Bicycles at 106 Vintage

What is it about bicycles?  So many people just love them including me!

I rode mine quite a bit as a kid into town, but I wasn't especially fond of the bike itself. In fact I thought it was the ugliest brown I'd seen. I had bought it sight unseen from someone who had won it.  It was a 10 speed and I longed for a 10 speed.  The price was great since they had won it.  When my Dad brought it home after I'd paid for it...my heart sank. I never thought to ask the details because I knew what 10 speeds looked like. Of course my Dad never thought to tell me the details because he knew what bikes looked like and this was a bike.  I had pictured the curved handle bars known then as "boys handle bars" on a bright and sleek looking 10 speed bike.  The one Dad brought to me was brown (really? they make brown bikes?! 12 year old Jill thought) with "girl" handle bars (they make 10 speeds with lame handle bars?!)

So it goes.  Ride it or walk; I was out my money either way.

I've been to visit Cammie at 106 Vintage again in Coleridge, Nebraska and loved her big window display!

I edited them the way my mind sees them... seeing the shapes and the nostalgia...

I remember learning to ride on my big sister's white bike.

Do you have bicycle memories?  Good or bad?

You'll find bikes in my tank garden, but one is almost completely obscured now by a honey suckle vine.

You can find pictures from our last visit to 106  Vintage here.  I'll be posting more pictures from our recent visit next week.  Cammie has the best displays!  So much to admire!!

  

An Old Post Revisted

I needed some simple table decor for a dinner at our Church on Sunday and I remembered this idea that I blogged about a few years ago.

These are truly the easiest and cheapest way to bring a lot of color to a table.

I've used them at a shower for table decor also.

It's teacher appreciation week and these were also perfect for that!  No water spilling as the girls took their posies in the car!

Just cut off the top and most of the neck of a 12" balloon and stretch like the dickens over a 1/2 pint jar.  Voila!  Perfect little vase. 

Learning to Trust

Wow, I sure didn't mean to stay away from the blog this long, but there were things that needed attention and fun events too.

One of them was this.  Learning to trust.  Of course this is a life long process and I'm pretty sure when I'm eighty, I will be able to make the same kind of statement.  There is always more with God and that is just so exciting.  And comforting.  And, so mysterious.

He's led me to another question.  What is holding you back?  Who is holding you back? What false assumptions are holding you back?  Holding you back from growing.  An answer this week was so very surprising. And to be honest, painful and sad.  And, now the answer leads me to yet a new way of trusting.  I feel just like my photo sometimes.  Just dipping my toe into the water of trust like my daughter Nora.  Or other times like Audrey on the left.  Not even ready to dip my toe. No, not ready at all, just only able to study a bit this idea of trust and where He would like to lead me.

It is a practice for sure.  When the seizures and sicknesses were at the worst and I couldn't sleep for the fear that gripped me like death.  I could not just "trust" and go to sleep.  The idea was foreign and unattainable.  But, I knew that was what I had to do.  So, I decided I would just practice it.  I told myself I didn't have to surrender and trust completely, just try it for 5 minutes and then I could pick back up all the fear and think I had some kind of control over it again.  Sometimes it was only for a few minutes that I could actually do it.  Sometimes I could only pretend to trust and that is what I'd tell God.  I'm pretending, because I don't know how.  But, I want to.  And, that is how I would eventually fall asleep.  I'd trust for a few minutes and it would be just enough to let the adrenaline calm down a bit for the extreme fatigue to take over.

Now, it's become a regular practice in so many different areas of my life.  Practicing it.  Looking at the place He is asking me to go.  Then dipping my toe in just a bit.  Testing out the waters of trust.  And, you know what?  I've actually sailed on some of those waters.  This past week I learned there was a new body of water that I needed to examine.  I've already dipped my toe.  

Trusting.  It's a practice.

And, He beckons full of merciful love.