A Pollywog Creek Year...

...in pictures.
 January::river sunset, morning quiet time on backyard swing, water for "walk for life" participants, exploring nature with Gavin.  February::Swamp Cabbage Festival, Lion Country Safari with Nick, Casey and their families, Sugar Cane Festival with Louis and Emily, Emily and U.S. Congressman Tom Rooney.  March::Lake Alice, Gainesville, Florida, Louis and Emily and I with Brian, Rebecca and Emily Brown in Atlanta, Nick and Emily celebrating their March birthdays, Emily on stage at the Ryman in Nashville on her 18th birthday.  April::Emily and friends at Chris Tomlin concert in West Palm, charity luncheon under the oaks at the Barron House, Tea Party in Ft. Myers, Gator baseball vs FGCU in Ft. Myers.  May::Austin on his "birthday", Emily and friends at Cheesecake Factory in Dallas, Casey and Emily on deck of U.S.S. Alabama in Mobile, Casey with his boys  June::Our first ducklings on Pollywog Creek, Gavin and Emily cool off with squirt guns, African Children's Choir at Riverside, Gavin helps Louis blow out his 60th birthday candles  July::A peacock visits Pollywog Creek, the coffee shop where I began meeting with my friend and writing coach, Emily leaves on the first leg of her flight to Rwanda, the rainy season on Pollywog Creek  August::Seeing Austin for the first time since his birth, Emily and Kristin and I attend the Hillsong United Worship Conference in Miami, as well as the Women of Faith Conference in Tampa where Emily and I met Patsy Clairmont, Gavin and Mason at the piano for their original composition "Daddy's Coming Home"  Emily in Rwanda  September::Mason's daddy is coming home, Disney on Ice with Gavin and Kristin, Nick helps Gavin fish in the pond, Coral's baby shower in Winter Haven  October::Gavin and Emily, 1st fallish morning, Jessi and Mason and Austin, Emily working Pumpkinfest on Ft. Myers Beach  Mason, Austin and Gavin on Halloween  November::Emily with Rebecca St. James at Pro-Life Gala in Tampa, Coffee Muffins and Mulligans at local CPC charity golf tournament, an afternoon outside with Jessi and Kristin and the boys and Jennifer  Emily with former Florida Speaker of the House and U.S.Senate candidate Marco Rubio
 December::Chris Tomlin Christmas Concert in Orlando, Mason's "magic trick", Gavin's birthday, Emily's New Years Eve tiara

Detaching my hands from the things of this world...

This Christmas was one of the best ever here on Pollywog Creek. Not perfect, not even close, but lovely and peaceful and loud and chaotic, and some of the funniest and most wonderful people I know and love made it so... Our Christmas tree has been raining needles since we brought it home the day after Thanksgiving. It's a beautiful tree - not elegant, but a family tree with a wide assortment of ornaments collected over 33 years of marriage and 31 years of raising children. Part of me wants the tree and the gazillion needles embedded in the carpet out of the house yesterday, but more of me wants the tree to stay just like it is, that I might linger in the sweetness of it all. This best-of-all-Christmases wasn't about gifts. It was actually one of the leanest years for gift giving and receiving that I can recall. It wasn't about the weather either. Christmas Day was unusually overcast, warm and muggy. Many of my plans were derailed. We couldn't get to Christmas Eve service. We (I) forgot to light the Christmas candle. We ate in shifts because my dining room table is small, used plastic cups and my everyday tablecloth, and the silverware didn't match. Christmas Day I also forgot to distribute the small gifts I had purchased for the ladies. Martha Stewart I was not. Nick was not able to be with us Christmas day and Mike and his family were not here before Nick had to leave. We were so close to having everyone here at the same time. Gavin had a cough and runny nose, I was semi-miserable on the verge of a crohns flare, and Louis - who is still recovering from back surgery - moved about cautiously as he searched for a comfortable place in the house to rest. Still, it was one of the best. I continue to learn what it means to be content and grateful. By many standards, we are rich. We did not go into debt to buy anything, and made efforts to round down our personal spending while rounding up our giving. I listened to music, really listened. Inspired by Emily to focus on the lyrics, I heard old, familiar carols in new, more worshipful ways. I didn't make impossible to-do lists for myself. I asked God to please order my steps and thanked Him for helping me accomplish what was important to Him each day. And I changed my plans more than once, staying home from a party when my body told me I needed the rest more. More than anything, it was the meaningful time we had together with people we love that we treasured the most, that made this the best Christmas ever. By Sunday we were back to just the three of us again. With an appetite for seafood, we decided to take a side trip to the beach that afternoon. It was cold and cloudy - horrible beach weather. A light drizzle began to fall just as we left the restaurant, cutting short our time to walk along the water's edge and out on the jetties... ... but long enough to discover the "snowman" that had been sculpted in the sand and embellished with shells and plants from the gulf that had washed ashore and dried on the beach. Surely by now the "snowman" has been crushed by the waves of the rising tides, and his shell buttons and seaweed arms have been washed out to sea. Any sandcastle builder knows - the tide cannot be held back, and even the most stalwart efforts to do so are wasted. Everything on the beach changes with the wind and the waves and the sun and the rain and time. So it is with life on Pollywog Creek. I will take down the tree (soon) and put Christmas 2009 behind me. As much as I long to freeze-frame time, to hold onto the here and now, to keep my children and my children's children seated around my dinner table forever, my efforts to do so would surely be wasted and cause me much sorrow in the endeavor.

And still He seeks the fellowship of His people and will send them both joy and sorrow to detach their hands from the things of this world and to attach those hands to Himself. ~ J.I. Packer

A Kiss from Heaven...

After Thanksgiving, I determined to make wiser choices, whenever possible, about time and energy depleting activities over the holidays. I've tried to pace myself throughout the week - shopping, crafting and decorating, as well as housekeeping - little by little. My grandsons have come for frequent and overnight visits lately, and as much as I deight in having them here, I don't know how I would have managed without Emily. The boys adore their Auntie Em (aka Minna), and respect her authority more than they do mine. The same cardinal pair visit the feeders in the backyard several times a day. They must have a nest in the thickets by the creek. Their behavior is so predictable. They wait for the goldfinches to come to the feeders, and when they think it is safe, they fly into the backyard one at a time, all the while calling back and forth to each other. The goldfinches are entertaining, as well. Usually only a few of them will come to a feeder at first, but then dozens will fly in and watch from the branches of the sweetgum trees before they begin bickering over a perch until they've had their fill and scatter. With apologies to my snowed-in northern friends, I love winter. Love it - the cool mornings to leisurely savor a bowl of creamy oatmeal dotted with cranberries and a large Christmasy mug of hazelnut creme coffee while watching the goldfinches and cardinals from my backyard swing.

I've been very nostalgic this Christmas - missing my parents, my mother especially. I miss her hugs, her laughter, her love...and her datenut rolls. Of all the treats mother made at Christmas, her datenut rolls were my favorite, and I've been longing for them for weeks.

In one of my more melancholic and tearful moods this week, I reflected on the many things I had failed to learn from my mother while she was still alive. Like how to make datenut rolls. I'm sure that I could find a recipe almost anywhere, but it was my mother's recipe that I wanted.

That's when it came to me - the vague memory that Mother had given me the recipe for something I'd long ago tucked into a recipe box I rarely used. I pulled the small box off the kitchen shelf and began thumbing through the stack of recipe cards inside. The box had been a wedding gift, filled with dozens of recipes from co-workers and friends, but I had only used one or two recipes from that box in the past thirty years. Near the bottom of the stack were two cards unlike the rest. The recipes were typed, instead of written by hand, and I instinctively knew that they had to be from my mother. The first was for baked cheese grits and the other was for datenut rolls.

It was a kiss from heaven.

Advent::Third Sunday::Remember

The Lord's Mercy Remembered I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord, the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has granted us, and the great goodness to the house of Israel that he has granted them according to his compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love. ~ Isaiah 63:7

What I've been up to...

Delighting in an abundance of zinnias (if the cat doesn't eat them first)...

And the rusty lyonia under the pine trees in the pasture... And an entertaining almost-three-year-old donning santa hats and riding a stick reindeer... And celebrating that same impish almost-three-year old's birthday... And crafting ornaments for teen moms to go with little books from MOPS ... And wondering and wandering about our Pollywog Creek...

We saw the painted bunting this week, but he chose to perch on the shaded side of the feeder making it impossible to capture his brilliant plumage. See? I'm fairly confident he'll soon return, and like last year, bring the missus back with him. I'll then have weeks of more favorable conditions for better photos.

The zinnias? My grandcat Nicky has an appetite for zinnias, roses and tomatoes, and if any of them are in the house where he can get to them, he delights in nibbling on and destroying them all. I've resorted to giving him his own vase of flowers in the hope that he'll leave mine alone.

Emily's cat Lucy would rather dismantle the Christmas tree. During the day, she curls up under the tree to nap, but while we are asleep or away from home, she pulls ornaments off the tree and deposits them throughout the house.

"Time flies" may be the most over-used cliché (redundant, I know), but there's little else that more accurately describes the pace at which the days and weeks and years move from one to the next. Wasn't it just yesterday that we welcomed the new year?

We are still three weeks away from turning the page on 2009 and the reflection most of us do as we begin a new year, but the following quote from Tozer in today's devotional resonated with me not only about Christmas, but about those new year reflections, too.

It does seem strange that so many persons become excited about Christmas and so few stop to inquire into its meaning; but I suppose this odd phenomenon is quite in harmony with our unfortunate human habit of magnifying trivialities and ignoring matters of greatest import. The same man who will check his tires and consult his road map with utmost care before starting on a journey may travel for a lifetime on the way that knows no return and never once pause to ask whether or not he is headed in the right direction.

As good as it may seem to have well thought-out plans for the holidays, an organized to-do list, and a detailed list of goals for the new year, nothing is more important than pausing to ask, "Am I headed in the right direction?"

We had the cheap seats in the nosebleed section...

...but they were great - not so much for photos, but the acoustics were fantastic and there really wasn't a bad seat in the church. Louis had recovered enough last week that Emily and I were able to meet Brittany in Orlando for the opening night of Chris Tomlin's "Glory in the Highest" Christmas Tour with Louie Giglio, Christy Nockels, and Audrey Assad. (Unfortunately Christy was too ill to sing the night we were there.)

It was a beautiful evening of music, worship, teaching and fellowship.

Most of the remaining concerts are sold out, but there are a few that are still open, and if they are near you at all, I highly recommend that you go.

If you can't make one of the concerts, or even if you can, you might want to add the CD (be sure to scroll down and watch the short video) to your collection of Christmas music.

And in case you are wondering, there is nothing in this endorsement for me. Be blessed!

A short slide show of concert photos

Advent::Second Sunday::Wait

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. ~ Psalm 130: 5-8

Advent::First Sunday::Light

Weak hands and feeble knees...

...and a foggy brain. I'm a low-energy kind of gal with a bent toward introversion, so when life picks up speed and my energy reserves are depleted, the days often pass in a cloud of confusion (what day is it anyway?) and I'd rather not even answer the phone. It was a combination of foolish pride and no other options that led me to believe I should host Thanksgiving dinner here on Pollywog Creek - the day after Louis' discharge from the hospital following surgery earlier in the week. I was not the "hostess with the mostess." In a bit of a daze, I managed the basics, but I didn't take a single photo. How awful is that - when Jessi, Mason, Austin, Nick, Kristin and Gavin and my niece Sommer were all here with Louis, Emily and me. Shameful. In the weeks before his surgery, Louis worked hard to accomplish tasks he knew he would not be able to do for weeks. Fortunately for me, planting zinnias was one of them. It's been so lovely to have zinnias to pick for the house each day. We've had a new visitor to Pollywog Creek this week. A large and banded carrier pigeon spent several days pecking at the grass and then fleeing into the pine trees when I breeched his personal space. I tried without success to photograph his ID band, but could never get close enough. If you know someone who is missing a pigeon, tell them to give me a call. He is large and really quite beautiful. Isn't the dandelion seed an exquisite design - with details that twirl away in the breeze? Don't you marvel at the creativity of our God - at the tiniest details that usually go unseen? And what about caterpillars? Gavin discovered this interesting character with his bright red eyes, yellow and white stripes, and black spikes in our back yard last week. I wonder what lovely thing this thorny creature will become.  December's Red and Green on Pollywog Creek
Between trips to the hospital, preparing for and recovering from Thanksgiving, and a general lack of energy, I've rarely been able to delight in long walks these past two weeks. My joints and muscles have been protesting the added strain of long car rides, sleeping on the couch and caring for Louis as he recovers. Have you ever put thigh-high anti-embolism stockings (also known as spandex on steroids) on someone? One of my friends acurately described it as wrestling an alligator. My boney, arthritic hands were hard on both of us, so we recruited Emily, with her thin and nimble fingers, to put the stockings on over Louis' feet where he and I could work together to pull them on up from the ankle. Team work.
Caring for Louis has been an honor and a privilege. He has and would do the same for me, but it has reminded me of the verse (although taken out of context) that I considered many morning when I was caring for my mother as I asked the Lord to...

"Strengthen the weak hands,and make firm the feeble knees."