A God Thing

This is Sharon. She goes to my church and her husband Joe hands me my bulletin and shakes my hand most Sunday mornings. Sharon always has a cheerful "Good Morning, Bren" for me and I usually get at least one hug from her. I know them both pretty well, however, I had never known their last name. In doing the library project, I kept running across the name "Sharon K*******" in books I was cataloging. It sounded SO familiar. I asked my mom in passing one day, "Do we know a Sharon K*******?" She said, "Oh yes. They bought our house on 9th Street from us back in 72."Now anyone who reads here regularly knows about this house. I talk about it every so often. It is where my all time favorite picture of me and my sister was taken....
That was taken on the enclosed front porch, which has the same flooring, by the way. I lived there from 4-12 years of age, and all my best childhood memories are in that house.

Anyhow, I asked a friend from church if Sharon K******* attended and low and behold it was MY Sharon. She and Joe STILL live in the house and send my parents a Christmas card every year. So for 9 months I have been greeted by and hugged on by the very people who live in my childhood home!!! We were promptly invited to a luncheon and yesterday my sister, mother and I went for a wonderful egg casserole and a visit down memory lane. It was SO fun!!!!

All the original wood work is there, including the carving I did of my sister's name...I don't come out looking good in that story so we will leave it alone ;) Better than the trip down memory lane, was my old neighbor Lou.

Lou is now 98 years old. She is complete in all her faculties and walks quite well. She uses a small tripod walker on wheels because she says her knees are bad, but she basically picks it up and carries it over any obstacle. I was tickled to get to have lunch with her. She was a huge part of my childhood. I thought she was so old back then, but she was only 56 when we moved in!! Her husband Russ was like a grandpa to me. He sold "dew worms" from a big dirt filled sink in their basement to fishermen. He has been gone for 12 years now. Lou still lives in the same house next door and Sharon and Joe care for her if she needs anything. She still goes down to her basement and works in her sewing room. Lou taught me to take my first sewing stitch by using a big tin of buttons. My sister and I use to play for hours with those buttons on Lou's living room floor while she sewed wedding gowns and other dresses she was commissioned to make. Yesterday we were able to go through that same tin of buttons.
We each pulled a handful of buttons chosen carefully, even though we were told to take all we wanted.See those 3 big ones? Those were the ones I remember learning to sew on. Lou makes quilts too. She pieces them on the machine and then ties them. She has 25 tops in her basement and has asked me to come another day and go through them with her. Here is one on the spare bed at Sharon's house that Lou made.
That was my old bedroom, which was much smaller than I remembered!
The rest of the house was exactly as I remembered, with the exception of the remodeled kitchen and bathroom. Still the kitchen held that same "feel" to it and I would have recognized it anywhere.

After our wonderful visit, I walked Lou home. She had mentioned a small tree on her side yard between our houses, and how when I was 6 or 7, I had jumped over the newly planted tree and had broke the entire top off of it. While walking her home, she pointed out that tree to me. It has to be 60 feet tall!!!! (I am not good at estimating height, but it was VERY tall)You can see the base of it up against the fence...the fence was not there when I was a kid. She says my jumping over it made it grow crooked and said she thinks of us when she looks at that crooked tree! Yeesh.

I am sorry for the terrible picture here of Lou, but she just wanted to chatter through the pics so it was difficult to get a good one.

As I left, I noticed the narrow sidewalk leading from the back door to the garage. It did not seem near as long as it did when I was a child. It seemed to go on for a mile. I skipped up and down that same sidewalk pretty much every day of those 7+ years. It was not a walking sidewalk...it demanded to be skipped down.
The massive cherry tree that was just to the right of the sidewalk is gone now. It split down the middle several years ago, but I have such wonderful memories of climbing that big ol tree. Sharon said her 2 children had the same wonderful time in the cherry tree. Plus it produced awesome cherries!!

Now was that a God thing or what??!! Call it fate or coincidence if you want, but I see God's Hand all over that! Next time I will have Lou and Sharon to my house for a luncheon.

The day was not over. We left there and headed out for some shopping. I found this wonderful miniature stool that has a storage space in it at an antique shop. I just love it. It will hold my basted hexagons nicely!

My mom's doctors appointment went well. She is most likely having issues caused by another medication. It is being monitored and maybe she will have to change meds. In the meantime, continue to pray for her. I had such fun with my mom and sister and think I laughed more yesterday than I had in a month combined!! My sister is quite the cut up.

Even waiting to get labs done, she was playing tricks and making me giggle.

Around 4:00 my sister needed to head back to the big city so my mom and I dropped her at her car and headed to a salon. I got all my hair cut off!!! It was so over processed and just needed to go. It is very short, but I am ok with it. I did not get home til 6:30, so had been gone for 9 hours. What a fun day!!
Today is Kyle's birthday. I will make him a spice cake (his favorite) and we will celebrate with a late lunch, early dinner because I have bunco tonight. Here is a picture of Kyle around 10 months old. He is 23 today!!! He let me know this morning he is getting old. I think if I have this right, he is the same age as my mother was when they bought that house on 9th street and raised their family there. I guess he is getting old!!

Thanks for sharing my "God thing" with me!!!

Have a blessed and productive weekend!

"The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him."

Lamentations 3:25