Tag Archives: Family Life

Spring Unfurling

9 Apr

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

I'm a winner

  We left Florida earlier than usual this year and arrived in North Carolina before spring. Our daffodils greeted us with their beautiful faces and the Bradford Pear trees were spectacular but everything else was brown. Temperatures continued to drop into the upper twenties and lower thirties and it seemed spring might forget to arrive.IMG_2476   Each day we searched for signs our plants were waking up. The first to awaken were the forsythia. We seldomsee them in their bright yellow coat and they are a treat to our eyes. Don’t you think it is cool the way God staggers the arrival of spring so each plant gets it own time to shine? IMG_2486   The weather warmed this week and it seems the rest of nature is anxious to share its beauty. While the forsythia is shedding its yellow coat and daffodils are beginning to fade the blueberries and apple buds are swelling. Plants that had lain hidden all winter are sending out new shoots.   I am especially thrilled with one of our peony plants. You see, it came from the yard of a precious friend who passed away. One day, as I sat with her I asked if I might have a root from one of her beautiful plants and she said yes. We had spent many hours rocking on her porch and admiring them and I wanted something special to keep those memories close. Sadly, at the end of the summer it seemed to die. Imagine my joy this morning when my husband told me the plant was coming back to life! IMG_2490   So far, we have late daffodils, one tulip, bleeding heart and a fat bee on a dandelion!

On Wednesay we drove down to Clayton, Georgia to see the cherry blossoms. We had gone the week before and they were bare sticks but this week they were glorious.

The weather today is warm bordering on hot so I know spring will be fully unfurled in a few more days. My husband decided today was a good time to erect a handrail for the stairs down to his workshop. I sneeked a picutre thorugh the screeon of him and our porch dog gus. Mike and gus copy 3   I’m not sure why, but I kind of like the texture the screen adds to the picture.

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How to live happily ever after.

4 Apr

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Baking for Cystic Fibrosis

2 Apr

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

I'm a winner

UPDATE 4/6/2016

The bake sale was a huge success and over $2,000.00 was raised for Cystic Fibrosis!  My friend was thrilled and grateful for the communiy support.

This Saturday, April 4, 2015, a determined grandmother will be setting up a card table in front of our local K-Mart and selling fabulous baked goods, She does this every year to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis research. Her friends and church family bake the items.

My friend has three precious granddaughters, two of which have active CF and the other one is a carrier. Until Wednesday, I had no idea that Cystic Fibrosis research was largely funded through donations, because Cystic Fibrosis affects a relatively small number of children, in the United States approximately 30,000 and worldwide 70,000.

 Nearly every #cysticfibrosis drug available today was made possible because of @CF_Foundation support. (Click to Tweet)

Today I am baking a triple chocolate buttermilk pound cake for the auction, along with some cookies.

triple-chocolate-buttermilk-pound-cake-sl

This cake was featured on the cover of the February Southern Living Magazine and I made it during our stay in Florida. It was incredible!  It seems the recipe came from a professional baker who charges cake lovers  $36.00  to take one home or have it shipped!  If you would like to make it, here is the RECIPE.  I don’t add the white frosting since it has buttermilk in it and I am not sure if it would require refrigeration. Would love for my baker friends to weigh in on this as I think the white makes the cake look great.

If you would like to know more about Cystic Fibrosis you can visit the Cystic Foundation home page and if you have an opportunity to give, I know these three girls and their family would be grateful. Thanks to research, these girls already have a brighter future  than children in the past.

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Canon City, Colorado

30 Mar

My Take

DiVoran Lites

Author, Poet and ArtistOne of Dad’s early letters after he was inducted into the army in 1943 had an account of his rescuing a sergeant from drowning. I read that when I was a grandmother, and it was pretty exciting. He was trained in water purification, so that explains how I’ve always been interested in clean water.

Our lives in Canon City were full of interesting things to do. On Sunday afternoons, Mother took us to the small park across from the prison for a band concert. I believe the band members were convicts or cons as we called them. To us, it was the best music in the world and a great source for learning patriotism.

Mother loved to tell the story of the time the band played, “The Star Spangled Banner.” Suddenly I gripped my little brother by his collar and jerked him to his feet saying, “Stand up … Star Spangle.”

We listened to the radio a lot. During the daytime if Mother didn’t have a job that day, she’d iron or sew and listen to soap operas. She loved “Stella Dallas. I’m sure the tales were full of warnings and cautions and were probably good for a little girl to hear, though I’m sure I didn’t understand half of it. We listened to “Fibber McGee and Molly.” It started with the opening of a closet where everything fell out on the floor with great crashings and bangings. We thought that was hilarious – every time. I always thrilled to the opening music of “Let’s Pretend.” I wonder now what those captivating stories were about. Maybe I can look them up on the Internet.

One special evening, David and Mother stayed home and my Grandparents took me to the Pen (which is what we called the prison) for a guards and wives night out. We had dinner in the “dining room,” which was full of long tables where the cons usually ate. They then set up a projector and showed the movie, “April Showers.” Afterward we toured the rows of cells and I was surprised to see how many of the men had decorated with serapes, pictures, and anything else they could find to make their spaces homey. I believe at that time the cells only held one man, two at the most.

We went back to the Colorado State Penitentiary a few years ago. They’ve made the old part into a museum.

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Prison Museum 

Video

The building was pristine, the air inside cool on a hot summer day. I recognized the name Alfred Packer, infamous cannibal. The museum had a model of the first gas chamber to be used in Colorado and the big wooden, “horses,” they laid the men over to beat them with a paddle for punishment.

To me, though, as a child, the prison was a friendly place. When we walked past the cells, the inmates looked out not with evil intent, but seeming to long for home and family.

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Another reason I was well disposed toward inmates was that one of them made a doll cradle for me. My old pals, Teddy and Raggedy Ann, got a lot of use from that.

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Doesn’t Teddy look like a good listener? Believe me, he is. Notice how somebody kissed him on the nose so much his nose wore off.

 

 

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Keukenhof Gardens, Holland

29 Mar

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills   

JUDY                                                

 

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I hope you are enjoying my postings about flowers as much as I am enjoying writing about them. Although my “green thumb” is as purple as can be, i.e. I can’t grow ANYTHING – I thoroughly enjoy flowers. We’ve been to many “gardens” in our lifetime, but I think the most magnificent is the Keukenhof Gardens by Lisse in Holland (pronounced koy’-ken-hōf). We’ve been fortunate to have been stationed in Germany for a total of six years, and have made the Holland trip quite a few times.

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One of the first times we visited Keukenhof was in April of 1968. Spring had not yet fully arrived in Holland, and we were treated to winds and bare trees. However, the landscaping of the gardens was still beautiful.

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And when we returned later, when Spring was in full swing, we were amazed to see how the landscape had just exploded with flowers.

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There were blankets of flowers.

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And when we climbed up into one of the many windmills there, we could look out and see fields and fields of tulips. Beautiful!

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Even though there weren’t many flowers outside around the grounds, there were tulips in abundance in the hothouses. We’ve been told there are about 700 different varieties of tulips there.

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I was fascinated to see some that were absolutely black – named “Black Beauty.”

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Another time we visited, we saw more black tulips called “The Ace of Spades.”

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We were amazed to see all the different colors and styles of tulips – lots of hybrid work going on there. Although tulips are the main flower, there are many others there, as well. There were blankets of hyacinths. I saw my first Amaryllis, and was amazed at the size of it.

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The next year, 1969, we visited again, but in May, when my Mother came to visit us. Not only were the gardens in full swing, the flowers were just everywhere

 

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Not only in the ground, but in planters, as well.

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Just about everywhere flowers could be – they were there. You can see the difference in the trees and the tulips and other flowers from the early Spring of our 1968 visit. We thoroughly enjoyed both visits.

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We visited again in March of 1981, with our two daughters, during their Spring Break. The weather was rather chilly, windy, and brisk. We were in jackets at the time. Once again, Spring had yet to arrive, and nature was still rather bleak. We had been wandering around the area and thought we would freeze if we went to the gardens, but really had no choice – it was then or never. Much to our surprise – inside the garden, with all the trees, the wind didn’t reach us very much, and we were quite comfortable.

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~~~~~~~~To Be Continued~~~~~~~

 

 

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Five ways to bring balance to your life.

28 Mar

So many times “if only” is a lament. Janet shares the promise of God’s “if”

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Settling In

26 Mar

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

I'm a winner

I’ve spent the past week settling into our home for the summer. The way I can tell I am settled in is that my previously tidy house is no longer tidy. What can I say, I am messy.

The weather has been cool, but not cold and I have enjoyed it. Florida was beginning to heat up. This morning we took a drive down to Cornelia, Georgia to pick up a meat order. We pass Cornelia frequently on our way to Gainesville or Atlanta but have never explored it so I was looking forward to the trip. After we picked up our order I asked Siri to find the local McDonalds. It was time for a bathroom break and some coffee. Siri was not very cooperative but she and I finally worked it out and she set us on our way.

Have you ever heard to the Habersham Candle Company? They make wax pottery vessels. Mike’s cousin gave us one for our North Carolina home and I love it. I knew they are located in Cornelia so I nicely asked Siri to route us there and she complied. To my amazement. It isn’t a small company like I had imagined. , I thought I could go there and buy one or two. Wrong. I was too intimidated to go up to the door so I called them to see if they are open to the public. Sadly, they aren’t. I’m not sure why I had it in my mind that they were.

After we came home, I checked email and found one from a blog I follow, Marketing Christian Books suggesting the reader try a cool website that can make marketing fun. Who wouldn’t want to learn that? I spent the rest of the afternoon playing with it. Here are a couple I made.

Son’s Travel Agency Oasis Travel .org
Daughter’s Novel
Daughter’s Novel

 

Cold weather is supposed to return this weekend. I am looking forward to it. It will be nice to have a chance to wear the winter clothes one last time. How about you, are you sick of the cold or enjoying it?

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Crowley, Colorado

23 Mar

My Take

DiVoran Lites

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Dora, Ivan, DiVoran, David at Grandparents Apartment House in Canon City, Colorado

 

When I was five years old my parents took my brother and I and moved to Crowley, Colorado. It was 1943 and WW2 was raging in Europe. At that time they weren’t calling up married men with children, but that would soon change. Dad went to Crowley to keep the canning factory machinery running and mother’s job was to cook a noon meal everyday for the bosses.

We lived in a shotgun house which meant all the rooms were in a row. I recall mother handing me a tomato warm from the sun and a shaker of salt and telling me to go sit on the front step out of the way and eat it. I haven’t had a real tomato since, but that may not be a fair comparison.

Another thing I remember in the food department was the goat milk. We had a Nanny goat and a kid. The kid got all the milk he needed, and our family got the rest. I called my daily portion a milkshake because mother gave it to me warm, fresh, and foaming from the goat. I sat on the front step to drink that, too.

Sometimes, mother wanted to walk down to the factory to say hello to dad. When that happened, she had her own entourage. We all went in a line. Mother and brother, David, then DiVoran, Nanny Goat, and Billy the kid. The baby goat walked on the panes of glass covering the tomato plants to keep them warm and never broke one. The proud and beautiful rooster, Chanticleer took his place at the end of the line.

At night, Daddy came home tired. He recline on the couch and I sat on its arm next to his head and ran my hands through his crisp and curly dark hair.

One day we got the news that Daddy had to go fight Hitler in the war. Mother and the children would go back to Canon City and live with the grandparents. The day we left Crowley, we were all packed up, but we took time for our noontime dinner before we left. It was chicken and noodles, which was one of my favorite meals. Suddenly I got suspicious … where did the chicken come from. Did it happen to have anything to do with Chanticleer? It did. I lost my appetite and thus begun the battle of the meat between my father and I. It got much worse after I saw the movie, “Bambi,” and dad started hunting after the war.

During the last nine months of the war while Daddy was gone, Mother, David and I lived upstairs in our own apartment at Grandmother and Grandad’s house. Granddad worked as a guard at the Colorado State Penitentiary and Grandmother had her own beauty salon there in the downstairs of the house with a separate entrance. Mother and Grandmother had many altercations over everything that comprised our daily lives. I was a diligent messenger between them never realizing how I was stirring things up.

For one thing, Grandmother was determined to keep Mother busy so she wouldn’t get sad missing her husband. Because fabric was vitually unavailable and David and I were growing children, our female guardians took all the clothes stored in the attic and made them into dresses, coats, pants, and shirts for us kids.

One time I got so tired of standing for fittings that I grabbed the unfinished neck of a dress and ripped it right down the middle. Apparently, that particular material was a bit older than they had realized. But my rebellion didn’t do me any good. The next day, we were back to making clothes again. I was probably the best dressed and best coifed child in first grade that year.

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Even though Daddy was far away he was still a big part of all our lives as the war lumbered on toward its conclusion. I have his letters from that time that tell how much he missed us. What a wonderful legacy that is.

 Mark 13:7

 

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Jesus Talks to Children

16 Mar

My Take

 DiVoran Lites 

 Jesus Talks to Children

 

Sunday, we had two princesses, a prince, and a beloved handmaiden in Sunday School. Before we even started singing one of the princesses was pouting because she wanted to go home. It was daddy’s day, but daddy had chosen to bring her to church. All I could offer was for her to go sit with him and his wife (whom she loves). She passed on sitting still and listening to the sermon for adults. I explained how a bad mood affects everyone and asked her to see if she could find a way to become happy about where she was.

For the lesson, I gave each child a sponge on a paper plate. I then explained they could slowly pour their drinking water into it pretending the sponge was their heart, and they were soaking up God’s love. We talked about how we can ask God to love people through us even if we didn’t like them very much. Teacher got to be the unlikeable one, and they squeezed some of the love-water into my sponge. After refilling theirs, they sat quietly and waited for God to say something to them.

We decorated our journal pages, then wrote what God had said to us. Each message was short, but you could tell the children treasured them. I was particularly impressed with one which said, “You will fulfill your goals in 2015.” I happen to know the child’s goal is to get an A in every subject this semester. She can do it too, especially now that she knows God is supporting her in it.

I felt a bit funny about my message, thinking it sounded like a cliche. “Jesus is the greatest.” I read. The children seemed surprised. We’ve discussed cartoon characters, Santa Claus, and Whitney Houston, so I suppose, “Jesus is the greatest,” was news to them. Good news.

Oh, yes, the sad little princess – when we drew titles of songs near the beginning of the class she got, “If You’re Happy and You Know it.” She started laughing even before she told us what her song was.

When the guardian of the other princess came for her, I gave her the sponge and said her child could wash dishes with it. The guardian was thrilled because just before the end of the service the preacher had said that children need to be taught to work. I’m sure this particular woman is already teaching the eight-year-old to work, and many other good things, but she liked the idea that the sponge fit the sermon so well. I did too.

God does talk to us. He talks to children, too. I’ve read that they don’t get a half-pint serving of the Holy Spirit, they get the whole bucketful, just as we adults do.

Jesus called them to himself and said, “Let the children come to me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.”

Luke 18:16

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Let Me Tell You About My Grandchildren Forrest~Part 2

8 Mar

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

JUDY

 

 

As I began my story about my grandchildren last time, I told you that our oldest daughter and her husband gave us our first grandchild – a boy, Forrest.1

 

Last time, I forgot to add this picture. It’s one of my favorite pictures of him and his dad.

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Karen has often said that she was just a “vessel” for her children. They both take after their dad’s side of the family. And you can really see it in this picture.

 

There was a bit of competition between us and the other grandparents. Forrest is the oldest grandchild on both sides. As a matter of fact, the other grandparents (grandpa especially) tried to get Forrest to call us “Aunt Judy” and “Uncle Fred.” So we had to correct him every time we saw him.

In mid-1990’s, Fred and I moved to Florida. Brian brought his family down that first Christmas, and of course we went to Disney. Later, the other grandpa stated that HE had wanted to be the one to introduce Disney to Forrest, but then we “went to Florida and bought the place up!” One up for the Wills side!

When he was learning his “ABC’s” we would say a word association with whatever letter he spoke. He did fine until he got to “G” – and I would say “Granny.” He would just look at me and grin – but wouldn’t say Granny. Took him quite a few years to call me that. Never did figure out what the hang-up was.

Our family has always been heavily involved with whatever church we found ourselves members of. Karen was brought up in this environment. Her husband, Brian was the son of a pastor, so he was, as well. So it was no surprise to see that family heavily involved in their church. When they moved to the Chicago area, they found a large church that they loved. Lots of good Bible study and classes for the children.

About 10+ years ago, that church decided the Lord wanted them to branch out and plant another body of believers. They began meeting – and still do – in a local high school. Karen and Brian felt the Lord leading them to be part of that new body of believers, and volunteered to help establish it. But because it was a small grouping, Forrest and Katie still attended the original church for their youth functions.

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Forrest and Katie have both been on mission trips, sponsored by this church. Forrest went on several mission trips, including one to South Africa. He loved it all.

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He is a delightful young man. When he graduated from Wheaton College, he had some choices to make about employment. But his heart was in a Christian program called Alpha (alphausa.org). It is an evangelistic program that was started in England, but has outreach in our country and others.

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There is an office near where Forrest and Alyssa live, and he accepted a job with them. They are pleased to have him, and he is delighted to be working for the company. He loves the Lord greatly.

As I said last time, we are so very proud of Forrest, and thank God for his presence in our lives. God gets all the glory for this young man.

 

 

 

 

 

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