Counting My Blessings # 24: Sisterhood and Brotherhood

I am thankful for my two siblings. All of us will be together here at my house Wednesday and I can't wait to gather around the table and discuss the serious things of life: What holiday did the frig quit working? How many people in Dad's family came in that Winnebago? How many calories are there in a tiny square of Grandma Woolum's fudge?
We will have the opportunity to catch "untechie" Mom up on our blogs and sibling assignments, discuss the Wild Cards of Huckleberries Online, and navigate through the "all roads lead to Kellogg" game that will start with a blog comment from a guy that knew the guy that Dad worked with at the Sunshine Inn to showing Mom comments from our blogs from her former students at Silver King School.

My brother and I are only a year apart in age. Our sister is eight years younger than me. The relationship the three of us have had throughout the years of growing up has taken on many changes. We had the challenges of competing siblings, a younger sister that was not quite old enough yet to participate in some activities, a moody father, and a mother that taught school, kept us fed and clothed, and still had time to go back to college, be union president, and active in PTA. We all survived those years of growing up and moved into adulthood with hopes and high expectations. We have survived depression, divorce, the deaths of our father and grandmothers, a miscarriage, the passing of pets, periods of absence from each other, times of being alone, and lots of trips together. We have blogged together, given feedback on manuscripts of chapters and articles, kept up Dad's tradition of making Tom and Jerry's together, and laughed a lot.

In the last few years we have found ourselves reconnecting and realized we had much more in common than I realized. Silver Valley Girl moved to Kellogg so we have been able to see each other more. Raymond Pert has helped us understand many of his life struggles and triumphs through the words and images of his fine blog. I cherish the time I spend with these two whether it is lunch at Jack and Dan's in Spokane remembering how much Dad loved that place, or hiking through an ancient cedar grove with cameras in hand.

It has been a long time since we have sat at a Thanksgiving table together. Thursday I will count my blessings and two of them will be Raymond Pert and Silver Valley Girl. Check out my sidebar for links to their blogs.

"I don't believe an accident of birth makes
people sisters or brothers.
It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage.
Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition
people have to work at. " ~Maya Angelou

Counting My Blessings #23: The Bible

I am grateful for The Bible. I can read chapters and verses in any book of the Bible numerous times and learn new life lessons. I can turn to Proverbs and gather wisdom each day. Psalms always provides reasons to celebrate our blessings. Here is an example that reminded me of being thankful today:

"I will thank you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all the marvelous things you have done. I will be filled with joy because of you. I will sing praises to your name, O Most High."
Psalm 9:1-2 NLT

I continue to count my blessings each and every day.

Sibling Assignment #82: Mr. Coffee Disaster

I gave the sibling assignment this week.
Finish this sentence." I will never forget the time _______happened at 516 W. Cameron. Remember? It was a huge disaster."
516 W. Cameron is where our growing up took place. Many disasters have happened that involved overflowing toilets, basement floods, and a drawer falling out of the frig numerous times. Most disasters always seem to take place over holidays or when family members all came home for some event. You will find RP's own version of "The Cable Guy" here and Silver Valley Girl (after attaching most disasters growing up to me) reminded me of the almost second eruption of Mt. St. Helen's here.

I am an educated woman. I know how a coffee maker works. I do have a brain, even in the morning. Somehow when a task that involve an appliance, making a food item, and my mother's kitchen comes together a cosmic experience involving planets and stars aligning with the universe doom me and shout "disaster".

This particular day I was making coffee. I don't know how I managed to do it, but the filter didn't get positioned right or the swingy thing that holds the filter didn't get secured right, or who knows what else could have happened, but the coffee did not go from the filter basket into the pot. I got up to check to see if the coffee was done and was surprised to see that the pot was almost empty. My eye caught a brown liquid with coffee flecks traveling down the front of the cupboard. I was relieved to see that the coffee had only gone down and dripped into one drawer. I could handle cleaning that up. It doesn't take much to dry off baggies, clips for bags, coffee filters, and twenty-five wooden spoons. I could maybe even do it before Mom realized what had happened. Then my eye caught the area of the counter where the cups hang on a little mug tree. I saw more of the brown liquid there. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. I heard my Mom's voice from the living room.
" Is the coffee done?"
" Uhhh... there seems to be a bit of a problem...."
I didn't have to finish the sentence before my mom shot off the couch with the speed of lightening.
" The coffee didn't seem to go into the pot", I apologized.
My mom's intuition told her within seconds that coffee must be seeping into every crevice and appliance on the west side of the kitchen. She moved into action.

What we discovered was the brownish sort of coffee went behind the stove, seeped under the refrigerator and rested against the far wall of the kitchen. In examining the damage it seemed like I had made twenty cups of coffee. How could eight cups of coffee water make such a mess?

By the time we moved out the appliances, cleaned the floor, moved everything back, wiped the sweat off our faces, cleaned the counter, and washed the grounds out of the coffee maker and made another pot I was exhausted. Needless to say, when I return home now Mom makes the coffee ahead of time and keeps her eagle eye on me if I get near the coffee maker when the pot is almost empty. It is also a blessing Mom doesn't own a coffee grinder.

Counting My Blessings #22: Our Dogs

"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion"
~Unknown

If you have visited this blog much you know our dogs are an important part of our lives. Annie is an English Springer Spaniel and Shelby is an Australian Cattle Dog ( or red heeler). They entertain us, are very devoted, and ease my stress each day just by being present. They go just about everywhere with us and that suits them just fine. They have camped, gone swimming in lakes,rivers, and creeks, gone on ten mile road trips, waited in parking lots while we shopped, and visited many parks around the Inland Empire. They let us know when they need a treat, when we have a visitor, or when the cats are getting too rough while playing with each other. The most important part is that they love us unconditionally. I think we came out better on this deal for sure! For that I count my blessings.

Photo Hunt: Reflection

Our ponds are a great source for reflection pictures, especially in the fall. Photo images from Sullivan Lake on a beautiful sunny, fall day provide another source for perfect reflections.
For other photo hunters using Reflection go here.

Counting My Blessings # 21: Through the Lens of Another Camera

November sunrise

Because of the time change I am just not home very often when it is light. I catch some sunrise beauty in the morning, but unfortunately I am scrambling around getting ready for school. It is usually dark when I return home. I am thankful JEJ has been experimenting around with his camera so I can catch a glimse of images around our place through his eyes.