A Beautiful Set

My WONDERFUL husband bought me a brand new set of dishes that I had been coveting for the past few months.  For some reason, we always agonize over purchases like this because we want to still be in love with what we bought twenty years down the road.  I had been wanting to get a set of dishes for company and when we saw these for the first time, both of us thought they were perfect.  We still waited awhile to buy and we're glad we did.  They are beautiful!!  The best part about our purchase was the 20% off coupon we had.  GREAT deal!

We set them up when we got home this evening because, guess what?, we are having company tomorrow!!!  Yea, we get to break those dishes in and see how yummy they make my cooking taste. : )

Gotta love a chance to be creative!

My friend, Amber, and I just finished a VBS bulletin board for our church.  Aside from seeing the end result, the best part was our trip to the DOLLAR TREE.  We spent $18.00 and got almost everything we needed.  You really have to be creative when you are getting everything from the DOLLAR TREE.  Don't you just love that place?!!!

Yesterday was spent tracing and painting characters for the board.  Then today, we spent three hours putting it together.  We fell in love with it more and more after each item we put up.  All the hard work paid off because the final look was just perfect.  So MUCH FUN!!

The treasure chest was the most difficult to figure out.  It started out as a box with a separate lid and we cut it down until it had just two sides.

We used styrofoam for bubbles

Precious memories; how they linger.

I took a walk down that beautiful but sometimes tear-jerking path we call memory lane TWICE today.  I played the piano for our high school graduation this evening and couldn't help but think back to the time when I stood on a similar platform amongst my peers and turned the proverbial page to the next chapter in my life. Only thinking about how excited I was to be done with school, I didn't realize how precious the memories I was making at that moment would be to me years down the road.  Graduating and leaving home was leaving one life behind and entering a completely new one where there would be no turning back time.  It's a vapor, this life and there is only one chance at any given moment to make a memory.  I'm glad I have a whole host of amazing ones to look back on and laugh, or sometimes cry, over.

Trip two down memory lane was a short but sweet one.  I was talking on the phone to my mom tonight.  We talked about everything and nothing.  Somewhere in between, we talked about Grandma.  The worries and emotions that always accompany having a loved one who is getting up in years seemed to weigh heavily on Mom's heart tonight.  Immediately, I thought of last summer.  Grandma was able to make one last trip out to Washington for Mom's birthday.  We had a wonderful time just Grandma, Mom, and me going to Mt. St. Helens.  Grandma bought me a little Mt. St. Helens Eruption flip book that I still have.  I love it! We took all kinds of pictures....including about a dozen where the camera was set on video instead of snapshot, so each video is about 5 seconds of us just staring at the camera smiling.  I'm laughing and crying just thinking of it now!! I'm so glad thankful for those precious memories.  I don't know how many more I'll be able to make with my Grandma, but those I will never forget.

We do not remember days; we remember moments.
 ~Cesare Pavese, The Burning Brand