Where She Created Her Own Fun

So Tom's assignment at work was to be mostly-in-charge of their special 3rd of July lunch last Wednesday. This required days of list-making, shopping, errands, setting-up and --

Whew. Late Wednesday afternoon, I had to almost pull him up our 3 little steps. (Already he's worded his reply of decline should he be asked again. Er hem.)

So good ol' Debra spent four days of a 4th of July weekend at home with Tom. 

Or did I?

Actually, I not only traveled to New Orleans, but I did so via 1955. In fact, I'm not even officially home yet(!)

See, over at Open Library I'm reading this fun travel book by a favorite author, Emily Kimbrough--

-- and she may believe 5 friends surround her, but it's actually 6. I'm the quiet one in the corner of their hotel rooms and in the station wagon's backseat. And I'm the lady giggling at their exchanges, sometimes nagging ones, ("Emily, why on earth didn't you say so in the first place?"), but more often comical.

So when they walked to Court of The Two Sisters, so did I. You know, by way of 'images' online--

Oh, the food! And because we had a group photo taken, we lingered over coffee while they developed (Emily paid for these).

Soon after, a New Orleans' friend loaned us her chauffeur who knew all about this city and proceeded to drive us slowly down the wide Esplanade. Oh, all the photos we snapped!

Two days later we drove away from the city then, arriving just before they closed, took the Oak Alley Plantation tour due to their kindness:

Be sure to enlarge this!

And then we--- Well, you get it. 

These days at home but-not-at-home? They reminded me of what I posted at Facebook:

I believe (firmly) we make our own good times and need only a creative spirit and gumption. And my goal? To make these my Good Old Days. To gaze backward only long enough for vintage ideas to incorporate into my current days, my own way.

Like, did you know Aldi now delivers?! At least some of them do and oh, what a blast from the past to have young folks deliver fresh food right to my front porch within an hour (or so) just like in my old-fashioned books and those black-and-white movies.

Each time I wave to the Aldi guys as they near their car and shout, "Thank-you!" and they smile and wave back (looking a tad relieved that I'm not complaining).  シ

Tom and I had a milkman out at the farm, our shelf-stable food gets delivered via online orders and now Aldi brings me milk, eggs, nectarines and oh, anything else like that. 

Don't you love that God shows us how to customize this life He's gifted us?  How He's incredibly creative and gives us wonderful ideas when we ask? 

And wow, all He asks in return is that we share our gratitude with Him and others. We can all do that, right?

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever."  ...Psalm 136:1

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." ... James 1:17

If we ran out of lovely ideas perhaps it's because we stopped searching far too soon.


Oh! And when our weather finally cooled, I spent hours and hours on our front porch reading, waving to neighbors and gazing at the river and its boats while enjoying the cool breeze. 


******

Forgot to mention last month that Tom and I watched Mary Poppins Returns and really enjoyed the rampant creativity!

Update: This movie is now at Netflix! So there you go.  ツ





******

"For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." ... Matthew 6:14,15