Chicago Tribune Fall Tradition

This cartoon is about the only thing I remember from my childhood newspaper reading!

(Except, of course, the sports section, Chicago Blackhawks articles.)

But, truly, I watched for this cartoon each fall and loved to study the landscape change from haystacks to teepees....smoke to the Indians.

It just fascinated me.  

It's older than I realized, 1907, and it is not run in the paper any more.

You can read all about it if you're interested in the link below.

 

Learn the history behind the famous cartoon:Injun Summer

Reminiscing,

Donna

Holy Ground

"No matter where life takes you... the place where you stand at any moment is holy ground.  Love hard and love wide and love long, and you will find the goodness in it."

~Susan Vreeland

Love of place.

Love of other.

Love of God.

Holy Ground.

When I thought of love....

I thought of this picture.

It took me over an hour to find it...but it was fun to see hundreds of other pictures that spoke

love.

love hard, love wide, love long.

amen

Donna Elsie

“If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with.”

~Noel Langley, Wizard of Oz Screenplay

Add to the Beauty: Farrow and Ball

 

I found this to be just so lovely I had to share it with you.

It's simple, beautiful and so peaceful.

soothing

that's the word.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did!

Add to the beauty,

Donna

There is a place

I wanted to get this lovely quote up on the blog.

I think of my parents at the end of September and when I think of them I think of Sue....

and then I think of all those who have gone on before me.

Just this weekend I was watching a kdrama called "Love Next Door."  The female lead is being proposed to and she is hesitating because she has had cancer and doesn't really know for sure what the future holds.  Her boyfriend, who she has know her whole life, tells her he wants to be with her 'one hundred years, ten years, or even just one day.'  

"our time is finite"

We really never know.

Your pain is not meaningless

Do not lose heart.

Be eternity focused.

This helps.

And that Tolkien quote...

full of hope.

Encourage one another,

Donna

 

Summer Sun was on their wings...

 

Something Told the Wild Geese

by

Rachel Field

Something told the wild geese

It was time to go,

Though the fields lay golden

Something whispered, "snow."

Leaves were green and stirring,

Berries, luster-glossed,

But beneath warm feathers

Something cautioned, "frost."

All the sagging orchards

Steamed with amber spice,

But each wild breast stiffened

At remembered ice.

Something told the wild geese

It was time to fly,

Summer sun was on their wings,

Winter in their cry.

*******

I don't tire of my favorite poems.

They just get better and better, don't they?

Have a lovely fall day!

Love you, Mean it.

Donna

Hey, Boo.

What can I say?

I was Scout. 

I've loved the movie To Kill A Mockingbird my entire life.

I would have watched it in this very chair, in the dark, cool basement in Elmhurst.

I never thought that little girl was me. Not once.

But this little tomboy Donna with her grown out pixie and rolled up shorts and cut off sleeves

is Scout.

I feel connected to this movie in many lovely and unique ways.

Our father took pictures and had them made into slides.

I absolutely loved the evenings we would sit on the floor and our dad would click thru pictures

 on the slide projector.  

Nancy saved the slides for years.  She passed on 'our slides' to each of us a long while ago.

Gosh.  I would love to see ALL of the slides.

I find reminiscing to be my favorite topic of conversation lately.

"Of all the means of expression, photography is the only one that 

fixes a precise moment in time."

~Henri Cartier-Bresson

Encourage one another,

Donna

 

Feeling Good, Lewis

I wanted to add these videos for my friends who do not have Instagram or Facebook.

I made them to document my hair journey, as you will see.

I am at peace about my hair already. 

I don't hate it.

I find it amusing and kind of fun.

I thought I would hate it until it was blond and long.

But no.

I'm okay.

I will continue to document this new journey.

It's not so bad.

Encourage one another.

LYMI

Donna

 

It ain't that tragic.

As you know, no matter what happens in my life, a movie reference is right there...waiting to come out.

When I was diagnosed on Sept 15th 2023 I immediately thought of this scene from Terms of Endearment.

I didn't realize until about an hour ago that today was the 15th.

I yelled to Patrick, who is in the other room, 

'hey, it's the anniversary today'

He said.

'I know.'

Funny, he didn't mention it.

He said it wasn't an anniversary to celebrate.

I get that.

Dedication: To my husband, an unexpected nice guy.

"Who would have expected you to be a nice guy?"

A prized line aimed at one of my husband's favorite actors.

Thank you, Honey.

I love you.

Dear.

DG

After all. Purpose.

 

After All

I'd like to share this video from Princess Catherine.

I'm sure most of you have seen it elsewhere, but I wanted to keep it in a safe place and document it on my blog.

Remarkably,  I have come to a very similar realization that Catherine did, even tho we arrived there in almost completely different circumstances.  She being young with a young family. 

Me being isolated and pretty old.

I started feeling lost as to what my life was all about as I could not go anywhere or do anything and I was weak and feeling useless.  

I remembered a book I read (in the 90's), recommended by Elisabeth Elliot, called Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss.

In this book you follow Katie, as she writes in her journal, from her school days to her final days when she is bedridden.  

The following is the final entry to her journal.

"I have no wish to choose. But I have come to the last page of my Journal, and living or dying, shall write in this volume no more. It closes upon a life of much childishness and great sinfulness, whose record makes me blush with shame but I no longer need to relieve my heart with seeking sympathy in its unconscious pages nor do I believe it well to go on analyzing it as I have done. I have had large experience of both joy and sorrow; I have the nakedness and the emptiness and I have seen the beauty and sweetness of life. What I say now, let me say to Jesus. What time and strength I used to spend in writing here, let me spend in praying for all men, for all sufferers who are out of the way, for all whom I love. And their name is Legion for I love everybody.

Yes I love everybody! That crowning joy has come to me at last. Christ is in my soul; He is mine; I am as conscious of it as that my husband and children are mine; and His Spirit flows from mine in the calm peace of a river whose banks are green with grass and glad with flowers. If I die it will be to leave a wearied and worn body, and a sinful soul to go joyfully to be with Christ, to weary and to sin no more. If I live, I shall find much blessed work to do for Him. So living or dying I shall be the Lord's.

But I wish, oh how earnestly, that whether I go or stay, I could inspire some lives with the joy that is now mine. For many years I have been rich in faith; rich in an unfaltering confidence that I was beloved of my God and Saviour. But something was wanting I was ever groping for a mysterious grace the want of which made me often sorrowful in the very midst of my most sacred joy, imperfect when I most longed for perfection. It was that personal love to Christ of which my precious mother so often spoke to me which she often urged me to seek upon my knees. If I had known then, as I know now what this priceless treasure could be to a sinful human soul, I would have sold all that I had to buy the field wherein it lay hidden. But not till I was shut up to prayer and to the study of Gods word by the loss of earthly joys, sickness destroying the flavor of them all, did I begin to penetrate the mystery that is learned under the cross. And wondrous as it is, how simple is this mystery! To love Christ and to know that I love Him-this is all!

And when I entered upon the sacred yet oft-times homely duties of married life, if this love had been mine, how would that life have been transfigured! The petty faults of my husband under which I chafed would not have moved me; I should have welcomed Martha and her father to my home and made them happy there; I should have had no conflicts with my servants, shown no petulance to my children. For it would not have been I who spoke and acted but Christ who lived in me.

Alas! I have had less than seven years in which to atone for a sinful, wasted past and to live a new and a Christ-like life. If I am to have yet more, thanks be to Him who has given me the victory, that Life will be Love. Not the love that rests in the contemplation and adoration of its object; but the love that gladdens, sweetens, solaces other lives."

    O gifts of gifts!

Remembering Katie's conclusion 

helped men realize what I could do next....

And that would be loving God and loving others.

***

The following list came across my screen at the perfect time.

This.

And these are the things I contemplate as I come out of the woods...

pondering my purpose

after all.

Love you!

Donna

DYE! Not GUY!

So, have you ever had a CAT scan?

It's really a breeze.  Compared to an MRI on your breast or your liver.  A CT scan is a cakewalk.

You lie on your back with a foam triangle under your knees and usually hold on to something above your head.  Then you go in and out and in and our of a donut shaped thing.

It's not painful or loud.

I have had seven or eight in the last year.

50% of the time I needed DYE injected into my IV half way thru.

They warn you that the dye will feel uncomfortable in your arm and maybe your throat and probably in your crotch..  Yes. Your crotch.  

Here is the text I wrote to my husband, Patrick, upon completely my CT scan.

Dear Patrick,

I will never NOT think this is hilarious.

*******

Patrick went to almost every appointment with me.  He was still working, however,  when I went to the following appointment.

I really didn't mind....

Oh. Yes. He. Can.

****************

Truly, Patrick ran to Walgreens daily for me.

He did now win a prize from Walgreens.

But he won my heart.

**********

When my hair fell out in the goofiest way ever I wrote to Matthew and told him I looked just like

 Ben Franklin.  

He decided to find a lovely wig for me.

Only 1 left.

bwahahahaha

**********

We know how to have fun around here!!!

Encourge one another.

LYMI

Donna Boo

 

Welcome September. It's the best month. Right?

How I love poetry with word pictures and feelings and smells....

LYMI

Donna Boo

"The things you think you can't survive you somehow divinely make it through."

Over the last year I have saved quotes that encouraged me while going thru treatment.

"I have found that it is the small everyday deed of ordinary folks that keep the darkness at bay.

Small acts of kindness and love."

Gandalf

My brother in law sent this to me.  We are not generally in touch.

But he thought of me one day and sent it.

I found comfort in this.

My other brother in law, whom I generally don't text...

texted Patrick almost daily asking about me.

Knowing someone cares and is checking in is a sweet comfort.

I had two pesky wounds that took from Nov. 15 until May 15ish to heal.

The healing was indeed miraculous. I was told over and over by the oncologist that

'these will not heal when you are on Chemo.'

After some dramatic wound events, Patrick learned how to take care of my wounds and packed and dressed them twice a day.

He prayed that they would heal. Diligently.

He was sure they would heal.

And they did.

Patrick and I have been married for 44 years.  I'm not aware of much praying going on in those first 40 years....

He has, however,  become the family prayer warrior in the last few years.

This is a miracle too.

He has been encouraged to have witnessed many answered prayers.

I couldn't really pray much for myself so I am thankful for a husband who lifts me and the children up in prayer with great faith in the outcome.

I'm sure you all have had some sort of trauma in your life.  A restful night's sleep is a challenge.  

It took great effort to stop the reel of traumatic events from playing over and over.

Seeing the events from start to finish.

Telling your story over and over in your head.

This is trauma. 

I learned to catch those thoughts. 

I had to recognize what I was doing.

"Okay, I'm spiraling again. Yes.  It was awful. It is over now.

You are safe.  Give it to God."

It was the unexpected things that got me.

This is the best way I can think of as to how I felt.

Not badass at all.

I surrender all

Cindy. Every morning.

Day after surgery.

crosses and hearts from the holy land.

Sisters always praying and loving.

and cleaning. haha

Children remembering to pray.

My constant.

Like the prayers being spoken for George Bailey at the beginning of "It's a Wonderful Life",

the prayers for me lifted and surrounded me as I slowly healed.

The good parts. 

The encouraging parts.

If I want to become a stand up comedian I have a few wild

stories that would, I promise, have you laughing so hard.

How can something so traumatic be so hilarious?

I do know a few things;

I'd rather make someone laugh than cry.

Positive statements are calming.

"It is going to heal." 

(my favorite)

No matter how this ends up,

I get to go be with Jesus.

And so it goes.

Next time.

What do I do with this life,

when I can't do much?

Love you. Mean it.

Encourage one another,

Donna Elsie

The Thunderbirds were loud and so was I.

As I mentioned in the last post, Patrick has retired.  His main focus has been taking care of me and the house and Ginny.  As soon as I was finished with treatments Patrick started his own summer of appointments and walking and PT.  So his retirement has been a dud.  He does, however, like not working.  He likes not doing anything. 

We finally were able to take a trip to visit the kids.

Matthew and I schemed to go to the Offut Air Force base Air Show.

Patrick Jr. of course would join us and when I mentioned to Emma that we were going to Omaha,

she really wanted to come and see everyone, too.  So a quick family gathering fell into messy place.

Katie stayed home and watched Ginny for us as she did not have time off on such short notice.  It's a shame she couldn't come, but the boys and Emma had all been here in the Spring and she saw everyone then.

Please enjoy these random pictures.  

We congregated at Matthew and Melinda's.

They handle the chaos well.

The big kids. 

We watched the air show at a near by lake. (I'm not quite strong enough to hike thru a big crowd at a airforce base yet, so Matthew found the perfect spot.)  We parked under big poplar trees and basically had a picnic with an airshow thrown in.  This suited us all better than sitting in the sun on the tarmac!  

(It was in the 90's)

We took a photo!  Yay. Patrick Jr. was not there yet. Boo.

He has a little guy and he works around naps and does a great job!

Fun photobomb. 

Malachi  (6th grade) and Asher (8th grade)

Emma and happy little Jordan.

Jordan dear

Dottie, Patrick's oldest gal.  He will be a first grader,

homeschooled by mom.  She is reading already and just loves books.

Silas is my buddy.  He planted his mini chair next to my big chair and we had a chat.  

Zeke made friends with a cicada.  

(He is my friend, too)

Emma has been my airshow buddy for years.

We saw so many shows in Chicago together!

Melinda looking beautiful as usual!

She is not really a fan...might have something to do with the sunburn she had while laboring with Asher after a hot sunny airshow back in 2010.

Oh, how everyone loves having their pictures taken! haha

I'm glad to have the memory.  Sunday morning at a park before we all head home.

Patrick snapped the best shot of the day!  The original photo is a 'live' version and you can see the jets flying and starting the smoke!  It's great!

Griffin was unimpressed!  

*********

Hair growth photos

Aug 22nd

five and 1/2 months post chemo

To see more of the hair story follow link below

 Quiet Life: The Aftermath

*******

So there you have my awkward return to family blogging.

I've got another post in the works so that should be up soon.

Thank you for the kind comments on the last blog.

They were as lovely as always.  I feel so fortunate to have you all in my life.

Encourage one another,

Donna