Mountain Musings

Giving Thanks for a New Grandson!

Thanksgiving 2018 found us heading south to Georgia. And what better time to spend Thanksgiving with family than to welcome Sarah and Eric's third baby boy! We were thrilled!

Upon arrival we all took turns holding the newest member of their little family. Granny Deb below is all smiles:

This little guy received a lot of attention all weekend. Aunt Hannah and Uncle Jonathan were a proud aunt and uncle, too! Let's not leave out Grampa Girotti. It's his turn: The other two boys were already asleep when we arrived late in the evening, so we were looking forward to seeing them again the next day! Would they remember us? It had been four months since we'd seen them at Great-Granny's birthday party.

Thanksgiving was so much fun! We quickly renewed acquaintance with the boys, and Grampa loved having them in his lap!

Children’s children are the crown of old men, And the glory of children is their father.. ~Proverbs 17:6

And Jonathan, affectionately known as Crazy Uncle Jonnie, took a turn reading to the boys:

Sarah opened a baby gift I made for her...a nautical-themed baby quilt. I won the Rolie-Polie Seaside fabric over at Happy Quilting. Thank you, Melissa, for the fun giveaway. Your generosity became a fun fall project for me to sew, and I hope it will become a treasured baby quilt in their family:

Here's Sarah holding her little one: The Thanksgiving meal was enjoyed over at Sarah's in-laws, and it was such a good time of seeing Eric's family again: There's always a music time with the young adults whenever we've visited, and this holiday was no exception. I guess these two little tykes are the next budding musicians:

Christmas carols, classical, and hymns were played on piano, flute, violin, penny whistles, and accordion:

I really could listen to them play all evening...very talented!

And, of course, the weekend came to an end before we were ready to leave!

Hannah was the lucky one...she stayed an extra couple of weeks to enjoy the boys and help her sister adjust to three under three!

We headed home but knew we'd be making the 9-hour drive again very soon to pick up Hannah at the end of her stint. Another chance to see our treasures before quickly leaving again.

It was a great Thanksgiving! Many, many thanks to the Georgia folks who hosted us!

~Deb

Up Next: Musical Weekend in Gloucester

Fall Guests...Old Friends and New Acquaintances

Well, that quote about sums up our guests these past few months....some very dear friends whom we've known for many, many years, others we've gotten to know a bit from conferences and a visit to their home in Tennessee, and a new couple whom we'd never met until they showed up at our door to spend the night with us!

Let me introduce you...

Meet Steve and Sue, dear friends from pre-marriage days. They live only 30 minutes up the road from us now, and Sue and I get together for lunch occasionally. We're thankful for them and their ministry in the Navigators for decades and loved that they dropped by to say hello and enjoy some blackberry cobbler with us: 

I'm sure you'll recognize this Papua New Guinea missionary couple from previous posts on the blog over the years. They always stop by for an overnight whenever they're on furlough. Kim and Annie are long-time friends also, and it's always interesting to hear stories of their adventures:

The week before Thanksgiving we heard from friends Tim and Donna from Connecticut...they were headed to their son's home in Florida for Thanksgiving and wanted to stop by here on their way. Tim was Tom's best man in our wedding...so our friendship goes back a ways, too.

The plan was to stay overnight, but winter weather coming in would have stranded them on our steep hill. So they left earlier than intended...but not before a fun time of catching up and serving them some delicious Spicy Coconut Pumpkin Soup:

So as Tim and Donna were heading to sunny Florida, we prepared for Chris and Tami from Tennessee, the young couple below who arrived on Friday. They were in the area to pick up a large meat order from Joel Salatin's Polyface farm nearby and needed a place to stay overnight.

We had been asked if we would host Chris and Tami by mutual friends in Tennessee while they were helping by baby-sitting the couple's 6 children while the parents were on their meat-mission in Virginia.

What a wonderful evening we had getting acquainted! They showed up at our door as strangers and left the next morning as friends!

So as Chris and Tami were heading back home, we began to prepare for our third set of guests before Thanksgiving...the mutual friends from Tennessee themselves!

As soon as they passed the children back to Chris and Tami, David, Lynn, and daughters Lauren and Kate arrived on Sunday for dinner and an overnight on their way to Washington, DC.  We were thrilled that these folk came by to see us! Lynn and I got lots of quilting talk in while David and Tom talked woodworking. We hope they will come visit again in the future when the weather allows for some garden strolling.

Once everyone left, our home really felt empty!

Now it was time for us to get packed...we were heading to Atlanta for Thanksgiving to see a precious little grandson who had just been born to our daughter Sarah!

What a fun holiday! And that's our next post! Stay tuned.

~Deb

Sunday Scripture ~ Isaiah 61

Wisdom From the Word

Isaiah 61: 1 - 3

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,

And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
To console those who mourn in Zion,

To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.

 

These verses came to mind as a Sunday scripture for this week after a blog reader and commenter emailed me a private prayer request for her family, and we have been praying for them after they experienced a series of seriously hard times this past year.

We can be assured that God does give us beauty for ashes so we can be oaks of righteousness...all for the goal of glorifying Him. Even when there are hard times of loss, pain, sickness, even death...God is working all things for the good of His children.

Think on these things. ~Deb

Eat, Shop, Linger...at Spring Creek Barn Sale

This feels a little backwards to be posting pictures of fall leaves, vibrant mums, and pumpkin displays...but I did want to document on the blog our excursion this past fall to Spring Creek for their annual Roller Mill Barn Sale.

We attended last year for the first time, and if you missed that post, you can read about it here.

The displays and unique craft and food vendors did make us want to eat, shop, and linger. But our lingering turned out to be a quick walk around the venue to see what vendors were there, and then we headed back to the car....where Granny was patiently waiting for us.

The parking area this year was changed from the convenient field right beside the barn and vendors to another large field...a short drive down the country road...which made it difficult if you needed handicapped access. This tractor was the designated shuttle bus to get us to the Barn Sale:

Hannah and I ended up walking instead of waiting for the tractor since it was such a pretty day, and we promised Granny we wouldn't be long. It turned out to be a very pleasant walk across a one-lane bridge and this gurgling stream: Below you can see a portion of the road we walked to get to the entrance and the eye-catching flower displays along the roadside: We took advantage of the antique truck display for a fall photo op with Hannah:

Here are a few of the vendor tents positioned around the home owners' garden in back of the barn, and I really enjoyed exploring the garden just as much as the vendors' wares: It's always fun to spot a friend among the crowd...Hannah and DiAna enjoyed catching up with each other, and we found out her baby was due at Christmas! Congratulations, DiAna! Another view of the vendor tents and the beautiful October sky: Since Hannah makes and sells soap, we like to check out other soap makers' products whenever we go to craft shows--size of bar, price, and any unique fragrances. This soap display was fun to see...the maker posted a hand-written sign that said, "Made from local goats milk...and I milk the goats myself!" Cute! We made the rounds and left with a couple of purchases...a very enjoyable morning!

While we were in the Spring Creek area, located not too far away was The Barn at Creekside Farm (you can read about that post here when we visited there this summer). We decided to swing by this barn filled with various vendors because Granny could get out with us here since the top floor was easily accessible from the handicap ramp:

Some vendor booths inside the barn, top floor: Here's Hannah checking out her purchase with Granny waiting for us. This is the smiling Granny we want to see again...for those wondering she's slowly recuperating from the latest surgery: I secretly made a purchase, too, for a Christmas gift for Hannah...thing is, Christmas arrived, and I never remembered where I hid it! The only thing I could think of was to keep looking after Christmas was over, find my hiding spot, and wrap it up for Hannah's birthday last week.

Well...I guess the only positive is...I've purchased my first Christmas present for 2019...if I ever do find it in my closet!

Thanks for coming along with us!

~Deb

Up next: Fall Guests

Happy New Year and a Return to Blogging!

Hello all, and a Happy New Year to any blog readers we have left after such a long absence! Would you leave a comment and let us know if you're still there? I've missed being in this space and will try and catch up gradually with a few different posts.

Let's start 2019 with thinking about things that are true, honest, just, pure, and lovely as the verse above states.

We're supposed to have a very snowy weekend here in the Shenandoah Valley, so what better time to hop back on the blogging bandwagon since we'll be stranded at the top of our hill for a few days...which, sounds to me like a very desirable thing right now!

This scene is from a snowy December weekend when we were heading up our driveway after a visit to Gloucester to visit new friends (that post coming soon):

In the meantime, I wanted to ask prayer for Granny who had surgery this week for another compression fracture. Poor Granny....her bones are so fragile. This fracture resulted after an extended bout of hard coughing! This week has mostly been spent going back and forth to doctors' appointments or at the hospital getting blood work done, more labs drawn, and scheduling the surgery. Please pray that she will heal quickly and that the pain will subside so she can get back to being a happy Granny. Thank you!

 

We also celebrated Hannah's birthday this week. I hate to admit that she ended up making her own birthday cheesecake, but I did arrive home in time to prepare the meal with Tom's help and our faithful Instant Pot: As in the past, her choices were somewhat different from my normal recipes. But amazingly everything turned out quite tasty.

She picked Sticky Korean Chicken from the Half Baked Harvest blog along with Steamed Lemon Broccoli, a Taste of Home recipe.

The Brownie Caramel Cheesecake recipe was found over at Six Sisters Stuff blog, and it was birthday-quality delicious!

Here's Hannah on her birthday this week enjoying a piece. Happy Birthday, Hannah!:

As is our custom, the birthday person picks a game to play, and this year Pictionary was the choice:

It's good to be back!

What has your January looked like so far?

~Deb