Ending June in the Country!

 Friday was cooler and Louis Dean built a campfire for us to enjoy.

He's no Boy Scout but he does love burning things!

We sat out there sipping our wine and watching the flames.

He prefers box wine but I like wine in bottles!

Jesse and Rachele gifted this bottle from the Hill country for Mother's Day and it was a smooth delicious wine.

We went to bed on the early side since we were leaving for the country the following morning.

It was early afternoon by the time we were on our way.

Leaving takes longer than it used to.

We were further delayed when we got on the highway and the car started making whooping sounds!

I took the very next exit and finally found a safe spot to get out and look at the car.

We looked underneath it, checked the tires and even opened the hood!

I decided we better go home when, as we were getting back in the car, Louis Dean said, "Linda, the back seat windows are down!"

THAT'S what the noise was!

So we hopped back on the highway and headed out again.

We stopped on the far side of Dallas and ate lunch at Spring Creek BBQ and it was delicious.

We hadn't been there in a long time so we each ordered a full plate meal, knowing we would be taking to-go boxes with us when we left!

I think we enjoyed this meal even more than the one at Saltgrass for our anniversary!

I love pulling in through the gate!

Louis Dean resisted coming in the first place claiming he wanted to stay home.

He doesn't remember that it's not unusual for him to not leave the house for six days at a time.

I make sure we go somewhere at least for a few hours.

As soon as we got here he was as happy as he could be!

He started mowing and watering and making plans as to what he wanted to do.

We came in the car and that also made the trip easier for me.

Everything is blooming and looking so pretty.

Today was our first full day here and we still haven't finished all the leftovers from Spring Creek.

I've been working on my book and finished chapter 42 and have started chapter 43 - which I hope to finish by the time we leave on Tuesday.

I had promised Louis Dean we would go home Monday but he wants to stay until Tuesday.

I knew he would and I was actually counting on that!

This afternoon we walked down to see the critters and feed the catfish.

They had disappeared for a few months and then all of a sudden they are back.

They bury themselves in the mud during times of drought or low water to survive.

We are so glad to see them back!

Dean and Sherry stocked two tanks with catfish last year and now they figure they have over three dozen in this one and a dozen in the duck tank.

The fish are now one year old and by the time they are three years old, we should be having a catfish fry!

This is the front deck where we have our morning coffee and evening wine.

See all the sunflowers??

For the last several years Louis Dean has fretted about them blocking his view and was constantly trying to cut them down and sometimes when I wasn't looking - he did!

Then this year he is watering them and bragging about how pretty they are and that he's being careful to mow around them! I'm happy he now loves them as much as I do!

I close tonight's journal entry with a prayer request.

Amber wrote this on her Facebook page and said I could share it here......

***Source***

Our local Channel 5 news station covered the huge group of those praying for Jackson.

Harrison and Mike attended.

Amber and the girls were away at a hockey camp but they were praying.

Everyone loves Jackson and his family.

Jackson is a goalie and his dad stands behind him outside the rink during every game he plays. After the 20 minute period, the teams switch ends of the rink and his dad walks around to stand behind his son.

Every game.

Thank you in advance for your prayers.

June Treasures.....

 The last few days have been overcast and in the low 90's but Texas summer heat is on its way.

I'm just glad we've only have one 100 degree day so far!

I never know when I am going to see a cat in an unexpected place!

I looked up as I was loading laundry into the dryer and there was Samantha curled up in a big salad bowl!

I've been serving easy meals on these June days....

Neither Louis Dean nor I am big on eating an early breakfast so it's usually closer to noon when I fix something for us.

Late afternoon or early evening we eat another light meal.

Other nights I do cook!

Last night we had hamburgers and veggies!

Monday afternoon Louis Dean had an appointment with his retina specialist and received a good report!

When we came home I noticed how lush the St. Augustine grass looked so I changed clothers and took a blanket out and enjoyed gazing up at the pecan trees.

The two giant pecan trees were just seedlings when I first bought this house!

Now they are holding hands with one another!

Tuesday was really great treasure hunt for both Brenda and me!

That beautiful rug in now in the den.So cushy!

Lots of goodies!!!

Just so you know - I unload at least one bag each week to the Goodwill donation doors!

Brenda scored big on this huge canvas painting with a gorgeous frame!

Original price tag was $250 but with her discount it was more like $35!

Love thrifting!!!

Today marks our 20th wedding anniversary.

I decided to wear my wedding outfit and he wore his Sunday overalls to Saltgrass Steakhouse for our anniversary dinner. That's where we went 20 years ago. We arrived at 4:30 this afternoon because that was shortly after we married.

He gifted me with perfume...

while I gave him a pocketwatch.

And Linda and Louis Dean lived happily ever after!!

Children in the Closet....Chapter 20

 Chapter 20

I had my 21st birthday in September 1969. I was now officially an adult and I had done pretty well, I thought, in navigating the process of growing up. However, I began falling down a deep dark hole of depression. I would get up and feed the kids, do my housework and then shut myself in the utility room with a box of tissues and cry. After awhile I would suck it up, dry my eyes and come out, make lunch, put Summer and Jesse down for a nap and then cry some more.

I was barely functioning and did only what had to be done to keep the house going. I read my Bile every day and prayed. And I cried a lot. I didn’t want the kids to see me cry like that so I would continue to hide in the utility room or lock myself in the bedroom.

Summer started school the next fall and I pulled myself together and made her school clothes. I discovered if I stayed busy enough, I wouldn’t have time to cry. I sewed her a complete wardrobe for the school year and made one special red, white and blue outfit to wear on the first day of school. Jesse went to a church pre school program so I had some alone time every weekday from 9:00 to noon.

Now I didn’t have to hide to cry. I would get the kids off to school, do what needed to be done and then sit in the living room with a box of tissues and listen to Simon and Garfunkel sing Bridge Over Troubled Water – over and over and over.

When the kids were home, I cleaned like a crazy lady. I became obsessed with clean. We only had carpet in two rooms of the house and the rest was vinyl tiles. I was constantly working on those floors trying to make them shine until I totally ruined them. I used so much wax stripper that the flooring turned sticky and rubbery. Jesse came home that day to a horrible mess! Thankfully, we had the money to put down some new flooring but we chose indoor/outdoor carpet. Floors that needed to shine weren’t safe around me.

I scaled back on the cleaning and decided I weighed too much. 120 pounds and I thought I was fat. It really wasn’t the weight but control I was seeking. I had control over what I ate so I starved myself becoming anorexic in the process, adding yet one more self-destructive habit.

For breakfast I would have half of a small Dixie cup of cereal with a little bit of milk. Lunch was a graham cracker with a thin smear of peanut butter on it. I fed the kids and cooked dinner at night but I would barely eat any. By this time, I weighed 89 pounds.

My unhealthy mental state was affecting my children. I was still taking heavy tranquilizers as well as anything else I could get my hands on. I would insist on taking Summer and Jesse, Jr. somewhere even though I was in no condition to drive. Summer knew this and one time she called her Granny and told her what was going on. Mother advised her to hide my car keys and then she drove over from Fort Worth to talk to me.

We talked about my childhood and things that had happened. I described a recurring dream I had been dreaming for years. There was a big braided oval rug and on the rug was a couch, chairs and a table. The rug swirled around and around in the air and as it was lifted higher and higher, the furniture would lift up and spin off the rug and into space and then the rug would spin faster and faster unraveling as it spun until it was just a rope spinning up out of sight.

Another dream I had repeatedly was where I had a knife in my hand and I was stabbing things. 

I could feel in my dream the way the blade felt as it went through whatever I was stabbing. Sometimes softly like the knife was cutting a tomato. Other times I had to push harder as if I was cutting into a potato. This dream Mother could help me with. She told me about the time Clayton was supposed to be at home with us and he wasn’t. She came home early and hid in the bedroom closet and when he opened the closet door, she jumped out with the knife in her hand and stabbed him.  I had totally repressed that memory, but after we talked, I never dreamt that one again. However, I continued to dream the one about the rug for long, long years to come. I was able to function and live a more normal life but still suffered with depression. 

Jesse was a good provider but he didn’t seem to like us. He was not an affectionate husband or father. This may have been because he didn’t know how since he had no good role model. His mother was not a good mother by anyone’s standards and left Jesse in charge of his two younger sisters. He learned to control by fear and that’s the way he was with his own children as well.

He was heavy on discipline that crossed the lines into physical, mental and emotional abuse. We were all afraid of him and what he would do. Even small behavior problems were dealt with extreme punishments. When Summer made a mark in Citizenship, she got a whipping every night for weeks.

When she made a C in a class, she was required to bring every book in her desk home every single night and then have to take them back and forth for the entire grading period.

He didn’t play catch with Jr. or do anything with the kids other than take them with him on Saturday mornings to visit kids in the lower income apartment houses and invite them to ride the church bus to Sunday School. It's strange that he showed more concern, love and compassion for them than he did for his own flesh and blood.

There was a man in church that I thought of as a brother. He was part of the children’s ministry and had started a Christian magician class. Summer showed an interest in that and started going with him to the different classes and then he would spend extra time working with her teaching her the ‘magic’ tricks. I encouraged this, thinking that at least she had a father figure paying attention to her when her own father wouldn’t. After a while I noticed she didn’t seem to want to go with him anymore and yet I continued to encourage her in the classes. She steadily lost interest in the whole thing and insisted she didn’t want to go. It was more than 10 years later I found out this man whom I had admired so much and loved like a brother had been molesting her all this time.

Vacations were the bright spot in our lives. For some reason, Jesse treated us better on vacations than any other time of the year. It was like a miracle. The first real vacation was in 1971 when we went to Colorado, which became our very favorite destination. It was the first and the last place we visited together in our 41 years of marriage. Summer was eight years old and Jesse, Jr. was five.

I had carefully planned our trip using Triple A and the travel guides and maps. We budgeted carefully, making sure our bills were paid, we had money for the trip and a job waiting for us when we came home. Since Jesse was a masonry contractor, we saved what we could and paid up our bills ahead of time plus filled the pantry and freezer for when we didn’t have jobs and money coming in.

We were involved in Vacation Bible School and that year it was scheduled for the week immediately after school was out, so we left that Friday night after the closing service. We were all so excited and I had a calendar that I was marking off the days. So many days and a ‘wake up.’ One of our friends at church counted time this way as her husband was in the service and she looked forward to the ‘wake up’ day when she would see him!

I have a photo Jesse took of us standing in from of our cream-colored Pontiac to document our first family vacation. We drove late into the night before we stopped at a small motel in New Mexico not far from the Colorado state line. We unloaded a few things and were getting ready to go to bed when we discovered that we had left the kids’ suitcases in the living room at home. They were so upset but I assured them that once we got to Manitou Springs, Colorado, we would find some Goodwill stores and buy them enough clothes to last for our trip. Their main concern was the fact they didn’t have swimming suits. They didn’t mind sleeping in their clothes that night.

We drove right on in the next morning and found some great Goodwill stores where we were about to get complete wardrobes for both children, including swimming suits. Our motel was right on Manitou Avenue and the first thing they wanted to do was get in the pool. There was a big slide you could go straight down and into the water. Summer could swim a little bit but Jesse, Jr. could not. That didn’t stop him from going down that slide, though. He would slide down, hit the bottom of the pool, and simply sit there until his dad dove under and picked him up. They played like that all afternoon.

We would get up early and go out to see all the sights and then drive up into the mountains to eat a picnic lunch. We could not get over the beauty of being in those majestic mountains. For breakfast and lunch, we ‘ate out of our ice chest.’ I had packed a cardboard box with bread, chips, cereal, pickles, peanut butter and jelly, fruit and snacks and we would spread a tablecloth and eat outdoors. We chose one meal a day to eat in a restaurant. That could be breakfast, lunch or dinner and we varied which meal from day to day.

Once the vacation was over and we were back at home, life returned to what we considered normal and we would start yearning for the next year’s vacation.

Dressing the Den for Summer!!

I love decorating for the seasons!

I used to decorate for every holiday from New Years to Valentines to St. Patrick's Day to Easter to Spring to Patriotic to Summer to Fall to Christmas.

My energy to do all that left me long ago.

Now I do Spring and then Sunflowers for Summer followed by my beloved favorite - FALL! Then Christmas and a brief 'barren' time while I clean and regroup.

My heart is full as I pull out all my dear sunflower friends.

I missed them and am so happy to have them back!

 

For long years, I saved the sunflowers and harvest things such as scarecrows and such for fall.

When my dear sister, Nita, died on July 7th, 2022.....I was so deep in mourning that to comfort myself. I started decorating with sunflowers. Then I went ahead and added fall. By the first week in August of 2022, I was totally decorated for fall. It was the only thing that helped me cope.

Her three year anniversary of going to heaven is coming soon and I continue to push the envelope in putting out sunflowers and fall.

The old fisherman and boat was one of my very first paintings.

I love how my den seems to open her arms and hug me.

Since we have Frontier Internet now and the main modem is in the den, my blogging spot is in here now.

I've been working on the kitchen yesterday and today and hope to finish it tomorrow.

Louis Dean has a doctor appointment tomorrow afternoon for his eyes.

He says he's not going but when push comes to shove - I always win!

He knows I have his best interest at heart and will do whatever I can to take care of him.

He just came in from watering the front flower beds. Tabitha got out - again - so I am hoping she will come to the back door later as she did last night.

Family Celebrations.....

 It's been a week since I posted and I don't think I've ever gone this long before!

I have been so busy with life that I haven't had the time or even the energy to document it as I love to do. I opened my country diary to write for the first time in days and found it has been over a week since I wrote in that! And to top it all off - I had not even kept up with the days on my kitchen planner! So now I shall catch up and hope to never get this behind again!

Last Saturday was Levi's high school graduation party and it was a lot of fun.

Jesse and Rachel cooked up a feast of Mexican food - all made from scratch!

Pulled pork as well as chicken fajitas, Spanish rice, refried beans, guacamole, chips, salsa, and pico de gallo! 

I brought a bunch of Mexican pastries.....of which I did not take pics ....as well as gluten free cupcakes all fancied up and gluten free brownie cups dusted with powdered sugar.

I did take pics of the cupcakes because I thought they looked so pretty - but the pic has disappeared!

Plus I took a bottle of alcohol free Chardonney and a bottle of hatch chili white wine from New Mexico.

There were lots of family there to celebrate as well as friends.

Rachel's mom, Margaret, was there with her grands and she and I had a nice visit together.

Margaret and Nita worked together at Haynie's Grocery Store - family store owned by Nita and her husband, Bob. It was good to catch up and what a blessing to have the framework of friendship already in place.

I didn't take many pictures since I was so busy visiting with everyone.

Some of the granddaughters, daughters, and Margaret had already left by the time it dawned on me I needed a photo!

Here are some of the guys...

Mike, Louis Dean, Levi, Harrison, Sam and front and center, my oldest son!

He is such a blessing to all of us!

The party started at 5:00 and, of course, we were late so we stayed late and still arrived home before dark.

The sun had set but it wasn't dark dark.

Last Sunday I thought about my earthly father and am so grateful to my Kansas City siblings for their grace and acceptance as they told me about Leo Everet Gage.

For the last five years I have celebrated my father in my heart and look forward to meeting him in heaven....along with a brother who died in infancy and a sister that had already left for heaven by the time I connected with the family.

Amber and Mike brought the kids over Sunday evening to spend a couple of days with us.

I've been watering Stephanie's garden and she said I could gather the produce that ripened.

Sunday I was drinking alcohol free Chardonnay and it was pretty good.

I may be adding that to my regular wine to cut down the calories as well as the alcohol.

Amber brought her dad roses for Father's Day!

Louis Dean is her official dad as he adopted her in 2013.

They both love roses and gift them to each other regularly.

May 31 was the quads 13th birthday and they were in Hawaii at the time.

I gave them their cards and I love how they love cards.

I had two chicken pot pies all hot from the oven and we ate and visited and played Nuts and watched Hawaii Five 0 on TV.

No real agenda - just hanging out!

They are still weaning themselves off of Hawaii time so I cried uncle and went to bed to read for awhile. One by one, the girls came in with their journal, prayer book or devotional reading.

This was one of the magical moments of their visit and I will treasure it forever.

We all held hands at the foot of the bed and had prayer before they left the room.

I went to sleep and they went out to the den to watch a program that features surf rescues in Hawaii.

As they walked back and forth to the kitchen, they watched the possums.

They love strawberries!

Love their little hands!

Monday morning coffee and Logan was the first one to wake up!

I got up at 8:00 because I didn't want to miss a minute of their time here.

Logan and I went out to my prayer corner and had some one on one time.

I made a good breakfast!

Tortilla browned in an iron skillet and topped with eggs, cream, cheese, onions, and whatever I could find. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes and serve with salsa and sour cream.

This was served closer to lunch than breakfast.

In the afternoon, Kailey whipped up a large bowl of her guacamole!

YUM!

At 4:00 we started working on dinner.

Logan and Harrison peeled potatoes while Logan put the green beans on to cook.

Kailey and Trystan did food prep as well. It was fun all of us being in the kitchen together.

Harrison grilled a dozen pork chops to perfection!!!

His first time to grill anything other than hot dogs!

It was HOT out there but he stayed with it for over an hour.

I realize that's why I burn my chops and steaks. I do NOT stay out there and watch  them.

We  took dinner over to Pam who is recovering from a hip replacement.

Grilled chop, scalloped potatoes, garlic green beans, garlic toast and chips and salsa.

We all ate dinner in the dining room after we got home from Pam's and then the fun and games began.

We played NUTS every chance we got!

No schedule but the kids did help me do a good many things.

Kailey put the fancy self cleaning cat litter box together and Logan helped me load up and take out trash. Trystan did food prep and they all did what they could to make it easier on me - which was their goal. They each spent quality time with their granddad as well as with me.

Our kitties are now five years old and, as I write tonight, Tabitha is outside and I am trying not to worry about her!

Tuesday morning I was up early for my yearly medical checkup with Dr. Abraham.

Everyone was still asleep as I slipped out of the house but all were awake by the time I got home.

My labs came back good and except for high blood pressure (for which I am already taking medication) and tweaking another prescription I am good to go! I'd even lost 5 pounds! Win! WIN!!

The girls had fixed their own coffee and we ate a bit of breakfast and then met up with Brenda to hunt for Tuesday Treasures 

We all found a few things.......

I love signage!

COTTON is now hanging under the eave next to FARMHOUSE outside the den windows.

Two new books to add to the dozens I already have!

What can I say?

One is never lonely or bored if they have a good book!

I bought this sign trusting I would find a place to display it.

I did! This hangs in the guest room. For now.

I am having so much fun decorating the outside walls of the house as well as storage buildings.

This one hangs on the Christmas house across from our bedroom.

All these signs were around $5 each - including this one.

I just liked it and it is still searching for its place here.

It will happen.

The cow canvas was only $3 and now hangs underneath the popcorn sign - with a vintage rolling pin below it that has handles the same cerulean blue as in the cow painting.

What a gorgeous pillow! I could not resist and it looks great in the den.

I scored on these brand new - never been lit - candles!

Logan found some great tops!

She has an eye for nice things.

I found the pretty vase made in Spain from recycled bottles for Amber.

She liked it and it will be great for the bouquets of fresh flowers that she loves so much.

Logan and Trystan found the elephant canvas and will hang it in their room.

The kids are coming back for a couple of days next week and we plan to get my art table set up and they can embellish it and make it their own!

Same with this canvas.

Three little birds for three teenagers.

Logan intends to add color and their names on the birds!

Trystan and Kailey got a shirt or two and these little treasures.

Even Harrison found some things!

He loves the funky frog canvas as well as the over-the-door basketball hoop.

The two stuffed munchkins can be used instead of a basketball.

After our shopping we all went to Chick-fil-A for lunch .

Logan got this delicious chicken salad plus another something.

She got full and then left the leftovers when she went home the next day.

I ate the salad on Wednesday and it was so good!

It was a fun lunch!

Everything we did was fun!

The kids keep measuring their heights as to see who is tallest and in what order it goes.

It's a draw between Kailey and Harrison with Logan coming in third - and Amber swears she grew since Sunday night. Trystan is the shortest but taller than I am and Amber is still a little taller than Trystan!

We played a game with canned whipped cream.

Obviously I did not do well with it!

We took it outside on Wednesday right before they left.

So much fun and such a sweet treat to boot!

Trystan, Kailey, Harrison and Logan are all such fun people and we loved spending time together.

I savored every minute as we made more memories that we will look back on in years to come.

And just like that - the Bells left and all the oxygen had been sucked right out of the air!

They left early afternoon on Wednesday and our dear Sherry came to spend the night since she would be working out of the Irving office the next day. It was late when she arrived and I had already gone to bed but Louis Dean was still up to welcome her.

I was asleep when she got here and still asleep when she left so I was so happy when she called and said she could stay another night. We had a good visit catching up on things. We ate leftovers from the dinner the kids had helped make. We ate and talked and watched Will Trent before we went out and took trash to the curb.

It was a good week as Logan had helped me sack up a black bag of trash from Granddad's room and another black bag from outside in his work area on Monday night. Now on Thursday night Sherry helped me do much the same.

Louis Dean loves to collect trash and seldom throws anything away.

Thank goodness he doesn't remember what he has kept and never notices when it disappears.

Wednesday I began taking out the spring things from the den and bringing in the summer sunflowers.

I can't explain how happy this makes me.

As I go out to the storage building and rummage around in the tubs and bins of debris, it's like meeting old friends again. I had a ball sorting through and separating the sunflowers from the fall things. They were in different tubs but I had to open them all up to see what was in each.

After the fall is over, I will store the sunflowers and such on one side of the storage building and the fall things on the other side.

Friday afternoon Ilene came down for our weekly movie....

We enjoyed it and now I am looking for next week's movie!

I love my time with Ilene - we had tea and popcorn and cashew nuts.

Sometimes we have fancy cocktails and a charcuterie board or dinner.

I am blessed to have such a good friend who lives so close to us.

I spent Thursday and Friday cleaning and decorating and by Saturday morning the den and laundry room were both wearing their summer finery as is the kitchen table area and the coffee bar.

I am loving the transition.

It makes me smile when I look around at all my pretty things.

This afternoon Louis Dean and I drove over to the Bell's house and rode with Amber and the kids to Mike's hockey game in Richardson.

We love watching the Bell grands play and it is a special blessing to get to watch Mike play!

He scored the first goal! 

The Ragnarock's won 4-1!!

Mike saw me waiting for him and he knew I wanted to take a pic with him!

Mike is a great husband, father, provider, spiritual leader, business man, son, brother, uncle, friend and a son in law to us and we are so enormously proud of him.

I do love and appreciate my dear Son-in-LOVE!

It's well after midnight as I close this long journal entry.

I went to the back bedroom door to see if Tabitha was around and she walked up and came right in.

All is well.

I have been watching The Good Karma Hospital and I will close now and finish episode three.

The kids will be here for a day or two this week and Louis Dean has a doctor appointment Monday afternoon and we will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary on Thursday, June 26.

We plan on going to Saltgrass Steakhouse just as we did on our wedding day.

I've decided to go to the ranch on Saturday morning and come home on Monday - in our car.

I think a short visit and in the car where he can't take everything - we will even leave the cats at home.

I'm thinking the shorter visit may work well for Louis Dean and I'll still get my ranch fix where I can rest and recover for a bit.

All of me loves all of Louis Dean!