Pictures of my Garden

This is the east side of my back yard - the rocks are from my sister Faye and contain thousands of fossils. The area behind the rocks contains hostas, St. John's wart, ferns, wild ginger, goatsbeard, jack-in-the-pulpit and ajuga.

This is the small pond which Bob installed for me and is home to five overweight goldfish and the occasional toad. Cassie likes to eat the fish food and the fish are so spoiled they refuse to eat worms which fall in....go figure!

This is part of the center garden with Cassie....she's hoping to play bread frisbee (that's another story!)

Meet Lucas

Isn't he precious!

Tami & John = Baby

Yesterday, Tami received a call from a caseworker in Detroit. A two-day old baby boy is being given up for adoption...do they want him? Today, Tami and John are on their way to Detroit to pick up their son....wow! The birth mother/father are teenagers and have decided not to keep him (wise choices for their age). The mother is alcohol/drug free and disinterested in the little one.

I am so excited for both of them, especially Tami. She has wanted children forever and they have had a lot of heartache trying to conceive. It's hard to believe she will be holding that little one in a few short hours. I almost feel as if I'm becoming a grandparent! Can't wait to hold that little one!

God's blessing on the birth parents, Tami & John and that precious little boy!

Humor

A woman married and had 13 children. Her husband died.

She married again and had 7 more children. Again, her husband died.

But, she remarried and this time had 5 more children.

Alas, she finally died.

Standing before her coffin, the preacher prayed for her. He thanked the Lord for this very loving woman and said, "Lord, they're finally together."

One mourner leaned over and quietly asked her friend, "Do you think he means her first, second or third husband?"

The friend replied, "I think he means her legs."

We, Your Daughters

This poem was written after the death of my mother and was dedicated to my sisters. For some reason, this has been on my mind for the last few days....

We, Your Daughters

You fought to keep death at bay.

We, your daughters, watched as you retreated

And entered your own world.

We, your daughters, cried silent tears.

Your eyes, once vibrant with life

Faded to dulled glass.

Your hands, once so expressive

Shook with a life of their own.

Your sharp mind was no more and

In its place, a jumble of disconnected thoughts.

Your voice which could inspire fear or comfort

Now quieted to low muttering.

We, who were never enough

Held your hand.

We, who wanted your love

Stroked your brow.

We, burdened and hurt, kept vigil for you.

Rest in peace, Mom

Harried, Humid and Hopeless

I took the day off work today to try to catch up on my classwork. My idea for an easy summer was taking an independent study on C.S. Lewis and a one week seminar on Thomas Aquinas. Why did I think THAT would be easy?!?!

Today, it's 90+ degrees with high humidity. So much for sitting outside and reading all day! So I'm at the library (again), reading and trying to keep myself on track....as you can see I'm losing that battle!

Will have pictures tomorrow of my garden starting to 'burst out'. I love it when my monarda (red), coreoposis (yellow) and spiderwort(purple) start to bloom. Yesterday, a hummingbird visited the monarda and it was humorous watching it darting hither and yon and buzzing back a second later.

Yesterday was Father's Day and I am so thankful for Bob. I couldn't ask for a better mate, friend and father of my children....I am blessed. To celebrate, I bought him three dodo birds (each representing one of our living children) to decorate his garden....he appreciated the humor.

All right, it's back to work....I am truly hopeless!

Twisted Sense of Humor

One of my friends/co-workers is a young woman named Tami, pictured with our friend Kemal. I've known her for about six years and we enjoy each others company and share similar interests even though she is young enough to be my daughter. Tami deathly afraid of spiders or any creepy crawling things.

I seem to be cursed with a very twisted sense of humor. Nothing delights me more than scaring the living daylights out of someone. Now I will admit that I suppress this urge if I sense it may do physical harm to a person or if it involves a child. In fact, one of my neices (8 yrs old) innocently asked me last year: "Aunt Marni, when are you going to start scaring me?? Is it on my next birthday??" Evidently, she and her sister must consider this a rite of passage .....ah, the anticipation!

Today, while cleaning the overhead of my desk, I came across a plastic back with a dead 4-inch cray fish which I had used to scare someone in the fall. Well, I decided to let it visit Tami since she was complaining how hard it was to work and stay awake. So while she was at lunch, I took a little surprise up to her desk and positioned it on her phone with its little pinchers stretched out in front of it.

It didn't take long for her to call me frantically from a conference room phone. She had come back from lunch and went to pick up her phone and almost had a heart attack - figuratively. :-) How she knew it was me is beyond me! (innocent grin). I went and picked up my 'little guy' and deposited him at another coworker desk.... (chuckle)