved being a Girl Scout and was actually a Cadet before I retired my sash. In retrospect, I can clearly see how the Girl Scout's fundamental tenets and experiences truly helped shape my life as it is today. As a child, I didn't realize that the monthly meetings, camping trips,cookie sales, and earning educational and philanthropy badges were anything more than “fun!”
I was too young to know that these “fun” Girl Scout experiences, infused in my young life, set the stage for my purpose and passion in my later life. For through these Girl Scout experiences, I learned compassion, friendship, teamwork, courage, honesty, work ethic, responsibility, respect for others, the desire to make the world a better place!, and that folks like to buy baked goods :)
Today, I speak, write, and bake to thousands of people across the country. And I always do my very best, like every Girl Scout does, to make the world a better place! I do it in my own way – by changing the world one pie at a time!
Eat pie and love life! xoxoLinda