A Blessing for a Bouquet

This morning on my 2 mile walk I saw a blooming Sweet Peaby the side of the road.

I picked some of them for my mother in law Ida, it was in her wedding bouquet in 1940,
I thought it would bring her sweet memories.
I plucked a few Gerber daisies and some "Amish Weed" to add to it.
We call it that because we always see it on the
Amish farms but it is really called 'Snow on the Mountain'


We put it in a vase and set it on the table.
When I got out on the porch I heard her praying
"Dear Lord ,Bless Beth for the love she shows to me...guide her footsteps,strengthen her ..."
I said my own prayer thanking God for Ida ....
the woman who taught me how to pray.

Familiar Sounds

This old house

has shutters on the windows.

On a windy night when the shutters bang against the wall
it sounds like a ghost is at the window.
Usually when someone hears it for the first time they are alarmed and ask
"What's that???!!!"
My husband, who has never lived anywhere else says
"That's the shutters tapping against the house in the wind ,
it is a sound I know and love from my childhood ."
He never ever heard his parents fight or yell at him,
the sounds of his childhood are like Opie's.
My house was very different ,
there were night's we were terrified
when my dad was in a rage but there was
one thing that I could ALWAYS count on to comfort me.
My bedroom window faced a creek all of my childhood years
and I could open my window at any time
and hear the creek sounds of the current and bullfrogs.
They are sounds that I love.
I have a bedroom window now that faces the same creek
a few miles upstream and on summer nights when
I lay down to sleep, I hear the creek,
the sound of it brings me rest long before the sleep does.

What familiar sounds bring you comfort ?