Hey, friends,
I hope you've all had a good week and a happy and restful weekend.
All is well here in our Ozarks home. D and I have taken turns having some kind of virus that's going around, makes you exhausted, achy, and freezing cold for a few days, but tonight we're both feeling better.
Just got through eating some delicious tortilla soup that D has perfected, topped with fresh cilantro, toasty strips of freshly toasted corn tortilla, and avocado with lime juice...yum!
D has become fascinated with the world of handmade pottery, and just finished building a prototype of a treadle-powered potter's wheel that he plans to start building and hopefully selling. My smart husband built it from scratch with no plans, and invented his own treadle mechanism that works!
 I fell in love with the potter's wheel in a class I took my senior year in high school, and have always dreamed of having a wheel of my own. I hadn't touched a potter's wheel since 1973 until this weekend, and have had the best time playing. I just threw a bowl that actually turned out pretty well for a total novice, and am hooked all over again.
Now all we have to do is work the bugs out of our wheel, and get or build a kiln so we can fire these things!
We drove down to Jasper today and ate lunch at the Ozark Cafe, then went to the Old Carriage House Art & Fine Craft Gallery and spent an hour or more visiting with potter/owner Rebecca, who graciously allowed us to hang out in her studio and watch her as she worked. She also invited D to get his hands wet and sit down at her wheel and continue working on a pot she had started. It was really neat, and he just loved it.
Have any of you ever thrown pottery?
Are any of you fans of handmade pottery?

Hey, friends,
I guess most of America is about to watch the Superbowl right now, but not me!
We had a very nice, relaxing weekend.....Friday night, we went to see The Bucket List, with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, which D and I both enjoyed.
Yesterday was Doyle's 58th birthday, and we had a good day. In the morning, he drove over to Yellville for his woodcarving lesson and session with the Ozarks woodcarvers who gather there. 
Then Saturday afternoon, we drove over to Eureka Springs to meet with the publisher who has said she wants to publish Doyle's novel, which is very exciting. We're in the stage of working out details right now.
Last night, Doyle, his mom Ruby and I went to Branson for his birthday, and ate a delicious meal at a restaurant we'd never been to before - Rocky's - an Italian place that's been in downtown Branson for years apparently. Wow! Doyle and I decided it was the best meal we've had in the Ozarks.
Today we went to 8:30 Mass, which was neat, because it was the first time I've ever experienced "the blessing of the throats." It really touched me to see everyone, all ages, going up to have their throats blessed. As he blessed mine, Father Greg, who knows Doyle is not Catholic, whispered to me, "If your husband would like to come receive this blessing, he can." That really touched me for that busy priest to reach out in love to me and my husband, as he blessed probably at least 150 people. So Doyle went up and received the blessing, which was a very special moment for me.
Our dear friends Rick and Carol came over for a couple of hours this afternoon to drink coffee and visit, so that was another nice part of the weekend, as was the long walk we just got back from in our neighborhood.
Now it's time to move on to the next thing and get ready for the work week.
What have y'all been up to this weekend?
Are you as full of curiousity as I am about how Super Tuesday is going to go?

Okay, y'all, I'm turning into a political junkie. This Presidential election is fascinating me.
We watched every word of the GOP debate in California tonight, and were left with some of our respect for Sen. McCain tarnished, (as the daughter of a Naval aviator, Vietnam-era, like Capt. McCain, it's hard for me not to admire him), and Gov. Romney went up a few notches in my estimation tonight.
I have a lot of respect for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. His pro-life stance is completely in line with my Catholic beliefs, and I agree with him in many areas. I thought his answers tonight were excellent - that is, when they gave him a question - he was ignored almost as much as Ron Paul was. However, it doesn't look like Huckabee has much chance to get the nomination. But - who knows? That could still change.
We are in the midst of early voting in Arkansas right now. Our primary is next week, on Super Tuesday. Right now, I still haven't decided who I'm going to vote for.
It's fascinating to watch the Democrat side, too. Hillary is not surprising me at all. But Barak Obama - wow! He's come out of nowhere to really shine in this campaign. I admire the way he's managed to keep to the high road in his campaign style, so far, and he's an eloquent speaker. It will be very interesting to see which way the Democrats will go. Old school Clinton, or new-style Obama? Will this be the first time a black person gets a major party nomination for President of the United States of America? Or will it be a woman? History in the making, either way. Fascinating.
What do you think? Do you have strong opinions about any of the candidates?

Hey, friends,
I just finished a slideshow of our trip to Sam's Throne yesterday. It was a beautiful blue winter day, much warmer than it's been, so we loaded up Hagrid and headed to the hills.
We'd never made the short hike to Sam's Throne before - it's one of the best-known destinations for hikers in the Ozarks, and one of the most gorgeous drives in the world to get to the trailhead.
It's called Sam's Throne because legend has it that an old man named Sam used to climb up to the precipice over the valley and preach from his "throne" at the top of the mountain.
If you have a few minutes, look at the slideshow and come along with us to Sam's Throne, high in the Ozark hills.

Henry David Thoreau said, "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."

The
longer I live, the more I find this is true. Have you ever noticed that
two people can LOOK AT the same scene or person, and both SEE totally
different things?

For example, a teenage girl can look at herself in
the mirror with critical eyes and only see the hair color she hates, or
the extra weight around her hips, or the blemish on her cheek, and feel
diminished and awkward. But the girl's mother can look at her child
with love and see the glow in her fresh skin, the sparkles in her clear
young eyes and the tender beauty of youth.

Two people look at the
same winter scene in our Ozark hills. One sees only stark leafless
trees and pastures drained of their summer green, and is left feeling
sad and empty. The other sees the delicate charcoal sketches the
branches trace against the sky, and the soft gold velvet covering the
winter hills, and feels comforted, wrapped up in winter's spare beauty.

Sometimes,
one person can look at the identical scene on two different days and
see two entirely different things. I can remember driving up the gravel
driveway to my Mississippi house one day, and all I could see were the
soffits under the eaves that were starting to show signs of rot, and
the shrubs that needed to be pruned, and the muddy leaves in the yard
that I still hadn't raked, and the hole in the window screen that I
needed to get fixed, and I'd feel burdened to be the owner of a
130-year-old house in constant need of repairs. This was on a day that
I was feeling overwhelmed and blue, and was looking at the world
through a nasty gray lens smudged with self-pity, instead of a
rose-colored lens of joy.

On another day, when my heart was lighter
and I had my rosy lens of hope and gratitude firmly in place, I could
drive up that driveway and look at that exact same yard and house in an
entirely different way. On that day what I'd see would be the buds
swelling on my huge azaleas, and the tall windows with the wavy old
hand-blown glass that I loved, and the huge pecan trees leaning
protectively over the backyard and the purple and yellow pansies
blooming in the brick remains of the old cistern, and I’d feel grateful
for my historic house and proud to be its mistress.

What is it that
makes the difference? Why do we sometimes look through a lens that
focuses in on what's wrong with our world? Why do some people
consistently look through a negative lens, a gray, smeary, dirty lens,
and see the slights, the hurts, the wrongs, the failings, the sins,
shortcomings? Why are we sometimes able to look through what I think of
as a pink lens, a rose-colored lens, that allows us to see past the
surface grime of life and into the glowing heart of things, into the
underlying beauty and joy and love that surround and infuse this rich
Creation we're privileged to share?

I believe it's a choice we’ve
learned to make. Somewhere along the way, some of us have learned to
put the gray lens up to the eyes of our hearts and experience life that
dismal way — not seeing the joy, not seeing the beauty, not seeing the
humor, not seeing the kindness, but zooming in on moldy old hurts and
festering angers and stale resentments and mildewed bitterness, and
using a wide-angle lens of self-pity. This is the easiest way, that
takes the least effort.

But looking through the rose-colored lens —
the polarized lens that allow us to see what is REAL — is something we
can learn to do.  It doesn't come easily or naturally to most of us,
but we really can choose which lens to look through. I believe we can
decide to be happy. We can decide to look for the rainbow instead of
the thundercloud. We can decide to look UP at the blue sky instead of
down at the dirt. We can choose to look for the good in people instead
of what we can criticize about them. We can choose to look for the
beauty in the winter landscape.

It's not always easy, but it's a
habit we can form. Some of us were lucky or blessed enough to learn in
childhood to look on the bright side, to look for the good, to choose
to be positive instead of negative, to look at the world through the
lens of God’s love. Others of us have had to learn it the hard way, by
realizing that we really do have a choice, and it's up to us to make
it.

We might not always get to choose what we have to LOOK AT in
this life, but we can choose what we SEE when we turn our eyes that way.

By Celia DeWoody
Published in the Harrison (Ark.) Daily Times, Jan. 22, 2008
Copyright Harrison Daily Times

Hey, friends!
Doyle and I got home from our road trip to SW Florida about 9 pm Saturday. We had a wonderful time with our families in Bradenton and the surrounding area, and also really enjoyed our time together on the road.
It was chilly and windy in Florida, but in spite of the weather, we had great opportunities for good talks and visits with various family members.
Here are some photos of highlights from our trip:

Bougainvillea blooms year-round in Sarasota.....

Marina Jack's, at the Sarasota harbor. This is where Daddy kept his sloop, "Moonraker"  - his dream sailboat -
for many years.

Doyle and his older granddaughter, Morgan, 11...
She's a sixth-grader and absolutely a doll.

D's younger granddaughter, Madison ("Maddie"), six... a first-grader and a little Southern lady....

My nephew Ben, five, at his horseback lesson on Pumpkin Pie....a happy guy! He LOVES horses.

Ben also loves to cook. We stayed at his house, and I loved getting to spend some special time with my little buddy. I always think of him as my first grandchild, because he's the youngest of my mom and dad's grandchildren, and he's very special to his Auntie.

Maddie painting a ceramic bank at Splatters, a fun place we took the girls for an artistic outing.....Morgan painted glaze on a penguin figurine, but Maddie went for the flip-flops bank.

We took the girls to Captain Eddie's,
our favorite seafood spot.
The restaurant owners have their own fishing boat, so you're
 eating shrimp or grouper or scallops that were swimming
in the Gulf earlier that day...yum!

My sisters and I went to lunch in downtown Sarasota, and decided to go to a place new to me....I had "bum (pronounced "boom") pork," which was a big bowl full of rice vermicelli, lettuce, fresh mint leaves, sliced cucumber, small slices of fried pork, all topped with a "mild fish sauce."
 Different, but not bad!

After our Vietnamese lunch, I talked them into going a few doors down
to the French place, where we had fruit and custard tarts
 and GREAT coffee!

Doyle's son Rob (Maddie and Morgan's daddy)
and his fiancee' Christine,
whom we were meeting for the first time and were crazy about...

Erika and her fiance' Mike, with the neat photo album she made for us to bring home to her grandmother...

Maddie and Morgan were learning how to use my camera in the truck on the way home....
Morgan shot this one of me and Maddie...

Okay, thanks for coming along! If you can stand it,
 I'll post photos of our journey home another day.
Write me a comment and say hello...I've missed y'all!

Hey, Gang,
We arrived safely in Bradenton at my sister Re's house Sunday night....all is going well, great visiting, COOL weather for the subtropics (in the forties last night, high only 65 today, which the Floridians think is artic - they're all wearing sweaters and gloves!)
I just posted a web album (to your right--double-click on it if you want to see a bigger version) of the trip down. More photos as soon as I shoot some. Have to write my column for tomorrow's paper next.
Hope all is well with you all...keep me posted! I'll be checking your sites.

PS to yesterday's entry: I do have photos from yesterday's leg of our journey, and will shoot more today....just haven't had time to upload yet!
Done with breakfast at Waffle House and fixin' to load back up in the Dodge Ram diesel truck and head south!
Y'all have a swell Sunday.

Hey, y'all...
Coming to you tonight via the miracle of Wi-fi from a hotel in Mobile, Ala. We drove for about 12 hours today, and had a really lovely drive through a sunny, clear day down through Arkansas on Hwy. 65, into Louisiana, then over the Mississippi River bridge at Tallulah, La., to Vicksburg, Jackson, Hattiesburg, then down to Mobile.
Some of the neatest parts of the day included: a "Door Gallery" in Lake Providence, La., in the spot where a burned-out store once stood...a collection of old motel doors leaning against a brick wall, all carefully covered in paintings by local artists; seeing fields of winter wheat growing in the Arkansas Delta, glowing almost too green to be real in the January sun; an oxbow lake, formed by a loop in the Mississippi, with cypress knees poking up from the silvery water; skeletons of pecan trees in companionable groves, next to bare, rowed-up fields; delicious sandwiches on home-made bread - and apple fritters - in a little Mennonite cafe; driving across the Mighty Mississippi on the bridge at Vicksburg, and then onto the good dirt of the state I'll always call "home" in many ways; and talking, talking, talking with my sweetheart in a wonderful, uninterrupted time together.
On to Sarasota tomorrow - about another 10 hours! Tomorrow will be interstate, flat, orange groves, live oaks, and eventually palm trees. But big, gorgeous skies, and at the end of the day, lots of our dear ones!
God bless you and all you love tonight, my friends.

Hey, friends,
Doyle and I are off to Sarasota, Fla., on Saturday for a long-awaited road trip. We'll make "the journey the destination" as we drive the 21 hours down there, over two days. We hope to visit Shearwater Pottery in Ocean Springs, Miss., either on the way down or the way back. My creative husband has developed a deep interest in learning to throw pots, and I've always loved pottery, and have wanted a potter's wheel ever since I took some pottery courses in high school. In fact, Doyle's planning to build a potter's wheel as soon as we get back. I can't wait to get my hands in some wet clay again. You can't imagine how much fun it is to throw a pot if you've never done it....like making mudpies as a kid, but even better.
In Florida, we'll stay at my sister's house, which will be our base camp as we visit D's two kids, two grandchildren, and my other sister and her family, as well as a handful of close friends we still have in the Sarasota area. On our way back, we hope to spend a night in my Mississippi hometown of Macon, if the timing works out right. And maybe even get a face-to-face visit with Mr. and Mrs. Avarel!
We're looking forward to having a chance to spend time visiting on the road, listening to music, reading aloud (I started reading Doyle the Narnia books a year ago and never finished - can you believe he's never read them?) and I may also take my knitting needles and try to finish a  blue scarf I started last winter for Jamie.
I had a fun afternoon off today - flex time for working last Saturday. I drove over to Cotter, a wonderful, tiny town on the White River, the Trout Fishing Capitol of the US, ( about an hour away) and met my dear friend Janet, ("ozarksfarmgirl") for lunch and catching up. Janet lives about an hour in the other direction, in the Missouri Ozarks, so it's a good halfway point for us to meet.
 After a long lunch at a little tearoom, we drove into Cotter and visited a cute little gift shop in a historic barber shop building.

The Rainbow Bridge over the White River at Cotter

 Then Jan wanted to show me a wonderful old house built in 1914 overlooking the river, Hopkinswoode, that's now a B&B. We didn't know if anybody was there, but we marched right up to the door and knocked, and ended up spending a delightful half-hour with the owners, who invited us right in and showed us around the downstairs.

 

The woman inherited the big old two-story stone house - her family has owned it for 100 years. We fell totally under its spell - gorgeous views of the river and the hills, wonderful antiques - and now Jan and I are planning to either talk our husbands into a weekend there for a "couple's visit," or inviting two of our old woman friends from Mississippi up to meet us there for a few days of drinking coffee, visiting on the porch, and exploring the antique stores and auctions in the area. Sounds great, huh?
I'll take my laptop with us and will be in touch, so y'all keep writing. Next photos will be of palm trees and flowers instead of our spare and lovely winter woods in the Ozarks. I love to visit Sarasota, but I always feel a tug at my heart when we drive down out of these old hills and back into the flatland, and feel a little thrill of joy when they come back into view again on the way home.
God bless you all!