BLAME IT ON VALENTINE'S

Is Love in the air?

Blame it on Valentine's or better yet, blame it on Covid, but I feel pretty.  Saying "I feel pretty" is not the same as "I am pretty."  I am a romantic at heart and could watch the movie "Pretty Woman" over and over, because Julia Roberts is stunning and beautiful. My favorite romantic movie is "Princess Bride" when Wesley replies to the princess, "As you wish."

This year for Valentine's Jack bought me some new jewelry. I surprised him with the gift he gave me. He smiled and said, "The pink fits you fine."  I smiled, too, and giggled. 

Along with the jewelry came the opportunity to dress up and apply a light level of makeup. Dress up? After two years of Covid. It felt exhilarating and the new jewelry lifted my spirits. 

The next day I wore another new piece of funky jewelry that my friend, Kathy Klopfenstein Hale created. She is also the creator of the stunning pink "light up my life" jewelry shown above. ByKatDesigns (click to go to the site)

One cold winter's day since Valentine's I sat down with my jewelry and began to play like a child with free time. I set aside different pieces and organized them by feelings or memories. Once again my heart felt lighter and I giggled with my discovery, like I'd found a hidden gold mine of fanciful feelings and  emotions. My Aunt Della wore the tiny Safire diamond as a ring when she was engaged, a long time ago. My friend Peggy took seashells that my mother collected and created a necklace of shells and woven beads. My friends Kathy and Cheryl once beaded necklaces of colorful stones. My daughter, my sister, and so many more friends who had bought me jewelry over the decades. 

Had those emotions been hidden by a mask for two years?

Had those feminine feelings of being attractive been masked by jeans, t-shirts, sweatshirts of winter wear, or no where to go?

I left my jewelry on the bedspread for a few hours, while I pondered what to do. 

I went back to Kathy's Etsy (By Kat Designs)  site to try to figure out what happened to my psychic. This is what I discovered.

Had I bought this piece I might have felt charming when wearing it. 

This one said, I feel sassy. That made me laugh and think of a friend who could wear that piece quite well. 

This one filled with whimsy but beckoned a feeling funkiness. 

Like "touch magic" I felt the difference in how I looked at my jewelry. Instead of matching pieces of clothing, I saw it as a way to express my feelings. Had it always been that way? 

I must have felt puzzled when I bought this colorful fall leaf in during a spring festival. 

This is my 1968 pin I bought to show that I am different. I have no idea how I felt, but I recall not wanting to look like everyone else, and yet fit in. 

It's time to wear some of those old pieces filled with charm and delight. Wasn't there a song called Afternoon Delight by Starland Vocal Band? 

    Is there Love in the air?

When I read this quote on social media, I decided to use it as my mantra:

Wake up every morning, close a door, and keep the old woman out!

The lady I have been seeing in the mirror the last few years has been stuck inside too long. Her reflection in the mirror shows the lines of time. In this photo I took for the jewelry, I noticed something about my picture of rose red and pink jewels. 

Yes, there is an older woman standing there, looking at herself, looking at the mess behind her and around her, but this older woman is not old. Older than she ever thought possible when she bought that hippie pin, longer in the teeth, heavier on her feet, wider around the waist, yet brighter inside her heart. 

Now I have a plan, a way to close the door on that old woman. If it is not a yard day or cleaning house day, then this older woman will be wearing jewelry, new and old, feeling pretty, feeling sassy, feeling curious, and feeling happy and adventurous. I might even be singing to myself:

I feel pretty

Oh, so pretty

I feel pretty, and witty, and bright...

For I'm loved

By a pretty wonderful guy! 

Westside Story, 1961 I Feel Pretty 

Yes, there is Love in the air. 

Stories of Love

 

This is how we started, young and determined.

I've been thinking about "tapestries of life" this morning, it sounds much more articulate than scrap-booking. A weaver begins with a vision, a pattern, and thread by thread interlaces the colors to create the design, but a writer relies on words, words spoken from the heart.

1Corinthians 13:8.  LOVE never ends. LOVE is like the wind, it never subsides.  Without this LOVE that is patient and kind, like a mother’s love for her child, we have nothing.

When I searched my blog for the word of the month, Love, I found over a dozen previous stories that expressed love in words and pictures. Looking back I smiled, realizing that my life was filled with a tapestry of rich and royal hues (thank you Carole King).

Remember these from a grade school autograph book:

* Roses are red, Violets are blue, Pansies are lovely, just like you.

*Roses are red, Violets are blue, You have a nose like a B-52.

*You are 2 sweet
                2 be
                4 gotten

It has been seven years since I reflected on those grade school years and childhood love...Wardogs Pieces of Memories

It seems impossible to think of grade school days without seeing my mother in my life. She was there for every moment and now I cherish those simple days and acts of love I never recognized. As a PTA President off and on for decades my mother involved herself in every party, and Valentine's was a favorite. 

Somewhere in her 40's and 50's she found time to reflect and take college classes. She loved learning. How ironic that as I searched for words and thoughts about weaving and tapestry I found a poem by Corrie ten Boom, an author and woman my mother respected for her acts of love in saving Jewish people from the Nazi's in World War II.

"Life is but a Weaving"  

My life is but a weaving

Between my God and me.

I cannot choose the colors

He weaveth steadily. 

   by Corrie ten Boom         

I've been so fortunate to have family, friends, students, author's words, musicians, and acquaintances pass through my life.

 

"Love and time are the only two things in this world that cannot be bought, only spent."  --Gary Jennings

 

On. that fall morning in the parking lot outside the hospital, Sue reached in her trunk to pull out a basket of scrape booking materials. "Would you like some help with the basket?" I asked.  

"No, I'm fine today. Thank you." With a heavy breathe she continued, "I may not feel this good after the treatment today. The days get really long for me."  

My heart took a double beat with her heavy sigh. Here she was smiling and looking at the sunlight. With a joyous expression on her face and a glisten in her eyes, she looked around at the hospital complex, of concrete, bricks, and asphalt, and then the sky. "I love living. I love life Letty. I don't want to die."

I Love Living Sue's story will linger in my heart forever.

 

I can't resist a great love story. Dave Isay collected stories from Story Corp and published "All There Is." I cried and laughed as I read this book. Here is why...

The stories of love cover the ages, cultures, and circumstances of love. You can read about Hunny Reiken, 80, who talks with her husband Elliot Reiken, 86. Hunny speaks:  "I have a twin sister, Bunny.  And you have a twin brother, Danny.  When we met we were sixteen and a half, and we were waitresses in a hotel.  You and Danny were musicians in a band." The story of the two sets of twins marrying the same day brings a smile to the readers face but it is Hunny's reflection I like best, "When two people get married, they say two people become one.  No, I don't agree.  Two people should remain two people and walk side by side.  I've not become Elliot.  Elliot has not become Hunny.  We remain Hunny and Elliot.  And to me, that's important." Elliot responds, "You made my life complete.  And I hope we'll go on for another fifty years."  Hunny, "I'll take five good ones.  Five good ones, and I'll say, 'Thank you, God!'"

Love Stories and Story Corp

Jack and I began our marriage with three preteens, a lot of love in our hearts, and a small house . Michael, Katy, and Matthew are grown, gone from home, healthy, and busy with their lives. Love, devotion, support of each other, consistency, and adventures together as a family kept our love alive and provided a home for our children. 

We are now two, and a dog, always a dog. Before Murphy Doodle, there was Lucy, and before Lucy there was Woofer. We loved them and they loved us. However, Lucy is the only one who has sent me a Valentine card. Puppy Dog LOVE

Happy Valentine's to all and may love lift your spirits today.

The Expression of Love

Our Sunday School teacher kindly asked me if I would write a story for this Sunday, Dec. 27 on the Love Chapter from Corinthians.  With my eyes downcast I shook my head sideways and mumbled, "No." I honestly meant no because I understand God's teachings, but I felt unprepared to tell a Bible story in my own words. So Curtis asked others in our Zoom meeting to please write and share. No one took him up on it. 

Even a NO isn't final. First thing on Monday I sat down and read and read the passages from ICorinthians 12, 13 along with explanations in the New Oxford Annotated Bible. It began to open my heart. Paul the Apostle, shares with the people of the church in Corinth that the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy along with the speaking in tongues and the interpretation of tongues, come from the spirit, but are nothing without LOVE. 13:8.  LOVE never ends. LOVE is like the wind, it never subsides.  Without this LOVE that is patient and kind, like a mother’s love for her child, we have nothing.

 I knew the feeling of God's love, but...

The story might have ended there, except for two reasons. I rarely run from a challenge, but my heart and head made excuses. To my delight on Tuesday, December 22, my five year old companion, Ruth Anne, and I had the opportunity to tour the lovely home of the Christmas Tree Lady. While touring her home filled with colorful trees and walls of Christmas decorations, I realized that she opened the door to her heart by sharing her home and childhood stories about her mother. I knew that this LOVE is what Paul was relating to his followers in Corinth. 

The pictures will show the beauty of her trees, but the deep and abiding LOVE comes in every stitch her mother made in the delicate three hundred and fifty handmade decorations carefully stitched by hand with love in the tree shown above. Her walls were filled with hand made decorations, trees and tree skirts sewn with nearly invisible stitches. There were ornaments, trains, toys, and stockings.

In her husband's library she filled the spaces with trees decorated in his favorite themes of cars, airplanes, OU. Some of the small cars had tiny packages inside, all going to grandma's house.

Her kitchen displayed a cookie cutter tree, a gingerbread man who talked, and a cupcake tree. These were some of Ruth's favorite. 

Deloros’s tonality of sharing changed from a teacher’s voice of explanation and humor for the spectacular Hallmark glass ornaments, to a soft tone; a mother’s tone of caressing a child; a mother’s tone of kindness, a mother's tone of grace and love whenever she touched a handmade gift from her mother’s talented hands and heart. 

Her mother’s love we felt in every tiny Christmas ornament, in every colorful bead of her hand stitched ornaments. The Christmas stockings are hung by the chimney with care, but they were made with love. I could see the love radiating from Deloros as she walked us through her home.  Every space glowed with sparkling glass centerpieces, ten trees each decorated in a theme, and a fireplace beaming with stockings and trees.

Deloros’s connection with her hometown of Carthage, Missouri carries its roots deep into her heart. Her collection of Precious Moments figurines shows the love she cherishes in the artwork and vision of its creator, Sam Butcher. The creator, Sam Butcher, says that his fondest memories are of his grandmother telling him Bible stories, giving him a deep interest in spiritual things. Sam’s life changed one night in a country church, where he heard the good news of salvation, and asked Jesus to come into his heart. Since that night, he decided to only use his artistic talent for the Lord. Something tells me Deloros felt that love when she began collecting these precious figurines.

Ruth Anne's favorite scenes in Precious Moments were of the little dog, Sugar and her puppies. 

When God gave Deloros’s mother the gift of being a seamstress, he also gave her LOVE. LOVE that was passed on in every stitch she took for her daughter. Even touching the round green skirt showing the elaborate forms of the Twelve Days of Christmas, I could feel the love.  

I believe this is the spirit within which God works. We each have gifts and his unconditional love if we choose.  The spirit of LOVE which Paul hoped and prayed that his followers would understand.

 

For more information on Precious Moments click on this link:  Timmy's Tower

 

 

Puppy Dog Love

 Who's in charge?

After thirteen years of loving Lucy, we still laugh at how well she has us trained in the art of fetching the ball when she wants us to play, in fixing her food first thing in the morning before we've enjoyed a silent time of reverie, or when she demands a walk, no matter how cold or windy.

Patience.
We call our behavior 'puppy dog love' because when we first brought her home, she was the most pitiful lost terrified animal we had ever been around. She would not leave our bedroom until we carried her outside. She would not tinkle/poop unless we stayed in the yard with her. She didn’t bark or whimper. After she climbing a tree chasing an animal, she still didn't know she was a dog. In her attempt to protect me from a squirrel, she managed to chase the squirrel up my leg and then barked at me. For the full story read here: Walking Pell-Mell

Who trained whom?
We regularly watched The Dog Whisperer, Cesar, on television. I read The Loved Dog by Tamar Geller, and I took Lucy to Dog Obedience school.  After six months of patiently loving and training Lucy she discovered a new life as a loved house dog and companion.

The Lucy alarm!
The first time she barked in the back yard, the neighbor and I both ran to her to see what happened. Like a child who just took a first step she barked again for her newly formed audience. Ever since that first bark, she has continued to greet strangers and guests with a ferocious barking howl, until the guests give her time to sniff and pronounce them worthy of coming into her home..

 Good cows. Good cows.
When we lived on Quivira Drive in Hutchinson, across the road from 40 acres of prairie, we often played hide and go seek in the tall grasses with Lucy. She relished the excitement of finding one of her lost cows. We still play in our yard hiding behind trees, or in our house Jack will turn to Lucy, who sleeps at his feet by the television and call, "Where's Letty?"  Instantly, she searches the rooms until she finds me, then herds us both together. Sadly,  she is aging faster than we are, with her hips quivering and back legs slipping Jack sometimes drives her to the park where she sniffs and saunters in slow-mo, as we stand shivering in the cold mumbling words to ourselves while waiting on our loved dog.

Togetherness.
Jack and I spend time talking about our goosey dog and how much she has become a part of our daily routine. Through her training of us, her cows one or both of us walk with her daily; she begs routinely from Jack at the dinner table; even though she is deaf, she still hears cabinets closing when Jack is in the kitchen and like magic arrives at his side waiting on a crumb to fall to the ground.  At the dinner hour she herds us into the kitchen to fix her dinner and sit together as a family. She much prefers to keep her cows in one room together with her.

Puppy Dog Love.  

Off and on these last two years she has gone through weeks of severe gastrointestinal issues that ruin carpet and make me nauseous. We love on her and feed her a special fat free Gastrointestinal canned dog food. The Vet prescribed medicine for her nervous stomach and pain pills for her aching hips.   In my childhood our father would have taken her to the country one day and put her out of misery. Now, Lucy looks at us with those brown eyes and says, "I am sorry. I am sorry. Please don't be mad." Jack and I work as a team to clean up and then our hearts weep inside.

Hugs and tears.

Just before Valentine's, as she lay on the cold tile exhausted from being sick for three days, we said our good-byes to her, knowing that she probably would die during the night. When she didn't wake us early the next morning, I lay in bed and quietly cried. Then suddenly I felt a bump against the bed, and felt her paw reaching for me. Like a startled bird I leaped out of bed and found Lucy standing there with her tail wagging ever so slightly.

Belly rub and massage on a sunny winter day. 

I Love Lucy.  

Valentine's came this year with surprises and gifts from Letty to Jack and Jack to Letty. Lucy doesn't like to be left out. When Jack bought a dozen radiant red roses and a box of hot tamales, my favorite candy, Lucy signed the card with him. One year she even a bought a special Valentine card just for me. She knows that we are a team and she is proud of her cows.  

Nova hosts a show called Dog Tales that explains the science behind why dogs like being with people Click on this link to learn more Nova's Dog Tales.  

Messages in a text...

Sometimes catching the big fish is what it's all about. We help reel it in, then we share in the moment, the memories, the laughter, and the feast.  

Shaun caught the Big Red Fish

And then a moment occurs, that's bigger than the Fish, or the story.  
While visiting the beach at Gulf Shores, Alabama this past week my daughter, Katy, and Shaun relaxed on a balcony

with a view of the ocean; sat by the dock of the bay; and waded in the warm waters while evading the shark nearby.  I received each of these stories through texting and pictures. But my favorite was this story.

"Mom, we were sitting on the beach when Shaun remembered he needed something from the room.  Leaving me on the beach he skipped through the sand barefoot back to the room.  A little while later, I heard him kicking and laughing as he walked along behind me. Suddenly, he feel at my feet.  I couldn't help but laugh.  Instead of standing immediately and wiping the sand off his face, he rose to one knee and said, 'Look what I found in the sand.....

I want to spend the rest of my life with you.  Will you Marry Me?"  

The next text read, "We just need to find a wedding chapel!!!"

Congratulations, to our romantic grown up kids:  Shaun Bledsoe, our soon to be son-in-law, and daughter Katy Rains.

Cheerfully, our family has been blessed with another rewarding moment in a text message.  Jonya wrote, "Corey passed his bar exam."  When I texted him my congratulations, his reply was simple, "I'm pumped!" 

Congratulations Corey on becoming a full fledged attorney, and for the focus and determination it took to complete law school and pass the bar.  

To see his story go to 
 <http://literallyletty.blogspot.com/2015_05_01_archive.html>
May, 5 archives, Grad, ulations.  

The Way We Were

For Valentines Day I went searching for the words to tell the story and instead found the pictures that tell the story.  Hidden underneath this first photo I had tucked away this quote.  There is a destiny that makes us brothers.  None goes his way alone,  All we send into the life of others comes back into our own.

The beginning of a great partnership and love affair.

The sparkle of love is still in our eyes.

This is how we started, young and determined.