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On Becoming a "Car Girl" This past week I participated in my very first car show. Other than the temperature being crazy hot, I loved it. Mike and I had fun. Mike is a fan of classic cars. We drove to the show in his 1969 Chevelle SS 396. It looks exactly like the first car he owned as a kid.   The town where we live has an official town square. "Picturesque" is how most people would describe it. The old courthouse is the centerpiece of the square with streets radiating out like spokes on a wheel. The entire area is blocked off for the monthly car show. People come from miles around to participate.   “So what do you do at a car show?” I asked.  “Walk around and look at the cars,” he said.   Hmmm…I wasn’t too sure this would be my cup of tea, but Mike likes it and I was open to learn more. We drove the short distance from our house to the town square in his Chevelle with the windows rolled down and “oldies” playing on the radio.    Once we arrived, Mike prop...

A Case For Creating...Fun I spent this past week with two of my daughters, two granddaughters, and my mother in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It has been a family vacation destination for over thirty years. We all love the water, so swimming in the ocean and playing in the pool is the highlight of each day.   The evening brings a different set of expectations. When my daughters were very young we included a round of putt-putt golf from time to time, but always…ALWAYS…family games. We played an array of card games and board games throughout our stay.    This week was no different. We enjoyed days on the beach and evenings around the table.    We didn’t bring sand toys like molds and buckets with us this year, but my two granddaughters managed to create staircases in the dunes and carve out images in the wet sand using whatever they had on hand. They used an empty two-liter plastic cola bottle to make a mold for a sand castle and “last night’s” pizza box to smooth...

Stories of Life: Of Roots and Branches I can pretty much chronicle my life with stories of trees.   When I was seven, I would ride my pony to my grandparent’s house, sneak along the fence and climb Grandma’s treasured cherry tree. I loved to eat my fill of the sweet forbidden fruit and spit the seeds on the ground. It was forbidden because my father told me Grandma saved those cherries to make preserves and pies. Not for little girls to devour.   Then there was the maple tree on our own farm. I kept the latest Nancy Drew mystery novel tucked in the branches. I would climb the tree and read to my heart’s content…or until my mother came out and threatened to chop the maple down if I didn’t come down immediately and clean my room.   I loved the mulberry tree we had at our next house in town. It was an easy climb and the fruit was tasty. Unfortunately, the berries stained my hands and clothes so there was no hiding what I’d been up to.   Trees have always been important ...

Fireworks from the Water or   Jumping Into Life...With a Plan  If you follow my blog, you know that Mike and I live on a lake in Florida. Last week I posted a story about how we went out to eat at a local restaurant…traveling there by boat. What fun.     Mike and I often talk about how this time in our lives is turning out to be unexpectedly wonderful. It is a period of time crowned with a love neither of us expected.    Like so many others this past week, we geared up for the big Fourth of July celebrations. That often means food, fun, and family. But it always means FIREWORKS.    Our new community puts on a fantastic fireworks display. On our lake. We went to it by boat. Us and at least 150 other boaters.    Every kind of boat was there. We were in our bay boat. There were air boats, fishing boats, pontoon boats, ski boats, jon boats, and jet skis. There were boats with big motors, medium motors, and even some with small electric ...