Westwoods

I show you this to show you the next picture.  Our couches of synthetic leather are going to pieces after five short years of loving life... And so I made these ex-large pillow slip clovers to hide the seats that are doing the same falling apart thing.  I left the one un-tucked so you can see what it looks like in real life.  Couch covers only truly look good when no one sits on them.  The fabric was one gynormous drape I found at the thrift store.  I like imperfect things you can live with peaceably. Last week we were blessed with the making of 150 quarts of applesauce.  I set up a folding table in the center of the kitchen and liked it so much that as soon as the mess was cleaned up, I did a little shuffling of furniture and found a small filing cabinet for Bruce's office corner so he could sacrifice a desk. I also found this smallish, wooly looking rug at the thrift store and made my own kitchen island.  It's my cutting, chopping, and wrapping up leftovers cente

     This week I was reminded that there are so many things happening behind the scenes that we cannot know, because we are not given all the information surrounding our circumstances.  We live busy, fast lives and get upset when things don't go our way or we have one of those crazy days where NOTHING is predictable or plannable.  We spend the whole day putting out little fires and finally crash into bed at night still not knowing what THAT was all about.      Friday was one of those days.  The details are a little foggy now but it involved the mail truck not getting into town with the mail till ten in the morning so the people that sort the mail weren't able to start their job till then.  This makes people in the community wonder where there mail is and possibly even grouchier at their mailman.  The mail truck was delayed by a bad accident on the Long Bridge, in Sandpoint.        I was having a partly normal day, buying groceries, cleaning, and laundry, trying to prepare for

   Seen on a church billboard while driving home:  "Nobody needs a vacation more than the one that just had one."  I know its not a new quote, but it made me laugh when I saw it while driving through Montana someplace. Vacation is a wonderful thing.  You leave finally after months of planning and arranging things so you can be gone for two weeks.  And still you have to have faith, trust, and hope that the people back home can do your job and that you've paid your bills and that there will be enough money left when you get back to pay the bills.  Sounds like a great tone in which to start things. No?  But, because it was vacation, we did leave it all behind and felt at least a small portion of carefree and irresponsible. We drove hard and long the first afternoon, all night, and most of the next day and then stopped in Iowa for an early long night. Wonderful, wonderful rest after going hard.  The next day was an easy drive to arrive in Elida, Ohio in time to go to Ke