Traveling recently Bob saw a sign for English Style Fish & Chips. Decided we would go there later that day for lunch. Imagine my surprise when we went to order. Along with the typical choice of how many pieces of fish with those chips the menu offered wonton soup, crispy tofu and potstickers. Typical English Fish & Chips? I don’t think so!
Their on-line presence says: “101 Fish & Chips is a family-owned restaurant has been serving up this British Pub favorite in the tri-city area for over thirty (30) years. They use only the finest ingredients, freshest produce and seafood to provide their customers with the highest quality in flavor.”
Oh, I forgot to mention they also sell Beef Lumpia. I do not even know what that is! The fish was lightly battered and the chips were great.
I told you the joys of traveling on a short road trip with my photographer husband, Robert M Dutina. At the time I wrote and posted his photos had not been uploaded to computer. Here are a few samples of what he captured. Enjoy!
Harvesting the Wind – one of hundreds we saw.
You doidy, doidy horsey!Mural commemorating the Underground Railroad.Yes, the Wabash River is certainly flooded!
One of my best gifts EVER was when my husband took me to Ireland to celebrate my 60th birthday. We visited Connemara and learned “Connemara is bounded on three sides by the Atlantic Ocean and encompasses a wide variety of natural and semi-natural habitats. It also has diverse economic resources. Among the more unusual are extensive deposits of soapstone and veins of green marble and vivid white quartz.The marble is a serpentine-rich rock, popular since ancient times as a decorative facing stone. With its ‘forty shades of green’ and its wild patterns, it represents perfectly the landscapes of the Emerald Isle.”
This morning as I looked at one polished piece of marble from there I was struck by a similar sight off my deck!
Same polished piece, turned over.
Lovely marble indeed. Just one of the many, many shades we saw in the showroom. And then outside my window …
Lichen? on standing tree andon fallen trees.
Camera did not quite catch it, but the shades are so alike in my eyes that I was startled. Fond, fond memories from May, 2011!
My husband has decided to take a photo a day for 2019. This had been quite a venture! First it is difficult for him to take just one photo, so he shoots things that interest him or depict the day. Most of them are lovely in my eyes. He deletes and deletes and feels fortunate when he is left with one photo at the end of the cutting session.
Later this year we are planning a month long road trip. We have maps and books and markers to highlight the points of interest and routes. We have ordered triptiks from AAA and planned which route we will take first if winter decides to linger and make our travel miserable. Now if the government shuts down again, that is an entirely different thing. AGGRAVATION! When we visited Yellowstone a few years ago, our trip was cut short by one day when they closed the gates.
Oh my! We took a recent road trip to northern Indiana. It was a gorgeous sunny day. Cold, but lovely. Recently the entire area had drenching rains and then a cold snap. Rivers and creeks rose and ice formed around trees and along the banks. There were even weird shapes on some ponds where the high wind had whipped up the water and it froze in waves. The Wabash river was flooded for miles and miles and miles.
After multiple stops at many places for’ just one more photo,’ my husband realized that at this rate, when we make our long trip we will never make it to St. Louis on the first day! His caveat: “Of course, we have already been to St. Louis.”
I don’t object to all of this unless of course, the car door is left open and it is 20 degrees outside. Solution, turn up the heater and put fan on a higher speed. When we are obstructing the passage of other cars I would prefer a blinker or the flashers be turned on to help them see us as NOT moving. When he got back in the car once and said, “Oops! I left the gear shift in drive.” I almost panicked, but we turned it to gratitude that nothing awful happened and laughed it off. From then on, when he jumped out I checked that gear shift, you betcha!
On the return trip home the next day we got caught in miserable snow squalls. Not many photos. Just glad to get home safely.
Recently I have seen simply cardboard signs written with permanent marker and posted at random corners. These are not yard sale signs. They have two words only, “Be Kind.” With all the rage and insulting verbiage flying through America today I love this simple message. Evidently we have we forgotten kindness so much that we have to be reminded.
When we were in Oregon we saw this ceramic on a wall. It was not for sale, but I love the photo!
Let’s Be Kind this week and see the difference it can make. It is truly not that hard to do.
While traveling in Ireland we saw these rock walls over and over in almost every county we visited. The labor alone to build one of these boggled my mind. Evidently the practice was to take the stones from the fields and build border fences. I cannot imagine being that strong!
If you have ever driven through Kentucky you might have encountered a creation such as this!
In Ireland we thought of Kentucky! Guess my Grandmother Macdonald’s family brought their practices with them!
Luke 19:35-40 (HCSB) Then they brought it (the donkey) to Jesus, and after throwing their robes on the donkey, they helped Jesus get on it. As He was going along, they were spreading their robes on the road. Now He came near the path down the Mount of Olives, and the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles they had seen: “The King who comes in the name of the Lord is the blessed One. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!” Some of the Pharisees from the crowd told Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if they were to keep silent, the stones would cry out!”
They obeyed by finding the donkey for him. They helped him get on it.
I saw this in South Dakota.
Cathedral spires and He said “if they were to keep silent, the stones would cry out.” Can you see the man in the right photo above, just waiting to cry out to God in praise? I saw him.
This was by far my favorite though! I see a stately woman in an evergreeen gown with a turban-like head dress, waiting in prayer and praise before the Lord. Like His handmaiden.
Have to wonder if Jesus remembered later when He prayed in the Garden that “as they came near the path down the Mount of Olives the whole crowd had been praising God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles they had seen God do.” He knew abandonment and sorrow. I believe we can bring Him joy by praising and crying out to Him with joy now!
Hope you will listen to this song all the way through. When I play it I want to just sing it over and over!
Ephesians 6 teaches us about the full armor of God to use for spiritual warfare. Paul wrote that we should not only dress in our armor, but “take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God and the shield of faith with which we can quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.”
This is not the sword of King Arthur. These weapons are “mighty for the pulling down of strongholds.” (1 Corinthians 10:4) There are several ways to memorize the verses about the armor. One is to recite them while doing something like exercises you must count. Another is to envision dressing yourself in them every morning. I like to put them on head to toe and then the hand pieces. Some teach the belt comes first. I envision the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, and gird your loins in truth (as if putting on panty hose, you remember those, right?). Shod your feet with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. Put on the robe of righteousness that Jesus bought for you. Take up the sword and shield and stand. And having done all, stand and pray!
Once we were in Smoky Mountain National Park driving the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail just outside of Gatlinburg. This is a spectacular drive that begins up in the mountains and follows Roaring Fork river. There are many parking areas to get out and explore spectacular views of rivers, rocks, tumbling water, old buildings, overall fun.
Imagine my surprise when we parked and stepped out in the parking lot to this rock:
After years of putting on the armor this is an image I will never forget. Truly a treasure in plain sight!
Sometimes I have to create my own object lessons with Sculpey clay. Not always professional looking, but seriously mine!
On our recent vacation I developed terrible Vertigo, the type that landed me in Urgent Care getting drugs for the symptoms. Over one week later I am still waiting for the symptoms to be healed. This is a very hard lesson in radical acceptance. Vertigo is like losing total control over your life. No balance, no ability to just “get over it”, no cure in sight. At least not nauseated any more. Waiting for 2 weeks to get into physical therapist who specializes in resetting the crystals of the inner ear. I never even knew I HAD crystals in my inner ear! If I carry a crystal and sleep with it will I be healed before then?
So yielding to my current condition is tough. But then again, what choice do I have? Fight and flail and kick against it and I am just likely to fall down. If I did not have a headache already, then exercises the internist gave me to perform induce one. Yep, I assert once again that growing old is NOT for sissies!
In Ireland we thought of Kentucky! Guess my Grandmother Macdonald’s family brought their practices with them!
If he had
Treasures in Plain Sight, A Christian Blog 